WHAT EXPATS CAN DO

…. to bring hope to the world

An Expat South of the World

In this article Claudia reflects on the differences between being an expat south or north of the world.

 

When I left Indonesia in May 2018, I knew I was not only saying goodbye to the country but to a whole period of my life, spent mostly in the southern part of the world. From then on, I knew that I would have to choose my destinations carefully. My third episode of Dengue fever had taken a serious toll on me: I had developed a severe thrombocytopenia, that would thereafter put me at high risk in any country where mosquito bites could  potentially lead to malaria or yellow fever. Or where a blood transfusion, if needed, could put me at risk because the treatment of blood was unreliable.

Look at this picture, which shows the global distribution of seven major vector-borne diseases (malaria, lymphatic filariasis, leishmaniasis, dengue, Japanese encephalitis, yellow fever and Chagas disease):

 

 

Out of the nine countries where I have lived since 1989, seven are marked in blue or dark green. When leaving Indonesia, it was clear to me that if I wanted to continue my life as an expat, I would have to head towards less exotic destinations.

And so, after a pause in my native Italy, I joined my husband in 2019, in Geneva, Switzerland, a huge novelty for me, since it was my first destination in Europe. When I moved there, I recalled those moments during the first years of managing Expatclic, when I got in touch with expats in European capitals or in big American cities. I remember always feeling a touch of envy for I had never lived as an expat in a Western or European culture. Now In Geneva, I wondered how such an experience in a place whose basic cultural assumptions I shared and where, presumably, I was largely understood, was going to take shape.

 

 

So there I was, trying to discern the benefits of being an expat in Geneva. And at a particular moment, they were many. Living in Geneva meant being physically close to my sons and to my mother. I planned to travel a lot. The strategic position of the city, in the heart of Europe, makes it possible to reach many destinations in little time and with no particular worries.

From a health standpoint, I enjoyed being relaxed. No mosquito bite would kill me, and in case of sudden hemorrhage, I would be promptly and safely treated. And in terms of communication, being a French speaker, understanding and being understood was an enormous relief, after not being able to communicate for years while living in countries where I did not speak the language because it would have taken me too long to acquire a reasonable proficiency.

Another aspect of living in Geneva that excited me was the abundant offer of movies, theatre shows, concerts and museums, and all the wonderful exhibitions I had so intensely missed during my latest period in Indonesia.

And then COVID changed all that. I lost my mother, travelling was prohibited, all places of culture were closed, and the fear of falling sick became as intense as it had been when I was in Jakarta because I knew the health structures were stretched to the limits of their capacities.

Even before COVID, though, I had started to realize that maybe all the positive points that marked my experience as an expat in the Western world were not enough to compensate for the loss of meaning that characterized my experiences of living abroad.

For me, it has always been about growing with people, about going through change after witnessing things that were so different from what I had known, and then coming out of the shock renewed and more open-minded. Furthermore, I believe that it is quite impossible to go through such life-changing moments if one does not immerse oneself in very different cultures and situations.

The most obvious disparity for me, however, is the unequal distribution of privilege. There is a huge difference between the state of mind of people who do not have to fight for their survival, and those who do. In my experiences abroad, I have mostly been in contact with the latter. Because of the nature of my husband’s work, the countries we were destined to had been hit by wars, natural disasters, famine, and poverty. These events shape people’s minds, life philosophy, and values in a totally different way from those who do not have to worry about a roof over their head, food on the table, their physical safety, and the health of their children.

I realized that repeated exposure to people whose whole life structure was built on uncertainty, and who did not have all the freedom and privileges we mostly enjoy in our Western world, slowly changed not only my way of seeing things, but the places where I find meaning in life.

Besides, throughout my life abroad I have been constantly impacted by what I call positive culture shocks. Having lived in cultures where things are seen and done quite differently from what I was brought up to consider as correct or proper, I have repeatedly been shaken in my most basic assumptions about life and how relationships must develop. Witnessing new ways and finding new meanings has become vital nourishment for me. It was only when I moved to Geneva that I slowly realized all this and started missing it.

But there is much more I miss. Having lived most of my life abroad in countries where the collective side of life is far more enhanced than it is in the West, I realized how much better I felt surrounded by a generally more human attitude towards life and relationships. Because it is when people are brought up in groups rather than in small, closed families that there is a greater sense of identity and belonging to the whole and not just to the self. Generally speaking, in this kind of culture, such as Indonesian or Palestinian, contact between people is warmer, more cheerful, more open to the other – and to diversity.

I honestly do not know what I miss more: the atmosphere of some far away cultures, or myself existing within cultures so far away from mine. What I do know is that I have to find new ways to still feel connected to the immense treasure that such extreme experiences have given me.

