Being new is all about being out of place, you haven’t quite found yours yet. It can be as simple as an unmatched wardrobe that doesn’t fit the weather, a pair of open toe shoes with jeans and a heavy coat. You’re not quite sure how the door opens, or which exit to use; you can’t find the bathroom and when you realize your purse is empty and ask where the ATM is located, the response is a blank stare.
“The ATM? The Automatic Teller? The cash machine?”
Why doesn’t it have a universal name?
In my first week of expat life, I waited in the foyer of a hotel for a stranger. I knew her name was Karen and she was English – that was it. I’d received a phone call the day before from a woman whose husband worked with G.
“We’re meeting tomorrow, I’ll have someone come and collect you if you like, it will be a great chance for you to meet some people”
The whole idea seemed ridiculous. Hanging out with a group of women who all shared the one common theme, a pay packet that arrived twice a month from the The Big Blue. Was it really January 2000 or had we returned to the 1960’s?
When I think back to that day I realize I had no idea of what I’d signed up for. How did I think it was going to work? I’m not sure I’d thought about how I was going to make friends – I just somehow figured I would.
Karen knew who I was immediately. In hindsight it wasn’t hard, I was dressed in a combination of shell shock and jet lag. On the way to the coffee I asked about the group, and in a mocking tone suggested the fact that there were official titles and positions was a little sad. “Welcome Co-ordinator” and “President” had left me sneering. Wasn’t this just a group of bored women with nothing better to do?
“You’re right” she said. “We don’t need the titles, I’ve been an expat for twenty years and we’ve been doing this quite effectively without the labels. Our organization has never needed a name. It’s called doing the right thing.”
If I had offended her, she wasn’t showing it, she had too much class for that. I imagine she’d met me or the equivalent of me hundreds of times.
“You’re going to need some help. You’re pregnant, you’ll need a doctor, you may want to meet other pregnant women or find out about ante natal classes. At some stage you’ll be asked to fill out a form with an emergency contact that isn’t your husband and you’ll realize you don’t have one – you need an emergency contact. You’ll need friends to get through this. This is where you’ll start”.
This morning I’m finalizing the schedule. The schedule that has a core group of eight women who will drive the little travellers home from school while I’m away. In addition to those eight are another five or six that will work as back ups. These are women who have looked me in the eye and said “ANYTHING, I mean it, just ask.”
This is what it’s all about. You land, you’re new, you’re awkward, you meet, you befriend, you laugh, you share, you rely and you’re thankful – so, so, thankful.
You need an emergency contact.
Oh how true this is. It’s all part of the great roller coaster we’ve put ourselves on.
I wish there was one of these in Auckland! 8 Years on and I still struggle with that form question!
Losing your support team of expat ladies has to be one of the hardest parts of moving to the new place. When we landed in KL, back in December of 2001, I knew not a soul. When my grandmother died just a couple of weeks later, there was no way I could go home. But fast forward just a couple of years and I WAS able to go home for a week when my elder sister gave birth to her twin girls. Everybody rallies round. They did it for me. I did it for them.
I’ve heard from friends (and experienced it briefly myself) that that loss is also one of the hardest parts of moving home home for good. You have family, sure, but they have their own lives and the support is just not the same as our expat families.
Keeping you all in my thoughts and prayers as you head back to Australia ahead of the little travelers.
Stacy
How true. How clever of women to get together and just make it happen. Safe travels
Not having an emergency contact is what I’ve always hated most about being new. And being able just a few months later to name three at once who you know you don’t even have to ask if it’s okay to put them on the form is one of the biggest miracles of expat life. And yes, repatriation seems scary because you’re afraid of losing that. Weird, that you’d feel more “at home” and “backed up” at the farthest corners if the planet than the place you started at. But it’s true.
Would not have managed on our first expat gig without the wonderful friendships made thru the International Women’s Club. It’s the first thing you look up – International Womens Club, American Womens Club, Australian and NZ Womens Club …. any frickin’ women’s club so (a) your diary is full, (b) you meet people in the same situation who can help and (c) find a friend.
That emergency contact is always the most difficult to find … and then don’t ya hate it when they leave before you LOL
x
Absolutely. I love your refreshing honesty in admitting that you were skeptical about needing an official (or semi-official) group to make friends. Because we really don’t think about how we’ll do that, do we? For me it was who to put as the emergency contact on my children’s school forms when we’d only been here a few weeks. You write the name of the kindest, savviest person you’ve met more than once because you know that in a pinch, they’ll be asking ‘what can I do?’ instead of ‘who? where do I know her from and why did she put my name down?’
I refer to them as “3 in the morning” friends. The people you knew you could call in the middle of the night and they would be there, no questions asked. The name arose from a friend who drove herself to the hospital at 3 in the morning, vomiting into a bucket on the passenger seat of her car and in great pain with gallstones, leaving her 2 teenagers sleeping in a locked villa (husband out-of-town on business). We all may not need that 3 in the morning friend, but we sure understand how important it is to have one.
I think that is the moment we realize that this is insane but this is reality. We need each other because there is no one else.
Hey Stacy, we were in KL at the same time! I completely identify with your comments, I often think the expat world is a bit like living in a small town. Thanks for your very kind thoughts, it means a lot xx
I often wonder if we’re just better at asking for help when we’re away because we all know we’re in the same boat?
Your friend is bloody amazing. Agreed, the sooner you find the 3 in the morning friend the better.
You’ve just made me realize that I’m not sure if I’ve even told our ICE (in case of emergency) person that they are our person! Which confirms your theory, I just figure she’ll be onto it when the call comes. Must let her know tomorrow!
Brings back memories! You don’t even need to move OS – just out of the city! I couldn’t enrol the girls in childcare or kinder without one. I mentioned that I didn’t know anyone well enough and was told to put my mum down. Who lives 3 hours away and didn’t have a mobile phone. Likely. Coz she’d need THAT phonecall! Love the 3 in the morning friends. I have a few now.
Ah, the memories! Over 25 years as a (now permanent) expat & single mum, there have been MANY wonderful women (AND not a few men) who have stepped up for me & mine in unlikely places, at ungodly times.
I pay it forward, I hope, by now being the go-to 3-in-the-morning friend to rather alot of people, helped now by the internet & a worldwide circle to call on:
“Your daughter’s stranded in Manila airport? give me a mo’; no worries, my friend P’s on the way”.
& when MY son & a friend were stranded on the Trans-Canada highway in the middle of nowhere, Alberta, I put out an SOS & a friend of a friend drove 2 hours to get them & take them to my friend who-I hadn’t seen in 20-odd years:-)