Paul Theroux, one of the most prolific Returned Peace Corps travel writers, provides an insightful rendition of the plight of expats. He reminds us with a quote from obnoxious nativist Pap Finn from the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” that Americans have complained about the state of affairs here, and many have acted on the threat to find refuge abroad, which is ironic today when millions are putting their lives at risk coming here. Those leaving often are looking for something new, according to Theroux.
Pap Finn’s rant, “A man can’t get his rights in a government like this. Sometimes I have a mighty notion to just leave the country,” inspired Theroux’s main character in The Mosquito Coast, Allie Fox, who despaired at America’s decline and took his wife and four children to Honduras. He was reminded of his “stubborn American self” and went too far, and his expatriation ended badly.
Theroux reflects on his expatriation to Portugal, Costa Rica, France, Mexico, and Bali, including eighteen years in London with his family. He reveals that “under my cloak of idealism, I was procrastinating about my future, and I felt I’d find answers by being alone and far away.” He laments the “parasitical, rootless quality to being an expatriate…” where one is often a spectator and most travel can be “filed under the heading Trespassing.” Those who subscribe to the New York Times can read the article in full here. Opinion | The Hard Reality American Expats Quickly Learn – The New York Times
The plight of expats inspired two chapters in The Guatemala Reader: Extraordinary Lives and Amazing Stories, as my family has lived many years in Guatemala as well as Bogota, Columbia, and Freetown, Sierra Leone. “Allegro to Guatemala: An Expatriate Journey Through the Land of Eternal Spring” profiles one couple of the more than 6,000 expats in Guatemala who impacted the country through their art and philanthropy. Earl is a poet who writes about Guatemala and, together with his wife Suzanne, set up SEEDS for a Future, which meets Indigenous women’s and children’s nutritional needs. You can read that story here: Expats – Wanderlust.
In “My Life in the Land of the Eternal Spring: The Coffee Plantation,” I tell of an indelible experience on the slopes of the volcano Atitlan on a plantation owned by my wife’s grandfather. It was Christmas, and my four-year-old daughter was holding her Airedale pup next to the Christmas tree. As I entered the room, I saw dozens of children of the workers peering into the room behind a double screen door on a reality they would never hope to experience. Later that evening, on the back porch looking up at the volcano with my Guatemalan wife, taking in the sweet aroma of coffee blooms, I informed my wife that my calling would be to assure that children of the humblest families might receive a decent education and aspire to a career of their choice. You can find that story published in Peace Corps Worldwide here: Christmas in The Land of the Eternal Spring (Guatemala) – Peace Corps Worldwide
Theroux ends his essay on expats with a reminder that the “tight fit” in many expat havens includes different traditional cultures, religious restrictions, and “finicky nuances of manners, ” which is one of the reasons “that many exasperated ex-pats, weary of the bubble they’re forced into, eventually return, clearer-sighted about the world and home.” Theroux and his family have lived in Hawaii for thirty years, and my family has been in Arizona for almost 25 years. And although several of our friends have threatened to head to Canada with the change of administration, we’re not going anywhere.