The Choice

I met Anna and Martin in Uganda. Extended friends of Young’s, they went to the same church in LA as Young goes to, and when Young was researching his trip to East Africa, his friends told him to look them up when he got to Uganda. We have also been carrying around a hefty care package for them with homey goodies that they can’t get in Kampala. They were generous enough to extend an invitation to stay with them for a night while we were visiting, and always fans of free accommodation, we took them up on it.

Anna and Martin are a unique couple. Anna is from LA, born and raised there like myself. Her husband Martin is Dutch, born in a small town outside of Rotterdam across the river from – as Anna describes it – the idyllic and iconic Dutch windmills. How they find themselves in Kampala is a long story, probably too long to get into here, but suffice it to say conditions were ripe for a stint in Africa. Basically, Martin found himself done with his job just as Anna was finishing a graduate program in public health. Both of them wanted a change of pace, and given the economic situation back in the US, it just seemed like a good idea to go out into the world.

As is often the case for ex-pats, one of their greatest difficulties was finding a place that they would both have jobs in. As I’ve mentioned before, finding a job abroad for one person is fairly simple – but finding two jobs in different industries that two different people will like in the same city is infinitely harder. In fact, on our recent rafting trip on the Nile, we met another Dutch person in our boat who decided to follow his girlfriend to Uganda while she was doing field research on chimpanzees here. After much searching, he ended up finding suitable work at a non-profit but had to sign a three year contract. Unfortunately for him, his girlfriend’s research will take her back to England for months out of each year, so he’ll be the one who ends up stuck in Uganda by himself.

Anna and Martin are luckier though. They have managed to find a single organization that can employ the both of them. Thus, not only are they both gainfully employed in their respective fields, but they have the same contract length and the same office. It’s a great situation, and one that they plan to stay at until the end of the year at least. Their original contract was for a year, but they seem open to staying longer now if things work out. Like it is for many ex-pats, the lure of living life abroad is surprisingly strong.

Interestingly enough though, Anna and Martin’s real dilemma may come after they leave Uganda. Being from drastically different parts of the world, they have to decide where they will end up living. Both assert that the choices are limited to either Los Angeles or the Netherlands, for obvious reasons. It’s also a plus that Anna has spent time in the Netherlands while Martin has lived in LA for extended periods also, so they are both comfortable in either place. In the end, it may come down to the social services, and Anna and Martin both seem to lean towards living in the Netherlands and taking advantage of the mandated minimum 5-weeks of vacation a year and the good maternity leave and child care benefits.

Anna pointed out something that I’d never even thought of before – with five weeks of vacation, she may get to see her family in LA more during the year than if she lived in LA, given how normal life often gets in the way of seeing family. Its an interesting way of looking at things, but one that I’m unlikely to apply to my own situation since my parents are both so old; at this point, you have to consciously decide to prioritize seeing parents in a way that it becomes part of normal life. The trade-off is no longer viable. I know this, but am still completely at a lost as to how to make this happen – but all of this is a conversation for another time.