Stupid Things Expats Say When You Decide to Go Home

Most expats complain at one point or another about living abroad. It is just a fact of the lifestyle. Nothing is exactly as it was back home. Some things are better - salary, healthcare benefits, vacations, etc.

However, we all complain - lack of personal space, lack of freedom, foods we cannot find, beverages we cannot legally drink, call to prayers interrupting sleep after 4AM, missing friends and family, culture clashing because of different (strange) expectations and communication styles, etc.

We decided to move back home for two basic reasons: my husband would like the opportunity to seek a graduate degree, and I would like to start our family of non-furbabies in the US. We also miss our freedom. I am a runner and I have only ran alone once here. It was not relaxing mainly because of traffic, cultural expectations that demand women be chaperoned by a male family member and fully clothed. My elbows, kneecaps and shoulders were all too round and sexy for the drivers and passerbys to handle. I wore my baseball cap pulled down low and kept my sunglasses on despite the sun setting. I was annoyed, but safe. Here they don't mess around with punishing criminals and that made me feel safe....but I was still incredibly annoyed and vulnerable. I miss my freedom!

Anyway, this post is not about what we miss and why we are going home, but about the reactions we've had from others once they find out we're leaving the sandbox.

For starters, I kept our decision a secret for quite some time before I had to give my 6 months of notice at work. I did not want my employer to feel like I was happily screaming from the rooftops "We're outta here!" to everyone. However, I did tell a few close friends because I felt badly misleading them into thinking that we would be around again next year.

Once I told my employer I felt a huge sense of relief. Then I had to deal with the rumor mill at work. I remembered a friend who had left before also feeling annoyed at others' reactions to her leaving. I have been annoyed mainly because people assume things and they make judgements about my life without having been in it at all over the past 18 months.

Here's the stupidest reaction from someone who heard from another that I had turned in my resignation:

I was sitting in a common area at work and he approached me, kneeled down next to my chair and said with a lowered voice and cheshire cat's smile, "I just wanted to congratulate you on your resignation." I calmly replyed, "Oh, thanks." Even though I have not spent any social time whatsoever with this person, he continued with, "Hey, let's get together some time and we can talk about it." I know my face was probably saying, 'what the hell for?' but I calmly said, "Well, we're busy checking things off our list, so I don't know when that would be. However, if you're going to X's dinner on Friday, then we could talk about it there." He said he was busy. I can only guess that he wanted to hear some sad, dramatic, story about us hating it here and running home. He most likely wanted first hand knowledge of our private lives to spread around. (First hand knowledge in this part of othe world is rare, and prized.)

What he did was 1. approach me as if we were friends, 2. assume that there were some terrible news about why are leaving. Wrong. Wrong.

A few others made stupid comments like:

I just don't understand why you're going home when the US economy is so bad.

[Guess what? The world economy is bad. And hey - remember we are in the ESL/EFL field. And if you didn't know this before, that means that rich foreigners send their children to the US to study. If I were a car salesperson or a realestate agent, then I'd rethink leaving this stable job in this place that we don't really like to live.]

So you're quitting? Are you tired of the heat?

[It isn't quitting if you're giving notice (of 6 months!) and it ain't just the heat! There is a list of about a hundred things that are calling us back to the US.]

What will you do?

[Gee, I think I'll go to med school. Why are people so stupid. We've all got graduate degrees in what we're doing here. Why would I change my career just because I was heading home? Again, people send their kids to the US to learn English in intensive programs. And in all fairness the people who have asked this are either not from the US or they got their MA from online, so they do not know about the intensive programs.]

Hey, so I heard you were leaving. What will you do? Do you have a job yet? Where will you go? Are you worried? Why are you leaving? I've heard others are leaving and you know I just wonder. You know, you can out grow a place .... So, did you not like it here? . . . . [5 minutes later] . . . Wow! This is the longest conversation we've had.

[Yes, this is the first time we've had a conversation over 10 seconds. You're asking a lot of personal questions that you need to ask yourself. For example, why are you still here? What are you hiding from in the Gulf? And, who are you again?]

Do you have a job yet?

