My wife and I live and teach in Alexandria currently. The school we teach at is excellent. (PM me for more info.)

Alexandria is a bittersweet place to live.If you've lived in a developing country before, you may not find the difficult elements to be that difficult. Here are some big pros and cons...

PROS:

-By the beautiful Mediterranean Sea
-Rich in local culture
-Three decent shopping centers
-INCREDIBLY CHEAP (like... so cheap)
-Nearby beaches
-A nice park (Montazah)
-Great seafood
-Easy access to Cairo via train (first class: US$7!)
-Sporting club for golf, running, and other sports
-An airport with multiple international connections
-Plentiful taxis, a slow but cheap tram system, and now Uber!
-The friendliest, most hospitable people you'll ever meet

CONS:

-There are no longer any truly international schools, as almost the entire expat community is now gone.
-It is almost unavoidable that a foreign woman, no matter how modestly dressed, will be verbally harassed when walking.
-Crumbling city infrastructure
-Frequent flooding
-A cultural ignorance of the concept of personal space
-A generally entitled student population
-A lack of variety of restaurant options
-CRAZY TRAFFIC
-The airport is quite far from the city

Hi folks,

For my spouse and me, it's our first year teaching abroad. We are US citizens, and the first half of our year (until the first week of August) was spent in the US.

First, is there any tax benefit for us, or will be required to pay full income tax for 2015?

Second, is it an easy enough return to do ourselves on an online platform like Turbotax, or should we hire a "guy"?

Third, if we need said "guy", any recommendations on someone who knows our situation well?

Thanks for any and all help you can give!

That's so strange about the autocorrect. I wonder why they do that.

Thank you for your input! If we buy into a target retirement fund with Vanguard, can we share one as a married couple? Also, can our school directly deposit into Vanguard?

Hi Everyone!

My wife and I are in our early and mid twenties, and we've just accepted our dream job in our dream location. We want to get started with retirement planning EARLY so that we have little to worry about a few decades down the road. The great thing is that our new school offers to match up to a 10% contribution to Raymond James OR a retirement plan of our choosing. A couple of questions for the community:

1) From what I read, Raymond James is NOT the way to go. We are both US citizens, and we will be out of the US long enough each year to get the Foreign Income Exclusion tax credit. Would Vanguard be the right place to invest? If so, which fund is best? Target retirement funds? Something else? (I am by no means an expert on this, so jargon is Greek to me.)

2) Is there any way to avoid paying taxes on retirement savings, even though (from what I've read) we will not be able to contribute to an IRA?

3) I have about $20K in a public school employee retirement fund. Should I reinvest that?

I appreciate any help you can give!

Thanks so much, folks! I really appreciate both the encouragement and straightforwardness. We don't have kids, which I know will make us more marketable. We've both lived in the Middle East (not the Gulf, though), and we feel we have a pretty good picture of what to expect as far as classroom management is concerned. If it's what we think it is, it's something we can handle, but not something we would ever put our own kids through in the future.

It seems that ECCH (I believe that's what the housing is called) probably wouldn't happen, then. What is alternative housing like? Is is a long commute?

What about administration? It seems like they err on the side of parents often, but are they professional?

Would they interview over Skype? We're with Search, and have tentative plans to attend a fair, but we'd break the bank doing it. If we need to go to a fair, any thoughts on which fair would be best? (We're looking at Cambridge and San Francisco.)

Is there usually a big turnover? I figure more vacancies would mean more of a chance of getting hired.

Any other schools in Doha we should consider?

Any other advice?

My wife and I are a teaching couple. I have four years' teaching experience (including two at an international school) and an advanced degree. She is about to complete her student teaching and graduate with honors. She's also fluent in Arabic. We each have three certifications here in the US.

Believe it or not, we're very interested in teaching the Gulf starting the summer of '15, particularly in Qatar, and even more particularly at the Qatar Foundation schools.(I've already read about "the incident".) My wife is a special education teacher, and she would really like to teach at Awsaj Academy, whereas I would like to teach at Qatar Academy Doha. A few questions for those in the know:

1. Would we be viable candidates? My wife's lack of full time experience and my lack of IB experience are drawbacks, but maybe my advanced degree and international experience, paired with her fluency in Arabic and outstanding recommendations would help. (?)
2. Are Awsaj and QA-D close to one another?
3. I've read that housing at Education City is difficult to come by. Would it be plausible to negotiate the necessity of housing at Education City as a part of our package?
4. It seems they don't have a salary scale/schedule. What would be a reasonable offer (for Qatar in general)? Can we counter-offer?
5. Is it unheard of for a teaching couple to be split between these schools, with one teaching at Awsaj and the other at QA-D?

Any insight here would be helpful and much appreciated!