I am a UK ex-pat, living in Geneva, Switzerland. My family and I have been living in the city since October 2010. I arrived as a "trailing spouse" a common expression in the city to describe a partner who doesn't work and sponges off the employee working in their organisations' European headquarters. I set out with the blog to record the activities of me and my daughters as we adjusted to life in a new city and a foreign language. Then in March 2011, about four months after I began this blog, I landed a job in Geneva and the blog took on a wider brief.
Initially I set out to raise the point that the trailing spouse isn't really trailing at all, and it is their business to discover the city, whilst the other goes about making their employer happy. I dubbed myself a "reconnaissance spouse" instead. This name points up the fact that it was the girls and I who got to places first, scouted out museums, visited the best parks and places for kids to play, founding places to get coffee and lunch.
Additional to this when you aren't working you get involved in aspects of city life that an expat worker might not, grocery shopping, riding buses and trams or negotiating the tender feelings of the landlady face to face; all of which helps the transition to a new city and more especially a new language. Sadly for my partner her days are spent in the office, or the client's office, and are bracketed by a tussle with commuter traffic, before she gets home with precious minutes to spare before it is bath and bedtime for the girls.
A recon spouse's role is to find ways to make spare time fun and interesting for all the family. In a city which the Rough Guide describes as "a curiously unsatisfying place to spend more than a few days" that can be quite a challenge. But the recon spouse's role goes beyond this, I remember the first time my partner booked a hair appointment she had no idea where the salon was, so the girls and I went with her to show her the way. I have become a directory and street map for the city.
Since I went back to work in March 2011 I've seen a different side of the city. I've met all sorts of commercial folk, people who have different stories to tell of the expat experience in Geneva, though nearly all of them start out with "...we only meant to come here temporarily..." These stories come from the fabric of the ex-pat community, people who have been here for five, ten even twenty years. Perhaps no one comes to Geneva planning to be here very long, but there must be something about the place that makes people stop. While you're making other plans perhaps it's a decent place to be, my blog tries to discover that, and to log it.
Thanks for reading and thanks for commenting!
