Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Something has got my back up this week, it’s not the husband – he’s off the hook this time!
It’s expats, spoilt expats to be exact, and, yes, I realise I may be lynched the next time I’m down at the Brit Club or swanning around City Centre Bahrain mall but I need to vent.
We are all well aware of the many benefits bestowed upon us fortunate enough to be living the life of an expat.
Numerous expats are receiving free private schooling for their children, a generous housing allowance, paid utilities, attractive salaries, car allowance, annual flights home and perhaps a membership to the Ritz – I know a few!
Oh, and lest I forget, can any of us remember the last time we cleaned the loo, ironed a shirt or broke our backs doing the gardening? No, I didn’t think so.
So why, I wonder, do we complain? Perhaps we become too blasé about the perks of being an expat or do we just eventually start to take everything for granted?
Whilst complaining about our nice expat lives, another expat phenomenon emerges; we start to moan about things back home.
When a friend unloaded her woes to me about having to pay the mortgage on their property back in the UK because their tenants had moved out after eight years of paying the mortgage for them (and a little extra,) I didn’t have much sympathy.
Then came the ‘how dare the UK universities charge our children international student fees!’ I wasn’t brave enough to state the obvious that she hadn’t paid UK tax since before her children were born, yet she still felt entitled to the privileges earned by a UK taxpayer.
Maybe, us expats simply want the best of both worlds? We receive everything and more in our host country whilst still feeling entitled to everything in our home country. Spoilt?
Without a doubt.
