Immigrant's resistance to courtship...

It could happen that you are courted by somebody but you don't want to accept the romantic proposal or you don't want to accept all the "contractual conditions" of a serious relationship....not because you don't like him/her, but because you are scared by the risk to fall in something too serious... the SERIOUS LOVE-STORY.

In that case you make all your efforts to demonstrate to the other people that you are not seriously involved with phrases like "we are not engaged!" ..."no...It's not because I was missing you,,..I called you only because I needed your course notes.." and etc etc....

Until this week it happened the same thing to me, but not with a girl... with the country in which I'm living now!!!

Until this week I said "I don't like this and that" for everything! Food, language, culture... everything... Probably because I felt I couldn't admit to myself that I was beginning to love this country... with all its flaws! I was always repeating in my head "this is not my country! My only love is my home-city that I left!"

This country it's like that woman who's not a TOP MODEL, but who is, although her flaws, sexy...captivating...friendly....smart.. perfect for a serious relationship!

Yesterday I said to my She:"you know what? I definitely like this country! It's amazing! I could live here for ever!".

an immigrant friend

free tennis court

Moving, abroad or just in a new home is a bit disorienting.

At beginning you need to feel safe and you just try to follow the same way, go to the same supermarket, cross the same traffic light. Only after a while you find the courage to explore what is behind that corner and you probably end up finding a stream just behind your house, a cheaper shop behind the corner and a free tennis ground in the park. 

It makes me think about all the opportunity or people who live just behind the corner but I'm just too scared to cross that street to find them. Sometimes I just don't know where to find them. New technologies should help me but they don't. The advert of cool events often will be a meeting of people who leave with the same friends with whom arrived...

Maybe it is hard to find good friends after school. The friends you had in your childhood last for ever but then? My friends live miles away from here and I don't know if I will find someone who will love me as a sister anymore. 

an immigrant sterotype

On holiday or when you leave forever there is always someone you'll find. It's the one you never want to be, the one you avoid, you don't want to be seen with him, he is the one for whom you left but is the one other people see in you. 

Spanish, lazy; Italian, Mafia; English, dirty; American, ignorant; Islamic, religious extremist, and so on.
It doesn't matter how much you try to take the distance when you go abroad you will find your compatriot reflecting exactly that stereotype and you understand you won't get rid of it. First of all is because you are the first who has the same prejudice and second because there is really something true in those stereotypes.

An immigrant find himself in his stereotype because you miss something in everyday life of your country and you try to rebuilt your identity at home. Your food, your music, your favorite TV show till you find yourself living in a small colony. You try and try to integrate and understand the new place but there are habit you won't never share.

What remains is tying to get the best from both the culture hoping will be enough to give something special to your children... one day.

an immigrant nostalgia

When do you start to feel less homesick? 

home coming

Everybody says after six months and perhaps it's true. Six months are a lot to be spent far from home and friends in a foreign country. I think that the moment when you realize you can live somewhere else is when you come back after six months.That moments creates a fracture that will never be sealed. 

You have a lot of expectation and you really want to spent as much as possible at home so the first mistake will be book a 20 days holiday. BAD IDEA... You will be full of expectation because in your mind all the best memories are overlapped and makes you blind in front of all the reasons that encouraged your departure. Soon then after these memories collide with the everyday routine and you understand that there isn't a place for you, you are more like a tourist, visitor in your home country. Shortly you will wish to arrive at the end of the holiday sooner because your home is somewhere miles away.

Immigrant....musical messages in a bottle...

I'm a professional musician but in my country it's only a HOBBY but it could be different in other countries...

When I decided to leave everybody was saying to me that I was ruining my dreams for ever, specially for two reasons:

1. "You got married, so your life is definitely OVER!"
2. "You are leaving an environment so full of artists, amazing musicians. What a hell are you doing mate! Do you really think that the country you are moving to is so amazing for musicians? They are all LEGENDS!"

They were right about the amazing artistic environment I was leaving... yes.. but it was an environment full of really pour people and without enough money music doesn't work at all!

In this country I spent the longest period without joining any musical project in all my life: 9 months. I was sending my "SOS message" on the internet to find somebody...I really was considering to leave music...thinking that my friends could be right...when somebody contacted me.. I did the audition and... DONE! Now I'm playing in a professional band with good business...

Keep following your dreams... maybe they are not economically useful but they can really be the safety of your soul.... 

My "She" supported me during the worst periods, she has been the only person encouraging me to keep sending my "SOS musical messages"...so my friends were wrong also about marriage: it didn't ruined my dreams at all! 

an immigrant apartment

 The @guardian wins news graphics today for this illustration of tiny London apartments pic.twitter.com/O5LnP4grby

— Liam Stack (@liamstack) September 10, 2014

I would like to thank the Guardian for this amazing illustration. Because this is exactly what are you going to face when you leave. As you are an immigrant and you don't know where to live you end up with this kind of accommodation and the picture below will show you how incredible Guardian's representation looks like our home. One day a friend came at home and it seamed very crowded! I would like to have the cat too but it will be against cat rights (probably is against human rights too)...

For a couple is very hard find something independent and there are a lot of compromises to accept. Actually we were very lucky because the apartment was new and a part from some claustrophobic  moments (are you cooking from your bedroom?) everything works well and we don't share...
There is also another factor, we love each other a lot because here there isn't privacy at all and if you want to stay a bit on your own the only option is the toilet.
There is only one question which freaks me out: Who decided to put a corner sofa in a studio flat of 35 m2? 

our "apartment" 

An immigrant job

Origami installation

When we first arrived I found a job straight away. It was a job in hospitality and catering.
Surfing the internet you will find many stories of people who found a great job abroad immediately and now they have supercool life. In my experience not many immigrates find this amazing job. For different reasons like your qualification is not trusted 100% or your level or language is not enough to cover some positions (can you blame them?). For PhD student is easier because University is an international environment.

90% of people working in hospitality and waiting staff  are immigrates. Many of them have degrees and they started to do that job just to have their first income. Unfortunately one, two, three years pass and after a decade they find their self stacked in the same working field. Of course they will become managers and have a better salary but they have completely lost their dreams.
I found many of these stories during my first months here and I was afraid to have the same destiny forgetting how much I love science and what my dreams were. There were a Portuguese journalist/waiter, a Spanish engineer/builder, a Ghanaian chemist/waiter and so on.

That's why I decided to invest one year and get a qualification here. It is hard to say if my decision was wise or crazy considering that savings will finish soon and I have to know if I win the bet. What I keep thinking is: stay focus on your dream.