 

Claudia Landini
Geneva, Switzerland
May 2021

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Changing our Concept of Home to Find HOPE

A reflection of Chris O’Shaughnessy on how we can change the concept of home to find hope.

 

home to find hopeMany sociologists agree that society is losing its ability to maintain community. More people feel disconnected, lonely, and hopeless: emotionally homeless.

Expats benefit from a lifestyle which challenges them to actively seek, build, and participate in community – while much of the world is unaware of the increasing need to.

The need to belong hasn’t changed, but how we accomplish and express it in light of technological and sociological developments has. Rather than just seek home in a traditional sense, expats can be empowered to intentionally create new models of home based on interdependent community that benefit the world at large.

Economic factors, sociological trends, and the deteriorating meta-narrative and increasingly atomized social constructs of post-modern society are changing the way we relate with each other. Friendships used to be second-order needs for much of the world: they were byproducts of existing systems – they grew on existing structures (such as jobs, locations, and shared needs), often unintentionally (though still needing nurturing, of course). But all of our modern advances mean that we’re removing the structures that relationships used to form around.

Our newly expanded yearning for privacy has also caused a giant shift in how we view relationships with other people. We have been so enticed by the ability to bare our souls online that we’ve been stunned into a panic with just how bare our souls can be. We constantly hear about the need to protect privacy online, from the government, etc. It would be naive to think this isn’t slipping into our minds and leaking out on how we view others. We’re less likely to “bother” our neighbors because we want to respect their privacy. We fear social visits, conversation with any depth, or an attempt to go below the surface with others may be invasive.

In 1985 most people said they had three close friends. In 2004 the most common number was zero… Having few friends is more dangerous than obesity and is the equivalent health risk of smoking 15 cigarettes a day.” – Eric Barker (How To Make Friends Easily And Strengthen The Friendships You Have, 2014)

home to find hopePeople have to actually go and find friends now, more often and possibly more frequently than before. For a long time, that was a task reserved more for TCKs, migrant and transient people, or displaced people… but more and more it’s a task for everyone, and many aren’t prepared for, let alone aware of the need to do so.

Here’s where hope comes in, or rather where it doesn’t come in. Hope is inherently an external force: it’s something we bring into ourselves. I don’t believe we can generate hope solely on our own. I think we inspire each other and bring each other hope. But the more self-sufficient, independent, lonely lives we lead, the more we live out atomized individual stories, the more we remove conduits for hope to flow. If we’re disconnected, there is nowhere for hope to flow in or out.

Expats, people who work with expats, TCKs, and globally minded people have a call to action as they are often more aware of the stronger pull people feel to form community when they are displaced – a far more recognizable motivation to intentionally build community or a sense of home because they know they are in need of a place to belong. I’m not saying it’s always easy, I’m not ignoring the fact that for many it’s an incredible challenge. I’m saying that those issues are no longer reserved just for TCKs and expats.

I believe home (the sense of safety, belonging, community and interdependence) is more and more a fleeting thing the world over, and that requires our attention.

Home must become less a passive retreat and more an active pursuit.

We have something the world needs: the knowledge that we have moved past interdependence but still need it, and the drive to make a difference.

Practical suggestions for transforming ‘home’:

Work WITH technology

Social media (like junk food) isn’t going to go away. In fact, it’s incredibly useful – it just can’t supplant healthy interdependent community. For example, Nextdoor.com connects local neighborhoods to accomplish real interaction through an online portal people are comfortable with.

Incentivize community

‘High Occupancy Vehicle’ lanes (or carpool lanes) are a great example. Since interdependence is no longer necessary in many practical ways, but necessary to be healthy, we have to be creative in thinking of ways to reward its intentional reintroduction. Healthy eating campaigns, recycling campaigns and countless other initiatives have relied on this for success.

Be intentionally vulnerable

To need someone is to be vulnerable. Interdependence requires us to need and be needed – and that’s only going to happen when those with strong enough drive and belief take the initiative in being vulnerable and allow others to experience first hand the benefits of being needed and needing in return.

 

Christopher O’Shaughnessy
May 2019

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What I saw today – Not Just A Number, International Friends Play&Share

I don’t know if what I saw today matches our current Challenge, but for sure curiosity was what pushed me to jump into my car and go to “International Friends Play&Share” event. I already knew about the project and its importance, but I had never visited them. Curiosity is what you need to go out of your comfort zone and create connections in real life.

