As the only passenger on board, I was sitting in the copilot’s seat of the Piper Navajo. We had left Takum, Nigeria, for the 15 minute flight to Baissa. Between Takum and Baissa lies a small mouintain range, high enough to pluck an airplane out of the sky. This afternoon there was also a thunderstorm, always a deadly threat to any kind of aircraft.

We tried to fly around it, but with no success. The pilot decided to go back to Takum, but now the question was whether we would reach the unpaved Takum runway before the storm did (I had that question, anyway. I think he did too.).

I can still see it in my mind’s eye: we approached the runway from the west, the storm from the east. It really was a collision course – this little aluminum airplane and those huge clouds, wind and rain.

One hundred yards before touchdown a small motorcycle sped onto and raced down the runway, also running to beat the rain, totally oblivious to the fact that two engines with propellers were bearing down on him.

We had no choice but to land and brake as soon as possible, as a go-around would have meant flying into the storm. When we reached the end of the runway, the motorcyclist and our airplane were drenched in the kind of rain storm only the tropics can produce.

 Years later I was on a Northwest airliner from Amsterdam to Washington. Over Washington we had to circle to wait out a storm. After 45 minutes we continued our descent into Washington, the weather dark and stormy and the plane dropping and shaking in the air. The turbulence was so bad that the crew had to sit also. A young steward sat across from me and became visibly scared. “We shouldn’t be here at all,” he said. “Some of these pilots are macho types who think they can handle anything. We shouldn’t be here at all.”  It was not very professional of him to say that to a passenger, but he was right. Shortly thereafter we diverted to Pittsburgh.

I have laid awake in fear for many nights before I needed to travel by air.

It is amazing how fear can grab you and pin you to the mat.

What are your experiences with fear?

Rip Van Winkle was an amiable, somewhat lazy man. His neighbors – especially the children – loved him. He loved to wander through the woods with his dog and his rifle. A favorite expression of his was, “Today is nice”.

He disliked and avoided gainful labor, for which his wife nagged him incessantly, and not without reason, for his neglect left the family finances, the farm and their lives in disarray.

One day Rip took a walk in the woods, spent some time drinking with a group of men he did not know, and fell into a deep sleep that lasted twenty years.

When he woke up, he found that his beard was a foot long, his gun was rusted away and his dog was missing. Back at the village, he recognizes no one, learns that his wife has died and other friends have either died or moved away.

Rip’s world is really rocked when he proclaims himself as a loyal subject of King George III, which outrages his neighbors. The American Revolutionary War had taken place while he had been asleep, changing the cultural landscape forever.

Rip settles rather quickly back into his normal, amiable and idle daily life, spending his last years in front of Mr. Doolittle’s Hotel,  learning about what he had missed during his sleep, and telling stories about his experience. Rumor has it that he preferred to spend his time with the younger generation.

I thought of this story while watching the American National League Football playoffs last weekend. When I left the United States many years ago, I knew the names of the star players, which teams were good and why, which teams would continue their dismal losing streak and why.

Today, after my ‘sleep’ of about three decades, much (if not everything) has changed:

• many teams have different names.
• stadiums have exchanged their romantic names for names of financial institutions – I have no idea where Fed-Ex Field is, or Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Candlestick Park (San Francisco) and Lambeau Field (Green Bay, Wisconsin) have withstood the temptation and trend to change names (so far).
• the quarterbacks, running backs, tight ends are unknown to me, as are the coaches.
• the players I used to know are now sitting behind the commentator’s desk – grayer, (much) heavier, not funny at all, despite their attempts.
• tv images show yellow and blue lines on the field, as well as downs and yards to go.
• not to mention female reporters in the locker room

Rip Van Winkle is back, and the village has changed – and not just football either! Imagine a crowd listening to presidential candidates debate jumping to its feet in a standing ovation!

Short-story analysis is always a dicey proposition. And yet:

The final irony of Washington Irving’s story could be that, in Rip Van Winkle’s village, twenty years and a revolution later, not much had really changed after all!

What was the name of that quarterback again?

With one click of a button and a contribution of $25.00 USD, I just made possible a micro-finance loan of $700.00 to the Étoile Group in Mali.

Two weeks ago we ran a survey in order to gain feedback on our name and website. We had promised to donate $1.00 USD to a micro-finance loan through KIVA.org for every completed survey.

