I Want to be an Expat

If someone asked me 30 years ago if I would want to live overseas I would have instantly said no. If someone asked me 20 years ago the same question after I had completed a one year tour in Okinawa with the Marines I still would have said no. If someone asked me 10 years ago after I had been to Okinawa a second time, I might have given it a second thought.

I don't think I just woke up one morning and decided I wanted to live overseas. It did start when I worked in Sarajevo. I saw a side of living overseas that I didn't see as a Marine. Travel, culture, befriend locals, it was very neat to say the least.

Then I started traveling all over the world and this more than ever had me thinking about living overseas.

I did go work in Baghdad, not sure if that really counts, but after that came Jeddah (Saudi Arabia). Saudi was a big plunge into expat life, but believe me that is one place that I can't even say it would be nice to visit, certainly not nice to live there.

Well you may or may not know the rest of the story, then came Montevideo and now Colombo.

Whats the best part about being an expat? Well I guess it all depends on your situation. I have to admit that I am pretty blessed with my job and perks. But for every good thing there is about living overseas to me all of that is pretty much nothing considering that I am away from family and friends in the States.

I know there is always Skype and email and video calls but nothing beats being home, which is why I always need my America break. That being I need to go back to the States at least once a year. Maybe that doesn't make me a true expat, probably, but that's just me.

Sinhalese Names, English and Bobbleheads

I have had the worst time trying to remember my Sri Lankan coworkers names, for that matter trying to pronounce their names has become a chore. It's not like Uruguay where everyone pretty much had a name that could matched up to your usual Bible names but here it's a different story.

To make matters that much more confusing for me is that I am coming from a place where letter pronunciation is different, "j's", "g's" all of that. I have to get all of that out of my head when I see a name and remember the "j's" are J's and the "g's" are G's etc.

The good thing about being here in Sri Lanka is that it was a former British colony and just about everyone speaks some level English. Now whether or not you will understand them or they you is a different story.

One more odd thing they do here is how they acknowledge something, they "wag" their head from side to side, it looks close to shaking their heads NO, but they're not. Think bobblehead. It can be a little confusing when you see it and think is this guy saying yes or no?