[Most asked this in January. I found myself thinking: What do you think? No, I don't and I think it is interesting that you are so concerned about my personal life when you never were before. Oh, wait. You are asking this to make yourself feel better about being trapped in this sandbox by not taking a risk and competing for a job back home. FYI: some US university intensive English programs do not hire teaching staff until 1 week before classes start, which might be late August for a fall semester job. No, I'm not worried, but thanks for sharing that you are worried for me.]

We'd probably move back, but we don't want to pay income taxes.

[Well, more power to ya! I would love to pay US taxes knowing that it builds and sustains our great nation. I love that our taxes will go towards roads, schools and other things that make life enjoyable instead of the government throwing money at projects in sandbox where people do not appreciate what it given to them.]

Will you guys live in the same place?

[I know we got married after I moved here, but I'm not done being married to my sweet M! I mean, even if we have to work as Wal-Mart greeters or Starbuck's as baristas to live in the same town and same apartment, we will. I think this question was asked by that particular person because he and his wife could not find jobs in the same place.]

Basically, some expats have been abroad so long that the thought of having to live in their home countries brings up a lot of fears. People don't want to pay for housing, pay taxes, pay for healthcare (Americans), or have to do their freaking job. In my opinion, there are a lot of people here that get too comfortable with a lifestyle that they really do not deserve. We've never hired a housemaid nor paid a man to wash our car. Yes, we've saved a lot of money here because of free housing and our tax-free double income. However, we have not lived above our American means. We've even managed to save as if we were paying utilities and rent back home each month. In addition, we're putting most of our savings towards our future home down payment and college education funds for our future children. The stereotypical expat lifestyle of wining and dining, hiring help, and doing the minimum at work (in my field of teaching anyhow), is just not who we are.

The other expats who are aghast that we're leaving the security and high salaries of the Arabian Gulf are those who have a lot more to lose if they went back home. We know people who are hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, who live well above their means (even in the Gulf), who haven't filed US taxes in years, who seem to buy whatever they want (why not buy a year membership to a hotel beach club for $5,000USD or more/year?), and who seem to simply not follow a budget regardless of their salary. We only have my $19,000 student loan as debt, which we pay every month. We know we will have to buy another vehicle once we get home, but we will not be buying a brand new luxury car. Also, we will continue spending based on our budget. Basically, money and buying crap isn't who we are.

We're going home. And we're excited about that. There's no salicious story. There's no drama. We aren't terrified of having to pay for housing or taxes. We'll do it because the trade off for us is well worth it. I'll get to run around our neighborhood in shorts and a sleeveless shirt, M will get to BBQ pork bacon on a grill in our backyard while we sip margaritas, and we'll eventually have children who will be closer to their grandparents and our culture.

Until Next Time,

WW

Photo credit: http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/

Cats!

So we are leaving in about a week. While our departure couldn't come any sooner, I'm getting pretty sad about leaving our furbabies. I wanted to post another blog about Qatar, but cannot focus on anything worthy to write about here. In fact, when I'm READY to leave a place I'm very much in the 2nd place long before I leave the 1st place. The heat, lack of things to do outside, and my desire to be in the US have given me a bad attitude about all things Qatar. With the heat index regularly at 120-145F I just want to hibernate in our apartment until we leave to catch our flight. I'm also starting to get nervous that some unforeseen event will delay our trip home like I'll get in a car wreck or some other terrible thing!

So, here's a little photo montage of our furbabies:

Until next time,

WW

Terrible Wife, Great Running Partner

We are still training for the Rock 'n' Roll Chicago 1/2 Marathon that is on August 1st. We've also been taking co-ed group fitness classes at Aspire. I also had a consultation with a personal trainer to get set up on using the weight room. I like using the weights because I can go down a list of nicely organized exercises that my trainer (a triathlete from New Zealand) made just for me. I also really like the co-ed classes more than the women's classes because they are more difficult. The Group Fitness class has each person moving every 2 minutes to different stations in groups of 3 or 4. In the Total Fat Loss class we stay at stations for 4 minutes. By the time we're half way around the room M and I both are dripping with sweat. I love it! However, after two weekends of not doing our long run, we made a fatal error the night before our run.

