FLUENCY IN EXPAT LIVING
Monita Pesumal chronicles life overseas from missteps to everyday moments
If there’s one thing living abroad has taught me, it’s that Sri Lankans can survive anywhere – as long as there’s WiFi, coconut milk and someone to gossip over tea with.
When I first moved to the Gulf, I pictured glamour, desert adventures and maybe an air-conditioned camel or two. What I got instead was a crash course in adulting, homesickness and pretending to understand Arabic WhatsApp voice notes.
So here it is – my honest, slightly sarcastic, occasionally sentimental confessions of a Sri Lankan living overseas.
EVERY EXPAT HAS AN ALIAS Mine changes depending on where I am. In Bahrain, I’m the ‘Sri Lankan marketing girl who drinks too much cola.’ In Colombo, I’m the ‘foreign returnee’ who forgot how to pay her Dialog bills.
Living abroad means you’re forever in costume – switching between accents, outfits and opinions depending on the crowd. One minute you’re saying inshallah, the next you’re saying aiyo. Somewhere between those two words lives the real you: confused, caffeinated and constantly on the lookout for your next meal.
HOMESICKNESS IS SNEAKY It never arrives quietly. It hits when I least expect it – usually while I’m standing in the supermarket debating between oat and full fat milk and suddenly miss my mother yelling, ‘drink what’s in the fridge!’
Or when I hear a stranger’s ringtone that sounds suspiciously like baila and nearly tear up between the fruits and vegetables aisle. And absolutely nothing replaces the joy of spotting a packet of Maliban Marie biscuits at a hypermarket – I’ve squealed in public aisles for less.
Still, nothing brings me more comfort than my mother’s homemade Chinese rolls. I could be sitting in Bahrain traffic or standing in a fancy brunch buffet line and suddenly think, ‘if only I had one of those right now.’
FRIENDSHIP IS A SKILL Forget Tinder. The real matchmaking happens in offices, supermarkets and suspiciously loud brunches. You meet someone, realise they also miss Milo and mosquitoes, and boom – instant best friends.
My first overseas bestie started over a tuna sandwich. She shared, I accepted, and fifteen years later we’re still complaining about traffic and men in equal measure. Expats don’t make friends – we adopt each other out of necessity.
FAKE FLUENCY My Arabic is 70 percent hand gestures and 30 percent ‘shukran habibi.’ I once tried to compliment someone’s cooking and apparently told them they had a ‘happy fish.’ They smiled – so I’m counting it as a win.
The secret is confidence. Walk into any souk, throw in a few yallahs and inshallahs, the occasional wallah and you will look like a local – until someone responds in rapid Arabic and you freeze like a confused chicken nugget.
HIERARCHY IS REAL Some days, the expat workplace feels like the United Nations – except with fewer resolutions and more HR memos. You quickly learn that surnames, accents and passports can sometimes decide your pay grade faster than your performance.
But if there’s one thing Sri Lankans do well, it’s rising anyway. We juggle projects, deadlines and twelve Zoom calls a day – all while replying to our mothers’ ‘when are you coming home?’ texts. We may not always be at the top of the corporate food chain but we’ve mastered the art of surviving.
CULTURE SHOCK LASTS There was a time I wore open toed shoes to a winter dinner – a rookie mistake because desert wind is no joke. Then there’s the time I thought ‘Thursday night out’ meant dinner, not dancing till 3 AM. And then the time I accepted Arabic coffee and was too polite to refuse the endless refills.
Eventually, you learn to treat every cultural misstep as material. You laugh at yourself before anyone else does – it’s the only way to survive expat life with your dignity and sense of humour intact.
LIVE WITH GRATITUDE For all the chaos, confusion and karak addiction, I wouldn’t trade this life. Living overseas has made me sharper, braver and slightly more dramatic. I’ve learned how to paint my own walls, file my own visa renewals and cry strategically at the Colombo Duty Free – somewhere between skincare and Toblerone.
Most of all, I’ve learned that home isn’t one place. It’s the people who make you laugh until your stomach hurts, the memories that follow you wherever you go and, occasionally, the Chinese rolls that travel in your suitcase wrapped like contraband gold.
FINAL CONFESSION I moved here looking for a career. I found a community, an identity crisis and a borderline unhealthy attachment to Turkish tea. I’ve messed up, glowed up and grown up – all under the desert sun.
So yes, life abroad isn’t always easy – but if you can survive the heat, the bureaucracy and the 24 hour shawarma temptation, congratulations! You, my fellow Sri Lankan, are officially fluent in expat living.