The
Lone Ex-Pat
By Patricia
Kack
|
|
November 2006
| A
few weeks ago, due to an unfortunate series of events, I found myself stranded
in a foreign country. I was sick, alone, and without funds; hard times
can feel scarier and bigger when you are abroad. Being on your own suddenly
doesn’t seem like such a good idea.
Every expat
will tell you that the hardest part of living abroad is the isolation.
No matter how extensive your social life, whether you like solitude or
not, the fact remains that you left everything and everyone that was known
and familiar to you. There are times when the weight of that isolation
becomes unbearable and you just want to pack up. It is a real test
of resilience uprooting yourself to live in a country where you are completely
alone and when you are sick, if you suffer the results of a crime, or if
you find yourself without resources, who, if anyone, do you turn to?
We do not live in a perfect world and those things are bound to happen
and I think that an expat’s real test comes when he or she is faced with
that solitude in a time of crisis. How would you react? Where do you seek
shelter?
Isolation comes
in many forms and many degrees. For some, the quiet stillness of
the phone is a daily reminder of it. For others, the absence of recognition
when you walk into your favourite restaurant or shop - back home they called
you by your first name. For myself, I feel the isolation most when
I need to whine, to cry, or vent to a sympathetic ear. You find out
what your Achilles' heel is. When everything is going your way, isolation
is just another aspect of living in a foreign country. But when you
need help, it becomes the number one impediment, your biggest challenge.
How can you
counteract isolation? Are there ways of preparing for it? Who can help?
Unless you live in a tent in the desert, chances are you can takes steps
to make being alone easier to manage and ensure your journey is solitary
by choice.
Keep in
touch with your friends and family. In this age of technology,
with cell phones, e-mail, and chatting, staying in contact with those you
love has never been easier. Traditional mail is also a good exercise
and your best buddy back home will appreciate receiving a long, heartfelt
letter from you. If your situation is such that you might not speak
to a single person in a day, chatting with a friend online will be all
the more precious. Make it a part of your routine to call people,
even if the cost is prohibitive. People need to hear you, know you
are still available, and when you need them, they will be more likely to
respond and reach out.
|
|
Previous
Ex-Pat articles::
|
Expat
in a Foreign Environment - A living abroad experience, as a whole,
can be greatly enjoyed and valued. The key to this result is handling
day-to-day life. Learning how to keep your head above water, or as
I prefer to say to, how to stay AFLOAT, will enable you to make the most
of your abroad experience.
Time
of Opportunity - Let
me tell you one thing I believe: we're living at a time of unprecedented
opportunity. Never before has it been more possible to start a new
life in another country.
The
Global Nomad Experience: Living in Liminality - Global
nomads are persons of any age or nationality who have lived a significant
part of their developmental years in one or more countries outside their
passport country because of a parent's occupation. Children raised
as global nomads can be the offspring of diplomatic, international business,
government agency, international agency, missionary, or military personnel,
or indeed of people living internationally mobile lives for any professional
reason. Typically, global nomads share a unique cultural heritage. |
|
|
|
Seek out other
expats. When I moved to Morocco, I did so in part to experience the
culture shock. I took a flat in the non-tourist part of town, surrounded
myself with native speaking Arabs or Berbers, and avoided the “white” places
or joints. I didn’t want to slow my integration by clinging to the
familiar. It’s a fairly common feeling amongst ex-pats who move to
a new place to learn the culture, the language, the way of the people.
I urge you however to find the community of ex-pats in your area and make
yourself known to them. An ex-pat who has been in dire straights
and isolated is more likely to help you when you need it, because he or
she has lived through it. Your isolation will lessen considerably when
you sit down and talk to someone who is living the same thing as you are.
Also, ex-pats have a view of the world that is probably more akin to yours,
they tend to be easy going types that have open minds and appreciate difference.
You choose the level of involvement that you want, but ex-pats tend to
stick together when abroad and there is a reason for that and it has nothing
to do with not wanting to mingle with the locals. Sometimes you want
to go where everybody knows your name…
Plan for
emergencies. Burn a cd of scans of all your bank info, cards, passport,
drivers license, etc. Hard copies can work too, but it’s easier for
them to fall into the wrong hands. If your wallet is stolen, if your
home is robbed, having easy access to this information is vital.
Scan the front and back of cards to ensure you get all the available information;
emergency numbers are often located on the back of cards. Keep one
bank card and one credit card in a cache somewhere inside your home.
Set up an
escape route. You never know when you can be called back home.
There is no shame in planning for such a case. If you have the resources,
an open ticket is a great idea. If you don’t want to commit the money,
do the research and hand it over to someone you trust. Likewise,
it’s a good idea to leave cash or grant access to your bank account to
someone who can pay a hospital bill, buy emergency transport for you, or
fly out to you if needed.
Have a failsafe.
Ok, so you live in a tent in the desert. You don’t have a phone and
there are no internet cafes anywhere around you. What can you do?
Make sure that someone checks up on you regularly. Pay the guy who
delivers your water to ensure that you are up and running and to seek help
if you are not. I handed a backup of my keys to another expat and
asked her to call me a few times a week. You will feel better knowing
that people are looking out for you.
Isolation can
be a make it or break it deal to your foreign experience. You may
choose to vagabond through the world alone and there is a real lesson to
be discovered doing that, but no man is an island onto himself to use well
known words. If you manage to pick when you are alone, you are bound
to treasure your solitude. Surrounding yourself with people who care,
even doing so from across the world, guarantees that you are never truly
isolated.
| Patricia
Kack is a technical writer based in Morocco. Specializing in software
user and training manuals, she occasionally leaves the sunny shores of
Agadir for training contracts throughout the world. She is currently
working on an Ex-pat guide to living in Morocco. She can be reached
at pckack@yahoo.com. |
|
.
 Jungle
Mom - The True Story of an Expat Mom - An
average mom breaks out of the confines of an eight-to-five government job
and follows her lifelong dream to a tropical paradise. A quick sale of
the family home and Michele is on her way to the Caribbean coastal town
of Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica with her two young children in tow. As events
unfold, the author not only finds her much sought after adventure, but
begins to uncover the true meaning of life and living in a place some call
Paradise. The daily writings of this talented lady will lead you down dusty
roads, take you swinging out over cascading waterfalls, and touch your
heart with an intuition and insight that every mother will embrace. |
. |
|
. |
Copyright 1996 -
EscapeArtist.com Inc. All Rights Reserved