Making the Move: What you should do when you arrive in a new country

Get ready, because everything is about to change. There's a new way of living life and doing business that will blow your mind. This is a podcast all about the timing of life and the timing of success. It's what we call the Right on Time life. And you are listening to the Right on Time podcast with Amber McHugh.

Hey. Hey there. Welcome back to the series that we are moving through right now, which is all about setting yourself up to live abroad. In the first episode of this series, I walked you through our life. What brought us abroad. And your journey may be different, but I wanted to give you some background on what took us abroad. In the last session, I took you through the very practical things to consider when you're moving abroad. Groceries, mail, Internet. I didn't talk about Internet. Well, there we go. I talked about, oh, that's so important. We'll have to circle back to that. Stay tuned. Phone coverage, cell coverage, these sorts of things. The very practical things in this episode, we're going to talk about some of the nuances, the approach, the mindset that you may want to have when you step into a new country. And it's so funny, when we first got here, I was doing a lot of walking. Like literally we slept one night. The next day we were a little jet laggy, recovering, stayed home pretty much to recover. And then day. So it was our second day here. I was like, all right, I got to get out, I want to start to see things. So I walked to the girls school. It was 1.4 miles away and it said it was going to take about 40 minutes and it did because it was like traffic up, downhill, all the things. And I did a lot of walking to school back for the first couple of weeks I was getting to know the area and getting our routines in place, just enjoying being in the new place and enjoying new sites, silence and environment. I was walking home one day and I saw a car go by. I'm like, oh, that's cool. Car like that. All right, where's he going? You know, tell myself some stories in my head. Like, oh, I wonder what he's up to. Is he headed to work today? Or, you know, just going through and I saw him driving back this way. I'm like, oh, well, that's interesting. I noticed the car. So I really noticed that he was coming back. And then he stopped next to me. He started what I felt was like yelling at me, like speaking loudly and with passion. And I'm like, oh, what did I do wrong? I must have done something wrong. Like But I'm just going to receive this as kindness. Like, he's telling me something that is important to help me out here. And honestly, that's how I approach everything when I am in a new location. Like, I have no clue how people engage or show up or interact. So it is all learning for me. And eventually I understood that he was saying he was truly being kind. Walk on the sidewalk. What are you doing? You got to get up on the sidewalk. He was worried about me, and he was expressing that with passion and kindness and turned all the way back around to say it. And I'm like, well, okay, I'll get up on the sidewalk. The sidewalks are like, on and off here. So I try. I get back up, but it's on, off, on, off. You're on the street, you're. The sidewalk disappears, comes back. So. But all that to say I receive it all with a bit of kindness and receive it all as a beautiful interaction between new people. And I love getting to know new people where we're living right around us neighbors, right? Not necessarily all in depth, but just getting familiar with the environment. So this requires when we get into these new places. And it is such a beautiful thing for me when we arrive in each new location that I'm going to establish new routines, I'm going to meet new people, I'm going to be open to new ways of doing things, because that's all part of the adventure for me and part of the joy. And so we go with the flow. I get out there right away as quickly as possible, start learning, mess a whole bunch of things up, and go with the flow. It also reminds me about the. I've had a lot of conversations with people recently around differences in how we do things around the world. Right? Everybody's got something different going on. And somebody, A couple people have recently called out how we pay bills in the US for example, and if the bill doesn't get paid, you don't get the thing. If the bill doesn't get paid, you know, the thing is turned off, the cell phone service is turned off, the thing is turned off if you don't have the money for the hair appointment. I don't even know what they would do if, like, all of your cards weren't working and you didn't have cash. And so one of the things that is a big cultural difference is that, you know, I got my hair done the other day and like, oh, my gosh, I don't have enough cash. And like, oh, get us next time. First time I was at yoga we didn't have enough cash. We spend a lot in cashier cards, do work most of the time, but not always. And the first time we went to yoga didn't have enough cash. That is ok, you will get me next week. And sure enough, we absolutely went back in there and got her next week. But there is this beautiful thing like there is trust and there is love and there is support and certainly don't want to take advantage of that. But it's a very different feel. In fact, when we were moving to Abidjan, I was in the car with someone from. Oh, where was he from? I can't remember where he was from, but he talked about, oh, it's so different there. He said, I was actually just in Egypt for a couple of months, meeting up with some friends, meeting up with some family, taking care of things and I had a bill to pay and it got a little bit confusing. And he expressed the same thing like, I got you, it's okay, I know you'll be back. And people really support each other in a beautiful way. So that's something else to think about. Like it may not look the same, it may be like, oh, no problem, come back or so I don't get embarrassed like when my car doesn't work and when things aren't flowing how I want them to be flowing, like we'll figure it out right outside, I don't know. So it's walking by yelling at you, okay, what you got for me? I don't know. It took a minute to figure these things out again because Abidjan is French speaking and I do not speak enough French yet. So that's another consideration. As you're going to a new country, are you going to learn the language or is it an English speaking country, etc. So leads me to being always open to learning. You know, this has been a theme in this series of asking questions, what's going on over there? How do you do that? Just being open and curious or not even asking all the questions out loud, but asking them in your head and watching answers just come in because things are different and it's going to operate a little bit differently and maybe very differently than how we are used to doing things. Another example of this is when we arrived here, the traffic, the traffic patterns are different. There are roundabouts but they don't work the same. And there are lights with timers, which is really beautiful. But the traffic patterns are all just totally different. And my husband, two months into us being here, like, I'm pretty Sure, the traffic has gotten worse. Like, we've been here two months. Traffic was what it was when we got here. It got a little worse the second week we were here because all the kids were back in schools and everybody was, you know, just different routines throughout the day. Like, nothing has changed that significantly in these two months. And I said, I think what's happening is you are adapting to your environment and it's starting to irritate you now. Like, at the beginning, it's new. It's like, oh, this is how it is. And we're exploring boring. And we're learning and we're listening, but we adapt things like, oh, my gosh, traffic. Like, it's just. Is what it is. It is what it is. So not trying to change everything, not coming with judgment or this is how we do it there. Why don't they do this? Like, is a whole different ball game. And again, if you're stepping into this experience of, of living overseas and experiencing different cultures, embrace it. The mundane, the everyday, the walks and like, going to cultural events, volunteering, immersing yourself in community in unique ways so that you have that opportunity to experience the connection, experience. Okay, why do you do this? Let me learn about this history, because there is so much there, and it's a really fun experience if you are up for it. So with that, be ready to go with the flow. Even something like paying bills may look and feel a little bit different. I gave the example of a more fluid situation somebody shared with me the other day. They were in a country where for your cell phone service, you had slip months in advance. Like, months. It might have been a full year in advance. We had to cancel it way ahead. So they didn't cancel it on time. They paid for another year of service even though they had moved. So, you know, some things may be more strict, some things may be less strict and less and more fluid. So go with the flow. Structures will be different. Ask those questions and be open to learning and get immersed in a whole new way. And when we're learning, right, our neural pathways are rewiring, and we have no idea the impact that it's going to have on things that we're doing in our life. So I just open myself up for it. It is beautiful. It is sometimes frustrating, yes. But that's when I go to remind myself, like, okay, wait a second. This is cool. I am learning and experiencing and seeing something different. And so being open to that when you step into new environments is a lot of fun and gives you the opportunity to step into things that we never would have imagined. So with that, I'm excited to see what cultural stories or location specific stories and differences you may have experienced or that you experience as you step on your journey to live abroad. I hope this helps. Going with the flow, experiencing new things. It's so very right on time. Thanks for hanging out.