There were twelve surveys, and we added $13.00 USD to that, to make a loan of $25.00 USD total. When I clicked the button to complete the transaction, the total loan amount of $700.00 USD was covered.

Here is the information from the KIVA site about this loan:

The seven members of Étoile Group are mainly married women, who average 32 years of age and 5 children. Most of them live in monogamous families in Sanoubougou II, a working-class neighborhood in Sikasso (Third Administrative Region of Mali).
They are seeking their sixth loan from Kiva’s partner, the microfinance organization Soro Yiriwaso, in order to meet customer demand. Previous loans were repaid without problems.
Mariam is a member of this group who sells pagnes (colorful African cloth). She’s the one standing in the middle in the photograph.
She intends to use her loan to buy 15 pieces of pagnes Wax at the Grand Market in Bamako. She resells them for cash, at a fixed spot at the Grand Market in Sikasso, as well as at her home, to a clientele comprising mostly women.
She intends to turn an average monthly profit of XOF 11.500 (ca US$ 22), to be used in part to repay the loan, and in part to increase her savings.

We chose to lend to this group (click here for the KIVA webpage) because it is a group endeavor, individual bonding together to provide business support for each other, and encouragement to repay the micro-finance loan.

As a global citizen, I’m sure you are aware of the benefits of micro-finance loans. I won’t repeat those here.

I will tell you my own experience:

In January of 2008 I made my first KIVA loans: two loans of $25.00 USD each.
Without adding any new money of my own, I have made a total of 10 loans to different people and groups.
In addition, I have invited 8 people to sign on with KIVA and make loans.
Those 8 people have made 25 loans!
So my initial two loans of $25.00 USD each has resulted in 35 micro-finance loans!

KIVA claims a loan repayment rate of 98.87%! My experience is completely in line with that.

A big “thank you” to all who filled out survey forms and contributed to this loan. We will keep you informed of how the repayment progresses.

And we invite you to consider making a loan yourself. Click here to accept my invitation to you to make a KIVA loan.

P.S.: we have enjoyed reading the surveys very much. We have learned from them, and we are planning to make some changes to our website and name in the next week or so. Stay tuned to those!

Carol VanDyken, a coach at Isolated Internationals, has lived with her husband and children in Colombo, Sri Lanka and Johannesburg, South Africa. During her years in Colombo a civil war raged, including random bombings in cities and suburbs. Johannesburg is known as having one of the highest crime rates in the world.
From her experiences in these places Carol shares these ways to live in freedom and not fear in an unsafe environment.

Many expats live in areas that are considered ‘unsafe’.  Maybe there is a civil war going on, possibly the crime rate is exceptionally high in the city to which you have moved, or maybe there are kidnappings and general government warnings issued about the country.

How can you keep fear of your unsafe environment from isolating you and your family?  How do you still freely explore and experience the positive parts of the place in which you now live?

1. Collect information on the country from a variety of sources…and then listen to the most reliable ones. 

As always happens, when you say you are moving to Timbuktu, suddenly every other person’s great-uncle’s second cousin’s dog has some connection to Timbuktu!  OK, hearing those stories can get tiresome, but take advantage of their knowledge.  Ask them about safety conditions there and what they know about that.  But balance the information you get, and consider the source.  If you are hearing from a person who has emigrated from their home country for safety reasons, they will have a strong sense of fear and will project that.  If you are talking to expat government employees who live in state department compounds with armed guards, their perspective will be very different.  Balance all the data received, and then you can go in informed but also ready to make your own conclusions about how ‘dangerous’ it actually is.

2. Decide what your own ‘safety threshold’ will be:  at what point will you decide it is too risky to stay in the country?

Think in advance about what conditions will need to be in place to determine how safe/unsafe the environment can be before you choose to leave with your family. Think through:  will your company tell you when they think you should leave?  Your government?  We always said that when the state department employees left, we would also go.  If there is a chance you may have to evacuate, keep a list in your filing cabinet of ‘must take’ items, in case you are only allowed to carry out suitcases.  That will give you some peace of mind about that possibility.

3. Put necessary precautions in place, and then live freely while exercising them.

What kind of security does the ‘average person’ in that culture practice?  Choose the measures that work for you, are practical, do-able and are at a level that make you and your family feel safe.  Is that an alarm system? Dogs? Hiring a security company?  Look around at what your co-workers do, your neighbors, other expats in the country under similar circumstances as yourself – at what level of security do they live?

