Swimmers, Snorkelers and Fish
Alleke at the pool last summer
Living in a foreign country often feels like that game we would play at the pool as kids where we would try to see how long we could hold our breath under water. Mostly we played to see who could last the longest, but also because it was fascinating to be under water where everything looked and sounded differently.Using water as my analogy, I feel like when it comes to living in a foreign country there are three kinds of people: swimmers, snorkelers, and fish.
Swimmers (holding your breath)
As kids at the pool, we had to come up for air at some point. It was inevitable. In my experience, most people who live abroad are holding their breath. They want to see how long they can last. They come to see the world from a different angle, and they study or work temporary jobs so they can experience the local culture. Most eventually return home to be closer to friends and family or pursue a career.
Snorkelers (sucking air through a tube)
Others, like us, are snorkeling. We found jobs at home that sent us to work in a foreign country. In our case, April and I work for an international church called Oasis Madrid, and as such, were hired by an international non-profit organization that pays us from home. This is a viable means of living in a foreign country, but it’s fragile. If anything happens to that snorkel tube, we need to come up for air. Exchange rates and permission to work in a foreign country can change. Plus, most international organizations and companies, like the military, expect their employees to move every couple years, making it difficult to settle down somewhere and integrate. April and I love our jobs, and plan to keep them, but if we wanted to stay in Spain and change careers, it would be very difficult because we found our jobs at home, not here. Our education and experience from home don’t translate very well.
Fish (breathing water)
To live in a foreign country permanently means to completely reinvent yourself. In other words, if you want to breath under water, you have to learn to be a fish. I haven’t met very many fish, and by that I mean I haven’t met many non-European couples who have moved to Spain, found Spanish jobs, and plan to stay. After a year or two, most people decide it’s not worth the trouble, and they realize they don’t want to be fish. They miss their families, or the familiarity of their own culture, or they realize they could get a better job at home.Let’s face it, those from the foreign country will almost always be more qualified for most jobs. They speak the language, they intuitively know how things work, and they have a base of friends and family who support them. Learning to be a fish is not simply a matter of putting in enough time and effort, it means countless people going out of their way to listen to you fumble along in a language that’s not your own, rent you a room or an apartment when they don’t know much about you or your culture, and give you a job when others are more qualified. It can happen, but it’s a slow process.
What I do know is…
I didn’t expect April and I to be some of the few internationals I know who still live in Spain. I really don’t know why we stayed, and they left. Many of them seemed more fit for Spain than us, and what makes it even more bizarre is we liked living in the US and we love our families, so it’s not like we didn’t give up a lot to move here.I suppose we stay because a) we are a part of a very close-knit group of people in our church who care about us, which makes us feel like we belong here, b) we believe our jobs are important and help make Spain a better place, which gives us a purpose for being here beyond just seeing the world from another perspective, and c) Spain (specifically Madrid, and even more specifically our neighborhood) challenges us to be the kind of people we want to be. So, we feel like Spain helps us to be better people.
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