Continued from Part 1 of Kirsty’s story.
After almost 10 years in the Middle East, my husband and I decided it was time for one more big adventure before we would need to settle down in one place so that our daughters could finish school in person. We headed off on another set of multi-month travels, this time in our camper van across the Arabian peninsula, before relocating to Goa in India for a slower pace of life.
Both of our careers had done well during our years in China and Abu Dhabi, but my husband was facing burnout and wanted to take a sabbatical. Goa was an affordable place to drop to one salary, and he became the trailing spouse — handling the school runs, grocery shopping and cooking while I traveled to Abu Dhabi every few months to work with clients and continue my role as an educator for Nikon Middle East. I also began running photography retreats in Goa.
For me personally, this was a particularly challenging time of expat life. The jet-setting wasn’t as fun as it had been in my younger days, and I didn’t really enjoy being away from the family. I had already experienced life as a working Mum, but it was undeniably hard to redistribute our household responsibilities now that I had become the breadwinner. My husband (and many husbands I’m sure) simply didn’t realize that things like having a supply of presents for parties the kids were going to, or back-up ballet tights in the drawer for those inevitable holes, was something he should be looking to do!
Crashing into COVID times
Thankfully, we had a plan to ensure this stage would be temporary. During our time in Goa we saved up, and those savings plus passive income work from photography sales sustained us as we prepared for one absolute final big adventure (before our daughters might want to settle down and take their studies a bit more seriously). We put that plan into motion in mid-2019, importing our camper van from England to India, and setting off to spend a year driving her back to Europe, where we hoped we’d settle and be closer to our families.
We spent a fabulous six months driving through far-flung corners of India before intending to travel through Nepal, Tibet, and into Central Asia (an area we’d loved on our previous travels) in early 2020.
Of course, as you can imagine, those plans crashed around us.
In March 2020 we found ourselves abandoning our van in someone’s back garden in Lahore and on a plane to England at just 24 hours notice. (How/why were we in Pakistan? That’s a pandemic-related story, for a different day!)
Once in England, we struggled with pulling our hoped-for European plans together as the whole world was in a state of unknown. To cut a long story short, we ended up with a plan to return to India, enrolling our kids in school in Delhi where my husband had a job offer, and getting up at 3 a.m. to do online learning until we could make it back there.
But as with so many things during COVID times, the plan didn’t quite work out.
Job opportunities were put on hold due to the pandemic; my husband ended up working back in the UAE again for a different company, but in a remote part of the country without an international school that would fulfill our oldest daughter’s university preparation needs. Fortunately, with our OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) status, gained through descent as my mother had been born in India, the kids and I could stay in India indefinitely.
Solo parenting
Like so many Indian families, Dad works in the Middle East while Mum is with the kids. Strangely it’s the most “trailing spouse” situation I’ve found myself in without actually trailing! I’d perhaps call myself a “flexi-spouse” rather than a trailing one, as I’ve adapted to so many different working roles and expat situations — including this current long distance one where our family set up now relies on lots of phone calls, video birthday celebrations, and monthly trips by my husband to visit us.
I continue to be a full-time working Mum — always having my camera with me — but as their sole parent in Delhi, my daughters also rely on me as their taxi, cook, etc. As a result, my days of work further afield are limited, unless I take them on adventures too — which does of course still happen!
Juggling work and parenting is sometimes exhausting here in Delhi, but I see my girls growing up to be resilient and capable young ladies, with attitudes and skills that will enrich them whatever they do in their own futures.
I continue to photograph our Delhi life, and storytelling through photos is truly where my heart lies. There is so much of this beautiful vibrant country to document! My images are used in campaigns around the world, for companies such as Tesco, AT&T, Delta Airlines and Intercontinental Hotels, as well as in print publications. I take on agency work, plus regular contributions for National Geographic which bring a motherhood perspective that feels exciting, fresh and much needed. My creative workshops help expand and enhance the female and motherhood gaze within the industry, and I continue with other teaching both online and in person, in addition to telling the stories of the expat and local communities across Delhi.