4. Find out what ‘the locals’ do and don’t do, and what they consider ‘dangerous’. 

This will give you an idea of places and times that are suitable for you and your family to visit.  What do the other families in your workplace, neighborhood, school or expat community do and where do they go?  What do they consider ‘safe’?  How much risk do they expose their children to?  I used to go to the market by myself on Saturday morning while my husband spent ‘quality time’ with our kids, since there were rumors that the market had been targeted by suicide bombers.  It helped my peace of mind to leave my kids at home.  We always had a national man on staff who was in charge of calling all the expats if there was a curfew put in place or if he thought it was wise for us to stay inside for the day.  We trusted his judgment.

5. Shield your children.

It’s ok for you to know the facts of your security situation, but it’s too much for children to handle. They need to feel secure, and they get that from you.  There is no need for them to know the details of horrific events or the possibility of crime where you live.  They need to feel taken care of and shielded.  Sometimes newspapers in your country of residence will unwisely print photos of terrible events.  Your children should not see these!  Take steps to protect them from adult conversation that details crimes or bombings.  I noticed one time one of my children listening, wide-eyed, to a friend’s graphic description of a bombing in the city in which we lived.  I quickly said to my friend, “Maybe we can talk about this later?  There are some pretty big ears in the room right now” with a glance at my child.  My friend got the point.

The best advice we got when we moved to a high crime area was from a co-worker who said, “Don’t live in fear.  Be informed, and if you want to take a walk, take a walk.”

It isn’t so much about the exact thing we should do; it is more an attitude that is adopted.

Live with a positive attitude of freedom within the reasonable confines of your situation!

What percentage of survey results would you expect from a website survey?

As far as we can tell about 150 people clicked on the tweet links, and we had 11 responses. So that probably is not too bad of a response, as surveys go.

The person we will lend money to through KIVA.org is, of course, somewhat disappointed. He or she could have gotten more of a head start.

Although my experience with other cultures has taught me that many people would not get disappointed by results below expectations, but be thankful and encouraged by what did come in.

So we will take that attitude also, and thank everyone who clicked on a tweet link, and those who filled in the survey in particular.

We, and someone who will receive a micro-finance loan, are grateful.

During the next couple of days we will be evaluating the survey responses and getting the loan on its way.

We will keep you informed – for right now we wanted to let you know how it has gone.

Have yourself a great week – and you can, of course, get involved with KIVA on your own.

Click here to do that – the link will let KIVA know that I have invited you!

During the last few weeks someone responded via our contact form to a twitter request from us with this message:

Hi,
I recently got a follow request from you (my Twitter username is @********).
Although I am sure your services and objectives are positive, I find the title of your organization a bit negative.
That is, assuming that expats feel isolated sounds rather negative. Unless you are an expat who has been exiled by force or something like that, I tend to think that most expats choose to be expats.
Unless you are talking about the isolation expats may feel when they are sent to destinations that they don’t like, again, I don’t like the term isolation.
Anyway, I decided to write to you to explain a bit why I am not really interested in following an organization with the word isolation in it.

We had a brief exchange via email, and I sent the blogpost I had written in September after a day at the ‘Feel at Home in The Hague’ Fair. Click here to read that blogpost.

A few days ago we received the response b, and with the author’s permission we are posting it here.

The reason for that is to stimulate discussion – what do you think about the name of our coaching and support services for expats? Is it helpful, or does its negative feel put you off?

In the next month or two we will be developing some new directions for our services, so your input would be very helpful to us. You can give that input through a short survey. See the instructions, special offer and link at the bottom of the page.

Here is the second part of our communication – let us know what you think!

