Interview with Jill Dobbe, Author of Here We Are and There We Go: Teaching and Traveling with Kids in Tow

TZ:  Just from the title I know your book is a fun read.  Describe it for us.

JD:  My husband and I are overseas educators and have lived and worked in seven different countries. My book is a travel memoir based on my family's first 10 years of living and working overseas in four countries (Singapore, Mexico, Ghana, Guam) and the crazy, hilarious, and sometimes scary adventures we found ourselves in.

TZ:  What inspired you to write the book?
JD:  My husband actually came up with the idea to write about our adventures and turn them into a book. Around that time I became more interested in reading travel memoirs, which led me to believe that I had one to write myself.

TZ:  Was it hard to remember your adventures or had you kept a journal?

JD:. While we lived in Ghana, Singapore, and Guam, my two kids were very little. I wrote journals so that when they were older they could read them and have an idea of what it was like when we lived together in those places. I also wrote from memory. During the writing of my book, I often emailed my college age kids to ask them if they remembered the name of a certain place or about something specific that happened. While I was writing my book the four of us enjoyed reminiscing together and I was often amazed at the different things my kids remembered that I didn't.

TZ:  Of all the places you lived, which was your favorite?

JD:  I think for each of us our favorite place to live was Ghana. Ghanaians were extremely friendly and we enjoyed the school that we worked at. We were there for five years and our kids completed all of their elementary years there while making friends from all over the world. With Facebook and Twitter now, they have also been able to reconnect with a lot of those same school friends.

TZ:  You must have many mementos from your travels:

JD: Yes, I am a shopper. I loved shopped in West Africa. There was just so much to buy and it was all handmade. I bought carved wood furniture that was built alongside the roads, Kente cloth that was hand woven by Ghanaian men, hand carved masks, and beautiful hand dyed clothing. Ghana was a shopper's paradise for me. When we left we had our things shipped to our home in Wisconsin. On the day they were delivered a huge semi pulled up in front of our lake cottage filled with all my Ghanaian treasures.

TZ:  What sets your book apart from other travel memoirs?

JD. There seem to be a lot of travel memoirs out there about single male and female travelers and their adventures. I haven’t seen very many books written by other overseas educators, but I do look for and read other travel memoirs. The one that comes to mind right now as somewhat similar to my book is Diplomatic Baggage by Brigid Keenan, which is actually a memoir about a trailing diplomatic spouse. I could relate to the different hardships that she experienced in her travels.

TZ:  What is your writing background?

JD. I always enjoyed writing, but as I taught fulltime most of my writing entailed writing letters to parents. Even more than writing, I believe that all the reading that I have done in my lifetime has been even more helpful. I also began reading more books from the genre that I wanted to write in and they gave me ideas to draw upon.

TZ:  Any advice for writers?

JD. My advice to writers is to just keep at it. Write about what you know and what interests you. Read other books in the same genre. Talk about what you're writing with others and ask friends to read what you wrote. I have a young friend who is writing her first memoir and she sends me her writings and I give her tips along with my honest opinion. She tells me that she finds it very helpful and motivating.

TZ:  What are you working on now?

JD. I am working on my second travel memoir now, which is about living and working in overseas schools in Gurgaon, India, Cairo, Egypt, Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and wherever we end up next. In my second memoir, I am trying to include more writings about the schools that we worked in along with our adventures within the countries we were located in. This book is taking longer to write and I am listening to and incorporating advice from other authors.

TZ:  Where is your book available?
JD  Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I am also on Goodreads. My author page is www.facebook.com/JillDobbeAuthor.

Airport Adventures

As I'm packing for my upcoming vacation (No, I'm not taking as much as you see in the picture--my suitcase WILL close), I wonder what airport adventures await.

My relationship with airports has always been ambivalent. On one hand, they make me vaguely nervous. Will my flight be on time? Will I make my connection? Will my luggage arrive? On the other hand, I find airports fascinating. All those people coming and going. Thousands of stories.



I grade airports by whether they have a Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Shop. Newark and
Atlanta get A's. I hope Miami has a Ben and Jerry's because I have a long layover there.

My strangest adventures have taken place at Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris. I love Paris, the airport not so much.

A few years ago a friend and I went to a writing workshop in Provence. We landed in Paris on a sunny morning. As we walked to the bus that would take us from the tarmac to the terminal, I breathed in the fresh summer air. Then, with my suitcase trailing behind me, I stepped onto the bus, caught the wheels of the suitcase on the step and pitched headlong onto the floor. I heard gasps. Someone helped me to my feet and my friend cried, “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” I muttered, relieved my glasses hadn’t broken. Unfortunately, my nose had.

An Air France attendant led my friend and me through the airport—the very long airport—to the doctor’s office. Rather than drag our suitcases, we loaded them onto a cart, which my friend proceeded to push onto a moving walkway. No one told us carts are not made for such walkways. As we reached the end, the cart lost traction, rolled over and knocked me down, and as I fell on the cart, the people on the walk behind me fell on me. Now I had a cut on my arm to go along with the nose that was rapidly turning black and blue.

The airport doctor pronounced me lucky because my nose was broken only on one side and no surgery was needed. He cleaned off my arm and suggested I take a pain killer, and we went on our way. Of course, we missed our connection to Nice, but that’s another story.

I am sure I’m one of the few people—perhaps the only person--who can boast that I broke my nose in the Paris airport.


