The real ex-pat

Socialistic principles aside. Ex-patness brought on a case of Domestication.

Others were doing it, it wasn't..sniff...as if I ...sniff... I was hurting anyone.

It was a big house, the kids were young, the wife was under a knife to remove a vital organ or something close to a vital organ, we had no mother-in-law. We had little friends we could trust with our darlings or wanted to be trusted by our darlings.

We had ex-pat cash , we had a 'domestic'.

And in one fell swoop I was master of servents. I was joining the ranks of the nearly rich and famous who had food made by a non-family member and was not covered in plastic some five micrwaved minutes earlier. Shirts crisply ironed and ready on demand. A family picture not hiding under a residue of dust and MY God! have I aged. I had been turned. My father probably turned as well....in his grave. Voting Tory was a small step away.

And the good news... my language skills improved after several embarrassing incidents involving socks and knickers which apparently sound similar in her tongue or at least the way I asked for socks.

And the good news we had a friend

And the Good News we helped her to better things...a career outside making very nice salad for me and the family.

I miss the salad mind.

Yes Officer,

Yes officer I was a foreigner driving in a hire car in your country. I know this is a wrong, I am aware this deed is worthy of a hefty penalty. I am sorry. If you give me a minute to consult my get-by guide I will beg for mercy in your own tongue or at least the strangulated cat version of your language.

One minute I am an executive Businessman and the next I am a Lottery ticket bonus point facilitator to a cop - police in some countries are considered, let us say open to negotiation, such that being over the speeding limit could be a matter of eye squinting. Eye squinting may also push being under the speed limit to over the speed limit in a blink of an eye and possibly back again.

One friend put it like this that they earn so little that some eye squinting puts a chicken dinner on the family table and a jolly foreigner was a double bonus jackpot of calorie boost and invite the cousins for the Day of Rest - you no speak - you big trouble- walllet- thankyou - no you say thankyou.


And my get-by guide book is sadly capable of telling the officer I have diarhoea.

Technology

Just like Mama's Blackberry Pie has evolved into just like Daddy's Blackberry. Presentations once upon an 80's executive career busting-or-making management training exercise was based on cutting edge acetates Now as years pass into decades, as governments fall like a Berlin Wall so the plastic sheets and essential need of Overhaed Project is forever marked Old Tech', dodgy light bulbs, all have been dumped in favour of 'Powerpoint'. We are slaves to Microsoft powerpointedness, as vital to a meeting as a chair, a table, a thermos of coffee, it appears in the ether, on the flat screen, on the screen as like a mini film , images slowly merge into the next, under animation Walt Disney would have been jealous of and no doubt saved a few bob on crayons and arithritic cartoonists elbows. Elbow grease industrial injury claims would have been halved in favour of mouse index finger. Hyperlinks takes us to videos of a Site Visit with shakey cam giving a real deal. Oscar nominations for Animation in a Business context await.

Applause is anticipated, only to be spoiled as meeting particpant surreptiosly answer the bleeping mobile soundtrack, read Blackberry messages and respond with thumbs quivering, glistening in the Powerpoint glow. So much for technology

Its like catching a bus

An airbus that is.

Once upon a time entering an airport was an adventure akin to walking on the Moon for an Astronaut - a once a decade, perhaps belatedly a once a year adventure to the brave new world . Preparation was key, requiring reading beforehand, a study of country perils, an invesigation of things that could go wrong, pills for every diease outside the common cold, learning new useful phrases such as ~please, thankyou and toilet!~ in a different tongue, a checklist of emergency telephone numbers, seeking advice on ticket validity, admiring the brand new look passport. And now here I am, things are put into a category marked things to do on the night, before except unknown visa applications which can take a while longer and require an extra passport.

Clothes are worn that have been bought and designed for the purpose with specialised pockets of certain size to carry things ready for the trip - I have acquired a business look stereotype of thousands of others similar to others, airport sitting, waiting, timing a rush to to the gate to a synchronisation worthy of an Olymoic swimming competition, anticipating connection delays, disappointed in a fellow passenger is only now un lacing a shoe, failing to remove the clunky jewelry, unready with a passport at the various stations. I am an expert in airport decorum, I am in time with proytocols of different airports, it is a necessity, it is a sign that I could be doing something better, like reading books with the kids, being there to explain the quadratic equation, to be a shoulder to cry on, but I am here earning the euro dollar. A litttle confession of exaggeration, I may need a little time to remember how to do quadratic equations.

This time I have an acrosss Atlantic trip, an experience to be had in turning from one bed sore to another.; breathiong a bloated mass of gaseuous fumes intent on burping their way from Business Class. Yes Business Class is a real luxury, one appreciates at the Company expense, it eases the bed sore rotation rate a little with the anaesthetic effect of the occasional wine or spirit a welcome relief.

