NuNomad Location Independent Living, Lifestyle Design, Independent Travel

By Carmen Bolanos
May 28,2009

As strongly as I feel about the merits of travel, I feel equally strongly that children should also have an opportunity to experience the world and cultures different from their own. When we take off next month I’ll be leaving with my 3 daughters, ages 8, 14 and 16 for a semester of school in Florianopolis, Brazil. My husband will be staying behind this time but we hope he will visit as often as possible. I am lucky that he is understanding and willing to give us this opportunity even if he can’t participate in the same way.

My two oldest daughters have been in a Waldorf/Steiner school here in Texas. My youngest was in the same school but has been home-schooled the last 2 years. At first I thought I’d probably spend the traveling year homeschooling like our nomadic friends, the Atkins family and soultravelers3. In fact, after our planned 5 months in Brazil I may very well home-school for the remainder of the year depending on where we land.

However, for our first destination we found (through the help of a friend)another Waldorf/Steiner school in Brazil that accepted all 3 kids! The opportunity for them to make close friends of their age and be completely immersed in the culture was too much to pass up. (Not to mention, my professional life could use some more designated hours without children.)

While all three are really excited about the opportunity there are also some nerves in the mix. My youngest is especially anxious about being in a classroom of kids where she doesn’t speak the language. Enter the Rosetta Stone!

I decided to get the Rosetta Stone, Brazilian Portuguese version and installed it on my laptop. I’ve been so pleased that the method of this software is such that all of us are able to learn from it. It’s amazing to watch my daughters picking up the basics of the language and hearing their beautiful accents forming. So I wanted to share this video of Mia learning Portuguese this week. It’s really helping her confidence as well as the rest of ours.