Life for Expats in non-Western areas of the world - AKA what's it like to be a Somalian pirate / Thai Lady-boy

Aumis Graham

Aumis Graham

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Jun 18, 2019
Having lived in a western country my entire life (We can just group Canada, USA, Western Europe as 'western' countries), I've always been interested in what people's experiences in non-western lands are.

I know Josh has said he lives in the Ukraine, as does CRP (an odd pair if there ever was one). However, I never have really heard the expat life for someone who lives in an Eastern European country, African country, or maybe in something more unconventional like South East Asia. Stuff online all seems like propaganda designed by a countries tourist agencies, so I never have deeply read into it.

No one has to dox themselves (I'm not a honeypot just yet), but I would love to discuss the process of moving, life in a new home country, etc., etc, or point me towards blogs or whatever. Plz no 'yeah I'm an expat I live in the EU and moved from Ireland to France'. That's not really a gigantic change, and is much easier then moving from Canada to Somalia.
 
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I'm a US citizen that moved to Africa for a bit to work as a bush pilot back in the mid 2000s. I was based out of J-burg but I'd fly as far up as Djibouti with some regularity and even had to make a pair of trips to the Mideast, but almost always on the Eastern half of the continent. It was pretty fucked up if I'm being honest. Africa is a true "Shithole" to borrow the chief executive's parlance. Some areas are nice, but they're all Sandals resorts, high priced Safari parks and a 3 block area where a cruise ship will pull in with European and Chinese tourists. I didn't mind Uganda or Djibouti as the rest though. Ugandans were almost always extremely nice people and were excited to meet an American. The folks in Djibouti were just super jazzed that the US and French presence kept Somali's from being an issue. In fact, Djibouti at the time I was out there with any regularity had a significant amount of French Legionaries and French Med/Nursing students. So there were some pretty good impromptu dance clubs set up under huge tents with a not-insignificant amount of cute French chicks that were just thrilled to see a man who didn't have a tropical disease and possessed all of their teeth.

Sudan was in a civil war, but to be honest my two flights in there were uneventful. Somalia sucked shit and I saw a LOT of fires from above the larger towns. I only went over Mogadishu once, but I was about 9500ft above it and several miles West and it looked like Blackhawk Down was still going on 12 years after the fact. Never went to Zimbabwe, but knew enough former nationals while I was in country to know better than to volunteer to go. Angola filled me with an odd sense of dread. Never had anything bad happen, but the entire time it just felt like something was just wrong when you are there.

South Africa was the biggest fucking mess though. It was like Mad Max times there, but no one wanted to admit to it. Cops gunning motorcycle thieves down with MP5s from low flying helos. Getting shot at with AKs in my plane by assholes when I had to fly at lower altitudes near Pretoria when I was landing at one of the strips we would use to load RF equipment. People lighting cars on fire at night and throwing flaming debris at one another. Getting giardia from a Nando's was a rough experience, but led to me literally shitting out of the side door of a Cessna Caravan while one of the security guys held on to my jacket and I clung to the door frame at 1500ft, so all in all it was a life experience I'd never want to do again, but wouldn't want to have not done either.

Seriously though, Africa sucks
 
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I moved from Ireland to France. Get fucked in French and Irish, OP.
OP is a faggot Britbong?
 
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I've heard Thailand is cheap but the quality of living is generally shitty. If you want to buy certain things you'll want (phones, laptops, etc), they're super expensive
 
I lived in South America. One thing that caught me off guard in Paraguay is how much the wealthy hated the indigenous population. It didn’t matter if they were also indigenous. They absolutely hated the Guarani, especially if they could be mistaken for being part Guarani.

In Argentina, I was caught off guard by how much Italian food Argentines ate. I was especially surprised that they didn’t really eat spicy food.

Brazil was way different than I thought too. There’s a large contrast between the north and the south. Basically their north is like our south but more Africanized and their south has a lot of European communities. Brazil also surprised me with the number of weebs they had and even the number of actual Japanese that lived there.
 
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IAmNotAlpharius said:
I lived in South America. One thing that caught me off guard in Paraguay is how much the wealthy hated the indigenous population. It didn’t matter if they were also indigenous. They absolutely hated the Guarani, especially if they could be mistaken for being part Guarani.

In Argentina, I was caught off guard by how much Italian food Argentines ate. I was especially surprised that they didn’t really eat spicy food.

Brazil was way different than I thought too. There’s a large contrast between the north and the south. Basically their north is like our south but more Africanized and their south has a lot of European communities. Brazil also surprised me with the number of weebs they had and even the number of actual Japanese that lived there.
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Yeah Brazil did that crazy Mega Man comic a while back.

Sometimes I think about moving to some crazy third world shithole with internet when I'm doing my work-from-home stuff.
 
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TiggerNits said:
Angola filled me with an odd sense of dread. Never had anything bad happen, but the entire time it just felt like something was just wrong when you are there.
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Thats very interesting. Any idea what it possibly was that made you feel that way?

I'd also love to hear more stories from africa in general, if you have any more.
 
JoshPlz said:
Thats very interesting. Any idea what it possibly was that made you feel that way?

I'd also love to hear more stories from africa in general, if you have any more.
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Not sure, could have been a lot of factors. One of the security guys that flew with me a lot said something like "Angola is a nation built on the decaying corpse of civility" and I never stopped picking up that vibe the entire time.

Also

Buster O'Keefe said:
AIDS?
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Every damn where, man.
 
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Buster O'Keefe said:
AIDS?
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Nobodies got aids! I don't wanna hear that word again!
826564
 
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I've never left North America, but a cousin of mine is an ex-pat in the UAE. I don't fucking know how he does it.
IAmNotAlpharius said:
I lived in South America. One thing that caught me off guard in Paraguay is how much the wealthy hated the indigenous population. It didn’t matter if they were also indigenous. They absolutely hated the Guarani, especially if they could be mistaken for being part Guarani.

In Argentina, I was caught off guard by how much Italian food Argentines ate. I was especially surprised that they didn’t really eat spicy food.

Brazil was way different than I thought too. There’s a large contrast between the north and the south. Basically their north is like our south but more Africanized and their south has a lot of European communities. Brazil also surprised me with the number of weebs they had and even the number of actual Japanese that lived there.
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Japanese-Brazilian is very common. Then again, they have the largest amount of Japanese ex-pats in the world. My guess is that Italian-Argentinians are the same, except that some other country has the largest amount of Italian ex-pats in the world.
 
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