10 Signs That You've Been Overseas Too Long

Published September 06, 2009 @ 10:56AM PT

1. If asked to rank the most wonderful inventions in human history, you would list air conditioning significantly above penicillin, movable type and the wheel.

2. You're inordinately impressed by working traffic lights. And paved roads.

3. At your leaving party, you jokingly insist that you won't miss the open sewage trenches along the sides of the roads. But you know that you will.

4. In any debate about copyright infringement, you come down firmly on the pro-piracy side. Unless you're talking about the bastards who simply smuggle a videocamera into a movie theater and then market the resulting product as a clean copy. They can burn in hell.

5. You've developed a Landcruiser fetish.

6. You've also developed an inappropriate, twitching reaction to fireworks.

7. Doctors at home are slightly intimidated by your ability to detect the symptoms of incipient malaria.

8. You simply assume that everyone knows where Yambio is. You also think acronyms like NCP, CPA, FDLR, AMISOM or ISAF are completely self-explanatory.

9. When pregnant friends at home talk about getting ready for the hospital, you mentally translate baby bag into quick-run bag.

10. You've worn exactly three pairs of pants and four shirts over the past month. Tho you do take care to mix the combinations according to a semi-complex rotating schedule known to you and you alone.

[Photo taken in eastern Congo from Julien Harneis' flickr photostream - Creative Commons, Attribution]

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Comments (11)

Three pairs of pants? Weakling. Two, max.

Posted by Paul Currion on 09/06/2009 @ 12:30PM PT
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So, so true. Tho was always more of a field headquarters person (e.g. Kabul instead of, say, Badakshan), which might explain why I never got below three pairs.

Posted by Michael Bear on 09/06/2009 @ 04:52PM PT
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"In any debate about copyright infringement, you come down firmly on the pro-piracy side. Unless you're talking about the bastards who simply smuggle a videocamera into a movie theater and then market the resulting product as a clean copy. They can burn in hell."

This gave me a hearty laugh. Indeed. Hardly a day goes by I don't think, "Gee, I wish I could buy the entire last season of this 'Man Men' show everyone is talking about for five bucks from the toothless guy who hawks bootleg DVDs in front of the market" or "Man I wish I could buy designer knockoff leather ankle boots from a surly babushka for the price of socks in the US!"

Posted by Transitionl... . on 09/06/2009 @ 12:36PM PT
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A comment sent via facebook from a friend:

"11. The consistency of your stool is a regular topic of conversation."

Posted by Michael Bear on 09/06/2009 @ 06:51PM PT
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That's.....tremendous.

Posted by Transitionl... . on 09/07/2009 @ 10:01PM PT
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haven't been doing the overseas thing for about 4 years. But I'm still wearing those same sets of T-shirts and shorts. How bad is that?

Posted by Matt Schiefer on 09/06/2009 @ 07:15PM PT
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How about you compulsively buy sugar and beans once back home? Or you check the socket red light to see if there's power in the morning?

Posted by paolo lubrano on 09/16/2009 @ 06:22AM PT
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Me and my co-worker friend have just read your blog entry, under our fan in bloody hot rural India ... No A/C .. but lots of laughter! Thanks!

Marlieke

Posted by Marli K on 10/04/2009 @ 11:47AM PT
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Many thanks

Posted by Michael Bear on 10/05/2009 @ 11:57AM PT
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good points, all 10 of them. wonder how many of us got excited seeing street lights function when we got back home.

Posted by Alexander Mathew on 10/14/2009 @ 01:50AM PT
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After a year abroad, I walk through the aisles of Wal-mart with a sense of awe and wonder.

Posted by Anita Lauer on 11/12/2009 @ 09:22AM PT
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Author

Michael has worked for NGOs in Afghanistan, across east and central Africa, and Iraq. Prior to going overseas, he worked on a project providing assistance to the United Nations on the application of International Humanitarian Law to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.