When I had imagined my motherhood journey, I didn’t know all the ways we’d also adapt to having an autistic daughter. This life can be hard on her, and we’ve thankfully modified some of our own expectations in response to that. We now have different ways of setting routines and expectations so that no matter where we are, some elements of life remain constant; I actually think this learning process has brought a much-needed stability for all of us that might have been lacking without her diagnosis.
Establishing new networks
The move to Delhi has been easy in some ways, because I knew what to expect with India, but hard in ways I didn’t expect.
The expat community in Delhi is very different to what I’ve experienced in other cities, where private sector professionals comprised the bulk of the expat population, as opposed to the diplomatic corps. The international school my daughters attend here is much less multinational than we had expected, and having older children means fewer occasions for parents to meet each other (even if COVID-19 hadn’t led to a 2-year hiatus in us setting foot inside the school gate). I’ve thankfully found my own community through different networks.
On the Gupte Scale, I’d say my initial move to Delhi rated 5 for destination as I love the city (pollution problems aside), but 2 for timing and maybe 2 for resources — that was COVID-influenced, of course.
Now, 2 1/2 years in, I’d rate it much higher for resources as so much more is available in these more “normal” times. Timing is still less than ideal, as my husband still lives away from us, and that makes me sad during these years which might be our kids’ final years at home; the separation undeniably puts additional pressures on all four of us. It’s a tough place for teenagers, and letting them stretch their legs independently can be tricky here.
Yet the adventures we’ve taken as a family have held me in good stead for solo parenting teens through the Delhi COVID lockdowns — a challenging time for sure! (Though I’ve always said if you have your first baby in China, you pretty much pick it up and get on with parenting because you have none of the soft landing, baby/child friendly facilities and products that might be available in your home country!)
I believe my career has helped me in our moves, too. Photography combines both creativity and technical ability, with a need to see depth beyond the obvious. Running your own business and packing up and moving that business requires organizational skills, and adaptability, as well as a lot of grit and tenacity, whilst the people side of what I do keeps my heart and mind open to the experiences and stories which evolve in from of me.
Lessons learned along the way
After two-thirds of my life in Asia, and as our time goes by in India, we continue to explore and add new future places to our ever-expanding list. As a family, we still love to take road trips, and have been to the mountains hiking for the last two Diwali breaks, as well as having a passion for rail trips. (We once took the train from Hong Kong to England so an overnight train in India feels quite short!!)
I’m forever grateful to the gift of photography for enabling me to record this life from my heart — not just in snapshots and places, but in stories and emotions that we’ll hold forever as part of the tapestry of our family life. The everyday moments are just as important as the big, special days, they’re the true stories of who we are.
Life on the road taught us simplicity: the ability to separate wants from needs, and a mindset to live with less and that’s something that has carried through into how we now live. A year of travel happens at a very different pace and budget to a typical family holiday and cooperation (and sometimes compromise) become part of your values when you’re living in a space the size of an average bathroom!
The lessons learnt through those periods of travel are some of the biggest positives our more unconventional expat life has brought us. The embracing of opportunities that present themselves, and a slower pace, and knowing how to step off the hamster wheel, is invaluable. Most of all, the kindness of strangers wherever we’ve been is beyond humbling in reminding us how much we have, and how much we can share. Curiosity and creativity go hand in hand, both in life, and in photography, and both of them run through my veins.
We continue to soak up all that India offers us, but I don’t think we’ll ever feel we’ve experienced all we would like to of this incredible country. The question of where we’ll end up next is a frequent topic for all four of us as the kids spread their wings, but especially between my husband and myself. However, as my daughters plan to pursue their university educations in Europe, and my parents age and have health wobbles, I personally feel a draw to England that I didn’t anticipate when I set off back to Hong Kong with 12kg in a rucksack as a fresh graduate all those years ago.
All photos copyright of Kirsty Larmour.
