Comments on: Guest Post: The One Thing They Never Tell You Before You Immigrate

By: Bookmarks about Usefulinformation

Bookmarks about Usefulinformation — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 16:30:05 +0000

[...] – bookmarked by 5 members originally found by ashusta on 2008-12-18 Guest Post: The One Thing They Never Tell You Before You Immigrate [...]

By: Mwangi - the Displaced African

Mwangi - the Displaced African — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:00:27 +0000

@ezz: Indeed, I think its quite hard for people at home to empathize or understand what its like living abroad at all. And so that’s why we should really double up our efforts and use all we learn abroad to ensure they heed our messages me thinks. But, yep, waaayyy too many of us, my former self included, think that arrival in a Western country is the same as arriving at the perfect destination where milk and honey flows automatically into your mouth.

By: ezz

ezz — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 11:18:15 +0000

I actually didn’t mean that people should not emigrate overseas, (half my relatives are overseas). Life became quite unbearable and many were not allowed to (or could not) make a decent living in Kenya during the ‘Moi era’. Therefore, emigrating became no longer a choice for many. The country has been on a recovery path over the last few years, but we’re still not quite there yet.
What I wanted to point out is that it’s difficult to convince people that life out there is not as they see it on TV and in the movies. And please don’t underestimate the power of this media.
Similarly, many foreigners from overseas get disappointed when they get to Africa and find that we’re not living on trees, walking about naked, starving, etc…!

By: Mwangi

Mwangi — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 23:03:37 +0000

@ezz: Though I don’t think we should neccesarily promote Western immigration as the magic pill and should encourage as many bright minds as possible to remain in Africa and continue to work on making it great, if someone wants to come overseas I support them.
However, I think as they come over they should be very aware of challenges such as the one expressed in this article and the most recent article I wrote: http://www.thedisplacedafrican.com/1445/something-that-happens-to-a-lot-of-newbie-immigrants-thats-almost-never-discussed/
so they can create strategies to deal with the problem, deal with the problem quicker and move ahead much further than we previous immigrants did.

By: ezz

ezz — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 21:19:03 +0000

Most people in Kenya don’t believe you when you tell them how tough life is out there. They kind of seem to think that you somehow don’t want them to experience the good life you’ve had there. So I guess people will continue getting these shocks, and learning through their own experiences.

By: Something That Happens to A Lot of Newbie Immigrants That’s Almost Never Discussed - The Displaced African

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 04:21:52 +0000

[...] out the guest post that gal africana did where she added some flavour to this [...]

By: What Everybody Ought to Know About Immigration and Njeri’s Guest Post » The Displaced African

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:46:20 +0000

[...] The One Thing they Never Tell You Before You Immigrate: Gal Africana from a search for sanity talks about the rarely discussed loneliness that comes with [...]

By: Mwangi

Mwangi — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 07:38:28 +0000

@nancy: Ditto, couldn’t agree more. Shared history, culture, language and customs and the ability to understand each other almost automatically on the basis of shared experience: I think it takes immigrating to really appreciate these things and how beautiful they are.

By: nancy

nancy — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:19:01 +0000

shared history….i think you hit upon smthg important girl. nothing can replace a lifetime of conversations, ever deeper, even when you think you want to create yourself anew.

By: Mwangi

Mwangi — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:05:26 +0000

@mwalimu: Thanks for stopping by the site. I remember stumbling upon your site in the early days of my blogging life. I hope that we can somewhere collaborate towards the end goal of educating immigrants and would be immigrants. Please check your email or feel free to send any suggestions my way as to how we can achieve this.