The Life of a Serial Expat

Fushimi Inari-taisha, Kyoto Japan

Cravings for Adventure

As a child my parents valued stability. I grew up with few but deep roots, I only spoke one language, knew one culture and never knew a world without ‘apartheid’. I graduated a stone throw from where I was born. My childhood was characterized by stability and predictability. 

Until one bright South African morning when a friend, Jay and I went to pick up our friend Susan at the airport. Two wide eyed, small town kids in their late teens lost in the middle of a terminal in the busy Johannesburg airport. People were hurrying into all directions. Bright signboards with flight numbers and cities I’ve never heard off. Imagine, I thought. Traveling international, across oceans and to exotic destinations. I’ve barely left my small hometown and I’ve never owned a passport. I so desperately wanted to go somewhere, it hurt. When I saw my father again I asked if we had family somewhere abroad. ‘Where?’ ‘Anywhere!!’ Disappointment.

Exploration & Identity

First came London. After several exhibitions and saving furiously I landed on Heathrow and hit the ground running. I shared a single bed with a girlfriend in an overcrowded house and had just enough to buy food for a week. I did not care. Within hours I was walking into The National Gallery, through the Portrait Gallery before finding home in what was once a Power Station. Tate Modern became my church. Sometimes I was kicked out in the evening simply to crawl back as they reopened the doors the next morning.

The next few years my journey was rooted in passion for excitement, exploration as well as a search for connection and meaning. Not as people often assumed, running away from the crime, violence and political unrest that South Africa was characterized by. I cried walking through the Vatican, got squashed like a bug in an Asian crowd in front of the the Mona Lisa and reached out to touch van Gogh’s wheat fields. Seeing & experiencing some of the world’s most incredible art was life changing.

After Europe and a few more successful exhibitions I relocated to the US. Newly married and an exciting new continent for two young South-Africans to explore. A few weeks later I walked into a gallery in Louisville, Kentucky. Trying to be brave I asked about representation before the owner explained that this gallery is only for African artists. Excitedly I explained that I’m from South Africa –but then the light dimed as I watched the frown on the woman’s face grow. It hit me. I’m not African enough. With my embarrassingly thick Afrikaans accent I surely could not pass for American. Where did I belong?

Every new place we lived started as mere adventure and excitement but gradually became the new normality. I also came to learn that packing up belongings and moving from country to country was really the easy part. Anyone can pack a box or manage the piles of paperwork. But it is the courage to walk away from one life into the unknown that requires fearlessness.    

As decades passed the country where I was born became increasingly distant until I felt more like a tourist there. ‘Home’ became everywhere and nowhere at the same time while the question “Where are you from?” became difficult. I will always love South Africa passionately but our children, although they speak the language do not share that identity. When someone in Bali recently asked our son where he was from his response was “My brother and I am American, my parents are South African and India is our home”

Repatriation Blues

Another question I often get is ‘when are you going back?’. The first few times I would stare dumbly ‘back where?’ In time I learned a better response; ‘one can only go forward, never back.’ However, for the first time last year we did move ‘back’. Not back to where I grew up but back to Savannah USA, a city we lived before. After 5 years in Asia, the topic of reverse culture shock was discussed and researched but even that could not prepare me for reality.

Living in a different culture one’s perspective inevitably change. Going ‘back’ you simply aren’t who you were when you left. Friends have relocated or moved on. I often felt alone, like an outsider lost between worlds. As fellow traveler, Nora Dunn aptly described “Most people travel to connect to the world around them, and yet, after all these years, I’ve discovered a greater sense of disconnection than ever before”.

No Regrets

Today I’ve been living outside my home country for over 20 years. I’ve done 8 international moves and lived on four continents. I’ve woken up in the small hours of the morning not knowing what city or even country I am in. There have been moments paralyzed with fear, overwhelmed with information and dizzy with excitement. Culture shock is my drug and I cannot get enough.

Our children may have missed out on the predictability and consistencies of the stable childhood I enjoyed. They missed out on family events and celebrations, play areas in the mall as well as baseball, football and even fast food. They may one day regret some of that. But they have learned to climb trees in Lei Ladakh, how to swim while chasing fish in the Gulf of Thailand, how to do yoga in Delhi and how to hold sushi sticks in Tokyo. They missed out on hunting Easter eggs but have celebrated Divali and Dussehra multiple times and know many Indian gods by name. Sadly they have also painfully learned to say far too many goodbyes in their young lives but also that there are nothing in the world like, “hello again my friend.”

While multi-racial schools were unheard of in my apartheid-era hometown, this is all our children know. With a dozen nationalities in many of our children’s classrooms they are able to love all their peers without prejudice. When I asked our introverted 8-year-old ‘What do you like about yourself’, to my surprise he replied without hesitation ‘I am great at making new friends!’

Our children’s identity will not only be anchored by their passports or the birth country of their parents, but also those in which they are raised.  They will have many roots of all shapes and colours. Those roots may not always be deep but they are in every corner of the world and they are strong.




*Please feel free to share your travel experience /thoughts below.