Life abroad as ugly as it is!!

I'm not sure how many people living abroad have truly and openly shared this with their families and friends, not sure how many have actually gone through this and can resonate with this, I certainly have and wanted to share the "not-so-openly-shared" hardships people often face living life abroad. 

Most people assume like abroad is full of opportunities and money. Yes it is, dollar talks darlings but so does it bite!!! I don't think most people realise with those opportunities come lots of sacrifices and hardships of survival; cost of living overseas. People have to do odd jobs (some have no idea what kind of odd jobs; one of my old school colleague who had been a well earning gynaecologist back in Nepal had to become a cleaner and an Assistant in Nursing/Care worker before finally doing Nursing degree here in Australia to save her own grace and ego : It was agonising seeing her feeling mortified to have her pride and ego come in the way of survival here; she kept associating her fame back home to the jobs she had to resort to here abroad, but it makes me wonder why people can't get over the fact that a job is a job, there should be no shame attached to hard work). Some students and even settled coupled may have to or choose to live in shared accomodation to save money to pay for their university fees, other bills, groceries, pay off loan etc. 

When I was 17 and got a burger thrown at my innocent face at 11pm at night at the counter where I was serving the burger to a pommy in London, my young and inexperienced heart cried out tears at such brutal racism. It was the second time I had left my home, my country to pursue my studies abroad, but it was the very first time I missed home. The manager of that joint continued training instead of reassuring my hurting ego, that day I left that job. I know of many Nepalese or foreigners who can't afford to leave their jobs just because of some subtle or even open lashing of racism. That didn't deter me from becoming a strong person. But how many parents and relative are really "aware" of such hardships???? You can easily guess the numbers. 

When someone buys a home abroad, they can't buy it "outright" like in Nepal or India, they have to borrow loan from bank to buy it after paying some deposit and then pay off the bank interest and principal amount as "mortgage" for the next 30 years of their life (till they almost retire from work)! So how is it any easy? They always have the risk of foreclosure if they fail to pay even few "instalments" (unlike back home where once you buy/build a house you don't have to worry about the ensuing cost). there's no "ledger" kept to carry forward the debt/loan you keep accumulating on groceries or rent like you do back home. Life abroad teaches people that the minute you run out of cash, you either get kicked out, or blacklisted, or go hungry, or do double/triple shifts just to catch up to the shortage. 

People often don't share how much tax they end up paying to the government just for being able to work abroad. Parents and families back home only tend to calculate the gross amount their children might be earning and expect some returns without considering how tax takes out chunk of their children's  income.

And of course there's no other help with household chores, no family to oversee the child-minding, cooking, cleaning, emotional support, everything has to be juggled in between work, studies, family, and other miscellaneous tasks, hardly any rest. It's sad when some people think how rich people living abroad are when in reality the only break they get is when they are on some holiday. 

Even well earning people have increased tax bracket (requiring them to pay more Tax if they earn more), added financial load, especially if they have or are expecting a new child. Have people back home ever thought of basic necessities for new child's arrival? Like car seat (it's illegal to carry a child in a car without a capsule/car seat for the baby in most western countries), like prams/strollers, baby cots (midwives would hound you like a culprit if you don't have a baby cot for safety reasons), like nappies, wipes, clothes, etc etc etc ???  And the cost of the mother having to leave work while nursing baby so the financial burden is on one person to provide for everything until the mother is ready to go back to work ? Not every "significant other" earns enough to cover mortgage and the shortage of income to cover for the next 12 -15 months while pregnant ladies stay home to nurse the baby. The income loss, the extra expense for the baby! Having no other family member to help out with cooking or grocery shopping to help already exhausted new parents. Nah most people living in eastern/Asian countries don't have a clue! They think having baby doesn't cost money abroad ! 

If people understood that along with freedom of speech, freedom of choices and opportunities, life overseas brings a lot of responsibilities and unthinkable working hours sacrificing social life/networking, perhaps parents wouldn't feel any pride or pressure to send their kids living life abroad? If I had a short working day like in Nepal, if I had innumerable public holidays where I would still get paid for staying home, if I had people doing things for me to ease my household chores, if I had the luxury to attend concerts and theatre work and art etc every weekend without having to think of penalty rates, if i could earn enough to live a modest life- believe me I would rather live in my motherland. But after having spent nearly two decades in a foreign land making it my home, after creating a mark for myself to stand up to everyone and proudly see no discrimination, I've also realised I have lost my identity as someone who was born in a land other than this; my identity as a Nepali is doubtful; my language flair in Nepali suffers a huge dent as the years have gone by; my mindset and thoughts differ a lot from people who claim me to be from their country; I don't think I will actually survive if I ever went back to live in my motherland, but I still want to see how different the society has become since I left it so so many years ago. 

I just wish people back in south asian countries realise that living life abroad is definitely not all rosey and easy; it's ugly at times, mostly ugly full of loneliness and machine-like workload. Please think thousand times before you open your mouth to demand/expect financial security from your children or before you even send them to the cruel pit of life abroad.