And so began our six-year odyssey as foreign residents in the land of the Khmer or otherwise known as Cambodia.
The building I was standing in appeared more like a huge Cracker Jack box than an international airport terminal. My pregnant wife and I along with our four other children had just disembarked off the airplane ride from hell; the last leg of a grueling 24 hour ordeal that included checking in 29 suitcases and 10 carry-ons at LAX in Los Angeles, 18 hours over the Pacific Ocean, a four hour layover in Kuala Lumpur, and a final two and a half hour rollercoaster ride aboard a now defunct local airline during which our two year old son moaned and groaned, rocking and writhing non-stop in obvious pain.
Without a doubt uprooting from the familiar surroundings of your home country to live abroad in a foreign country can be and often is a harrowing proposition. In the year 2000, as I stood in that wooden shack called Pochentong Airport with my children sprawled out on the floor and my wife being chastised by the immigration police in a tongue she could not decipher, I could only shack my head and wonder "what in the world had I gotten my family into?"
For us, the pains of the transfer did not end when we exited the airline terminal. My wife went on immediate bed rest which hindered her from being able to get out and meet the people or become familiar with her new surroundings.
In our third month we left our three oldest children with teammates we barely knew in order to have the baby in neighboring Thailand; the night before we went back to Cambodia some stupid little faction attempted a coup d'état on the Cambodian government with mortar fire landing only two miles from where our three older children were staying.
In the sixth and seventh months our two year old son developed a tremendous heat rash that evolved into impetigo with infected blisters all over his body as well as full blown ringworm under his hair on his scalp. Instead of waiting for the boils to come to a head, the quack local doctor wanted me to torture the poor kid by lancing the bumps with a needle, "Yeah RIGHT!" "Toto we ain't in Kansas anymore."
To top it off in the ninth month after our arrival, my wife, our two oldest sons and I came down with the bone breaking mosquito borne virus called Dengue Fever which left my wife bedridden for the whole month of May. At least she got to see guardian angels standing as centuries at bed post.
To say the least if you are apprehensive about moving to a foreign land, I've been there and I understand your anxiety but let me add: even as we suffered as we did, I would gladly do it again.
Of course, I would not want to get dengue fever nor would I want my son to battle a nasty secondary skin infection ever again, but for the most part I enjoyed living in Cambodia and am ready to return.
This brings me to the reason for the article: what is/are the key(s) to living abroad successfully?
Well, I would say there is one essential key that overshadows all the rest.
Humility.
The main key to successfully integrating into a foreign society is humility.
Humility is an overriding or undergirding attitude that means having a right picture of yourself and others. In general practice, humility means appreciating others and giving preference to them without neglecting your own needs. When you are humble you will see the intrinsic value of the people you are now living with. By humility you will curb the tendency to judge everything through ethnocentric glasses. Humility allows you to drop your guard and opens the way for the people to get to know you and you, them. When you are humble you will also choose not to be so self-sufficient. Not being so self-sufficient opens up opportunities to get to know the people and for them to get to know you. Soon the people start to like you and even work to protect you and your property.
Humility is the most important key to living abroad successfully.
Within a week of arriving in Phnom Phen, our teammates helped us find a house to live in. It was a nice house with plenty of room for a big family like ours. Like most large houses in the capital city it had a huge fence around it with sharp spikes on top to discourage break-ins. Besides the house, we also bought a huge 15 passenger van to transport our family around town. We had all the basic amenities from home; there were plenty of resources available to be thoroughly self-sufficient. However, I chose to be otherwise.
Instead of being self-sufficient I opened myself to be available to the people around me. I chose to be transparent and vulnerable and within a couple months I had many Cambodian friends. Instead of locking myself in a fortress, at least during the daylight hours, I left my gate unlocked so the neighbors could wander in and out, point and prod. Instead of driving my own car I hired motorcycle taxis from the street corner to get about town by which I had conversations with them. Instead of doing my own gardening, I hired a qualified young man to help the local economy. Did I ever get taken? Once in a long while but it was worth it. By being humble, I chose not to be self-sufficient and was able to build relationships with the Cambodian nationals fairly quickly which made the move across the Bigger Pond that much smoother.
If you plan to live abroad, arrive with an attitude of humility and you are likely to make a successful transition.
Humility is the key to living in a foreign land.
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