Michelle spent 18 years as a trailing spouse in three countries before moving back to India — where her adjustment adventures have continued after all, as chronicled in her new book, “Becoming Goan: A Contemporary Coming Home Story,” one of our summer reading recommendations. This is Part 1 of her story.
My trailing-spouse adventure began in 1993, when my husband Bharat was offered a job in either Dubai, UAE or Nairobi, Kenya. We evaluated both opportunities and chose Dubai for the safety of our young family. (Our son Kunal was two years old when we left India.)
After the initial culture shock, we began the business of settling into Dubai with supermarket shopping, high heat and humidity, getting a UAE driving license, hiring house help, and finding a job for myself. We were young and enthusiastic and easily adapted to our multicultural, international lifestyle and developed a palette for Arabic food — still a favorite to this day — and Thai cuisine.
Finding our way
Using the Gupte Scale, our move from India to Dubai scored a respectable 9 out of 15 points: 2 for destination, 3 for resources, and 4 for timing. We navigated different beliefs and ways of living and soon made friends with classmates and colleagues from around the world when my son Kunal went to school and I started working. We created a community of like-minded folks and went on weekly beach and desert adventures with our young children. Friends and neighbors become family. Thirty years later, the bond lives on strong.
During my decade in Dubai, I worked in PR and marketing communications. My job in marketing technology at Emirates made me an early adopter; I was there in mid-1994 when we got email addresses and access to the World Wide Web on our desktop computers. Soon after, we bought our first home computer, a Compaq desktop that introduced three-year-old Kunal to the world of dinosaurs and math problems.
When we welcomed our daughter Divya in 1995, we really had to learn how to navigate the UAE government health care systems and domestic home care. I only had 45 days of maternity leave from work, compared to the three months I could have taken in India. I was very lucky that my aunty Bertha, a qualified pediatric nurse, could come and live with us in Dubai for two months to help take care of our tiny baby.
My working mother routine involved juggling my career with raising a young family — including business and leisure travel, as we explored the world.
Once my children were older, I embarked on a round-the-world summer vacation with them — visiting some of the expat friends we had made across Europe and the U.S., culminating in China to see my brother-in-law (an Indian diplomat posted there). Bharat, and his parents joined us in Beijing, where we celebrated our Divya’s 5th birthday together. (A true Third Culture Kid, Divya celebrated her August birthday in about 10 different parts of the world before she turned 18.)
Deciding to keep going
This first leg of my trailing-spouse journey taught me that many expats live in bubbles, but they can’t ignore what’s outside forever. In the UAE, the local, native population is a minority in terms of numbers, but owns the bulk of the business. There were racial, ethnic, and national biases that became tough to live with, professionally.
We considered leaving often, but because of the easy living — the good life — we ended up staying for 10 years before moving to Thailand.
It was time to expose our children to other cultures and communities beyond our bubble.
Continue to Part 2 of Michelle’s story.
