How Go! Gambare Was Started

Meet the Go! Gambare Members

Hi there! We’re Michael, Joe, and Yumi. Our family has an international flair even before becoming a family abroad. Michael holds dual nationality, Japanese and American. As for me, I’m proudly 100% Costa Rican (tica). Yumi, as you can imagine, has origins from a bit of everywhere.

In 2021, amidst the pandemic, with a 1-year-and-8-month-old toddler in tow, we made the bold decision to sell our belongings and leave our families behind to embark on our adventure. We were tired of the daily grind – the 9 to 5 job, traffic jams, house cleaning, meal prep, studying, and the responsibilities that come with having a baby at that time. After Yumi’s birth, I, as a woman, especially as a first-time mom, thought that everything would return to normal – our bodies, our time, and many other things I took for granted. But if you’re a mom, you know that’s not the case.

What society considers “success” had become a prison for us. This society sells you a false idea of what freedom is. The more material possessions you desire, the more enslaved you become to debts, credit cards – you literally sell your soul to a corporation just to “appear” successful. We’ve come to the conclusion that the beauty of life lies in moments, in the memories of those experiences, and that less means more.

Of course, I’m not going to spin a Disney tale where everything has a happy ending, and only beautiful things happen from the start. OF COURSE NOT. Every pain is an experience that, whether it costs us or not, always carries a positive lesson. As you read this, POSITIVE. There’s a saying that goes – more or less – “He who hasn’t left his puddle doesn’t know his own origins.” What does that mean? Well, since we stepped out of our comfort zone, experienced pain, and developed compassion, we came to understand our own origins; in this context, our culture.

How Go! Gambare Was Actually Started

Ever felt like life is a roller coaster? I believe life is a roller coaster at its peak. Just when we see the top of the climb, in an instant, we’re zooming down at full speed, with no breaks to process what’s happening in our lives

¡Pura Vida!

My name is Joeselyne, but you’ll know me as Joe. I was born and raised in San Jose, Costa Rica. Throughout my life, I’ve always considered myself a ‘go-getter.’ Since I was 8 years old, I wholeheartedly wished to study abroad and clearly expressed my intentions. However, my mom was afraid of that idea. As the years passed, my desire to explore the world grew, especially because part of my family lives or travels frequently to the United States, and the Joe back then wanted to know what was so special about the United States.

Part of my adolescence went on normally, aside from the bullying I received due to my weight and skin condition. However, one day everything changed – back then, I thought it was the worst thing that could have happened to me – but as we mentioned before, every experience has its positive side. My dad lost his job, and coincidentally, my mom decided to demolish the house we had bought just 3 months before my dad’s dismissal.

Can you imagine what such a drastic change can mean, in the blink of an eye? Well, we indeed went from the top of the roller coaster to the lowest point. At that time, I was finishing my ninth grade and entering the fourth grade. I loved my school because the previous one had closed, and all my friends were in this new school. It was a stressful time where we had to make ends meet. My mom became obsessed with finishing the house to the point that the little money coming in was spent on construction. Overnight, it was uncertain where my education would end. My family was not wealthy, but we were from an upper-middle-class background.

The stress at home, financial constraints, and the constant overwhelming feeling that nothing was going well caused my mom to become so ill that she passed away six years later. I lost her in the blink of an eye. It was a devastating shock.

During my adolescence, I had the fortune of joining a swim team where I lost over 25 kilos, and my skin condition improved to the point that it hardly seemed like I had anything. I also made beautiful friendships. But, now? At the age of 21, when I finally managed to enter university and secure a well-paying job with the main purpose of providing the best for my mom, I lost my way. I felt like nobody understood me, and the only person who did was no longer there.

Blessings in life – I received a scholarship three months after my mom’s passing in 2017, and I went to study Chinese culture. Everything was covered. I couldn’t believe it. After so much effort and a desire to study abroad, it finally became possible.

What I loved about that year was that not only did I travel to China, but I also had the opportunity to visit the United States and Canada. I felt that at that moment, I reaffirmed what I wanted in life. I was full of inspiration and felt like I could conquer the whole world. But, as I keep saying, things don’t always go the way one plans or wishes. Two years later, I married Michael, and Yumi came into our lives.

