Christina Dargatz

There’s no doubt about it: the most paralyzing thing keeping families from traveling is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of things not going to plan, fear of losing an income, and the flat-out fear of failing in the eyes of peers and family. We are culturechalk.org. Our job isn’t just to host families at hubs; we’ve lived this reality. Over five years ago, we sold everything, left Canada, and set off for Guatemala—a country we had never been to and knew relatively little about. With five...

I am often asked, “How have your kids adjusted?” Let's start with me Around 1994, my dad took a government job managing an arts facility in Qamani’tuaq (Baker Lake), a remote Inuit community of roughly 2,000 people in the Canadian Arctic. The nearest neighbouring community was Rankin Inlet, an hour flight south along Hudson Bay. Inuktitut was spoken more often than English, and life was deeply rooted in culture and tradition. It was an incredible place to spend time while growing up. I was...

We walked the city with our host family, played futból with their kids, and shared a pot of afternoon coffee while sharing stories, asking questions about each other’s lives and fumbling through broken second (or sometimes third) language barriers.