Expat Brasil Acolhimento e soluções para expatriados, repatriados e imigrantes.
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Scenarios |
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1-Sandy arrived from Denmark about two years ago
and enrolled her son in a bilingual school so he could
speak both English and Portuguese. She expected that
by enrolling her son in an international school she
would have better communication with the director and
staff of the school. To her surprise, all written
communication between her and the school were in
Portuguese, and her Portuguese wasn’t good. One day
she arrived for a meeting that was actually scheduled
for another date, but she had misread its notice. She
felt very ashamed of herself and also thought that the
school’s staff was rejecting her and not paying
attention to her needs. Sensations: Isolation and
inadequacy. 2-Mary arrived from Tokyo two months ago. She has a babysitter who only speaks Portuguese to help with her 1 year old son. Mary, at this point, only speaks English and Japanese. She worries about leaving her son with this babysitter because if something happens, she won’t be able to communicate with her, especially by phone. As a result, she takes her son everywhere she goes and it’s making her life very stressful. Sensations: tiredness, hopelessness, withdrawal. 3- Patty is from the U.S. and enrolled her daughter in a Brazilian school because it was closer to her house and much less expensive. Her daughter is doing very well in school and while Patty’s Portuguese is improving, when she goes to parties of her daughter’s friends from school she feels very lonely. The other mothers don’t try to talk to her and usually she sits by herself in a corner until the end of the party. She doesn’t like to go to the parties, but her daughter wants and need her to. Sensations: isolation, embarrassment, strangeness 4-Roberta was living in Korea with her husband and several times invited other couples from the same company for dinner. The couples always gave excuses to not accept their invitations and never invited Roberta and her husband in return. Roberta thinks there is a hierarchy in her husband’s company and although the other couples were also expats they didn’t feel comfortable around Roberta and her husband because the other couples had lower posts in the company. In spite of feeling very isolated, Roberta stopped trying to develop relationships with other foreigners within the company. Sensations: perplexity, isolation, sadness, incomprehension. 5-Regina’s husband invited two couples from work for a barbecue at her home. He thought he was specific about the date and time and that the invitation was clearly communicated. They cooked for everybody and to their surprise nobody showed up. This has happened on two separated occasions, and Regina and her husband don’t understand why their guests didn’t show up, call to cancel, or at least mention it the next time they see her husband. They’ve now decided not to invite these two couples anymore, but they still don’t understand what happened. Sensations: dismay, confusion, , discomfort, alienation, disorientation. |
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As human beings, we are moving on people, permanently in transit in time, always creating projects that end and starting new projects, and everything we do is temporary to a large degree. In the contemporary world we tend to be also people in transit in space, geographically speaking. This means that we must recreate roots and references wherever we go, even though we acknowledge these roots as temporary. And we need to create projects that make sense in the new place, and that can also be transported afterwards to other locations. People live by their dreams and projects and communities, without which they get sick. These networks and roots are necessary so we can grow and develop and transform ourselves, instead of experiencing sensations that can make us sick. For that we need to feel supported in our experiences. This necessary support of oneself means to have others who know you, remember you, are familiar with your history, your lifestyle, your conceptions of the world and your goals. These others are people with whom we can create a story. Being in transit doesn’t exclude creating roots and communities, and temporary projects, even though it often seems so to the expat. There are prejudices that can make the foreigner feel like an island. They become stuck in a small territorial space without being able to enlarge their network to the bigger society. They can feel that their local community is closed to them. In Brazil, at the same time that acquaintances, colleagues and friends seem very affectionate, the deeper relationships and the intimacy of these Brazilians’ homes are restricted to their families and long time friends. The foreigner also has his own protection shell that doesn’t allow him to take risks and open up to the large community. Sometimes they do this to protect themselves from relationships that won’t last long, or sometimes because they are just afraid of rejection. Also, if something is merely different, it may be perceived as threatening. But we know nowadays that one of the positive effects of globalization is the opportunity to experience diversity. And if these diversity are received and welcomed we are for sure free from barbarism and tyranny.
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| The resources available for expats and re-pats are through an agreed upon number of sessions (6 to 8 sessions, usually weekly, but with considerable flexibility to accommodate travel schedules). |
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Support groups and self
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