On the way to the airport the next day, we were quiet and pensive as we rode our taxi, packed to the rafters with suitcases and carry-on luggage, just like the day we arrived. There was sadness in the air, how could there not be? Paris welcomed us with open arms and became our home. And now it was over. Dianny and I had truly loved living there and did not want to leave. Yet from the day we arrived we knew that day would come. We knew it was for just a year, and then it was back to Seattle.
Except we weren't going back to Seattle. We were moving to Bogotá. We had finally decided to make it happen. We were going back home.
Moving back to Colombia was something I'd been struggling with before we decided to move to Paris and something I thought about a lot during our time there. I was aware that moving to a place like Colombia wasn't the kind of thing people dreamt of doing. Although things had improved a lot since we last lived there, Colombia still was a complicated place. Besides, we'd been away for 17 years and had become experts in adapting to new places but weren't so sure of our ability to re-adapt to Colombia. We worried about reverse culture shock, especially once they "honeymoon" period wore off.
But how could I really know if it was the wrong or right decision? If moving to Paris had taught us anything it was that taking chances is part of life and usually things work out okay.
It's amazing what a change in scenery and perspective can do to help you see things in a different light. Moving to Paris had helped me take a step back and get a fresh perspective, and in a way I think I knew we could never go back to our old lives in Seattle. That short year had infused us with new confidence and I felt audacious and adventurous. I wanted to move forward, and since we had already kind of uprooted our family, it seemed easier to keep the momentum going than going back to Seattle.
I also knew the decision didn’t have to be permanent and that, worst case scenario, we could always go back to the States. So we didn't talk about moving back home or moving for good, we just saw it as the next stage of our lives. Living in Bogotá would be a new experience for us as a family, and we would try it out for at least a couple of years and then take it from there.
When we decided to move to Paris everyone told us how great it would be that the kids would learn another language. While that was true, learning a third language was never our main goal; it was always more important to us that they master Spanish, our family's native language, which is one of the reasons why we decided to move to Colombia. But of course, once they started learning French, we realized it would be wonderful if they could keep it up.
They got to do both. When we started seriously thinking of moving back to Colombia after our year in Paris was over, we applied for admission to the Lycée Français of Bogotá, the official French school in Bogotá.
The Lycée was just a few streets away from where I grew up in Bogotá. It was founded in the 1930s by a few Colombians returning from France who were attracted to the French culture and wanted to provide a French education to their children. The school is accredited and partially funded by the French government through the Agency for French Education Abroad, the network of French schools that was created to help promote the French language and culture and is present in more than 130 countries.
Because most of the teaching is done in French, to be able to join the school you either have to start in kindergarten or transfer from a French school, so we didn't know how much of a chance they'd have due to their short time in the French school system. But thanks to their Parisian school being part of the French school system, their report cards, and the glowing recommendation from the headmistress, the Lycée accepted them right away and made us feel very welcome. This school search definitely was a lot easier than the one we had to do the year before. We were happy and proud that the kids would be going there and that we got to remain in la Francophonie.
