Cooking food from the home country: Introducing your family and friends to tastes from your home like pancakes, sausages and maple syrup. Simply yum. Just ask my British kids and their friends!
Homesickness is different to culture shock even though it can happen at the same time. Homesickness is the hollow feeling from deep inside that you sense can only be filled with the things you formed your life around previously–the daily hum outside your house, the scents from your street, the casual hello from a neighbour who you grew up with, the easy journey to your mom’s house.
When we’re homesick we feel it like a bad flu—a headache (or heartache), a general malaise and no tablet can get rid of it. You can distract yourself from thinking about it sometimes, but distractions don’t make it go away. Unlike a flu, time does not make homesickness better. Even long term expats can suffer from homesickness.
1. Start by making a home
So what makes a home? The home you’re missing is where you’ve surrounded yourself with comforts, favourite things, you know where all the best places are to eat locally, you have a favourite park to take the kids, you have friends living nearby that you meet up with from time to time… you see where I’m going with this?
You can start with the house or apartment you live in. Spend a little time decorating it and generally making it comfortable for your needs. Make your home a sanctuary. But don’t stop there.
2. Your local environment is part of your home as well
- What’s your favourite local restaurant? Don’t have one yet? Find one. Become a regular.
- Where is your favourite park? Don’t know of one yet? Ask around, look at maps, explore, and find one.
- What’s your favourite café or coffee shop? Haven’t found it yet? Ask other school parents, expats, and neighbours or walk through your favourite neighbourhood and try several out on different days. Become a regular.
- What’s your favourite time of day in your host country? Why? Is it because traffic is quieter? Or the way the light settles on everything? Or you haven’t noticed a favourite time yet? Watch for one and schedule your day around it so you can enjoy it.
- What’s your favourite local food? Haven’t found one yet? Ask your neighbours and local friends what their favourite national dishes are and try them.
- What’s your favourite pastime in your host country? Do they have welcoming pubs? Do they walk along the beach every evening? Do they eat late? Do they have frequent family gatherings? If you haven’t yet discovered a favourite pastime yet, watch for something. It’ll be waiting for you.
3. Think about the host country as a whole, not just the local environs
What does your host country offer:
What are the ten best things about your host country? Go on, get a pen and paper and list them. Right now. I’ll wait.
Now, how can you make sure you keep experiencing them or enjoying them? Plan for it.
Find places to enjoy your existing hobbies and interests. If you loved going to the gym back home find the local gym. If you enjoyed horse riding then look for the local stables. If cooking is your thing, then look for local cookery courses or learn to perfect local dishes—or develop new ones fusing recipes from your home country with the local recipes.
What does your host country lack:
What 5 things do you miss most from home? Can you have them sent? Can you recreate them? Can you find substitutes? Can you find similar things? If no to all of the above, think of them as special treats when you visit your home country again! You can have things that are special for both homes.
Two obvious items lacking in your host country are family and friends. Stay in touch with them easily through Skype, email, Facebook, blogs and phone. But also look for opportunities for making new friends in your host country.
4. Join in
Becoming involved with local events and issues helps you feel more a part of the local community and less an outsider. If you feel you are making a contribution, and that your work is appreciated and needed, then you will feel more at home.
Volunteering, working, helping with local community activities, even helping a neighbor with a job too big for one person are all great ways to network and make new friends.
5. Stay in touch with friends and family back home
Regular chats on phone or Skype will help you keep up to date with news from home and you won’t feel so isolated.
Keeping in touch with the reality of life ‘back home’ will help you to not distort your memories of home, forgetting about the every day humdrum and stresses of life that happen everywhere, not just in your new location.
Don’t call your family everyday. Give yourself some space from your home country so you have the chance to get to know the new place.
6. A final note
Allow yourself to make it a home.
You are not betraying family or country by creating another home. It is perfectly okay to have more than one home—even if home is where the heart is, ‘the heart’ is big enough to be in two places!
If you think this might help others, please feel free to share it with them!
When I first came to Britain 16 years ago, I found that going to the movies was just like being back at home; also making and eating popcorn; or eating at McDonalds (though I tried not to do that too often)!
Your post inspired me to allow a comfort food to jump the queue and get it’s post written today
I would add that you also have to be realistic with your memories. I left England in 1990 and still get homesick. However, I’m wondering if I’m homesick for something that doesn’t exist any more. I visit England in the summer and have magical times with friends and family, but if I lived there, it wouldn’t be like that all the time.
I think you also have to be realistic that it takes time to adjust and build a second home.
I will never, ever forget that feeling of suddenly finding myself on a completely different planet. Sounds a bit dramatic but in 1988, England was nowhere near as Americanized as it is now and of course there was no social media, only phone calls and letters. Only four stations on TV and a couple radio stations. It was so much different than the U.S. and a way more different England than today. I remember feeling like time had stopped on my end but at home everyone else was carrying on with their lives and I was missing out. It hurt so bad! I can’t help but think of how differently I would feel if I moved abroad today.
Expat Mum is right too. I couldn’t wait to get home. I thought when I moved back everything would be great and we would all spend tons of time together as family and my friends would come around. Instead, I got home and my friends were gone and I see my family about once a month and on holidays. LOL. I might as well live in England!
Grass is always greener, as they say…! And yes, I have to remember the same–unless I lived right next door to my rellies I might not see them as often as I think.
great tips you know food is big for me
You could probably write a whole Food for Expats book, Rebecca! I’d buy it
Great points, but I am seriously in love with number six. Allowing yourself to make a home is a big deal, and something I still struggle with. I’m three years into living in England and most days pass ok, but some days I feel a pang of desperate sadness. Allowing myself to make England home and allowing myself some creature comforts isn’t betraying my strong feelings of nationalism. The other point I’d add is that whilst I agree you need to get out and make local friends you also need to allow yourselves to mix with people who understand – other expats – who are in exactly the same boat you’re in.
Oh Vix I am so pleased you liked number six! I have found it one of my greatest obstacles to enjoying my life in the UK. I think I’m past it now, but it was really really tough early on.
And yes, totally right about mixing with others who ‘just get it’; that is such an important point.
I took me 3.5 years to finally feel at home in London. Once I started making an effort to go out and meet people rather than staying at home with hubby this made a huge difference. Also, as you mentioned, it’s so important to stay in touch with family and friends back at home because it’s easy to loose this from abroad.
I thik some people never feel at home in their hot country, but somehow manage to make it easier to cope with anyway. Pleased you finally feel at home!
Can’t fault this list. I’d add “be patient with yourself”.
That’s a great one!