It all started with an idea, one that got me thinking about how it would be to live in another country especially a Muslim country (being that I am Muslim), work in another country, raise my children in another country, and maybe even die in another country. I sat with my family, a couple of night’s, discussing leaving, and going to another country to live in.
We first thought about Yemen being that at the time we wanted to go to a Muslim country that was more religious. I and my family sat down with some friends of ours that happened to live in Egypt, we asked them questions about Egypt which would eventually be the place that we ended up living in. They told us the first steps to take of course religiously, was to pray on it, continue to talk with my family about it, and decide that this would be the place besides Yemen. We finally after all the sit downs and discussions we came to an agreed upon decision, that we would go to Egypt. So then what was left was to start planning our trip, and preparing for what we would do after getting there. We sat down once more with our friends and got a detailed plan of how much money we needed for such a trip; for the apartments, the appliances, food, schools, transportation etc. Also out of all that was just mentioned we needed to know the best of them all the apartments, the appliances, food, schools, transportation, and including the area that we would be living. I mean this was very overwhelming at the time because this was our first time ever living in another country.
So after all the research, seeking experiences from friends that made this big decision in their lives as well, and coming to a final decision, we started planning out how we was going to raise all the money we needed. This of course being another complex thing to decide, due to the lack of funds we had then, we of course like many struggling Americans lived on a fixed income, as you can say check to check. Knowing that our total cost for everything would be over 10,000 dollars, we didn’t have much of an idea how we was going to come up with this kind of money, but to just pray on it, just save up, and we would all put our money together. Well we knew that would take a very long time. To no despair pray and hope was not forsaken. My wife had a friend that was a very generous Muslim sister in our community, known for being charitable, that just recently got married, and her and her husband had decided to go to Yemen. Now remember we also wanted to go to Yemen, but none of us could go at that time, because Yemen was having some political turmoil, which they were not letting foreigners enter into their country at that time. So the sister had spoken to my wife about hearing that we would be trying to leave as well, go to Egypt, she said they was also thinking of going there, for a while, and stay and wait for Yemen’s issues to be resolved, so the ports can be opened to foreigners to go there again. To make the story short she offered to give us the money to go where ever we chose to go. So we thanked her of course, took the money, and sold most of our things, pack our houses up, and said to ourselves it’s time to start a new life. So that began me and my family’s journey, the journey of an Expat.
I will be writing more about my life as an expat as a continuation of this blog, which will be following this blog so stay tune.
Taalib Pugh aka Theodore Pugh
CEO of DTIS Direct Traveling Information Services
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