Expat Blog
Living away from your birth country can be fun and frustrating and exciting and difficult.
You start out on a high, excited for the new adventure.
Then reality hits, and everything becomes horrible. It wouldn't be like this in your home country. You wouldn't have these problems there! That's what we call "Culture Shock."
But you get through it. Ok, everything isn't perfect in your home country, either. You are just used to the problems you have to deal with there. So you figure out how to cope with these new challenges. This is the "Recovery" phase, shown in the W-curve below (from Berkeley's International Office page).
During Recovery and Adjustment, it helps to find people you can relate to - people who are also adjusting to new challenges and getting used to living in a new country.
We know some expats in east Africa, but we don't get to see them much, even those who live near Mombasa. (South Coast looks close to North Coast on the map, but it is so far away.) So I looked for online communities of expats.
A few months ago, I joined expat-blog.com. I have not spent much time on the forum, but I have enjoyed reading blogs by other expats. I can relate so much to their experiences!
And now, a Kenyan-Texan family is Blog of the Month for November! You can see my interview on their website [clicky]. Blogs by my fellow expats living in Kenya are here.
You start out on a high, excited for the new adventure.
Then reality hits, and everything becomes horrible. It wouldn't be like this in your home country. You wouldn't have these problems there! That's what we call "Culture Shock."
But you get through it. Ok, everything isn't perfect in your home country, either. You are just used to the problems you have to deal with there. So you figure out how to cope with these new challenges. This is the "Recovery" phase, shown in the W-curve below (from Berkeley's International Office page).
During Recovery and Adjustment, it helps to find people you can relate to - people who are also adjusting to new challenges and getting used to living in a new country.
We know some expats in east Africa, but we don't get to see them much, even those who live near Mombasa. (South Coast looks close to North Coast on the map, but it is so far away.) So I looked for online communities of expats.
A few months ago, I joined expat-blog.com. I have not spent much time on the forum, but I have enjoyed reading blogs by other expats. I can relate so much to their experiences!
And now, a Kenyan-Texan family is Blog of the Month for November! You can see my interview on their website [clicky]. Blogs by my fellow expats living in Kenya are here.
Congratulations on being blogger of the month. I am a Kenyan, I lived in the US for 7 years before returning home. I applaud you for leaving your homeland to come and set up a ministry here in Kenya. God bless you for the work you are doing. Just in case you're interested there's an American who has another ministry in Gede called Kuhenza founded by an called Cynthia Bauer. Thanks for your blog its awesome.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Wawuda.
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