The Life I Found in Brazil

 Today, I was asked to spend some time with PASB’s newest international employees and share what I learned during my first year in Salvador. The intention was for me to offer useful guidance about moving to Brazil, learning Portuguese, navigating the city, adjusting to a different culture, and handling the many practical matters involved in beginning a life in another country. As I began deciding what I wanted to tell them, I did what I often do when I need to understand what I am thinking: I started writing. Writing slows me down and helps me recognize connections that are not always obvious while I am living through something. I expected to produce a collection of practical suggestions and humorous stories. Instead, I found myself trying to make sense of what has probably been the most remarkable year of my life.

I certainly have plenty of stories to tell. There was the day I set out for a 15-kilometer walk around Pituaçu Park and encountered a bridge under construction about five or six kilometers into the journey. My choices were to turn around or cross the river using a couple of makeshift logs. Of course, I chose the logs. I made it across the water, but the moment my left foot touched the riverbank, it began to sink. I sank deeper and deeper until my outstretched right leg stopped me from going any farther. Eventually, I managed to pull myself free, but the mud kept one of my shoes. Had I landed with both feet at the same time, I might still be there.

The experience took me back to the reruns of Gilligan’s Island I watched as a child. I had always wondered whether quicksand was real and what it would feel like. Brazil answered both questions. I removed my remaining shoe and walked the rest of the way in my socks, uncomfortable but laughing at how ridiculous the whole thing was. Sometimes we sink. Sometimes we manage to pull ourselves out, laugh at ourselves, and keep moving. Looking back, the story feels like a surprisingly accurate metaphor for my entire first year here.

Then there was the Saturday when I was turning into a grocery-store parking lot and heard what sounded like an unusually loud speed bump. A moment later, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a man rolling across the pavement. A motorcycle had struck the back of my car. Thankfully, the man was not seriously injured, and I had not actually driven over him. I attempted to manage the situation using Portuguese that was ambitious but not especially effective. Within seconds, several other motorcyclists had gathered around me, making the whole scene feel like the opening of a very low-budget action movie. We checked the man, checked the motorcycle, agreed on a solution, shook hands, and I continued into the store to buy groceries as though this had been a perfectly ordinary Saturday.

I have also wandered through Mundo Plaza searching for a dentist’s office while trying to understand elevators that seemed to travel to mystery floors and hallways that appeared to lead somewhere meaningful but did not. I eventually found the office, completed the appointment in Portuguese, and emerged cavity-free and absurdly proud of myself simply for locating the correct room. I have celebrated successful grocery-store checkouts conducted entirely in Portuguese and survived voice messages delivered at approximately twice the speed of normal human speech. I have learned to use PIX, discovered that WhatsApp is essentially the operating system of Brazil, and gradually become comfortable driving through streets that once looked impossibly narrow. I am even beginning to understand that traffic lanes can occasionally feel more like general recommendations.

These stories are funny now, but they are also part of a larger story about becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable. When I moved to Salvador in July 2025, I brought nearly 30 years of experience in education. I had led school districts, worked with boards, managed budgets, navigated controversies, and handled difficult personnel matters. None of that experience helped me complete certain Brazilian online transactions or determine whether someone who said vamos marcar was actually making plans with me. Brazil reminded me that a person can be experienced and still be a beginner.

My first year at PASB required me to listen, observe, and reconsider many of my assumptions. Approaches that were successful in the United States could not simply be carried into another country and expected to work in exactly the same way. I made mistakes. Sometimes I moved too quickly, and at other times I probably waited too long. There were situations I misunderstood and people I did not understand as well as I believed I did. Yet I was surrounded by colleagues who were patient enough to teach me, honest enough to challenge me, and generous enough to let me continue learning without defining me by my mistakes.

From my first days at PASB, people made space for me in a community that already had its own history, relationships, traditions, and identity. They helped me understand not only how the school operated, but why. They translated language, culture, and context. They welcomed me into their offices, classrooms, conversations, celebrations, and homes. They answered questions that probably had obvious answers and rescued me from situations in which I clearly had no idea what I was doing. They showed me that warmth is not unprofessional, affection is not weakness, and relationships are not interruptions to the work. Very often, relationships are what make the work possible.

I have come to admire PASB more deeply with each passing month. It is a school filled with extraordinary people who care about students, one another, and the future of the institution. It is academically ambitious, internationally minded, and proudly rooted in Bahia. It is also deeply human. I have watched employees go far beyond their formal responsibilities because a student, family, or colleague needed them. I have seen people disagree passionately and still return to the shared belief that the school can and should become better. Leading PASB has challenged me, stretched me, and renewed my sense of purpose. I came here believing I had something to contribute, but this community has taught me at least as much as I have offered it.

The same warmth has surrounded me throughout Salvador. Neighbors became friends. Porteiros patiently worked through my Portuguese. People helped me navigate appointments, paperwork, restaurants, tickets, deliveries, and all the ordinary parts of life that become complicated when you cannot fully speak the language. Salvador is a city of striking beauty, rich history, music, energy, and contradictions, but what has made it feel like home is its people. The generosity I have experienced has never felt formal or obligatory. It has felt natural, personal, and sincere.

One of the great privileges of this year has been the opportunity to explore. I came to Brazil eager to travel, but I did not fully appreciate the size, beauty, and diversity of the country I was entering. Brazil is not a single experience. Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Campinas, Curitiba, São Paulo, Praia do Forte, and Fernando de Noronha each have their own landscapes, histories, rhythms, and personalities. I have stood above Rio and understood why people speak of the city with such affection. I have walked through historic neighborhoods, experienced the energy of major cities, spent time on beaches that seem almost unreal, and visited places that previously existed for me only in photographs. There are still places capable of making a person stop, look around, and feel genuinely astonished.