And this away trip to the Hotel complex has the added adventure of investigating pot-holed roads, dusty roads, did I say roads I must like exaggerating, tracks that incredibly can apparently traversed at speed, mini-bus overtaking manouvres for the brave driver and the cowardly passenger, unable to talk by a mixture of fear of engine noise and inability to shout the native tonge. A sign language saying ~please slow down ~ translates badly as we quicken to the death defying curves ~ I hope death defying ~ where is a priest when you are ripe to convert. Grinning and bearing it here adds mental to physical - bed sores to brusises. And as you like it- this Site Visit is like two sides of a coin ~ heads winning, tails losing ~ either the profit potential making, Company vested business development opportunity or a God forsaken, malaria infested swamp in the land that Man forgot.

Finally we face the wildlife and the sun. The whitey Europeans not so white after minutes in this sweat inducing ambience. Whitey rapidly becomes red-dy, rapidly becoming dotty. A veritable exercise in join the dots road map of vital and non vital organs drawn by the local Mozzies, and did I say Malaria infested. Mozzies dining on international fayre today - Spotted Dick.

Johnny Foreigner

When the day is young... the alarm clock rings ... the cereals are chunked... the suitcase is locked... the tie is adjusted... the taxi awaits... the check-in queues.. the X-ray beams... the shoe is swiped ... the bum is seated in comfort by a frequent flyer card... so the rest nation awakes as I fly to some land to visit an hotel roo... a meeting room ... a dining room ... a bedroom. A Father by vocal recognition again.

A passenger not seeing the beauty, missing the childhood, expanding the waist line and one reads a Bill Bryson book about the Universe and everythong, that tells me in a comic readable fashion we are all atoms and I will probably end up divided amongst a tree, a rabbit, a sea anenome, water in a cup perhaps and my soul who sold a thousand widgits at the world best price is remembered only by a long forgotten E-mail.

Time to read a Bill Bryson travelogue methinks, for Johnny Foreigners are not welcome in all bars.

Box City

The Pryce family have moved too often so there is an abundance of virtual friends, friends that exist by E-mail and Facebook, a children's education divided into Americanised international schools, British international schools and now bullet-is-bitten the native schools. Chasing the Euro-dollar may not have been for the best and has another price. But then unemployment in Blighty was not exactly an option to the MP3, iPod, GPS generation.


So I have shared the upwardly mobile tramp experience having lived with cardboard boxes several times where what-should-be treasured possessions remained resolutely hidden in a box marked "stuff" that the movers felt was equivalent to odd socks. Family heirlooms for years carefully tended by a Grandmother now slightly, badly re-structured by a grandson wondering the sticky tape was. A grandmother turns in her grave a grandson turns up a box.


Months later residence papers hunted down in a bureaucratic jungle of far flung offices in an unknown city armed with a local map and a Let's Get by in getting by book, offices with lifts , some without lifts, with starirs lots of stairs' helpful and unhelpful assistance and thank God we are Brits because the Latinos aren't allowed to jump the queue.

Finally in one country after several dollars we were given our official residence status on a recycled A4 page stamped, signed and bearing a striking simarity to my son's first fading school report paper except his stamp was a smiley face. And by coincidence old school papers of the kids kept for posterity and now also lost in the boxes and should have been chucked, because I am a miser I think they cost about 100$ to move around this continent. But wifey would disagree. On such differences of opinions arguments are formed to seed a divorce. Trigger tempers amongst the cardboard jungle.

Then a year or so later a document is needed to prove one is a paid-up veritable member of a foreign society, a paper for a car, a paper for a bank, a paper put safely somewhere in a safe place in box city. I blame the wifey, she blames the hubby, we should buy a dog and save a marriage. I may be some time.

R'n'R

Visiting Blighty - the annual pilgrimage, the second holiday, the missed year, the duty, the mother guilt-not-free year, the obligation, the regret that you missed that year, the rugby match watched and enjoyed if only this could be every ....., the road miles, the traffic, the left side, the traffic jams not missed, the price of a modern executive rock'n'roll lifestyle jet flying seeing experiencing but also missing out. Maternal tears, if only you lived..... closer but this is living, this is my living chasing the Euro Dollar. Some r'n'r brings home the homesickness, cure of being there. The television news is in English, the road network is adjusted to with hopefully no accident within 30 m of the car hire depot and at a damnable car hire expense with or without the extras. Look at the sky, realising that the sky is grey. Look at the beer, the beer is Guiness, the beer is black and expensive. Hear the accent. Recognise the brand names of youth with due respects to Woolworths. Gossip heard could be misheard for it is not understood , times have changed. Former friends see a different man in front of them, their perception changed. Time for a beer, to prove I am still more-or-less the man I was, but with a few stories to tell.

The excitement of being different cowed that part of you misses not being the same.