{"id":4980,"date":"2015-12-11T17:30:20","date_gmt":"2015-12-11T17:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/?p=4980"},"modified":"2015-12-11T17:31:45","modified_gmt":"2015-12-11T17:31:45","slug":"is_the_expat_bubble_inescapable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/is_the_expat_bubble_inescapable\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Expat Bubble Inescapable?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Expats in general often talk about getting outside of the bubble. \u00a0Sometimes we even complain about the factors of a society that prevent us from doing so. \u00a0I have mixed feelings on the concept of escaping the expat bubble. Authentic, non-expatriate experiences are out there. \u00a0We just have to go on the other side of the wall to get there. \u00a0Living in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, I could go eat local foods, such as ugali, beans and rice, stewed bananas, or greens cooked in coconut milk, any time I choose. \u00a0The thing is, I don’t choose to do so. \u00a0Far more often than not, I eat pizza, hamburgers, pasta with tomato sauce, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and barbecued pork. \u00a0The foods, and all of the cultural experiences connected to food, are there. \u00a0I just don’t go to them.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_20150920_111234\"The local language, Swahili, is a learnable language, and there are several language schools out there competing for the business of expats. \u00a0Over the course of history Swahili has been scribed into both Arabic and English written forms. \u00a0Lessons are available in your home, if you want them, and they are not expensive. \u00a0The language is all around me on billboards, menus, bumper stickers, and political advertisements. \u00a0The language, and all of the cultural experiences connected to understanding it, is there. \u00a0I haven’t tried in earnest to learn it. \u00a0That’s why, two and a half years into my stay in Tanzania, I can still only say thank you, and hello and goodbye in a variety of ways. \u00a0I just haven’t done it.<\/p>\n

But here’s the catch.<\/p>\n

For one weekend, I exposed myself to a way of living that I did not even know existed. Some friends from work and I visited Maasai homes in the inner Tanzanian countryside. \u00a0The homes are literally made of branches and mud. The surrounding villages all draw from one isolated well for their drinking water. The well is hand-dug, open to the elements, has sloped mud sides and requires climbing into and out of with buckets of muddy water on one\u2019s head. There is no electricity out there. Paved roads are few and far between. Petrol is sold in used water bottles. The local market is just an open dusty field full of cattle trucks, people selling their goods off of blankets on the ground, and open fires cooking freshly slaughtered beef and serving it on banana leaves.<\/p>\n

I was out of the bubble! \u00a0Wasn’t I? \u00a0Well, I was still trapped inside my English-speaking bubble, which limited my interactions greatly, so maybe I wasn’t outside of the bubble in any way beyond my geographic location. \u00a0Did I really do anything more than drive far away from my neighborhood?<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4851\"The biggest issue with the bubble is this. \u00a0After just two nights in a place that was almost as far from my previous life experiences as I could get, my friends and I got into our 4×4 Toyotas imported from Japan, we left behind several large bottles of water, because we could just buy more at the shop around the corner once we got home, and we drove back to our concrete homes with 8 foot high security walls, internet, running hot water, gas stoves, ovens, beds, mattresses, mosquito nets, electricity, furniture, electrical appliances, air conditioning, a deeply stocked pantry and refrigerator, and a hundred other small comforts I don’t really think about until I look back at homes made of sticks and mud, a lifestyle centered around keeping cattle alive in a dry and dusty landscape, and having to climb down a steep, muddy wall to get thick, muddy water.<\/p>\n

I can always just drive home. \u00a0That is my bubble, a bubble of privilege based almost solely on being born where I was as who I am. \u00a0I won’t ever be able to get away from that.<\/p>\n

In response to the question of escaping the expat bubble<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shortly after posing the question, \u201cIs the expat bubble inescapable?\u201d on my own blog, Two Years and Counting . . .<\/a>, my good friend, Lindsay Rowland, sent me a reply. While working in Barcelona, Lindsay met and became dear friends with a woman from Barcelona named Aurora. Some time after Lindsay moved away, Aurora had to be hospitalized due to sudden and severe medical issues. Lindsay took time off of work and went back to Barcelona to be there for her. It says a lot about the depth of their friendship. I think it says even more about the expat bubble. Here are her thoughts.<\/p>\n

\"lindI think I would say that curiosity and empathy allow you to poke your head out of the bubble, but love will pop it. Human interaction is the key in both cases, but once you have made a true, real friend in the other culture, that is when the bubble begins to disintegrate. In Spain, I could speak the language reasonably well, ate the food, lived in a similar standard\u2026but I did not really embrace the culture or begin to understand it or separate myself from my own until my friendship with Aurora, and mostly AFTER I left! Through her eyes and her experiences and perspectives and because I love her so much and strive to understand her, my eyes and heart began to be able to take in what it meant to be Spanish. And then through what has happened to her, me visiting the hospital and being embraced by the family (they have even invited me to spend Christmas with them) and all the hospital staff and being daily present in the midst of it\u2014and all this happened because THEN I had a motivation outside of myself, outside of the \u201cshoulds\u201d\u2014(I SHOULD be curious about other cultures, I SHOULD open myself to new experiences, I SHOULD learn the language) to finding the motivation from need because of love\u2014I want to communicate with this person I love so dearly, to understand, to help, to contribute\u2026learning becomes natural and a priority and acceptance is instantaneous because people know your efforts are genuine and you\u2019re committed and invested.<\/p>\n

