In defense of the complaining expat

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Before a trip abroad I’ll often check out expat websites to get an idea of what the day-to-day life is like in a particular country. Sites like ExpatExchange and AlloExpat come in handy not only if you want to live in a country indefinitely, but also for planning short trips. In addition to having job and apartment listings, they often feature a calendar of upcoming events and forums for members to ask and answer questions.

The forums are often a great source of practical information you won’t find in many guidebooks, like where to get a decent haircut, how to open a bank account, or where to find peanut butter. You know, the essentials.

On topics other than these, however, I find the forums to be mostly a repetition of the same standard formula:

Jack: Boy I really hate ________ here.
Jill: If you don’t like it, leave.

While I’m sympathetic to the “Love it or leave it” sentiments, we should remember a few things before piling on the expat who complains about his adopted home country. First, adjusting to a new home can be a tough thing; once the initial excitement wears off, it can feel pretty lonely if you’re moved abroad by yourself. Second, remember this: you’re allowed to hate things about the place you live. As Chuck Thompson wrote in Smile When You’re Lying:

Like being a sports fan, one of the best things about being a traveler is complaining about the parts you don’t like– hating the Dallas Cowboys not only doesn’t make me any less a football fan, it probably makes me a more avid one.

So let’s cut the jaded, whiny expats a little slack– they’ll come in handy next time you’re craving a jar of Jif.

One for the Road: Ingrid Anders’ “Earth to Kat Vespucci”

by Catherine Bodry on

You probably already know that there is a margarita cocktail and a margherita pizza. But before I studied abroad in Europe, I had no idea that ordering myself a salty, limey, tequila-y beverage might actually yield a plate-sized cheesy, doughy meal. Call me an ignorant American; I don’t deny that I was (and still often am) one.

Ingrid Anders understands, and in her debut novel “Earth to Kat Vespucci” (iUniverse), Anders’ title character makes all the mistakes in the book (except for the margarita mix-up) on her first trip abroad. Kat Vespucci is a senior at Rutgers University when she runs from heartbreak by signing up for a year abroad in Berlin, Germany. The school year marks her first time abroad, and the mishaps start as soon as Kat leaves the airport and attempts to buy a pass for the train: Kat is confronted by not only the different ways in which transport operates outside the US (you mean you buy a ticket, but no one checks it?), but also an often-befuddling European bureaucracy.

Other topics Anders covers include such light-hearted ones as water-saving showers, country-wide Sunday store closures, sexual freedom (yes, fellow Americans, we are just a little bit repressed), the difference between pepperoni and peperoni, and many European males’ lack of macho-ness (is her roommate gay? A metrosexual? Or simply European?).But there’s also the stereotypical stuff that often gives Americans abroad a bad name — our lack of geographical knowledge (at her first school dinner, Kat hides a map of Europe on her lap under the table in order to place where all her European classmates are from), our lack of political and historical knowledge of anything outside our own country, and often a lack of knowledge regarding America’s role in world politics — and the way the rest of the world views us.

The book is in no way anti-American, and I don’t want to give that impression at all. Rather, Anders skillfully and humorously navigates a sheltered young woman’s eye-opening experience abroad. Fortunately., Europe is a tame introduction to the “rest” of the world, and Kat is a curious and intelligent explorer. Anyone who took their first trip abroad as an adult will likely identify with many of her bumblings, and with this character, Anders shows herself to be a promising new novelist.

Gondar: Ethiopia’s Camelot

by Sean McLachlan on

The road north from Lake Tana, Ethiopia, gradually ascends into the mountains. The landscape grows greener and the farms look richer here.

The combination of rough mountains and good farmland made it an obvious place for a capital city, and for many years it was. Gondar is nestled in a mountain-ringed valley at 2133 meters (6,998 ft.) altitude and is free from the malaria that plagues the Lake Tana region. It appeared so attractive that the Emperor Fasilidas moved from Lake Tana and made Gondar his capital in 1635. He built the impressive castle pictured to the right and gathered his court and supporters around him.

If the castle looks a bit European, that’s because Fasilidas took his inspiration from the Portuguese. A group of Portuguese adventurers had helped his father, Susneyos, defeat the Muslim conqueror Ahmed Gragn. Susneyos converted to Catholicism and tried to convert his subjects too, but the Ethiopian Orthodox faith was too strong for such a change. When Fasilidas came to the throne he quickly reconverted everyone back to the traditional church and ejected the Portuguese. This didn’t stop him from learning a thing or two from the Europeans, however, castle architecture being one of them.

