Cure for homesickness

Homesickness is inevitable when you move to a new culture.  Sooner or later it will hit you.  What do you do?  Cry? Bury yourself in work? Hide in your room for hours/days?  I've been there and done that.  Doesn't work.

What has helped me overcome is finding friends from the same culture to hang out with.  They may not be your fellow countrymen.  They could well be people from another culture that you're more familiar with than the one you're living in.  Let me explain.

In 1995, when I spent a year in Phnom Penh, the country was still coming out of isolation after years of war.  The expatriate community was small.  Everybody non-Cambodian knew everybody else.  Thanks to my Singaporean friend Bob who loved to entertain, we had potluck dinners every 3 months or so.  Everybody expat was invited and everybody brought a dish.  We would talk and laugh for a few hours, all in a world of our own.

Every Thursday, I would end up at Bob's place to watch cable TV or a movie with his other expat staff, just to get away for some hours.  I found a cheap Chinese restaurant owned by a Hong Kong boss.  That was my other escape to "Hong Kong" for an hour or so every few weeks.

My next tour of duty was in 2001.  Phnom Penh was now more developed, but I still needed expat friends.  I had a few I could call on at a moment's notice, to go eat lunch with.  Every Friday, I joined 4F - Filipino and Friends Friday Fellowship for 3 hours of crazy laughter and good food.  Tuesday nights were with an expat prayer group to pray for Cambodia, but we had good conversations too.

I went hunting for my own Asian expat friends to hang out with.  I was the only Asian expat staff in my office.  Celebrations like American Thanksgiving were so boring to me.  It isn't my culture.  I can't relate.  Thanks to my wonderful Asian friends, I enjoyed my time in Phnom Penh so much.  We're still in touch today.  

Reach out and find your own little niche to overcome homesickness.  Life is so much more fun that way.  We can learn a whole lot more as well.

Happy friend-hunting!