Living here has also placed the rest of South America within reach. Before moving to Brazil, I knew the continent primarily through maps, news, and travel plans. It now feels like an enormous and wonderfully varied part of the world waiting to be explored. Travel has given me far more than photographs or a list of destinations. It has expanded my frame of reference and reminded me that the way I have always done something is only one possible way of doing it. Every new destination has required me to pay closer attention, accept that I will not understand everything, and become more comfortable relying on the kindness of others.

Of course, the year did not unfold as I expected. When I accepted the position at PASB, my wife, Kristin, and I believed Brazil would eventually become a chapter we shared. We had been together since our university years and had built nearly our entire adult lives together. Our marriage, children, careers, ordinary routines, difficult seasons, and countless memories formed the life I understood. Brazil was supposed to become another part of that story. Kristin’s passing changed the future I had imagined.

Grief does not follow a schedule, respect geography, or wait for a convenient moment. It can exist alongside professional responsibilities, public celebrations, travel, laughter, and moments of genuine happiness. For the first time in almost three decades, I found myself living alone, and I was doing so on another continent. There were moments when the distance from the United States felt enormous and moments when I did not know what the next part of my life was supposed to look like.

The PASB and Salvador communities did not allow me to face that period alone. People reached out without waiting to be asked. They offered compassion without expecting me to explain what I needed or how I was feeling. They listened, checked on me, and gave me room to grieve while continuing to lead. Their kindness was not confined to a single message or moment. It continued through the difficult days, the return trips to the United States, Kristin’s funeral, and the complicated process of dismantling the physical pieces of the life we had built together. I will never forget the grace extended to me by people who had known me for less than a year but supported me as though I had always belonged here.

Months later, when my body forced me to stop, the community surrounded me again. What I believed was an illness I could simply push through resulted in hospitalization with mononucleosis. I discovered that conversational Portuguese and medical Portuguese at three o’clock in the morning are entirely different levels of language proficiency. I also learned that some of the assumptions Americans carry about healthcare outside the United States are simply wrong. The care I received in Salvador was exceptional. The physicians, nurses, technicians, and support staff combined outstanding professionalism with patience and genuine compassion.

What stayed with me most, however, was the response of the people around me. Friends and colleagues sat with me in the hospital. Members of the PASB community checked on me, helped me communicate, brought what I needed, and reminded me that I was not alone. Many of these people had not known me a year earlier. I entered the hospital feeling vulnerable and far from the country where I had spent most of my life. I left with an even deeper appreciation for Brazil and the realization that Salvador was no longer merely the city where I worked. Somewhere along the way, it had become home.

This year also brought something I never expected. When I moved to Brazil, I was not searching for a new relationship, and I certainly did not imagine that I would fall in love. My life already contained more change than I knew how to process, and I assumed that part of my story had already been written. Then someone entered my life with warmth, intelligence, energy, humor, and an adventurous spirit. Through her, I have continued discovering Salvador and Brazil in ways I never could have experienced alone. Some of my most meaningful travel experiences have been shared with her, but the greater gift has been how she has helped me experience life itself. She has encouraged me to remain present, embrace adventure, and accept happiness without immediately questioning whether I am allowed to have it. She has also introduced me to the challenge of loving a Vitória supporter, which my Bahia-supporting friends assure me is evidence that love can overcome almost anything.

Finding love after loss is complicated. New love does not erase old love, replace the person who came before, diminish the life that was shared, or bring grief to an end. The human heart is more complicated and more expansive than that. I can remain profoundly grateful for the life Kristin and I built while also being profoundly grateful for the love I have unexpectedly found. Those truths do not compete. They are both part of who I am now. Perhaps the most surprising lesson of this year has been that moving forward is not the same as leaving someone behind. Sometimes love arrives in the middle of uncertainty and reminds us that life is still unfolding.

As I prepare to speak with our new international employees, I realize that my most important advice has little to do with documents, traffic, or learning how to use PIX. I want to tell them not to remain emotionally packed. It is possible to move to another country without ever fully allowing yourself to live there. You can remain inside an international bubble, waiting for familiar products, familiar systems, and familiar ways of doing things. You can treat every difference as an inconvenience and spend the year explaining how everything was done back home. Or you can allow the experience to change you.

I want them to accept invitations, sit through the long lunch, ask questions, make mistakes in Portuguese, explore Salvador and Bahia, travel throughout Brazil and South America, and laugh when things inevitably go wrong. More than anything, I want them to allow themselves to know and be known by the people around them. I want them to build relationships beyond the workplace, allow colleagues to help them, and approach this city with curiosity and humility. They should not merely complete an international assignment. They should build a life.

Calling this the most remarkable year of my life does not mean ignoring the pain within it. This year included grief, illness, mistakes, loneliness, language barriers, professional challenges, and moments when I genuinely did not know what would happen next. It also included extraordinary friendships, beautiful places, professional renewal, personal growth, a new community, a new sense of home, and love I never expected to find. Perhaps an amazing life is not one protected from hardship. Perhaps it is one in which we remain open to friendship, joy, love, and wonder despite the hardship.

Brazil has been my greatest classroom. Sometimes the lesson has involved leadership. Sometimes it has involved bureaucracy, traffic, healthcare, grief, friendship, love, or walking ten kilometers in socks because the jungle claimed one of my shoes. Almost always, it has required me to surrender the illusion that I know exactly what will happen next.

One year after arriving in Salvador, my Portuguese remains imperfect. I still get confused, and I still need help. I remain very much a work in progress. But I am happier, more open, and more alive than I expected to be. I arrived in Brazil believing I was beginning a new job. Through the extraordinary people of PASB and Salvador, the friendships I have formed, the places I have seen, the love I have lost, and the love I unexpectedly found, I discovered an entirely new life.