 

I joined them at their usual weekly meeting.
There was a medium-sized community hall.
There were carpets and toys on the floor.
There were hot drinks, cakes and snacks.
There were women, of different ages.
And there were their toddlers.
There was also a grandma accompanying her daughter, and there was me, a middle-age woman, whose children are definitively too old to participate.
A diversified group of women.
A young one, who clearly knew how to handle toddler educational activities, was leading the games.
And then, more toys, interactive games with children, music, singing in three or four different languages, dancing, and even a singing exercise for the adults.
A very pleasant and enjoyable hour.

children paintingIt could have been an ordinary well organized expat playgroup, like many I used to go to with my children in the past and in other countries.
In this group there were 2 people from Finland, 1 from Australia, 1 from Italy, 1 from Syria, 1 from Georgia, 1 from South Africa.
Two of them were refugees, but to anybody entering the room while we were playing with the children, it would have been difficult to understand who was coming from where.
All barriers were left outside the door: you don’t need cultural norms or a specific language to play with a toddler… just a carpet, some toys, materials to touch and manipulate, music, dance. That’s it.

The magic is done!

What I saw today was a group of women enjoying an hour of their time with their children, leaving their complicated lives outside the door for a while, relaxing and connecting with other women, most of them never met before.

Empathy is possible, it is real, it happens.
It happened this morning at “Not Just a Number”, it happens every Thursday morning there.
We can make it happen every day in our lives.
And it is not so difficult.

Cristina Baldan, November 2016


 

International Friends Play & Share
www.notjustanumber.org
Emma and Poyer, both expats, are the souls behind this project and I asked them introduce it to you.

As newly arrived expats, we met in September 2015 at the Maastricht International Playgroup along with another dear friend, Christa Somers. This weekly gathering gave each of us a firm grounding and social outlet as internationals in this new environment. It allowed us to feel welcome, supported, and comfortable as we began to find our way in this new town.

We discovered we shared concern about the welfare of newly arrived refugees and together we envisioned welcoming refugee families into the fold of the international community using the playgroup concept. Our idea was supported by comments from a very active local social entrepreneur and Syrian refugee, Nour Khatib, who is a board member of the local refugee support NGO called Not Just a Number. He told us that while there were several local NGOs supporting refugees, none had managed to facilitate connection between local Maastricht community and a particular subgroup of the refugees living at the local shelter – namely mothers with young children.

what-i-saw-today2These women continued to be socially isolated and had little reason to leave the refugee shelter except to shop for food and clothing. Most of their time is spent indoors, caring for their young children without the aid of their own toys or care items, such as pushchairs/buggies and highchairs. We believed the playgroup concept would be a good way to reach out to these women and children. It also held promise of a way to pass on things like clothes, toys and baby-care items – things that are readily available from international families in our networks who are often on the move.

With the help of a large group of supporters — mostly parents of students attending the United World College Maastricht — we set ourselves up in the football clubhouse next door to the Maastricht Asiel Zoekers Centrum and began running weekly playgroup mornings from December 1stGrowth of the playgroup was rapid and it wasn’t long before people waiting to access the donated items overtook our comfortable play space. Our solution was to separate the arms of the project, thus creating International Friends Play and International Friends Share. We scheduled separate days and recruited a new team of volunteers.

International Ffriends Play is now a calm environment where mothers can enjoy a hot drink, snacks and a chat while our children play. The inclusion of music classes has injected high energy and fun, and serves as the perfect ice-breaker for new visitors. Professional musician Jana Debusk has brought great enthusiasm and a wealth of knowledge, sharing songs and rhythms from around the world through her collaboration with the Funikijam music program in New York.

International Friends Share attracts an average of 50 visitors every Monday within a 3-hour ‘shopping’ period and we pass on about 600 donated items within that time. About 12 volunteers help to run this event and collectively they work over 70 hours in that single day. Re-sorting the messy aftermath occurs on Tuesdays, with another team of about 6 collectively working 20 hours.

The wealth of wisdom, skill, and diversity on our volunteer teams has ensured the success of these projects and ongoing support of refugees in Maastricht.  Our shared commitment to serve community holds us firmly together and it is the broad skill set we can call on that ensures results. Our expat members have purchased supplies, shared freighting resources, provided multiple language translations for flyers and posters, given clothing and household donations, rejuvenated old discarded bicycles, fetched, carried, sorted and re-sorted many tons of clothing and most importantly they have given greatly of their time.

Our expat community is now an integral part of the cultural experience that is shaping the social integration of hundreds of refugees seeking a new life in the Netherlands.  In turn, our lives have been enriched as we each discover that we are all cut from the same cloth and by working together we can flourish.

