I was speaking to a friend today about expat life. She’s at the beginning of her second time overseas, but the first time was as a young married couple, this time is with children in tow.
I hope we’ll get to talk about expat children in more detail later on this month, but she brought up something interesting, which was the tension between wanting to make the most of her time her, for herself and her family, and having so much of that time taken up with daily life.
You know the feeling right? You planned to visit the apple picking festival this autumn, but then you slept in after a long week, and then there was the cleaning that really couldn’t be put off any longer, you needed to pop to the shops for a few necessities, the husband/kids/cat was ill and then finally the new Downtown Abbey was on, and well, that really needed to take priority, no?
And in the meantime you start feeling more and more guilty because of all the wonderful things that you just know you are missing out on. The castles, the festivals, the museums, the trendy cafes… Your friends back home skype you with envy in their voices, It must be so wonderful. And you look over your shoulder at the piles of laundry and you remember all the late work nights this week and try to recall the last time you did anything that could be described as cultural.
Relax. Take a deep breath.
Because this? This is all very normal. Expat life may well bring into starker conflict the difference between the life you are living and the life you think you should be living, but everyone experiences it at one time or another.
The funny thing is, this daily living, is as important a part of your expat experience as any of the big cultural things you have in mind. Your regular trips to buy food that’s very different in a shop/market that’s very differen. Your journey to work by bus/rickshaw/bike probably looks quite different than where you come from.
I spent four months when I was 20 living in Pietermaritzburg, in South Africa. Years later, I met up with a Dutch woman I’d met there, and we were looking through her pictures of all the places we’d travelled together – awe-inspiring photos of the Drakensburg mountains, elephants in the Hluhluwe national park, hippos at St Lucia, sunset on Tabletop mountain. I looked at these photos and I remembered good times.
And then she turned a page, and there was a photo of the street we’d lived on. The wide avenue that headed down into the city centre from the corner at the top, around which the minibus taxes would screech, beeping their horns for passengers. That photo made me exclaim out loud in a mix of joy and nostalgia. It was memories of standing there daily with my finger pointed up, waiting for a taxi headed in the right direction, ready to haggle with the taxi driver who thought he could fool this young white girl. This was where I’d walk back to each afternoon with a group of kids from the shelter next door to our house.
This day-to-day expat life you live is just as valuable, just as meaningful as all the big trips and cultural experiences you’re planning. For sure try to fit some of those in, because they’re great for making friends back home jealous (why do you think I mentioned the elephants and hippos?!). But this daily routine-making, habit-forming, oh.so.normal life? This is the good stuff too.
///
This post is part of my 31 days to embrace expat life. I’m writing every day through October on this topic. Click on the button to see all the posts so far…
Yesterday’s post – Shit Expats Say.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes, exactly. It is the modification of our daily lives, the adapting required by our daily life in another country the one that changes us more deeply than all the trips and adventures. We can visit those as tourists, and not be changed at all. Living, loving and learning in a different cultural setting than our own, that is a very different story. Great post, I’m loving this series.
Absolutely – it’s these daily routines, differences, and challenges that give us an experience that is life-changing…
Love this. It really struck a chord with me… When we were living overseas I started to keep a journal. Not to note down the details of our amazing trips and excursions from Singapore, but because I knew that in ten years time I’d want to be able to remember the name of the road the supermarket was on, and how we spent a quiet Sunday evening in at home. I knew I’d treasure these details of our REAL life and would most enjoy rescanning my records of them. In fact – I’m going to do that now.
Loving this series!!
Xxx
I love the idea of keeping a journal. Rasmus always keeps a note of the restaurants and places we go on holiday together, but we haven’t often done it in the places we’ve lived. For Brussels though, we did have so many people start to ask us for recommendations, that we wrote everything down in a word document. That’s kinda fun to read back through…
Great post! Maybe I’m somewhat unique, but I actually find the day-to-day stuff more INTERESTING than the grand adventures and travels – more interesting to participate in, learn about, discuss, remember, reflect upon, laugh about, bond over, read/hear about others’ experiences, etc. The little things are by far the most interesting to me. (I’m not saying I love laundry or cleaning toilets though.)
You’d make a fantastic social anthropologist
Oh the expectations we all have! So crazy! Thanks for this good reality check- it’s a good reminder for daily life anywhere, actually!
Hi,
I’ve stumbled across you from Internations.org and I’m loving this series. As you can see I’ve started my own blog about my time here in Brussels, in part to learn how, in part ot give me something to do and in part to share with others the ‘benefits’ of my experiences. I’ve also spent a lot of time in SA, did 6 months in Joburg and my wife’s parents live in Durban so I can relate to the Elephants and Hippos
The biggest challenges I’m having are that I’ve left my wife and son behind in the UK as this is only supposed to be temporary (I get back for weekends every other week), and this is only supposed to be temporary so I feel like I’m not getting ‘stuck in’ properly.
Hi David! I know a few other couples or families currently doing the backward and forwards thing between two cities or countries, and it does definitely make it harder, having two homes in a sense. Having the blog is great though – that will for sure encourage you to get out there and use the time that you do have to explore Brussels (which I love by the way! We lived there four years).
{ 1 trackback }