“Before You Click Your Heels Three Times…Is There Really No Place Like Home?”
Last week, Oroneta tagged me with a meme about living the expatriate life.
Now, I know Duluth is far North, we all talk like Canadians here as we putter “aboot the hoose,” people do willingly eat herring, and we celebrate St. Urho’s Day, but I have to admit, however reluctantly, that I’m still technically in the United States, the country of my birth. And although I’ve traveled a fair amount in my FORTY long years–even living for four months in Dublin–I can’t say that I’ve really set up shop in another country long or deeply enough to have ever felt that my “real” life was taking place in another country. At best, I’ve only had that sensation the morning after a big night of drinking, when I’ve woken up bewildered, confused, and wondering where my shoes went.
Luckily, I will still answer Oroneta’s challenge, for I have an expat in my life, my sister, Kirsten (Yes, yes, you’re right! She was named after opera singer Kirsten Flagstad!) Some of you faithful readers might remember that my family spent two weeks in Guatemala over Christmastime; it was to visit Kirsten that we made the trip.
Okay, and because we needed some new tablecloths.
At any rate, since I’m in the midst of a particularly busy week–ever since I turned FORTY, it’s just go, go, go, what with the big job promotion, all of my community service, volunteering at the kids’ schools, retiling the playhouse floor, opening a free dental clinic, and, um, trying to get through the entire boxed set of Sports Night–I’m going to hand over the rest of this post to Guest Blogger Kirsten, who has much to say about her life as an expatriate (just for your edification, she’s also done stints in the Peace Corps in Belize and Moldova; in a few months, she’ll be leaving behind her current job in Guatemala City and heading back to her teaching position with Denver Public Schools, which she fled two years ago in the face of the strictures and penalties inherent in the No Child Left Behind act).
Yea, this this is Kirsten. Nice buckers, eh? Here she goes:
There are stages of grieving, stages of detoxifying
and stages of living and leaving a country…I’m in the
stage of “I can’t wait to get out of here and I’m
never, EVER coming back”…and you ask me to name things
I like, even love, about this place?? What? Are you
trying to make me reflective on this experience
already??
Sigh….ok, here goes…
Name five things you love in your new country:
1. The textiles
2. The Mayan ruins
3. Being completely free and unmonitored in whatever I
do in my job
4. The couple of friends I’ve made who I think are
truly, deep-down good people
5. ???
Name four things that you miss from your native
country:
1. Standards in education (and it was the strictness
of which I was running from by coming here!)
2. Friends who share a common understanding of
..things, life…
3. Driving a car
4. Air quality standards (especially, emissions
standards!! Egads!)
Name three things (I’m making it four!) that annoy you
a bit (or a lot) in your new country:
1. Pollution (air pollution, littering, snot wads on
the sidewalk…)
2. The idea that outright lying to someone is actually
being polite…
3. Lack of personal safety (there are machine guns at
every business, residence…)
4. The acceptance and promotion of class differences
Name two things that surprise you (or surprised you in
the beginning) in your new country:
1. The number of people who speak English really well
2. The level of wealth and luxury enjoyed by the 13
ruling families and the lack of shame they exhibit in
treating the “rest” of the people here as unworthy
beings
Name one thing that you would miss terribly in your
new country, if you had to leave it:
IF I had to leave it? I AM leaving it! I’ve got a
countdown going! But, I’ll miss a teacher I work
with; she’s one of those truly, good people…I’ll
probably also miss the amount of free time I have here
to just read and watch TV. (I’m already calling my
Guatemala experience “my two years of TV watching…”)
Gracias, hermana, for the post. I daresay you might miss a few of the kiddles, too.
So how about the rest of y’all? When you’ve lived or traveled abroad, what have you loved and hated the most?
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