Hi again,
I finally read your explanation about the name for your website and I understand your intentions better now.
I see now that somehow you are using a bit of a polemic title for your company as a marketing tool, since, like you say, you want people to stop and think about the isolation idea when they find you (I think it is definitely a clever idea of attracting customers).
You do say that you don’t like sweet-sounding company or website names because they would be promising rose-tinted views or approaches.
This reminded me of that old argument between Lennon and McCartney, when John, who probably considered himself a social cause militant and as such wrote songs aimed at changing the world for better, accused Paul of wasting his talent writing silly love songs, to which Paul replied with the famous song with that title and whose ending words are: “what’s wrong with that?”
Likewise, nothing wrong with using negative words/messages, either, even if what you want to convey is actually something positive. If you want to focus mainly on those expats willing to acknowledge their isolation as expats, then I think you might get a reduced clientele, but definitely an exclusive one.
I just personally prefer to center my mental awareness on positive words and messages, instead of giving negative words or messages more power than they should have. This doesn’t mean at all that I am not willing to acknowledge the negative things in my life, I just think that approaching negative things with a positive focus is better than approaching them with a negative focus (or word).
That is, if you had chosen to call your place “Expat Integration Abroad”, or something like that, and you had announced, as part of your services, “psychotherapy” or counseling for expats feeling lonely, isolated or nostalgic, to me you would be starting from a much more positive (and potentially promising) point than indirectly centering your offer on isolated expats, whether they acknowledge isolation or not.
I think that isolation is not necessarily the main thing one feels when one becomes an expat. Obviously if you choose to or if life “makes” you end up somewhere different than the place where you were born, chances are that you may feel isolation, along with many other negative feelings, such as inadequacy of your language fluency, cultural shock, etc., BUT ALSO many other positive feelings.
Plus I have met people who never moved from their home country and felt/feel isolated, especially people who live in big cities (a paradox, given the higher population of most big cities), in many cases older people.
Anyway, you did make me reflect about the relationship between isolation and expat, so I guess in my case you achieved your objective.
Happy Holidays!

We would love to know what you think, and have developed a short survey to gather input. Click on the link below to fill in the survey. It will just take you about 2 minutes.

Two things:

• we will NOT ask for personal information or email address
• for every completed survey  Isolated Internationals will donate one US Dollar ($1.00) to a micro-finance loan to be distributed through KIVA. KIVA is a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world, with a loan payback rate of 98.9%!

The more people who fill in the survey, the higher the loan amount will be (max. 250).
For more information on KIVA, click here.
GO AHEAD – BREAK OUR BANK!

Thank you for taking the survey!
Click here for the survey

Now that the holiday season is over (well, almost: Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas in January, and the Chinese and Japanese celebrate their New Year also in January), you may have been confronted by your families’ holiday traditions.

Or lack of them.

Perhaps you weren’t able to transfer traditions you kept while in your home country to your new place of residence.

Or perhaps you tried, but had little success. I remember when we were first in Africa, and put a little “Christmas” tree in our house, complete with the only sad ornaments we could find. It wasn’t until later that year that we learned that a decorated tree in a house has an ominous spiritual significance, which explained why almost no Africans would enter our house while the tree was standing. Needless to say, the following year we celebrated with no tree!

We are people, and we need traditions to maintain our emotional. psychological and relational health. Moving into a new culture can make it hard to adjust when it comes to family traditions, especially when we have our children with us.

Here are some simple things you can do to build up traditions that are unique and valuable for your family. Don’t forget to include your children and partner in this exercise.

• First, list activities, hobbies, crafts you personally enjoy, and then the same for your family. They don’t have to be particularly holiday-related. You are simply refreshing yourself about the things you all enjoy doing.
• Second, list the ‘traditions’ or family activities you engaged in, in the past. You could think of back when you were still at home, or the things you have done as your own nuclear family.

• Now: Which of those traditions/activities are you able to continue here in your new place?
• And: How has life changed for you where you are now, so that you cannot continue those same traditions? What are some aspects of your new location that interest you and your family?

Finally: List how you can incorporate those activities or traditions into your daily life and/or holiday celebrations.

Tip: use the recent holiday season as a practical example, and keep alert throughout the year for other times you can engage in this exercise.

And don’t forget to think about how you can include holiday or other traditions of the culture in which you are living into your life, adding to the richness of your family traditions.

Because it’s not only that a child is inseparable from the family in which he lives, but that the lives of families are determined by the community in which they live and the cultural tradition from which they come. Bernice Weissbourd

Family values are a little like family vacations -— subject to changeable weather and remembered more fondly with the passage of time. Though it rained all week at the beach, it’s often the momentary rainbows that we remember. Leslie Dreyfous

Our last quote in this short series from Frederick Buechner, to welcome in 2012.

It is a good one – don’t be afraid.

That’s not easy for most of us, certainly not for me. I can get afraid of lots of things.

So any reminder to not be afraid is welcome. Take this quote with you – I’d love to hear what it means to you!

“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” Beyond Words.

And we wish you a very happy, healthy and graceful 2012!