I would like to dedicate this post to the concept of challenges, specifically the challenges I have encountered with moving and relocating to a different country. After living for a year and a half as a grizzled veteran expat, I think it is time for a reflection on the challenges I faced during that period.
So often we are told of the rewards and experiences one gains by deciding to move abroad, discovering new cultures, different languages, ways of life etc... Okay, that's part of the story, not all. What is much less known, and much less talked about, are the challenges one can face by taking such a decision.
As a rule people face challenges, big and small. On several occasions I faced the small challenge of opening the refrigerator to find no food for lunch, me falta plata algunos veces : ) On another occasion my internet wouldn't work and I would be forced to call every day to have the company fix it, only to find the next day that it wouldn't work again. Or perhaps the four winter months in which I survived with only a small space heater to heat my apartment. These problems are normal occurences. Everyone hears about them, but those are the little guys, and they are comic relief when you are confronted with the big ones.
If you choose to move, travel, or work abroad, you are most likely confident, have a strong social circle back home, a supportive family, and feel you can thrive in any environment, given you are offered the opportunities and resources to succeed. This may be true for many expats, but most find a slew of circumstances they were not expecting.
One of the first major tests I encountered, though by far not the most challenging, was cultural dislocation. In most cases, moving to a foreign country involves immediate immersion into a new environment, often with a different culture and languages. This can affect expats in a variety of ways. With me, for example, I found watching American films to be a great and necessary outlet for a long time. Some adapt to this change better than others. I was quite slow to adapt, and sometimes I found it impossible to go outside because the pace, the city, and the traffic, all seemed too overwhelming.
A second, and for me much more difficult challenge, was that of developing new social relationships. I lived alone for most of my first year, which was a double-edged sword. I not only learned to take responsibility for myself and live independently, but I also learned how to escape into my apartment as a way of coping with an alien and unfamiliar world. For me it was too easy not to go out, and with that mentality social isolation easily became a normal part of my life.
As an introvert I've always needed some time alone. Though I've never known when I would need it, or for how long. Sometimes I would only need 30 minutes, other times I would need a day, perhaps two. But I've always had friends who knew my ways and would wait patiently for me at the other side of my reclusive moments.
When you move abroad there is no one waiting, no one to spend time with. You need to be outgoing and develop those connections yourself. As an introvert I discovered that when I lived in the U.S. I never needed to develop those connections on my own. They had always occurred naturally, either in school, on a team, or in some other social/recreational activity. Abroad I found myself unable to meet people or develop meaningful friendships for a very long time. I began to question whether there was something wrong with me as a person, but I didn't question why I never went out to meet people. Often I found that I needed to drag myself out to social events because the ease of which I could just hide myself away in the apartment was too enticing.
Perhaps I have some quirky and bizarre social tendencies, such as shying away from big social gatherings or preferring not to meet new people, and perhaps the majority of expats won't face this challenge. But there are some out there who might. In any case I think it's necessary to say this;
when relocating to any environment, it is fundamental to go out and meet people. Developing social contacts is extremely important because in moving abroad you separate yourself from all you know, from your safety net of family and friends, from the familiarity of the home country. Creating a new social network helps to alleviate the stresses of a foreign environment in remarkable ways.
Finally you can face serious emotional challenges as well, some of which may not entirely disappear. Such challenges become apparent in any individual who exposes himself or herself to the anxieties of high stress, fast paced environments (think soldiers in combat zones, professional athletes, Wall Street executives, expats : )
I believe such emotional challenges are the most difficult, perhaps because they are the longest lasting. Emotional scars linger. Yet if I were to be asked if I would take back the expat experience, along with the mental baggage I've accumulated along the way, I would reply with a firm and resolute 'No!' This because sometimes negative experiences can lead an individual down inspired paths they would never have had the inclination to travel. For me it has led to writing.
I sometimes write for joy, the words spilling out in bursts across the page. Other times I write for necessity, as a way of coping with negative events, carving the burden of heavy thoughts out of my mind. Always though, writing is a way for me to express authenticity, a way to feel free.
While I think living abroad has been a wonderful experience, it has also posed many serious challenges, all of which have taught me to adapt, to flow with them, taking them as they come, ringing them out and hanging them up to dry. At the same time they have taught me to take advantage of the good times to understand myself better and learn from the difficulties of the past, to accept them and move forward.
Most of my posts are quite positive, conveying much of the good but very little of the bad. I think this is because there are many more positives to be shared in the experience than negatives, yet both occur, the good and the bad, and both occur frequently.
I think there is an obsession in social media these days of looking perfect. Everyone needs to give an appearance of perfection because we as a society tend to think that expressing anything negative would be seen by others as personal failure, that somehow you're not doing something right, and therefore you're not normal. Perhaps we should re-evaluate this belief. Maybe we just need to say it's okay to fail sometimes, that only through failure can we learn to face the challenges, accept them, and let them pass.
This is why I think it important to show the darker side to living abroad. I think this post helps provide a more accurate picture of what expat life is like. In general, life is good, but sometimes shit happens, and when it does it is good for expats to know they are not alone, that others have been in the same or similar situations, and that, like all things, difficulties will come and pass away with time.
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Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the Buenos Aires book fair, an annual event which began in 1975. Held for three weeks every Autumn, the BA book fair is purportedly the most important literary event in the Spanish-speaking world. This year it is housed in La Rural, a massive cultural center located in the heart of the Palermo neighborhood in Buenos Aires..JPG)
The sections were divided into regions, with different provinces offering books by authors and writing from or about their specific regions. I enjoyed looking in the Salta section, and I found a wonderful children's book called "La Hormiguita y La Gota de Agua" in the Neuquen section, the contents of which I could proudly understand. The atmosphere was quite welcoming, and the books were of high quality, though we did discover a book that was reversed from the cover, and we weren't sure if this was intentional, or perhaps some postmodernist take on the written word. .JPG)
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