Motherhood has always been a challenge that I found REALLY hard to embrace. Let me explain, and please don’t take it the wrong way. Yumi is the most special and adorable person in the world, but my independent side, the part of me that could handle anything, the part of me that did things my way, took a backseat because not everything goes as one wants, and second, we’re no longer just individual beings. That has been the toughest part of motherhood that I’ve had to face.

During Yumi’s first year of life, Michael and I weren’t happy with the life we had, and it wasn’t because of Yumi. We were just tired of the routine of our lives. Michael had a job for 9 hours, plus the extra demands of his position. I decided to pursue a second degree full-time, thinking that was the solution to my problems. We reached a point where stress, anxiety, frustration, and fear were all we had, and worst of all, they became the foundation of our marriage and home.

Once again, yearning for a change with all our hearts, we received a job offer as English teachers in Poland. Our initial plan was to go to Japan because Michael has dual nationality, Japanese and American – well, it was something, right?

After accepting without hesitation, we faced the challenge of money. How were we going to survive for at least a month with rent, deposit, Yumi’s kindergarten, food, plane tickets, immigration procedures, and other expenses? Well, we sold our car and other belongings, and with the adjustments, we managed to cover the most crucial expenses. But, our story doesn’t end there.

Poland!

After obtaining our visas and being in the country, it took about two months until we could finally receive our first salary. We arrived on August 1, 2021, and it wasn’t until November 10, 2021, that we received our pay. It was INSANE. During those two months, ALL THREE of us fell terribly ill.

We were supposed to start working on August 15, but a couple of days later, we were dropping like flies – one by one, we got sick. In short, we didn’t even receive our full salaries, but something is better than nothing, right? It was the best feeling. It was like reaching out and touching the sky, especially when we saw that the little savings we had were dwindling.

I wish the salary issue and illnesses were the only headaches during that year, but no. As you can imagine, being a foreigner in a country where English is not an official or widely spoken language, we faced many workplace injustices. I don’t want to give the impression that we were only victims – we weren’t – but we were somewhat ignorant about laws, regulations, and a bit naive.

Honestly, we were grateful to this person for giving us the opportunity to work abroad, and to be honest, we still are because, as I mentioned at the beginning, there’s always something good in all of this. Well, we’re still in Poland, and thanks to that, we can now help other people so that their experience in Poland is not like ours

As the story continued, this person did not fulfill what we had agreed upon in Costa Rica. They even changed the employment contract for one of us from an employer to an independent contractor; that is, there was no right to sick leave or vacation, and it was now based on hours worked. This was just the tip of the iceberg. Our stress was so high that we fell ill constantly.

Our physical and emotional health was in shambles, I could say it even deteriorated. Instead of enjoying the experience of living in a foreign country and being able to travel across Europe and even within Poland, it was almost non-existent. From Monday to Friday, we worked more than 8 hours, including the planning that had to be done. On weekends, Michael worked ALL DAY, creating more than 26 lesson plans that had to be submitted every Monday.

I could make an endless list of all the bad experiences we went through, but the point is that based on what we went through, we were able to overcome the circumstances and grow as individuals and professionals. We haven’t even mentioned the countless times Yumi got sick that year. In fact, she developed pneumonia. As the Poles say, it was a total masakrę (an odyssey).

Being honest, we won’t lie to you – we always stayed positive and optimistic. NEVER. I’m a person who easily gets stressed and creates in my mind endless scenarios of how everything can go wrong. I can’t reason. However, there are always people whom God puts in our paths to help and guide us, and in our case, it has been Michael’s mom. Countless times she repeated ‘Gambare’ (がんばれ). Now it’s our turn to help you, to let you know that it is possible. With effort, dedication, and the right help, it can be done – GAMBARE! がんばれ!

We’re Joe & Mykle, a diverse duo hailing from Costa Rica & the United States. We immersed ourselves in an exotic adventure as TEFL & ELE teachers in Poland.

Read our Story!