I love this. It’s just so easy to think that other people live better, have it easier, etc., because they are younger or older or more successful or single or have a family, or live in Switzerland! Or because they don’t live in Switzerland! Ha! That’s a joke.
No matter where I live, it always takes 1-2 years until I feel like I actually live in a place. By then, I’ve gotten family doctors, dentists (okay, still haven’t gotten a dentist here), know where to shop, have a circle of friends, feel like part of a community. But the thing is, no matter where you live, this all takes work. My husband thinks of it as part of my job, which is good, because it is. How do you meet people when you move to a different country?
When we first moved to Switzerland six years ago, I was seven months pregnant and already huge. I had taken some German in high school, but here, where they speak Swiss German, it felt hopeless to even try to understand what people were saying. The rules of the road are slightly different, and with my giant belly, it was very hard for me to drive. And to be honest, it scared me. So being home, pregnant, or with a new baby, was incredibly isolating. The Swiss are very reserved people, and it is hard to really get to know them–it takes a lot of time. So I had to really force myself to get out and find friends. It is a job. I started going to an English-speaking playgroup (with a new baby, this was clearly more for me than for my daughter), and I am still friends with some of the people I met there, even after moving to Dubai for two years.
When I moved to Dubai, I was determined not to be stuck at home. We had inherited a massive Nissan Armada from a colleague of Frank’s, and I took it out exploring right away. A few days after we arrived, I went to a function for the spouses of the employees at Frank’s company, and the other women were shocked that I was “already driving”. This sounds funny if you have never driven in Dubai, but it is very much like driving in India. Which I guess also doesn’t mean anything if you’ve never driven in India. Suffice it to say, you need to be very assertive and try to predict the crazy things other drivers might do at any moment. Like STOP (completely) on the freeway when they have missed an exit and then BACK-UP. On the freeway. So they can catch that exit they missed. Ah, Dubai. I do miss it sometimes.
And I joined a book club. For me, this has been the absolute best way to meet interesting, intelligent people and to better understand the perspectives of other cultures. When I moved to Dubai, this is one of the first things I did. I met some really wonderful, tolerant, supportive women from all over the world. I didn’t particularly enjoy reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, but the conversation that books like that and Che Guevara’s Motorcycle Diaries sparked between women from places like the US, India, Canada, Iraq, Sweden, Jordan, the UAE and Turkey was fascinating. Some of those women had experienced war. Many covered their hair whenever they were in public. Some felt that divorce is never an option. It is hard work to sit and listen to those perspectives and try to understand them. And to share your own in a way that might help other people understand where you are coming from. I am not always good at it, but I can feel myself learning. The way it stretches me, the way I need to force myself to stop and take a deep breath and just listen. Now that I am back in Switzerland, I’m back in my old book club, which is also a wonderfully international group of amazing women. One of my friends from that club is a neighbor of mine in the tiny village where we moved. I feel so grateful, so blessed.
Another one of my friends from that book club is constantly amazing us with stories of all the things she is always doing with her Swiss neighbors. As I said, the Swiss are very reserved and they are wary of foreigners. It can take years to get to know them. Which is why, when she was relating her last activity with the Swiss ladies in her village, I asked her how long she had been there. I thought she’d say ten years or something– how else could she have gotten to know her Swiss neighbors so well? A few years, she said. Amazed, I asked how she did it. She said when they bought their house, she knew they would be the only foreigners in her new village. So she wrote a little note introducing her family and put one in everyone’s mailbox. She followed-up, and did the work to get to know them. That was a great lesson for me.
So yes, the grass is greener here. The cows love it.
myowngeography 