I love me some community. Who doesn’t? Am I right?
It’s one of those super-slick buzz words that makes every experience sound better.
“Yeah, we live in a mud hut, have no internet, eat tree moss and get malaria twice a year . . . but the sense of community is amazing. “
“Heck yeah. Sign me up.”
It is by far what expats love most about their life abroad and what they (oh so naively) think they can reproduce when they go home — so they try . . . diligently . . . but they fail . . . miserably.
What’s up with that?
Why is it so hard to recreate that magical sense of comradery and connection that seems effortless over there?
I have a theory. Here it is.
Expat community rises and falls on two key ingredients.
PROXIMITY and NEED.
Let me put it a different way.
Community happens when incompetent people get mashed together.
It’s how we know we’ve arrived — we need each other in ways that we could never imagine on our home turf.
Simple stuff.
Stupid stuff.
Incredibly uncomplicated, previously no-brainer stuff that we mastered at the age of five is suddenly and painfully beyond our grasp.
Stuff like buying toothpaste.
And using toilets.
And saying words.
We instantly feel like bumbling idiots so we lean on anyone who can empathize. They point us in the right direction and the seeds of community are planted.
They explain the difference between green tea and mint toothpaste — we have a laugh and share a story. They explain the hazards and strategies of local toilets and we find ourselves talking about things that we haven’t even shared with our best friends.
Relationships go deeper quicker because our conversations are fueled by vulnerability.
No one says it out loud — “Hey I’m a bumbling idiot and you seem like a slightly less bumbling idiot, think you could help me out here?” — but that’s the field where community grows.
We huddle up — and we help each other — because we would fall apart if we didn’t.
We move forward together and learn to function at varying degrees of competence but all of us (even the long time vets) are operating at a fraction of the functionality of the average local person.
And THAT my friends, is where the magic happens. Somewhere along that path we actually start loving it to the point that we CHOOSE neediness over self-sufficiency — and it makes perfect sense to everyone around. Why in the world would you go to the store for eggs when your neighbor has nine in their fridge?
It’s a solid system.
And we love it.
So much so that we long for it wherever we go, especially back “home” — but “home” is a different reality.
You’re not a bumbler there.
Scratch that. You’re not supposed to be a bumbler there. You speak the language, you know the culture, you’re HOME for crying out loud . . . which makes the incompetence upon returning all that much more painful.
It’s a shared ache for so many global “returnees” . . . “I miss my community.”
So then, we (oh so naively) come blazing back into our old world armed with our new discoveries, fully prepared to fix the less enlightened . . . if they would just listen . . . and do everything we tell them . . . and buy houses on the same block . . . and share eggs.
We tend to skip straight to the glorious comradery because we have long since forgotten the mashup of incompetence. It’s not hard to sell but it is nearly impossible to deliver. It’s a slow, painful realization that the whole world doesn’t want to reorganize their lives around our epiphanies about community. People don’t choose incompetence if there are other options and now you have jumped back into the land of the Non-Needies.
It’s awkward for competent, fully functioning, proudly autonomous people to ask for help. Why would you do that?
Go get your own eggs.
The natural consequence of competence is independence which is the flip side of community.
Write this down.
In any transition, it is unfair to compare the end of the last thing to the beginning of the new thing.
It just is.
But we do anyway.
Three simple thoughts and I’ll shut up:
This is your story — but it’s not ONLY your story. Consider the other angles and the perspectives of the people around you.
Go easy on the unenlightened — transition tends to inflate our sense of “rightness” and make it easy to judge the one’s who “don’t get it.”
Be patiently persistent — Great community CAN happen again. It will look different (it has to). It may take longer — but it’s worth the intentionality to never give up.
What is your community experience?
This ring a bell? Struggling to make sense of it? Got it all figured out and want to share it with the rest of us?
Comment below — we could use some help.
Well said! Seriously. This is why my family and I keep bidding on African postings. We love the community that gets fostered in the absence of anything like the normal from “home” and we miss it when it is gone.
Jerry, you and I spoke about this 10 days ago or so, when I had the chance to experience your wonderful international community in China. Nice summation. Last week, back here in the US, I spoke with a nephew of mine who is currently living and working in a diplomatic community in Africa. He shared the very same experience of community. There they are handing out with a bunch of expats, depending upon each other, creating community, who would never otherwise form community back home. It’s very enriching abroad. Yes, it’s harder back “home” to find anything like it. TS
Find other returned expats and something beautiful may happen! Maybe some served in China and some in South Sudan or something like that. =) Doesn’t really matter where they worked/served, kind of like the kinship between TCKs. It isn’t the same as the community forged by mutual incompetence overseas, but it is closer! You may be welcome over for dinner, no questions, where you can talk about what it looks like to share eggs, and maybe they even draw South Sudan on their map in their living room as an act of welcome.
