last word*
LIVING
as expats prepared us WHEN YOU SEE YOUR FAMILY LIVING A QUARANTINE LIFE, YOU REALISE ALL YOU NEED IS PRETTY SIMPLE, WRITES AMANDA CALNAN VOWELS
M
aking do or doing without” and hanging out with no one but my immediate family reminds me of our family’s earliest and loneliest days as expats in Australia. When our young family relocated from the US to Brisbane, Australia, for a job in 2011, it was swift and jarring. Overnight, everything and everyone we knew, was either upside down or unavailable. The experience started out very lonely with heaps of selfdoubt, parenting guilt, education gaps, and extreme cost-cutting measures. Still, those days of living much more simply outside of our comfort zone are some of the happiest memories in our little family’s life.
48
Budget Living: Last month my husband and I both lost our incomes due to COVID-19. This isn’t our first rodeo. In Australia, we didn’t live on a cushy expat package. We negotiated as well as we could, but lived in one of the most expensive cities in the world at the time. Despite a shoestring budget, we were hell-bent on soaking-up every bit of Oz. Fun wouldn’t be cancelled. While we scrapped our grand plans for country-wide travel, we did go to the beach with sandwiches every weekend and adopted the Aussie tradition of barbequing in local parks. All alone. We knew how to find the best take-out deals and split beers to make them last. Covid Culture Is A Foreign Culture: In Australia I spent several months patting new acquaintances on the arm – only to learn it wasn’t normal to touch so casually. Similarly, the new norms of virus culture have all of us trying to remember social distancing. I no longer linger at the grocery store. Food Is Everything, Always: Never have we eaten so well than when living on a budget in a new country. The public schools had no lunch programme. I was making three (cost-conscious) meals a day. I saved every extra bit of veggies in the freezer for some stir-fry. As expats, we snacked less and ate better. It took such an effort to shop that I shopped as little as possible and with great efficiency. Converting weights, finding substitutions, and
w w w . f a m o u s p u b l i s h i n g . c o . z a
taking advantage of what was in abundance took it out of me. Family From A Distance: I was only an expat for two years, but my sister and her family have lived in South Africa for 15 years, and we have raised our collective kids as virtual cousins since birth. Expat families know how to do virtual family. School In Limbo Can Be Liberating: Our son missed most of first grade, then skipped about three months of any schooling. The lost days between school systems – and watching too much iPad – were some of the most fabulous and frustrating days as parents. My husband and I were the whole world to our three- and seven-yearolds. When we returned to the US, another big school gap happened. Keep Your Network Simple: When we landed overseas, it was just too much to keep up with the large network of US friends and text groups. I pared down. It was clear who meant the most. The same is happening now. Senses Trigger Memories: New travel senses imprint your memory. Similarly, the tastes, smells, textures, lighting, and emotions we keep from this COVID era of our life will trigger fond and scary memories, forever. I’m holding on to the smell of my kids baking bread, the sound of the family all working on their computers, and the taste of our cheap coffee on these familyquarantine mornings in 2020. Originally published on Thrive Global
*