 

Emma Bendall and Poyer Conforte
Co-founders – International Friends Play & Share
Not Just a Number
www.notjustanumber.org

 

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Your voice with the voice of others

Claudia interviewed Nicoletta Zannoni, flautist and teacher, who studied music in Italy and presently lives and works in Ramallah, Palestine. Nicoletta participates in our monthly challenge with…music!

 

Some time ago, you shared these words in an interview

What in music has always fascinated, attracted and pushed me to study, is the possibility of playing ‘together’, to put my voice with the voices of others who are completely different from me. The resulting combination is beautiful…very beautiful! The richness of this togetherness is made possible thanks to the cooperation and the coming together of differences, of things sometimes opposed, contrary one to another, that can, however, live together and create something new and beautiful

I find that wonderful and a perfect example of the power of music. In your experience, is playing together influenced by the cultures that participate in the work? Will the result be different if a piece is played by people that come from the same national culture or by people who come from ten different cultures?

nicoletta-mainI am talking about people in a group, let’s say as in chamber music, where there is no conductor, but where music is created by the members of the group relating one to the other.

In playing together, as in any form of teamwork, the background of the participants certainly plays an important role. During rehearsal, different ways of thinking, different styles and techniques will emerge. The same passage will be interpreted in contrasting ways that will have to be harmonized. This allows us to learn new things while offering what we know, acquiring insights that may be very different from our usual way of making music – and this is why it is so good to discover these new ways: you would never otherwise have thought about them!

In my experience, playing with people of different nationalities is very enriching; each one brings a personal and cultural contribution that is new to the other, and it is fascinating to put them together while yet not losing the richness each one expresses when playing or talking about the music of his culture or nation. I remember a concert with a Japanese colleague, and the preparation of some Japanese traditional songs…I still get tears in my eyes!

It’s clear that the one who plays – the artist – directly enjoys this privileged means of mingling with other cultures, learning about them, taking thought, and absorbing something new. On the other hand, how can those who, like me, do not play, use music to be “touched” by its power? I am talking from the point of view of approaching different cultures, of understanding diversity…

Music works in many ways, and before “making” it, there is of course the listening. Letting oneself be touched by the music of a country – whether one is a musician or not – means going to concerts, turning on the local radio when one is driving, maybe listening to the music played in the gym, in the machine hall…I believe all this is the quickest and simplest way through which music opens a door on another culture. The first reaction will probably be of not being comfortable with what one listens to (I think in particular of the strong differences in musical systems, like moving from Western to Arab music for instance) and of feeling estranged… These sounds, however, will quickly become familiar and part of the landscape.

nicoletta5I so much appreciate these comments because they are perfectly in line with the aims of our project, ‘What Expats Can Do’. The idea is to find ways to get closer to the cultures that host us, so that the unknown becomes more and more familiar and does not frighten us. We are convinced that music is a wonderful way to do it. In some situations it is also a great way to break down barriers and “universalize” feelings. You have played (and have led others to play) with people from many walks of life – would you say that music is a language that contributes to minimize conflicts?

Music is certainly a language that helps different people and cultures to get close; sometimes it is more direct than a thousand speeches and declarations, because it touches a deep part in each one of us. However, it must be said that music alone is not enough: if two people with a conflict sit down and play together, and thanks to music can collaborate, this does not mean that the conflict between them is solved. It remains. But a work together has been done; one had to relate to the other: this could be the first step towards knowing the other and his story. So, it is true that music is very powerful in putting people in relationship one to another, but it is only the first of a series of steps that may in the end allow the breaking down of walls.

 

 

Nicoletta Zannoni
Ramallah, Palestine

October 2016

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Life from a motorbike

Motherhood is something that always makes me feel close to women, no matter where they come from. Distance disappears when mothers talk about their children. In Jakarta, where I presently live, there is a habit of travelling with the whole family on a motorbike – children included – often without helm, and this is something that makes me feel unease because I know I would never share a motorbike with more than one person, and certainly never put my small child on it without a helmet. But this is my way. I know there’s a wider picture. I wrote the story below in an attempt to identify myself in the feelings that go beyond the danger, and that are common to all families – love, warmth, sense of unity and belonging.

 

Life from a Motorbike

‘Open it!’ My mom’s eyes are glowing. I lift the upper part of the cardboard box and there it is, a bright new motorbike helmet, exactly like my father’s, orange with a black tiger on it, but smaller.

“Happy birthday.” My dad grins. He knows how much I wanted it. Children’s helmets have appeared recently in Jakarta, and they are expensive. Still, we spend a lot of time on my dad’s motorbike, and we hold every object and rituals linked to it in high consideration.

life-on-a-motorbike2My family is not rich. My mom works as a maid and my dad moves from one casual job to another. The motorbike is essential for my mom to reach work every day, for my dad to job-hunt, and for us to go to school. Every morning, when it’s time to leave the house, my sister and I argue:

“Angun, today it’s my turn to sit in front.”

