Field Notes from a Decade of Working Abroad

“Can you believe those construction guys aren’t wearing helmets or gloves?”

The workplace safety standards in the Dominican Republic shocked my friend Jamie, who had come to visit from the U.S., as we watched workers on a rooftop above us.

“It’s better than what I see in sub-Saharan Africa, where they don’t even wear shoes or shirts,” I thought to myself, smiling as I recognized how much my frame of reference for a build site had changed since leaving home.

When I moved to Italy to pursue a career in teaching in 2011, I had no idea what was in store for me. While I’d traveled with friends and family on short trips in my mid-20s, the concept of living and working abroad hadn’t sunk into my brain. Hopping between positions with language centres to local and international NGOs in those first few years, I learned some invaluable lessons about what it truly means to survive as a foreigner living and working internationally.

1. Time is fluid

One of my first rude awakenings was the extremely loose idea of punctuality. This concept has many different names—Asia time, Africa time, Latin time, Mediterranean time—and can be linked back to the fact that in some cultures, time is circular rather than linear.

I’ve grown used to being the first to arrive at everything, from Zoom meetings online to site visits with colleagues. Adjusting my mental clock has been key to staying sane when a barbecue “dinner” is finally served at 3 a.m.

“Knowing that other people will be late, I just come intentionally late too, and it works out perfectly!” advised Lauren, a Peace Corps volunteer I met in India.

I’ve adopted her approach numerous times. In some cases, I work on secondary tasks while waiting for others to show up. The slow start is a valuable opportunity to connect with the first people who show up and to bond in more intimate conversations.

2. Plan to make a last-minute decision

As a natural planner, I am generally a few steps ahead of my next team check-in, impending deadline or upcoming weekend plans, but the unpredictability of another culture should not be underestimated. On more than one occasion, I’ve learned about minor national holidays the day before (or day of), had to delay work trips due to visiting VIPs whose entourages and motorcades shut down the entire city, or reassess the safety of carrying out plans in locations with a lack of infrastructure during extreme weather conditions.

Still, Plan B—and C—are always in my back pocket. I wait until it’s closer to the deadline to solidify which option to run with.

“We put together proposals and reports looking ahead sometimes up to 16 months in advance,” says Nate, a program manager with a French NGO in Côte d’Ivoire, who laments the annual budgeting schedule that many development NGOs have to work with. “It’s tough—we do our best to think about what is ideal, and then what is possible—and we do need to change and adjust many details in the end.”

3. Observe and absorb before leaping in

In my first week as a staff member with an NGO in Rabat, Morocco, I was invited to join the team for the communal couscous lunch shared every Friday. Seated with five other locals around the massive round plate, I saw none of the tantalizing chunks of lamb in front of me. I reached to my left and snagged a piece from that portion of the plate, and immediately, five pairs of eyes swiveled in my direction. My coworker on my right elbowed me and loudly whispered, “Hey. . . stick to what’s in front of you, don’t take other people’s food!”

I recall that deep flush of embarrassment every time I’m in a new environment, and remind myself to take a deep breath and wait a beat before jumping in.

Intercultural workplaces and communities bring together many conflicting norms and traditions, so I’ve made it a habit to pick up on my surroundings first, rather than let my enthusiasm overcome my good sense. Particularly during special occasions, watch what others do to reduce your chances of offending someone.

4. Stay well-read on the current events in your new home

I have encountered social activism protests in Turkey, election street closures in Togo and intentional Internet blackouts because of school exams in Iraq.

Finding a local news source or regionally focused outlet is always on my checklist to help me settle in. Political, social and financial news can trigger potential demonstrations or blockades, inform my work projects and hiring, or directly affect local friends and colleagues.

With the accessibility of news on the Internet (in most countries), there is no excuse these days to not know what’s going on in your region of the world. If the Internet is difficult to access, or reliable unbiased information (particularly concerning politics) is difficult to come by, you can also ask colleagues or friends for alternate channels of information. 

5. Always get a second opinion, but trust your own gut

What’s considered “far,” “interesting,” “loud” or “expensive” is incredibly subjective. In Moscow, I took seemingly endless walks with local friends whose perceptions of what “cold” is differed harshly from my own.

In India and Thailand, I enjoyed meals for which my stomach later paid the price, as I discovered what “not spicy” meant for locals compared to me. With usually a large gap between local and foreign perceptions, I take multiple suggestions into consideration and assess my own needs to find a compromise.

“I recall that deep flush of embarrassment every time I’m in a new environment, and remind myself to take a deep breath and wait a beat before jumping in.”

Whether it’s a health issue or a staffing referral, I always seek a minimum of two opinions—and, when possible, from different backgrounds and nationalities. While Google can be helpful in aggregating basic information, on-the-ground opinions are generally more updated and personal to my requests and needs.

