Tag:

Middle East

Before Becoming Goan: A Trailing-Spouse Story (Part 1)

by Michelle Mendonça Bambawale April 30, 2024

Michelle spent 18 years as a trailing spouse in three countries before moving back to India — where her adjustment adventures have continued after all, as chronicled in her new book, “Becoming Goan: A Contemporary Coming Home Story,” one of our summer reading recommendations. This is Part 1 of her story.

My trailing-spouse adventure began in 1993, when my husband Bharat was offered a job in either Dubai, UAE or Nairobi, Kenya. We evaluated both opportunities and chose Dubai for the safety of our young family. (Our son Kunal was two years old when we left India.)

*The Bambawale family of three — Bharat, Michelle and Kunal — before our expat adventures began.*

After the initial culture shock, we began the business of settling into Dubai with supermarket shopping, high heat and humidity, getting a UAE driving license, hiring house help, and finding a job for myself. We were young and enthusiastic and easily adapted to our multicultural, international lifestyle and developed a palette for Arabic food — still a favorite to this day — and Thai cuisine.

Expat Experiences Trailing Kids

Far From Home — And Each Other

by Florence Reisch February 27, 2024

written by Florence Reisch

Continued from Part 1 of Florence’s story.

When it comes to serial expat challenges, the most common themes are isolation, missing family and friends, culture shocks, language barriers, food differences, and the weariness of repeating the same patterns with every new move.

For us, one of the biggest challenges of our expatriate life was our experience as a “split family.” What was supposed to be three-year arrangement ended up lasting more than twice as long; for eight years, my husband Alex spent Monday to Friday in Pakistan or India, and his weekends with me and our two children in Dubai.

Career Transitions Expat Experiences Trailing Kids

Shifting Lanes for a Change of Pace

by Kirsty Larmour February 6, 2023

written by Kirsty Larmour

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.

*Using multiple modes of transport on our travels*

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!

Kirsty Larmour and her global family with their camper, exploring the world.

Bucket Listing Career Transitions Expat Experiences Trailing Kids

My Long and Winding Road

by Kirsty Larmour January 24, 2023

written by Kirsty Larmour

Part 1 of 2

A new year is always a time of reflection. Perhaps even more so after the last three years among the expat community; almost every fellow expat I know has a pandemic story of displacement, or getting stuck somewhere, or some other sudden, unexpected change prompted by the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent variants.

Upon reflection, I believe the winding path of life, complete with stumbles and rocky patches, has held me in good stead for where I sit today. Able to breathe a little easier, be at peace with holding space for things that don’t go quite as planned, and capable of once again being curious and soaking up the opportunities that come our way.

After all, the life of a expat spouse involves learning to dig into your own inner resources, especially if you also want to continue having a career of your own. Fortunately, I’ve long described myself as passionately curious — a quality I believe has enriched my life in a multitude of ways, especially as a long-term expat and creative professional.

My family in the UAE desert — *Family fun in the UAE desert*

A global family

In my little family, each of us — my husband, our two teenage daughters, and myself — was born in a different country: Ireland, U.K., China and the UAE.

Expat Experiences Trailing Kids

Cairo and Back Again

by Nada El Sawy March 2, 2021

written by Nada El Sawy

Continued from Part 1 of Nada’s story.

After graduating from the University of Southern California, earning my master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York, and starting my career in Los Angeles, I made a winter trip back to Cairo for a cousin’s wedding. My future husband happened to be in Cairo at the same time, visiting his family.

We had been introduced through mutual family friends several years earlier in California, but life took us our separate ways. Now that we had each completed our studies and gotten started in our careers, the timing was right. (The commonalities between us as Egyptians who had lived, studied, and worked abroad, were a good starting point for a matchmaking opportunity.) The Egyptian grapevine worked its magic, and the next thing I knew, I was meeting him for lunch.

We hit it off and saw each other almost every day during my two-week stay. There was one catch, though: I lived in Los Angeles and he lived in London. In a year, he would be moving even farther away: the United Arab Emirates (UAE), based in Dubai as a management consultant.

Career Transitions Expat Experiences Trailing Kids

The Art of Adaptation as Foreign Service Spouse

by Sean McKee June 22, 2020

written by Sean McKee

To paraphrase from The Lord of the Rings, “One does not simply become a trailing spouse.” We may accept the idea of relocating for our partner’s career as a one-time event or even as a lifestyle, but it takes a lot of time and experience to completely adapt to the “trailing” part of the deal.

As a young adult, I became acquainted with some of the highs and lows of expat life by working in the Russian Far East in business skills education and international development through a program supported by USAID. And yet when I married Erin, a foreign service officer, I still had a lot to learn about how to balance raising a family and maintaining my professional interests with her frequent, somewhat unpredictable assignments.