“No way,” I reply.

“Mom said I could ride in front the whole week if I helped her clean the room.”

The roar of the engine interrupts the discussion, and my father heaves us onto the motorbike. He is the one who usually drives it, though my mom is not a bad driver at all, and occasionally takes the handlebars.

We take our seats, trying all combinations: me and my sister sandwiched between Mom and Dad; Dad, me, Mom and my sister in the back; me in front, then Dad, sister and Mom. My dad is not keen on having me sitting in front. I don’t think he worries for my well-being, though. He probably wants to have a bit of free space to play with his phone at traffic lights.

life-on-a-motorbike4The trip is long. We leave early from our neighbourhood in the suburbs of Jakarta, a depressed area packed with makeshift homes where sewage flows in the open, and rats share space with humans. Hanging laundry and piles of garbage dot the area, until the first shops appear, taking a bit of the squalor away.

We take a shortcut under a big grey bridge, which takes us straight to the first skyscrapers. Huge buildings with shining panes are surrounded by one-storey wooden houses where everything is done outside: Women wash their laundry, children play, men chat and smoke.

I have a lot of time to absorb all the details. Some of the traffic lights in and around Jakarta last forever. Lots of bikers crowd under them and patiently wait for their turn to go. You can feel the stress mounting after a couple of minutes. In the heat it’s made even worse by the revving engines: drivers pump the gas, bikes inch forward, engaging in a tense battle to conquer a meter.

I spend my time at traffic lights looking around. I love to see the patterns on the helmets – some are plain black or white, others have colourful designs that entertain my eyes for a while. I enjoy observing what other families on motorbikes do to kill time during the long wait. Children mostly sleep. Adults check their phones, chat with the neighbouring biker, smoke a cigarette or clean their nose and ears. All around engines fume and roar. Cars are kept behind.

You see, motorbikes are like water in Jakarta, they naturally occupy all free space and adapt to the surroundings. So it is always an army of two wheels in front of and around cars. Cars are less interesting anyway. Most of them have darkened windows, which makes it difficult to see what goes on inside.

life-on-a-motorbikeSome traffic lights are more interesting than others because of the hawkers. It is fun to see new things coming up all the time – colourful feather dusters are my favourite, they come in bright blue, pink, yellow and green, and I would give an arm and a leg to be able to touch them and feel the softness of the feathers. At the beginning of the year, huge calendars are on sale, and after elections, the portrait of the president and vice president are at all traffic lights.

I particularly love a junction where a little girl with a tiny blue guitar entertains drivers for a coin. Her mother moves from one car to another selling tissues, and the girl approaches the cars, barely reaching the windows, and plays an off-key tune. I can’t say if I am more envious of the sense of freedom she exudes, or of her bright blue guitar: I would do anything to have it.

But I always look forward to the traffic light where we sometimes meet the foreign woman. The first morning I saw her I was strangely tired. I leaned against my mom’s back, and was not interested in what was going on around me. I could barely keep my eyes open. Through the mist of fumes I suddenly saw a woman in a nearby car watching me. Unlike like the other cars, hers had open windows. What struck me most though, was that she was different from anyone I knew. She was fair-haired and her eyes were blue. I shuddered and turned away.

life-on-a-motorbike3A few days later, at the same traffic light, her car was close to our motorbike again, her window open. She flashed me a huge smile and spoke to me. She was using my language, but I could not understand what she was saying. She said: “Saya dari Italia.” I had never heard that word, Italia, before. Plus, I was intimidated by how strange she looked, with her hair cut short and many different necklaces around her neck.

One day, a full week after I had last seen her, her car was at our side. She was holding a little black box. I was scared. My mom must have felt my tension on her back, and turned to check. The woman talked to her in a different language, but my mom could not understand her either. Other bikers joined the conversation. In a mixture of English, Bahasa Indonesia and lots of gestures, she explained that she was writing a piece to describe life on motorbikes in Jakarta, and needed to have a picture of a family on a motorbike. The box was called a camera and it was a machine that made pictures. She took one. My parents smiled and everybody around applauded.

She’s not scary any more: I smile and wave every time I see her now. It makes going to school easier. I don’t like leaving my parents in the morning. My mom says that school can teach me a lot, but I know that nothing compares to what I learn when I travel through Jakarta on my dad’s motorbike.

 

Claudia Landini
Jakarta, Indonesia
October 2016

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