Expatriates

Well, that is the definition of myself right now.
Since Cape Verde, I am an expatriate. I found this post about the expats communities and thought it was very funny, interesting, and with a crual reality. So I share it:

EXPATS
A strange category of people.
An expat is not an emigrant/immigrant.
An expat could stay in a country for years without ever living there for real.
An expat is someone sent in some God forgotten country to perform a job with a salary 4 times higher than the one he would get in his own country and 20 times higher than the one a local person would get for getting the same shit done!
An expat has a house somewhere, but not a home.
An expat goes to house parties quite often, and brings a bottle (but drinks two!).
An expat lives in a “bubble” totally separated from the real world (real world = everyday life in the host country or origin country).
An expat is assigned an “Expat coefficient” by other expats. The higher the coefficient the higher the rank of the expat in the community.
Here are some factors that may boost you coefficient over the top:

Diplomatic status: it expresses in the color of the plate of one’s car, and that means that this expat can park anywhere he feels like, and just ignore the police laughing laud at their face when they dare going at him with a ticket: HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING, I AM A DIIIIIPLOMAAAT!
You are a diplomat…+20 points

Housing allowance: it’s that tiny little money that your organization gives you on top of your salary to allow you to find a comfortable shelter. It’s one of the things that drive the other expats mad!!! Here’s what happens: a couple of rich and senseless organizations decided to give very very veeeery high housing allowances and that made the landlords very very veeery happy. The other landlords just assume that everyone in the expat tribe can afford the same prices, and they shoot the rents up to the sky.
Housing allowance = a house no expat would ever be able to afford in the “real world”……..+15 points

UN: no one likes the UN. This is a fact.
Those who work in the UN hate the beurocracy, the nepotism, the political games, the waste of money, the waste of time, the waste of energies, the endless talks.
Those who do not work in the UN hate that they do not work in the UN!
You work at the UN = other expats want your job…….+10 points

NGOs: this one is quite tricky. INGOs are in general quite well known, and everyone wants to join them. But while some of them give you a lot of points just like the UN (i.e. Oxfam) the great part of them are much less glamorous than their web sites may make you think.
+3 points for Care
+2 points for MSF and Save the Children
+1 point for National and other international NGOs
-1 point for local NGOs

Countries where the expat lived: Expats are usually serials. They move from one place to another and they talk about it as if it was just normal. They all love to say things like: when I was in Sudan… or… ahahah I remember that time in Mozambique… or… once, I was in Cambodia, it so happened that… and so on.
You can still get a few extra points for the Balcans and Geneva, the Mecca of expats, but in general. European countries usually are not considered good destinations for expats and they do not give a lot of points.
Countries: Africa +5 points/country
Asia +4 points/country
South America +3 points/country
Oceania +2 points/country
Europe
North America +1 point/country
Always add +3 points for conflict zone and +1 for post-conflict.

Time spent in the host country: the challenge of expats is to survive as long as they can in an unfriendly place so that they can complain about everything and they can show off their resistance with those that are coming new in the country.
+1 point/month of staying.
ATTENTION!
An expat should never stay in a place for longer than 5 years. That’s consider the threshold to be assimilated with emigrants or (God forbids!!!!) to the locals.
- 3 points every extra month after 5 years

Access to the American Embassy Supermarket: All American Embassy in the world are known to be some kind of self sufficient microcosm. They all have a Bowling facility a cinema, a diamond, a football pitch and A SUPERMARKET.
Everybody knows that!
In the American Embassy Supermarket expats can find all they need: imported beer and nachos. Expat ladies can also find tampons (not a detail to be given for granted!) and chocolate (often needed during the same days).
At the American Embassy Supermarket, expats also find pork meat in Islamic countries and beef in India. American Embassy Supermarkets occasionally provide their clients with special items such as pumpkins (end of October) or frozen turkeys (mid November).
You have access to the American Embassy Supermarket: +15 points

N. of languages spoken: All expat speak foreign languages. English and French are part of the basic package so they only give 1 expat point. If you are an expat in South America you obviously have to substitute French with Spanish. Portuguese is a little more exotic, and gives 2 points. Arabic, Chinese, Hindi and Swahili impress other expat quite a bit, you get 4 points for any of these languages.
Indonesian, Thai, Urdu, Dari, Turkish, Vietnamese…etc. will give you an extra value of +8 points/language. The advantage with this languages is that not many other expats will be able to really assess your fluency, and very often bunch of random words will shoot you up in the ranking without real merit.
Kindly notice that one’s mother tongue does not count.

