Expat Life: the Upsides (and there are many)

I've written somewhat extensively about the downsides of the expat lifestyle, from the distance that develops (both psychological and actual) with home to my fears of being a development spinster. I've tried really hard to dispel the myth that being an 'international jetsetter' is awesome, that living in the developing world is all romantically carrying starving children to safety and driving a UN-plated 4x4 through deserts/jungles/rubble/war zones.

I don't want to give expatdom a bad name, however. One of my friends just emailed me to tell me my blog 'quells his wanderlust and heart of darkness fantasies.' Glad I can pour water on that fire, but let me just stoke it a little bit as well. I (we) do it for a reason, this expat thing. Well, for many of them. I can only speak for myself, but for me, the upsides are as followed:

• Freedom. Serious fucking freedom. You get to live in places with either no rules (Sub-Saharan Africa) or so many rules you don't even try to follow them (Israel/Palestine). The police here wave at me when I drive down the one-way street by their HQ the wrong way. In South Africa, I once paid off a group of toll collectors to let me pass when I had no local currency by giving each one their own dollar bill. I illegally crossed a border into Guinea-Conakry while hiking and shared some high fives with the border guards before walking my way back to Senegal. There's a flip side to this, the 'when things go wrong' part, but that's sort of adrenaline-inducing anyway, which is also fun. In general, people are chiller, the rules are less intense, and you get to do more human negotiating then system negotiating. Not that the system (the bureaucracy) is not out of control. It is, it sure is. It's just that that bureaucracy can be negotiated with more than just waiting on hold to talk to a computer.

• Anonymity. This somewhat falls into the freedom category as well, but I love being in a place where no one knows me. It's sort of a weird contradiction in character, as I also love being in a place where everyone knows me, but sometimes, it's just lovely to get away. I distinctly remember a specific instance of this feeling: I was in Senegal, on the back of a motorbike an acquaintance was driving, bombing up a dirt road through villages along the coast line, wind in my hair. I all of a sudden thought: no one knows where I am. I am a tiny dot on a map. I don't exist right now to the outside world. The rush of freedom was so intense it was literally like a drug entering my system. It was overwhelming. Amazing. Slightly addictive.

• Grace. I've written a bit about this in the past, and I want to be careful here, I don't want to seem like some weirdo Orientalist. But, in general, I am comfortable making the assertion that there is more grace in my international life than in my domestic life. By this I mean, I sadly see way more human suffering. I also see way more human compassion, and acts of courage and dignity and endless, hard-earned humor. You've never really heard a joke until you've heard a pregnant woman whose been waiting in a cage for an hour in the steaming heat at an Israeli checkpoint crack one. It's easy to live untroubled in the US if you have enough money, etc. You can sort of float between yoga class and foodie this and that and the newest Apple products and drinks in just-divey-enough bars. I dunno, I sort of like the trouble - keeps me honest. It can mess you up (I know I've at certain points been totally traumatized by work I've done or stuff I've seen, and I see that in friends of mine), but it can also just deeply enrich your time on this scrap of earth like really nothing else can. What's the point of being in the garden if you're not going to get your hands dirty?

• Absurdity (and consequent flexibility). One of the consequences of the lack of rules (or abundance of them), lack of infrastructure, etc. is that the general 'absurdity' quotient is high. It takes a certain type of character to like this. I have that. Not all do. I remember going through the residency visa process in Morocco - a true study in absurdist developing world stamp-loving bureaucracy. It drove some of my peers mad. I found it hilarious. Of course you only have one copy of the form and will only allow me to photocopy it at a designated photocopy store! Of course the man with the stamp is napping in that chair across the room and will not be woken! Of course! Ride in a nice bus? Why, when I can sit with the sheep in the back of this truck for six hours! Oh no transport - I guess we'll walk overnight! You can fight the punches, or you can relax into them and roll with it (aka, 'be flexible'). That process of letting go I've found to be one of the most instructive and liberating in my whole life.

• Humanity. Feminism, Compassion, Friendship: these are all things I have been taught during my time in the Global South. I have never met a more fiercely feminist woman than my fully veiled Moroccan friend, a more compassionate man than my Iraqi grandpa, a more instructive culture to live in to learn about friendship than Morocco. Mostly, to be purely selfish, I get to revel in humanity (especially in the Arab world) in ways I would not be able to in the US. I can pick up stranger's kids and it's not weird. My lack of personal space instincts/need (so troublesome in the US) totally fit right in here. I can extend my hand to people in compassion or connection or humor. I don't need to get trussed up like a chicken to be taken seriously. I can be fatter. I can laugh louder. I can eat with my hands! GOD BLESS eating with your hands. In other words, I can be more of the sweaty, messy, needy human we all are deep inside. Most importantly: when I go to my local drugstore here to get something, the person behind the counter greets me and asks after me and my health, etc. When I do the same at Duane Reade, the person behind the counter does not interact with me as she's busy talking on her cellphone and the entire transaction takes place without any acknowledgment of each other. I think that's sick. That is not my cultural norm, be it 'of my culture'. Gross.

• Interest.  I get to learn and stretch and grow in all types of ways just by the fact of being outside my home culture.  Just figuring out how to rent an apartment, or ride the bus to work, or find a doctor, is always an adventurous lesson.  I've traveled a fair bit, but I don't feel as if I've even scratched the surface of the giant world we live in.  It's a big place full of different yet similar people.  Everyone loves family and children and good food and good jokes.  But what those things mean to different people, what a 'joke' or 'family' is interpreted as, runs the gamut.  Getting to high-five (or hold hands, as they do in Morocco) after a good joke with a total stranger from a totally different place than you is awesome.  Life is for the living!  

I'm sure there's more, and I'm sure people will add. But that about sums it up for me. I am a much better person for the time I've spent waiting for hours with nothing to do in some hot, dusty place for a ride that will never come. I am a much richer person for the people I've met who have shown me that there's way more than one way to live a good life. And the adventures I've had will keep me grinning far into my rocking chair years.