Daejeong, le 25 mars 2021
I was born, raised and lived in the same community for the first 62 years of my life. Most of my friends I have known for over 30 years, some for more than 50 years.
My fairly new friend, Terri, lost her mother a couple of weeks ago. The required quarantine conditions due to COVID-19 prevented Terri from attending her mother’s funeral in person. So she has not been in a very good place recently. Stephanie and I accompanied Terri and Peter last night for cocktails in a hotel lounge. We had a good time. Hopefully we contributed in their grieving and feeling a little better.
Terri decided that this year would be her last as an international teacher, it’s time to retire. She and Peter will be going back home in Australia at the end of the school year.
The first few months in Korea were for discovery of my new environment. Quickly, I started attending social events and met new people. With new people came new friendships. I still miss my old friends but I know they will always be there. These new friendships made in the international traveling context can be short lasting. People leave to travel elsewhere, to make new discoveries, to go back home.
Rosalinde went back to Great Britain when Harry retired. Lottie went back to Australia to help prepare for the arrival of a first grand-child. Rhonda soon followed. Ellen and Kevin were to leave for a new adventure in Saudi Arabia but had problems with getting visas in the COVID-19 context. They are now home in Nevada but will be off to Bangkok for the new school year. Same kind of story with Nadine and Jeremy. They could not get into Vietnam so they ended up in Albania. Heidi and Stu retired, almost, to chosen New-Zealand. Bianca and Mark went back home to Australia to start a family. Nick, Cecilia and Ella are now in Beijing with new jobs. Noeline and Ray retired to their homeland of New-Zealand after eight years on Jeju-do. Tony has just accepted an offer for a great new job in Washington DC. Carla is back in Thunder Bay, Ontario and Ahlya is going back to Canada at the end of this year. These are only some of my new friends that have moved on. Hopefully, we will stay in touch and even see some of them again.
New friends will arrive.
This is the hard part of living in a transient community, but when so many are expats there’s a natural bonding. Make the effort to stay in touch. It does make the world feel more like home.
How wonderful to have friends all over the world. You have all built memories working together
Such a grumpy looking friend in the first photo with the big sunglasses. She seems like a keeper though 🙂
International teaching has its perks. One of them is all of the new friends you make. The downside is that everybody eventually moves on and sometimes sooner rather than later. Still, lots of great experiences teaching internationally. I miss it.