This is not to say I change my identity but my comfort level is definitely compromised\u2014I give up control over, not so much material things like I would in Africa, but rather my control of time if we\u2019re talking about Spanish culture. I\u2019m still the American in the room\u2026but I\u2019m the American who has shed the protective bubble of being with other Americans and eating American food and operating on American time and schedules and efficiency and methodology\u2026and not always liking it, but doing it anyway and not complaining about it or demand that those around me conform to ME\u2026I think that is what it means. But again, I think it\u2019s an easier transition in this example. I don\u2019t see how anyone would logically give up privilege comforts to drink dirty water and live in a mud hut\u2026unless I had become true friends with someone and that person embraced me and there were some reasonable context that I would be visiting and needed\u2026then I think I would be willing to do all: learn the language, live in the hut, etc, for as long as it took\u2026other than drinking the water\u2026amoebic dysentery sounds pretty horrible. But you don\u2019t know what you\u2019ll do until you\u2019re in a situation, right?<\/p>\n

Well, there you have it. As I told Lindsay, well said, and well felt. What do you think?<\/p>\n

\"155595-linebreak\"<\/a>
\nThis article was submitted by a veteran international school teacher and International School Community member, Jonathan Park<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Expats in general often talk about getting outside of the bubble. \u00a0Sometimes we even complain about the factors of a society that prevent us from doing so. \u00a0I have mixed feelings on the concept of escaping the expat bubble. Authentic, non-expatriate experiences are out there. \u00a0We just have to go on the other side of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[2202,40,2204,2201,2205,1258,2203,2206],"class_list":["post-4980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-highlighted-articles","tag-authentic-experiences","tag-culture-shock","tag-dar-es-salaam","tag-expat-bubble","tag-local-culture","tag-local-language","tag-non-expatriate-experiences","tag-trapped-inside-my-expat-bubble"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/IMG_20150920_111234.jpg?fit=400%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2flVT-1ik","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8128,"url":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/from-the-outside-in-10-tips-to-help-you-adapt-to-chinese-culture\/","url_meta":{"origin":4980,"position":0},"title":"From the Outside In \u2013 10 Tips to Help You Adapt to Chinese Culture","author":"ISCommunity","date":"November 3, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Cultural integration in China may be the Holy Grail for many expats who head over to teach, live, and experience the country for a while. 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Here is some of the advice TIC offers to anyone moving overseas with school-age children, whatever the reason for your move: Organise an interview with the Headteacher\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Highlighted Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Highlighted Articles","link":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/category\/highlighted-articles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/10\/img_5570.jpg?w=350&h=200&crop=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/10\/img_5570.jpg?w=350&h=200&crop=1 1x, https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/10\/img_5570.jpg?w=525&h=300&crop=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":23,"url":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/want-to-work-at-an-international-school-in-the-netherlands-%e2%80%93-tips-for-expats-in-holland\/","url_meta":{"origin":4980,"position":2},"title":"Want to work at an international school in the Netherlands? \u2013 Tips for Expats in Holland","author":"ISCommunity","date":"February 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Life in Holland does indeed sound nice. \u00a0Riding your bike to work and watching the canals as you dart in and out of the streets of Amsterdam could be something very easy to get used to every morning. \u00a0The Insego website has highlighted some excellent tips that international teachers and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Great Resource"","block_context":{"text":"Great Resource","link":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/category\/great-resource\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.files.wordpress.com\/2012\/02\/screen-shot-2012-02-14-at-9-57-28-pm.png?w=350&h=200&crop=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6473,"url":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/international-educator-expat-experience\/","url_meta":{"origin":4980,"position":3},"title":"The International Educator Expat Experience: Where Are You From?","author":"ISCommunity","date":"November 9, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"This seemingly simple question is profoundly deep. It is not simply about geography. It is who you are, as an individual\u2014your values, your priorities and so much more. If you have been in international education for long, chances are that you struggle to answer this question, or preface your response\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Discussion Topics"","block_context":{"text":"Discussion Topics","link":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/category\/discussion-topics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/books-1655783_640.jpg?fit=640%2C427&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/books-1655783_640.jpg?fit=640%2C427&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/books-1655783_640.jpg?fit=640%2C427&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8697,"url":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/are-us-tax-filing-requirements-waived-when-residing-overseas\/","url_meta":{"origin":4980,"position":4},"title":"Do U.S. citizens have to file taxes when living overseas?","author":"ISCommunity","date":"April 3, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"A general lack of information regarding expat tax filing requirements has often led to incorrect information circulating in expat communities and, as a result, some international school teachers from the USA think that US tax filing requirements are waived when residing overseas. 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