When I was looking for a venue to host an event in Jakarta, another expat highly recommended a beautiful restaurant for local food. However, a local friend insisted I check out another place nearby with comparable decor and superior quality and cleanliness in the dishes. After all, he knew the owners and vouched for the authenticity, and ate there with his relatives from time to time.

6. Sometimes, there isn’t an app for that

It’s very easy, almost too easy, to be reliant on digital tools and phone apps. First-time expats may have trouble getting through the day when those tools and apps aren’t available or useful.

Many map apps haven’t yet caught up to the latest infrastructure, or aren’t comprehensive enough to include the numerous tiny roads and alleyways used by taxis, motorcyclists and tuk-tuks. Even with offline maps, I’ve had to resort to asking the locals for landmarks to reorient myself. Many landmarks used by locals no longer even exist, such as the former Parliament building I worked near in Costa Rica or the previous Jehovah's Witness headquarters in Togo near my home.

Even if the maps apps are functioning, be prepared for locals to have mixed levels of digital literacy. Though two-thirds of the world has Internet access, according to Statista, it’s skewed towards developed countries. Only a quarter of the population in sub-Saharan Africa has Internet connectivity, according to the mobile operator lobby group GSMA.

This kind of patchy access means that while using rideshare apps such as Dubai-based Careem, Togolese company Gozem or Russian app Maxim, the drivers often call after accepting my request and verbally ask for my location and end destination since they couldn’t understand the app’s GPS functions or read the map.

Language apps, especially offline versions, can be useful but come riddled with their own translation kinks, especially for lesser-known languages like Tajik, which leads me to my next point. . .

7. Pick up at least some of the local language

For languages with different alphabets, such as Cyrillic, Arabic, or Hindi, I’ve discovered that locals genuinely appreciate the effort to learn their language. More often than not they are fully aware of the challenges of their language for a foreigner, and that recognition goes a long way when working alongside and building relationships with local teams and communities.

Learning a new language is difficult and it gets harder with age. I’ve signed up for formal lessons, private and group ones, as well as language exchanges to keep up with ones I already have a foundation in. It is impossible to be fluent in every language I come across, but recognizing key vocabulary without needing to whip out a smartphone is incredibly useful.

Other times, translation apps will choose one dialect of a language (such as Soroni Kurdish) to use in their app, but aren’t that helpful with a speaker of a different dialect (such as Gorani or Kurmanji), a distinction I didn’t even realize existed until I lived in Kurdistan.

8. When in doubt, sports and food are safe dinner-table conversations

It isn’t just politics and religion anymore. The list of taboo conversation subjects I’ve run into overseas have also included the president, his family, anything governmental or military, family members, marriages, divorces and romantic relationships, LGBTQI+ issues in any shape or form, immigrants, ethnic minority groups, salaries, media, official languages and the country’s history, to name a few.

It can be tough to find neutral topics for small talk with a local colleague at lunch or a taxi driver eager to practice his English. Yet, sports and food have consistently remained themes that every single person can rally around.

Regardless of class, religion or political beliefs, everyone lights up discussing their favourite dish, and can talk endlessly about its ingredients, who makes it the best, and how I definitely need to try it.

Football excites everyone, including more women than I had expected. When I lived in Douala, Cameroon, Kylian Mbappé—the French forward with Cameroonian roots—was the talk of the town; during my time in the Middle East, it was Mohamed Salah, the Egyptian player for Liverpool.

9. Over-communicate and ask twice

Even with technology and functional-to-fluent language skills, there can still be a massive cultural barrier in a new country. This means that there is no such thing as over-communicating or asking too many questions. I typically record—in an email, SMS, WhatsApp or another form of written documentation—any in-person or phone conversation involving work decisions, and I try to phrase things in more than one way, just in case. This has caught many mix-ups, for example when two people have different definitions of the same word, such as “maximum.”

As an outsider, the burden falls more heavily on my shoulders to clarify meanings when something doesn’t make sense. As a result, I ask for clarification regularly, even at the risk of annoying my host in Morocco who made it known to me that mealtime wasn’t for chatting but for eating.

10. Lean into the rollercoaster experience

The situations I have found myself in can sometimes feel out-of-body. My brain can’t comprehend that my eyes are seeing street orphans in Mumbai with no electricity access dance to “Gangnam Style,” or that my ears just heard conservative middle-aged Muslim businesswomen in Indonesia asking what the difference is between a “cougar,” a “gold digger” and a “cradle robber.”

I hold on tightly to these memories, and the occasional absurdity. It’s part of the ride of working overseas, getting to fully understand and live by the rhythm of another part of the world, embracing every bush rat soup I ingested to please a host in Ghana and each pair of broken flip-flops lost to jigger flea-infested mud during my commutes in Uganda.