I’ve heard stuff like that actually happens Christine 🙂 Come visit — we have maps that need fixing on this side of the world too.
After experiencing community overseas for more than a decade, and having lived back in USA for 14 years already, my heart so resonates with this post. Truly, independence is the flip side of community, and it’s what Americans pride themselves in, along with comfort and convenience. We have yet to experience here what we had overseas. But yes, community appears as soon as you “hang out” with any others (over a meal, overnight visit, etc) who have lived overseas, no matter where they lived. Unfortunately, though, it’s not every day in our suburbia life. 🙁
So well said!! I miss the community so very much. I even miss being confused- the sense of learning and growing (every. single. day.) was wonderfully mind-boggling. Please keep writing and sharing.
YES! True! When an expat, I was friends and hung out with people I probably would’ve never associated with here in the states – we depended and relied on each other, took trips during breaks, had holiday meals together… I miss that! I feel so isolated being back in the states… politeness from others is a very surface type relationship… Anyways – still finding my way and hoping to find some like minded people here too….
Thanks so much for this post! We just got back (1 month ago) from 12 years in France and are struggling to find our feet, and of course, everything you’ve said about “we’re HOME for pete’s sake! what could be so hard?”.. really resonates with us. Thanks for the affirmation and for your helpful hints 🙂
For me, coming “home” was very much the experience of becoming a hidden immigrant. I was supposed to be competent–and could fake it well with strangers. I often lamented the fact that I’d never really done “grown up life” in America before. My friends who lived elsewhere in the world at some point nodded and agreed it was hard, but most .of them were on their way somewhere else in a matter of days.
I loved this post. Thank you!
I spent 12 years in France like Sheri and never “did grown-up life” here in the U. S. either. That was in the early 2000s and it is happening again, only this time my husband is the newcomer from the Dominican Republic. I still feel like a “hidden immigrant” at times and he is sick of hearing me complain that his friends’ wives are so unfriendly. But as Jerry said, there has to be a need for community. They have been friends for at least 10 years. The helpful hints will allow me to build community.
I think you nailed it! Vulnerability is key. Community can only happen when we are aware of our need for others, even if we like our autonomy.
I’ve enjoyed reading everything on your blog, very helpful! Thanks!
I was so puzzled when I got back from an additional 8 years in Mexico, that my own parents took years to give me 1 pair of their like 8 pairs of boots; and 1 of their 5 snow shovels!
Well put Jerry. I have felt this after being back in America for a few months. I work in a school of over 1000 people and sometimes it feels like the loneliest place to be. I think part of it is when you are in a small international bubble you not only seek out community but your community is more readily accepting of newcomers because you know they need community to survive internationally. I like what you said about being persistent as that is what I need to do.
I have found the dearth of community on the mission field an enormous hurdle. Where’s this crazy community you talk about on the field? I live in Chiang Mai though, which is a way less inter-dependent field-context than some others because there are so many M’s and it’s possible (if miserable) to be independent of one another / people around us.
When our kids were growing up, community was built around their friends and activities. Raising kids in any culture should make us aware of our neediness! During our “kids” days, community was formed at church, in our neighborhood, at school, and on the sports field. Once our kids were grown we had to switch to a different model. At first it was hard to intentionally show & share our needs with our non-Christian neighbors in order to build community in our new neighborhood. For the last 25 years it has been a richly satisfying experience to learn to humbly share God’s love 24/7 where we live rather than from a church building. I think watching our kids do that overseas has helped us step out in a similar way at “home”. Realizing that those around us have something valuable to share with us in our need is a big key to community. Thanks for hitting on this important thought, Jerry!
Wow….I got lucky today when I bumped into your ‘blog’ site….we have recently returned to live in the USA after forty years ( yep, count ’em) living internationally ( in a multitude of countries)…and, although we have frequently dipped into life in the States ( especially recently) for visits with friends and family, I am finding this reentry process to be NOT SO EASY. Of course, I shall prevail in the end, but, meanwhile, I will lean on your blog for much needed support. Thanks!