RELOCATION PART II: THE BACKGROUND

I myself have never tried to have an education in a foreign country or applied for a foreign job or immigration. I have never even applied for DV lottery as many of my friends did. I don’t have the fascination to live in a foreign place for a longer period. May be, because, I had the opportunity to travel to a number of countries. To me, living in my home country and living among the keens are among the top priorities.

But this time my wife got into the act of putting me off the country for a longer period. She is a career diplomat and is going to her first posting in a mission in a foreign land. In her tenure of several years in the Bangladesh foreign office she got a couple of chances to avail job related scholarships in countries like UK and USA. But she had declined on the ground that she would have to live a long year separated from me and her mother. Soon after Rianna was born, she even declined to attend a UN seminar in USA for a period of seven days because she thought she will have opportunities later but her daughter needed her most at that time. Yes this is my wife, a typical Bangladeshi woman, to whom the family is the top priority than her lucrative career. I am terming the job ‘lucrative’ not because of the honor, foreign tours and the diplomatic privileges it entails. But because if you know about Bangladesh civil service then you know how much competition one has to face, how much talented one has to be to score enough to be at the top. And only the top seeds can avail the much coveted ‘foreign service’. This is one service in Bangladesh where without being corrupt one can live a higher standard of life with status. And considering all of these small family problems become immaterial.

She joined the service after our marriage and before that we made a promise that whatever happens, we will not live separated. And now we need to be together more because of our 17 month old girl. So this is the big moment and we have decided to move.

And one thing pleases me most is that the diplomatic missions in a foreign land are considered extension of the soil of the land. If our kid was born in Germany, it would be considered as Bangladeshi. And we are destined to come back to the homeland one day.

Related:
RELOCATION PART I: THE NEWS
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RELOCATION PART III: WHY GERMANY
RELOCATION PART IV: THE SACRIFICE
RELOCATION PART V: THE CHALLENGE