Our Christmas holiday was a whirlwind of a vacation that included six flights and time spent in five different locations in the U.S. Almost four years into our life of expatriation in Benin, this has become the norm – holidays that include a mix of stays in the homes of family members and multiple Airbnb rentals. Each year we’ve tried (in vain) to limit the amount of movement we make during our vacations. But inevitably, in an attempt to minimize costs, as well as the imposition we make on our respective families (and the effect extended stays with them generally have on our sanity), we end up hopping around from place to place trying to find the most optimal housing arrangements during our time away. Needless to say, we are generally exhausted by the end of our holidays and all too happy to return to Benin, forgetting how exasperated we had been with our life there. This feeling of longing for greener pastures – something different and in its abstraction, unquestionably better than our current situation – is a part and parcel of the human experience. But when you’re an expat, constantly coming and going, moving back and forth for extended periods of time between worlds apart, with a little reflection (and this is key) you’ll soon realize that these greener pastures don’t really exist. There is no alternate reality for you anywhere in the world that is inherently better than the one you’re currently inhabiting, unless you make a concerted effort to make it that way.
If I were to explain my decision to move abroad simplistically, I would say that it was in fact a move to seek out greener grasses. After a few years working with a large U.N agency in Geneva, I had grown despondent with my job and yearned for a more enriching professional experience, in a less contentious environment (turns out I was not cut out for a work life existence consisting of constant subterfuge, infighting and one upmanship). Longing to find the space to do meaningful development work, I dreamed of getting a position in “the field” where I could be engaged in projects that mattered. When my partner, who was also working for an international development agency, let me know that there was the possibility to move abroad as a family, to do just that, I did not hesitate and jumped at the opportunity.
I could wrap things up very succinctly here with the unsurprising revelation that our move to Benin was not one to the lush “greener grasses” I had envisioned. But that would be too easy, and do a far less convincing job of elucidating the main point of this post. So let me elaborate…Yes, my move to Benin has been one filled with many disappointments, but these let downs were not the source of my recent epiphany.
In my first year and a half in Benin I struggled to find work and rather unreluctantly had to take on the role of a “stay at home mom”. As an “accompanying partner”, that is, the person who had not been placed on assignment abroad but was merely “tagging along” with the partner on mission, this was apparently the standard procedure. Before our departure I had been horribly misled and believed that I would be provided access to job counseling services in Benin, which never materialized. I eventually learned that my job prospects here were in fact slim to none. It was unclear if I even had the legal right to work in the country. I also discovered that most international agencies, where I had hoped to find employment, do not hire in the field.
I’ve made the best of a less than ideal situation by starting a few projects, which were fulfilling in their own right but challenging on several fronts, forcing me to abandon them all prematurely. Socially, I’ve struggled to create and maintain friendships, which happens with a certain inevitability as one gets older. But for me, this social isolation has also been brought on by the fact that as a woman of color, who has been immersed in predominantly white expat spaces, I’ve often been overlooked and underestimated. My value is validated only after my connection to other white expats has been established. I’ve arrived at social gatherings alone and been ignored until the arrival of my other expat companions of a much lighter hue. I’ve also discovered that many of my initial introductions seem to be quickly forgotten. On one occasion, in an attempt to explain why I had not been remembered after a very recent introduction, I was told with an air of contemptuous aloofness that “we all look alike”. The relationships I’ve tried to establish with Beninese contacts have also been difficult, complicated by my status as an expat, most of them have quickly turned pecuniary or into requests for favors. In a nutshell, the last three and half years living in Benin have been no stay in Shangri-la, and at the end of 2019 I was ready to get out.
Yet, shortly after returning from our holidays, upon learning that there was an opportunity to extend our mission for another year, I uttered words that seemed unthinkable just a few weeks prior. I told my partner I wished to say. He couldn’t believe it and thought our holidays had indeed driven me to insanity. I had not gone mad but had simply been reminded that no situation is ever perfect. I was also reminded that while it is human nature to idealize the unknown, the comfort brought from consistency and the predicability of our current circumstances is often the far easier pill to swallow. It is easier to accept that which we know and have learned to expertly navigate, even as we gripe and long for something better. Habit, predictability and convenience keep many of us firmly rooted in one location, never daring to step outside of our comfort zones to discover if those greener grasses we dream of do exist.
The beauty of travel and a life of expatriation is that it gives you a unique opportunity to go smell those grasses and run through them, essentially turning that imagined reality into a concrete experience. Though you will most likely enjoy the novelty of the experience, chances are you will trip and probably fall, discovering that there are uneven surfaces in your lush green pastures and even a bit of fecal matter strewn throughout. And so, while I have chosen the comfort and predictability of the life that we have established in Benin, it is a decision I’ve made knowing what things could be like in another reality, knowing as well that it is human nature to adapt, survive, even and even thrive in the most seemingly inhospitable environments.