A year later, I was once again at Charles de Gaulle. I arrived early, with plenty of time to make my flight to Houston. Or so I thought. As I headed for the counter to get a boarding pass, a uniformed woman gestured me aside. “Get back,” she ordered. “We’re evacuating.” Someone had reported an unattended suitcase, I learned, as I stood in the crowd. Why didn’t they move us outside? Weren’t we in danger here? Within a few minutes, I heard a pop. Security had blown up the suitcase. Now the huge crowd of evacuees shoved their way to the counters. Being a little, rather oldish lady, I ended up at the back of the line.

At security I was again at the rear. The line inched along. I watched the hands of the clock creep toward departure time. Finally, I went through the x-ray. Home free, I thought.

No such luck. It was random-security-check time. Stern-faced security personnel patted me down, opened my suitcase, dug through my purse and finally let me pass. Holding my shoes in one hand, I raced through the concourse and arrived at the gate just as it closed.

Out of breath, I stuck out my boarding pass.

“Door’s closed,” the gate attendant said.

“But the plane’s still on the ground,” I protested.

"You’re too late.”

“It’s because they evacuated the terminal,” I explained.

“Not our fault. You should have gotten here earlier,” she said, with a sneer.

“But I was early. They evacuated—“

“You can’t get on,” she repeated. “Go to the Air France office and book another flight.”

At least I wasn’t the only one who was refused access to the plane. Several other would-be passengers hovered at the gate. The attendant signaled another Air France employee. “She’ll take you to the office."

The woman took off as if she were running a marathon. I couldn’t keep up, nor could the woman hurrying along next to me. Within a few minutes, we lost sight of our guide.

Did anyone know the location of the Air France office? Nope. We asked and asked, until finally someone pointed us toward their counter. There I met with an Air France attendant as unhelpful as the others I’d encountered. Although others who had missed our plane because their connecting flights were late were booked on flights, my “case” was different; according to Air France regulations, evacuation of a terminal did not count as a good reason for tardiness. Finally I burst into tears. To this day I’m not sure if they were real or I was faking, but my sobs worked. The lady relented and put me on the same flight—Houston via Atlanta--as the woman I’d gotten lost with. Since we had several hours before the plane left, we decided to have lunch.

We located a café, ordered and sat down. “Well, since we’ve been through so much together, I think we should introduce ourselves,” she said.

“I’m Thelma.”

She burst out laughing. When she could catch her breath, she said. “I’m Louise.”

This was a friendship destined to be.

But, I don’t ever plan to fly through Paris again.

For this trip, my Kindle is loaded with books I've been intending to read, my suitcase will soon be packed with clothes for three different climates, my camera and my Scrabble dictionary (My sister and I play Scrabble for $2 a game when we travel together--so far, I'm ahead) I'm hoping to make it to South America and back without any fuss or bother.

On the other hand, what would a trip be without an adventure or two?

Leaving on a Jet Plane

"My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I'll not be knowing;
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take
No matter where it's going."
"Travel" by Edna St.Vincent Millay

This Thursday I'm leaving for two weeks in Spain.

I've always loved to travel. Ralph and I took many memorable trips together. We chuckled at the antics of penguins in Antarctica, stood on the plaza at Monte Alban in Oaxaca, Mexico during an eclipse of the sun, rode in a hot air baloon in Utah, strolled along the Seine, the Thames, the Mississippi.

Even though he's no longer with me, I still love traveling, whether it's fifty miles from home or across the world. Traveling brings me joy. It gives me something to look forward to. Planning a trip is almost as much fun as the trip itself. And then there are the photos, the souvenirs to take out and laugh over for years to come.

I'm traveling to Spain with my sister. We share a remarkably poor sense of direction and have gotten lost together in several states and a number of countries. This trip probably won't be any different.


"If God had really intended men to fly,
He'd make it easier to get to the airport."
George Winters

I have an ambivalent relationship with airports. On the one hand, I am fascainted by all the people coming and going. On the other, I really don't trust the air transit system. If they can make you late, they will.

I've had some bizarre experiences in airports, especially in Paris Charles De Gaulle airport is my nemesis. Once I was strolling happily along, wheeling my suitcase behind me and then I stepped up on the bus, caught the suitcase on the step, fell forward flat on my face...and broke my nose. How many people can boast that they broke their nose in Paris?

But that was only the beginning. As my friend and I followed the lady from Air France through the airport (Did it ever occur to her to get me a wheelchair? Nope.) we decided to get a cart for our luggage. We pushed it onto the moving sidewalk and at the very end, the cart caught on the sidewalk and fell over, my friend fell on the cart, I fell on her, and the people behind me fell on me. My elbow still shows the scars. We continued on--miles and miles, it seemed like--De Gaulle is a laaarge airpport and finally arrived at the medical office. By that time my face was black and blue and my arm was dripping blood. The lady at the desk gave us a blank stare. "Did you want to see a doctor?" she asked. Duh!

The next time I flew through Paris the terminal had to be evacuated because someone left an unattended suitcase. Long story short, I missed my plane. "You should have gotten here earlier," the gate attendant snapped. Another woman and I trudged to the Air France counter and finally managed to persuade them to book us on the next available flight. (I cried.) Then we decided to have lunch. "I guess we should introduce ourselves," my compansion said. "I'm Louise."

"I'm Thelma."

At least we made it home without driving off a cliff.

I'll leave you with another quote and my hope that you, too, will travel, across the International Date Line or around the block. Adventure awaits. See you when I get back.

"When you set out for Ithaka,
Hope your road will be a long one,
Full of adventure, full of discovery..."
from "Ithaka" by C.V. Cavafy