One Year Without Community.

This is the third post in the blog series One Year Without.  See all of the posts here.

Over the past few years we’ve been slowly sliding downhill, shifting further away from friends and family, until we finally hit bottom when we moved abroad.   At least, that is what it felt like.

Mr. Meena and I both spent several years in our college town surrounded by a church community and friends who felt like family, and we greatly missed that support system when we graduated.  We moved to Charlotte, NC and lived there for just a year and a half.  During that time we struggled to rebuild a community of friends, but we were able to remain in contact with our college friends and visit them periodically.  We were also fortunate that some of Mr. Meena’s family moved much closer to us during that time.  But once we moved to Germany we felt more alone than ever before.

For our first few months in Germany we only knew people that we had working relationships with, such as the relocation agency, Mr. Meena’s coworkers, and some of the hotel staff.  It was especially hard to find friends because we couldn’t speak more than a few words of German.  Furthermore, our small city didn’t have any well-known or easy to find expat groups.  Many things worked against us: we didn’t have children – so we couldn’t meet people via the school system, we were placed in an extended stay hotel – so we couldn’t connect with neighbors, and we experienced various cultural differences – such as how Germans take a much slower approach to friendship compared to Americans.

Perhaps the hardest part was that we needed community more than ever before.  Moving to a foreign country is daunting; every day brought something new, unexpected, or unfamiliar.  We desperately needed people that could help us overcome various obstacles and figure out confusing situations.  Which store has the special tool we need?  How do we choose a doctor?  Where do you buy contact solution?! (That one took us a long time to figure out.  It’s not located in the grocery store; you have to purchase it at a pharmacy).  We had more questions than resources.

Facing all these challenges without a supportive community took a toll on our relationship as well.  We had been married for less than two years when we moved to Germany and our marriage dynamic definitely changed when we became expats.  We relied on each other more but we also had more opportunities to irritate one another.  The stress of constantly encountering difficulties in everyday life led to many fights.

We weren’t able to blow off steam in the same way; for example, there were no nights out with friends that left us feeling refreshed.  Furthermore, it was hard for me to go out alone which meant that Mr. Meena had to sacrifice some of his free time accompany me – something that didn’t happen as often at home.  This was a time when we could have really benefited from having family or friends there to counsel and help us.

After about four months of struggling to find community we finally met another expat, who introduced us to another, who invited me to coffee and told me about a local intercultural group.  I suddenly had friends who spoke English and were happy to see me every week – people that I could turn to for assistance.  I started an English group for people who wanted to maintain or improve their language competency and I made more friends that way.  Mr. Meena began playing squash regularly with a colleague who taught him various helpful things about life in Germany.  We were so relieved to finally have a small community to reach out to.  It wasn’t the extensive network that we were used to having, but it was genuine and we were grateful for it.

Photo by Mike licensed under CC BY 2.0. 

We also connected with one of the weekend receptionists working at our hotel after several months into our time abroad.  She spoke English and had lived in America, describing herself as more American than German at times.  She quickly became our protective mother hen and advocated for us whenever we needed something fixed in our hotel suite.  Seeing her every week made our lives feel more normal.

Halfway through our year aboard we had several family members come to visit.  They were a breath of fresh air; we felt loved and empowered by having them here.  Even though we talk to them often, the time difference and poor Wi-Fi signal (which we rely on to phone home) often work against us.  There have been many times I’ve wished I could drive over to my in-laws house for dinner and conversation or ask them to watch our pet bird while we’re away.

While we had finally found a few true friends we still missed a huge aspect of our typical community: having a church to call home.  This is one topic I’ve found to be rarely mentioned by other expats, long-term travelers, or digital nomads.  Perhaps it’s too private for some to discuss or simply not a part of their lives, and therefore not an issue.  But attending church and spending time with fellow believers has been a pillar in our lives and relationship, so this was very difficult for us.  We searched extensively for churches that had English services or offered translations (some churches will have one person translate while others listen through headphones).  Living in a small town and not having a car were huge barriers in our attempts to find a church.  We would have had to commute two hours on Sunday evenings to the closest church that would work for us, and we didn’t like that one very much.  Sometimes we tried to arrange our travels so that we could attend English services in a large city, but that rarely worked out and wouldn’t have provided us with the community that we were looking for, anyway.  I feel that this issue was a rather unique situation for us; most of the expats I know personally either live on a military base (which provides a built in community and church) or don’t regularly attend church.  If we were living here permanently, or for at least a few years, this would cease to be an issue because eventually we’d become fluent in German and join a local church.

This past year has been incredibly hard in many ways.  We’ve greatly missed our family, our long term friendships, and having a church that speaks our language.  Yet we have learned much from going without the community that we had become accustomed to.  We learned to be more independent and trust that we can do hard things on our own.  Our marriage has been tested and strengthened by facing these hardships together without outside influence.  We’ve spent more time together and in solitude by having less friends and family that we would be (happily) obliged to dedicate time to.  We’ve saved money by giving fewer gifts, visiting people less often, and simply not needing to do much for others (such as celebrate birthdays, attend showers, etc.).  While giving up community is never something I would want to do long-term, doing so over the past year has been tough but also beneficial.  It’s an experience I’m glad to have, even if it only serves to remind me to value others more.

Read the next post in the series.

Featured photo by Chris licensed under CC BY 2.0.