Last week we decided to go to the Thursday night Total Fat Loss class with the fantastic-sub-five-foot-no-bullshit-allowed-no-excuses-trainer named George. He is a like a muscle bound pit bull . . . from Romania. He was wearing a tank top instead of a t-shirt last week and M and I couldn't believe how stacked he was! M heard he was a former Olympic gymnast (Doha the Branson, Missouri, of the Gulf - where former Olympians go to retire . . . ) George also commands the room with his voice. We had already started at various stations around the room when an Arab guy poked his head in and asked to join the class. George shot a quick look at the Arab and barked "Yes, go, check in, and when you come back 20 push ups!" Like I mentioned before, George doesn't mess around. So why in the heck we thought it was a good idea to take his class the night before our long run is beyond me.

I have to stop this story here to add some personal background. In 2008 I ran 7 half marathons and 2 marathons. That was while I was living in Seoul, South Korea, with one race being in Hong Kong. In Seoul there is the most amazing support system of fellow crazy runners and plenty of races in Seoul and all over Korea to enjoy. I was in heaven to say the least. I was single, working, traveling, running, and racing a lot. In fact, there was one month when I ran two half marathons. A friend jokingly asked, "Why didn't you just run one marathon and get it over with?" I went to races out of town by bus or train. I went with some great friends and also alone. I went to the Cherwon DMZ Half Marathon alone and spent the whole day speaking Korean. I will never forget that experience of running past South Korea DMZ guard towers with soldiers standing up on top and of running through villages and having Korean ajummas waving at me and cheering me on while smiling. I loved traveling throughout Korea and running. However, simply put, I was addicted and wanted to spend all my free time either preparing or actually competing. I wasn't great at it, but I had some amazing life changing races. Training and racing became me. I was a bona fide finisher's medal hording, race t-shirt collecting, early weekend morning training, monthly racing "marathoner" while in Korea.

Now that we live in Qatar things have changed. I honestly thought the only obstacle to maintaining my previous running and racing lifestyle would be the weather, but I was wrong. There is a small group of people who meet each weekend to run along The Corniche, but M and I stopped going last fall because we hated getting up early to meet strangers for a run along a brick (ouch!) path. Perhaps equally upsetting is the fact that there are practically no races in Qatar. I hear about some sort of "Women's Mini-marathon" or something like that. What the heck is a "mini-marathon"? Call it what it is - a 5k fun run/walk! I didn't run that race. It made me angry just thinking about it. However, M and I found a proper half marathon in the UAE for a nice weekend in February. We had a great time, but with less intense training I felt like it was just a training run rather than a race.

I miss racing like I used to do in Seoul. I miss feeling like I am good at running. I miss being known as "a runner" or better yet, "a marathoner" to others, but mostly to myself. I miss training hard and feeling good even though it kind of kills my social life. And I've let my husband (a marathoner and triathlete as well) know this in more than a few conversations since we moved here. I just hope we can visit Seoul and run a race there so he can experience it all.

So we recommitted ourselves to training. We've run a little more in the heat than was probably wise, and decided that we just can't change the weather. However, we can get up earlier when it isn't so darn hot. We decided this before George's Total Fat Loss class last week. We had been getting up at 5:00AM to run, but by the time we got out the door it was 5:20AM and the sun was glaring down on us.

Therefore, last Thursday night I set the alarm for 4:00AM. We would run 7 miles - the most we'd run since our February half marathon. For a half marathon we should run at least one 12 mile run about two weeks before the race. We've got time, but not much considering we've only ran 5-6 miles each time we've ran since our last half marathon and we skipped two weekends in a row. As soon as the alarm went off at 4:00AM I jumped up excited and ready to run. The cats were confused and looked a little perturbed. I know Frankie said to Sophia, "Hey, isn't it our job to wake them up?!" M wasn't trilled but I found a way to get him out of bed. I have to bluff and pretend like I'm going to run on the mean streets of Doha alone and then he's up!

Just for the record it was a nice cool 93F at 4:00AM on that Friday, June 25th. I was immediately in love with the idea of getting up every weekend in Doha at 4:00AM. I cannot tell you how incredibly refreshing it was to run at that time in that cool of weather. Right now it is a hot 95F but the "realfeel" temperature is 100F. In the past few weeks the "realfeel" temperature got up near 120F. What does that feel like? Basically, imagine putting your body into an oven, or turning a thousand hot hair dryers onto your body.

Until Next Time,

WW

Photo credit: Seoul Flyer's Running Club President, Jae Kim and me.