ArijitRubina Mookerjee

Hi! I am a British national (by birth) of Indian origin/ descent and moved to Barbados from Singapore in December 2007 with my wife and (now) 9 year old son. I work for one of the Big 4 accounting firms here and so far everything has been excellent and we have no regrets about the (difficult) decision to leave Singapore (and its nearness to Calcutta, our family home) and move to Barbados.

I recall reading this forum in the days before our decision to move was crystallised and I found the information here very useful and helpful. I never got to expressly thank some of the folks here, but I meant it in my heart.

We have one major issue though and that's why I have returned to this forum to seek help from the wonderful folks here - my wife has NOTHING to do here! I go to office and our son goes to school all day, but my wife just has nothing to do or keep her engaged with. All she does, in her words, is "cook, clean and drive" and that's something which is literally driving her crazy and making her extremely frustrated. Despite everything about the place, my work, son's school, security issues etc being FANTASTIC, this one issue is causing us a lot of stress and anguish.

The key reason for this is the complete prohibition in Barbados for an expat's spouse to be engaged in any form of occupation. My wife had always been engaged in something or the other ever since we left India in 2000 - in Singapore and even in Oman in the Middle East, where we spent 2 years. However, she cannot do anything here in Barbados.

I wish to ask the folks here, several of whom are surely housewives, to let us know what she can do to keep her engaged? Alternately, we would like to meet some of you too as more friends will be welcome. We have quite a few friends in the small Indian community here, but that's perhaps a bit too one-dimensional, since we haven't got the chance to either make local friends (guess that's not that easy) or friends from other international communities.

Unless I can sort this out for my wife, I am afraid that any form of middle to long term existence for us in Barbados will be in serious doubt! That will be so unfortunate, since this is precisely the piece of paradise I was looking for and found from all aspects!

Any suggestion is appreciated. Y

Regards

Arijit

zanne

I would just add that working, or being able to work, isn't really the answer either! I thought that it was!

I struggle to meet people and make friends because my husband is so busy, and then I have my hobbies: gardening, sewing, writing, cooking, etc.

I think that you have to force yourself each week to do just one thing here in Barbados that you wouldn't be able to do anywhere else in the world. I often think about going back to NYC but the grass is definitely not greener there.

HTH

Foxy_fromCanada

Zanne, you couldn't have said it better.

I'm in a similar position too - I do work, but we work from home so I don't have that office environment in which to meet friends and socialize.

Previous threads have discussed the difficulty for expat women to make local female friends. So yeah, that makes it hard.

Hobbies, as Zanne mentioned, are a good way to keep busy. I go to the gym regularly, and have met people there. I took up scuba diving here, which helped. I am about to start Karate (yes, at age 33 ). I'm very close to volunteering at one of the animal shelters. All this in an attempt to stay sane and get out of the house and socializing with other people.

And some of us on this forum have even met in real life!

Good luck to you and your wife.
Foxy

ArijitRubina Mookerjee

Hi Zanne and Foxy_fromCanada

Thanks for your replies to my post. We appreciate your comments.

Gym, scuba diving, karate etc seem to be good ways to keep yourself occupied. I will aim to encourage my wife to try some of these, though don't think she will try scuba diving.

How did you manage to meet some of the people on this forum? That may be one way to get to know some people. We live in Regency Park in Christ Church in the southern part of the island.

Hope to hear from you and others on this forum. As one may sense, I am literally desperately trying to fix the situation for my wife though I wish I tried this much earlier and not waited till a year and 4 months after coming to Barbados!

Regards

zanne

Arijit--we live close, and I have been here just about the same amount of time, since October 2007.

Sunniebgi

Tell your wife, that for the most part, even having been here for over 16years, all I seem to do is cook, clean, and drive..

I worked for the first 13years of being here and haven't worked (for money) for the last 3 and a bit. I am a member of a womens club (American.. and there is a British and Canadian as well). if she is not one of those three, she can join one as an associate member. They do both social and service work, mostly for charities in Barbados. There is, or used to be, several other nationality womens groups, but not sure if they still exsist.

I've volunteered at my childrens school, been on the PTA, worked as a volunteer for several events. etc.

Hobbies, as the others have said, are good things. Take some classes (although my problem with that, is that many that I want to take are between 5pm and 7pm, which didn't match my evening schedule like I would have liked it, but that might be changing). Pottery, sewing, cake making etc.

zanne

This is the heart of the matter, in this day and age, and I guess depending on your age as well, it is one thing to not have to work but it is another to be told that you cannot work. I was here for about 10 months, ostensibly on vacation, and honestly I have no idea what I did for that time with the exception of my gardening, a hobby, which has lead to a part of the work that I now do. I spent all of that time obsessing over the fact that I have skills and would like to make a contribution to no avail.

I think that it is unfortunate that many people with international experiences pass through Barbados and are untapped, whether it be working with businesses, school children, etc.

If you have a chance check out the Living In Barbados blog, Dennis Jones, who is here with his wife who is working, writes this excellent blog and is a top economist, now surely his experience could be put to use while he is here: http://livinginbarbados.blogspot.com/

It would be great if there were a clearinghouse for people to match their skills with those that need them, in a mentor ship or other capacity.

That's my 2 cents...

Sunniebgi

There is nothing stopping anyone from doing volunteer work with schools, hospitals etc.. The only thing is you can't work for free doing a job for someone that might otherwise be paid to someone else. Example, if you are a trained physical therapist, you can't work in a PT office part time just to keep up with the field, as it might mean someone who needs the job might not get the job.

I'm not saying I'm for the way the law works but it's the same in many countries.