Gondar makes a good rest stop after a few days of driving. The mountain breeze is cool and refreshing. The Italians liked it too, and during their brief occupation of the country from 1936-1941 they built an attractive European-style downtown that still retains some faded glory.

%Gallery-87470%Gondar is a place of song. The town’s many churches broadcast prayers and hymns over loudspeakers from the early morning until late at night. While this is common practice across Ethiopia, here the prayers bounce off the slopes and echo across the valley. They are especially audible at the palace complex, where Fasilidas built his castle and his successors vied with each other to make their own mark on history. There are a total of six castles by six different kings, built during Gondar’s 280 year run as the empire’s capital. The entire complex is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

While that of Fasilidas is the most imposing, each castle has its own distinctive style. A walk around the grounds is best done in a leisurely manner, and some castles offer fine views from the upper windows and battlements, although it takes some convincing to get the guards to let you up there!

Two related sights nearby should not be missed. One is the “Bath” of Fasilidas, actually a giant baptismal font for his famous mass reconversion. Usually it’s left empty, but for Timkat, the celebration of Epiphany, it’s filled with water and the faithful gather around, dressed in white and carrying candles.

The other sight is the Trinity Church built by the Emperor Iyasu in 1674. Of the 44 churches in Gondar, this is the only one to survive the attack of the Mahdi’s forces from the Sudan in 1888. It is said that the bees kept in the orchard on the church grounds swarmed against the Muslim looters and stung them so badly that they fled. The soldiers tried several times to burn the church, but each time they were driven off by angry bees.

However the church was saved, every visitor is grateful that it was. The interior is filled with elegant paintings of miracles and Bible scenes. Even the ceiling is covered in art. Winged angel heads are painted in neat rows along and between the roof beams. They look in every direction, a symbol of God being able to see everything at once.

If he has an eye for beauty, he must be looking at Gondar a lot.

Coming up next: Ethiopia’s wonderful children!

You can read the rest of the Ethiopia series here.

Resort may close to save local tribe

by Sean McLachlan on

The Indian government is considering closing a resort on one of the Andaman islands in order to save a formerly remote tribe from extinction.

The resort, run by Barefoot India, is near the forest home of the Jarawa tribe. This group lived almost entirely isolated from the rest of the world until the 1970s, when road construction and immigration from the mainland began. The Jarawa kept clear of the newcomers until the 1990s, when they began to interact with tourists and settlers.

Foreign diseases such as measles have hit the tribe, and groups such as Survival International are worried their unique culture may die out or even the entire tribe may become extinct. Only about 320 Jarawa are left.

Numerous tour operators take visitors along the Andaman Trunk Road and visit the tribespeople, even though this is forbidden by law. Poachers often trespass on Jarawa lands.

In an attempt to protect the tribe, a buffer zone was created around their reservation and the resort was closed down. Barefoot India has appealed the ruling and now India’s Supreme Court is weighing the matter.%Gallery-78607%

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Postcard fans trade four million cards

by Sean McLachlan on

Who says snail mail is dying?

Postcrossing is an organization where strangers from different countries can trade postcards. Once you get a free membership, you can request to send a card and another member’s address is sent to you, along with a unique country-coded number. You pick a card, write a message along with the code, and mail it. Once the recipient gets the card and registers it on the site, you’re next in line to get a card from a different stranger.

With almost 170,000 members from 209 countries, it’s a fast-growing club of postcard fans. So fast growing, in fact, that today they reached the landmark of trading four million cards. They only reached two million cards barely a year ago, so this idea is really catching on.

We’ve posted about Postcrossing in more detail here, and revealed the names of some Gadling bloggers past and present who are members. As one of them I can say it’s a lot of fun and a great way to teach your kids about the world. So if you like getting and sending postcards, give it a try and help Postcrossing get to five million cards sometime before the end of 2010.

Postcards have been around since the late 1800s. The card included here dates from 1919 and shows a place in Richmond, Virginia where three rail lines crossed one another. Personally I love the look of vintage cards, and many fellow Postcrossing members have received them from me.