A few of my expat friends have been sharing a blog post written by an expat wife in Jakarta. In this post she talks about how expat wives are now called "trailing spouses" presumably because there are more and more expat husbands making the sacrifice to leave careers and move across the globe for their partner's career. I love how we are described as dripping in diamonds and designer handbags and drunk by lunch…not entirely true but we might be dripping in affordable, hand-made local jewelry and bags that are beautiful none the less. And, we may be drunk most weekends at fabulous parties that we could never afford to throw back in our home countries (or have the time to attend in our home countries.)
Being a trailing spouse is an amazing experience, in India anyway, because we have lots of free time to explore whatever we wish - education, volunteering, sight seeing, lazy afternoons at the pool. Our children are in school from 7:30-4:30 and our houses are cleaned by someone else and our meals are cooked by someone else, my main responsibility is to grocery shop (and I mess that up often!) And, the biggest difference I've found in my lifestyle here vs. my lifestyle at home is that I am not constantly running around going to practices and games and school events. Our evenings are our evenings and our weekends are our weekends. Yet, even with this life of leisure we have many frustrations…there are people constantly in the house. Electricians when the fire hazard of our electrical systems break usually once a week. Plumbers when my hair falls out (at a scary pace) and clogs the drain each week. The power goes out and the Internet fails and every Indian experience is full of contradiction and illogical process. Yet, we are in it together.
I arrived in Bangalore knowing no one and with unhappy children (and everyone knows a parent is only as happy as their unhappiest child) and a lack of understanding of how anything worked. But, within 24 hours I was visiting with the other spouses of Fidelity employees. They were providing advice on how to hire a housekeeper, and which hospitals and doctors were the best and where to go to shop. And they invited me into their worlds and introduced me to their friends and my kids to their kids and before I knew it I was part of a group. Very much like freshman year in college when you arrive knowing nothing and nobody and within a week you know how to move around campus and have found life long friends. "What's your major" has been replaced with, "where are you from and how long have you been here?" These are usually followed up with, "where can I get decent toilet paper?"
Within a few short months I feel like I have been here for ages and I've made friends with people that are so different from me and yet so similar because of our experiences. I have friends from the states and South Africa and Australia and Holland and Sweden and the UK. I have dozens of people I can call at anytime to find a ride somewhere or to go shopping with or to simply sit and vent with.
When I told people I was moving to India for two years the reactions varied from excitement to sadness to "are you freaking kidding me?" I kept assuring everyone that two years would fly by and I would slide right back into my life in Brookline. Now, I'm not sure how I will slide back into the routine of housework and chauffeuring kids around town. I'm glad I can continue to enjoy this craziness for a bit longer. And maybe I can bring some of this lifestyle back with me.
I'm off now to drape myself in my diamonds and get drunk at lunch :)
Being a trailing spouse is an amazing experience, in India anyway, because we have lots of free time to explore whatever we wish - education, volunteering, sight seeing, lazy afternoons at the pool. Our children are in school from 7:30-4:30 and our houses are cleaned by someone else and our meals are cooked by someone else, my main responsibility is to grocery shop (and I mess that up often!) And, the biggest difference I've found in my lifestyle here vs. my lifestyle at home is that I am not constantly running around going to practices and games and school events. Our evenings are our evenings and our weekends are our weekends. Yet, even with this life of leisure we have many frustrations…there are people constantly in the house. Electricians when the fire hazard of our electrical systems break usually once a week. Plumbers when my hair falls out (at a scary pace) and clogs the drain each week. The power goes out and the Internet fails and every Indian experience is full of contradiction and illogical process. Yet, we are in it together.
I arrived in Bangalore knowing no one and with unhappy children (and everyone knows a parent is only as happy as their unhappiest child) and a lack of understanding of how anything worked. But, within 24 hours I was visiting with the other spouses of Fidelity employees. They were providing advice on how to hire a housekeeper, and which hospitals and doctors were the best and where to go to shop. And they invited me into their worlds and introduced me to their friends and my kids to their kids and before I knew it I was part of a group. Very much like freshman year in college when you arrive knowing nothing and nobody and within a week you know how to move around campus and have found life long friends. "What's your major" has been replaced with, "where are you from and how long have you been here?" These are usually followed up with, "where can I get decent toilet paper?"
Within a few short months I feel like I have been here for ages and I've made friends with people that are so different from me and yet so similar because of our experiences. I have friends from the states and South Africa and Australia and Holland and Sweden and the UK. I have dozens of people I can call at anytime to find a ride somewhere or to go shopping with or to simply sit and vent with.
When I told people I was moving to India for two years the reactions varied from excitement to sadness to "are you freaking kidding me?" I kept assuring everyone that two years would fly by and I would slide right back into my life in Brookline. Now, I'm not sure how I will slide back into the routine of housework and chauffeuring kids around town. I'm glad I can continue to enjoy this craziness for a bit longer. And maybe I can bring some of this lifestyle back with me.
I'm off now to drape myself in my diamonds and get drunk at lunch :)
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