N. of Nationalities: this criteria often differentiates between a simple expats and an expat of second (or third) generation.
The more nationalities you have, the better, but it goes without saying that not all the nationalities have the same weight in terms of points.
The evaluation is very complicated and an algorithm hasn’t been elaborated yet.
Shengen Passports/UK/Swiss always provide at least 5 points.
USA passports have been downgraded to 3 points, but they will be re-considered for upgrading after November 4th 2008.
Canadian-Australian-New Zealand +4 points because nobody has anything bad to say about them… because nobody knows them at all… (in the case of Kiwis it’s because no-one is able to understand what they say!)
Asian countries + 3 exception made for India and China.
In the case of India it depends on the presence of mustache. If you have mustache it’s only +2 points, if you don’t have it’s +4.
China it’s -2. Chinese are hurting the Tibetans and the Dalai Lama. The other expats don’t like that. You are Chinese, you lose 2 points.
African countries +1. If you have an African Nationality you are at high risk of being mistaken with a local (if you are in Africa) or with an immigrant (if anywhere else in the world). You might want to compensate getting some extra language points.
Arabic Countries + 0. You are not all seen like terrorists any more… but you certainly have one cousin who is. The other expats try their best to disguise their anxiety, but the moment you say something in Arabic (may be … I need a nap) they freak out and they think they should move to Switzerland and get themselves a nice anti-nuclear bunker!

I have personally met some Arab+USA nationals and I still think of them in pain at times… I think life could not have tricked them in a more cruel way that that!

The calculation of the Nationality coefficient can be very difficult as the Nationalities combine. Some websites can help you calculating your Nationality coefficient by filling up a matrix with all your Passports numbers (just like with you astrological ascendant).

Gender: You are a male + 10
You are a female -15
Just like that, just to stimulate women to give their best… how generous of men!

Now that you have a rough idea of how to evaluate the expat coefficient I will challenge you with a little game: find here below a transcript of THE conversation, try to give our two expats a coefficient and find out who is the leader among the two!

Only expats know about this conversation, if you have never had the following conversation you have never been an expat.

ATTENTION!
Occasionally visitors of expats try to have this same conversation, but they get immediately spotted by the real expats and their coefficient drops 60 points.

Expat 1: Hi, what’s your name?
Expat 2: Hi, my name’s Manuel, what about you?
E1: I’m Janet
E2: Nice to meet you Janet, what brings you to Algeri?
E1: I work for UNODC, and you?
E2: I work for a French Press Agency
E1: Cool, how long have you been around for?
E2: ehhhh It’s been already 10 months, and you?
E1: I just arrived 2 months ago
E2: uuuuuuuh I still remember when I had just arrived! This place will drive you crazy! Have you seen the way they’re driving??
E1: Yes, but I have lived 2 years in Bangkok, and I am used to much worse that that! You have no idea how busy and unruled Asian metropolis can get!
E2: to tell the truth I know very well, my first assignment was in Jakarta… good times!
E1: so you are French?
E2: hehehe…it’s difficult to say! My Father is French but my mother is Argentinian, her parents were Italian and I was born in Moscow, my father used to work for the Foreign Services. But I do not consider myself anything, that’s why I never wanted to try the diplomatic career, I am a journalist, I don’t want anyone to tell me what to say or do…I’m a free spirit !
E1: interesting…it all sounds very interesting…I am from Wisconsin and my parents were from….Wisconsin!
E2: how long have you been working with UNODC?
E1: I started with a short term contract in Bangkok, I was supposed to stay 3 months and then I ended up staying there for more than 2 years…
E2: Thailand…I know someone who has worked in Thailand for a while, maybe you know him… I met him in Nairobi, we were both there for a workshop on human rights and sexual exploitation… His name is Ahmed…mmm… Jacob… I cannot remember his surname, British-Iranian guy with big glasses…
E1: I DO KNOW AHMED! How cool is that? He had been going out with my colleague, a super cool Colombian girl… but I suppose that the Colombian-Brit-Iranian mix didn’t work out well!
E2: Listen, I am organizing a bbq for next Saturday, nothing big, just to hang out with a few friends, do you want to join?
E1: I’d love to! I’ll get some pork ribs…they are always quite difficult to find here in Algeri, and I am sure they will be appreciated! You know, we have a quota of duty free stuff…. Are you al set with beer?
E2: that’s great I’ll make sure you’ll be my friend on a long term! That’s precious stuff! See you on Saturday then!
E1: See you!!!

E1: Hi! I’m Janet…What’s your name?
E3: Hi…I’m Sunil, where are you from?
E1:I am from the US, where are you from?
E3: I am from Mumbai……………..
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What a fun life, eh????
(Taken from the Midway blog: http://nellaterradimezzo.blogspot.com/)