True...and unfortunate.

Actually, as an ex-FOB (due to time) desi, I find the North American way better.

Eh, 100 is prolly NIGHTtime temp in Delhi summer; but Delhi's pollution index is almost permanently intolerable, EVEN by Indian standards.

yeah, every morning there I had to blow my nose a lot and it'd be blackish. yum.

Wow, I didn't know that was customary in India. I learned something new today! I would have a hissy fit if I had to come out of pocket for those type of occasions. Also, don't Indians love huge gatherings? ( I watch a lot of Bollywood movies, lol)




The visual that that sentence created in my head...Anyway, I can imagine that the pollution must be terrible.

I guess I should say something positive about India since I have just said negative...
The food and the textiles are amazing!!

you can get india-quality indian food right here in the US

Yeah...I thought of that...

Ok, the positive part is that it's cheaper in India.

Community pressure

People are going to talk anyway....

I voted YES, assuming we could live reasonably well. I love the culture and atmosphere in Eastern Europe.

Oh man, that is so exactly one the mark!


Try blowing your nose after train rides, tons of black soot would come out of my nose.

I absolutely plan to go back to Ghana. We're going to have to buy a compound and a generator and a couple tanks for holding water cause I'm high maintenance and my man knows it. But that's the plan. Now that the US allows dual citizenship, we're also considering that. Although it means Bassi has to drop his BF citizenship. But that's cool with him.

I also don't want to move out of the country 'til my hubby has dual citizenship, unless he could keep his GC valid while we were abroad.

That makes 2 of us!!!! generators and water tanks are an absolute must!!! I was considering to do dual citizenship too.

Well since we've been living together in 'my' country for almost a year now I would have to say yes

I'm not sure if we will be back after we leave though.. I think there are more exciting places in the world to live

If the finances are in order, I will drop everything and move asap! Of course, I will be coming back to the USA for occasional visits.

Boaz

We have something in common ZEE, All my family is from Ghana too except for my Brothers and Sister and some cousins and me are from America. My Parents and older aunts and uncles are all from Ghana. And they all have houses over there...and keep stressing to me that I need to get a house there too.

At first I was like WHATEVER... BUT NOW that I am engaged soon to be married to a Ghanian and was GOING back and forth to Ghana since 2006 to the present to see my fiance as if plane tickets were FREE... I will defiantely MOVE to GHANA ...WHEN MY MONEY GAME IS RIGHT...AND I WILL BE THERE LIKE YESTERDAY!

WE might go home to my country after I have my citizenship...That is the plan..

*sigh*

We plan to live in my country in our old age, if it is the will of God.
Maybe 6 months in USA and 6 months in my country, we will see.
My US husband loves this idea.

A lot of people do it this way when they are older and retired

I am not the USC, but I hope to make my home in the US, and never have to go back to Italy again. As beautiful as my country is, the current situation is anything but good, and I can't wait to build myself a new life elsewhere. As for the future, anything can happen in the next twenty years, but I really hope I'll never feel the need to go back - and my SO feels the same as I do.

Yea, your retirement goes a much longer way in a third world country - especially if you're sipping drinks on the beach. That's what I hope to do

I hear that!!!!!

I would love to live there, if we had the means to. It is not even rational to think of moving there at this point in our lives. But when we retire - heck yeah. It is an absolutely beautiful country, it has its problems like any other, but I definately wouldn't mind.

no....n---o.....NO.....Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Me and my hubby plan to move there by July 1rst, 2012 if all goes well.

However, i have been here for almost six years and i read on how hard it is to come back after such a long time (find a job with a US degree etc...). But my hubby is set on living in my country.

If we can manage financially & residency, he would not mind moving. He does not like the humidity in Indonesia (who does) but he can deal with everything else. Well, he got me to deal with everything else so it would be okay for him.

If not, probably waiting until retirement.

Yes, we are actually moving back in 2-4 years. We would have stayed except he had an educational goal that needed to be met outside the country somewhere (they didn't offer his PhD subject, may as well come here and do it) and we wanted to pay off my student loans.

In less than a year I'm about to.

OH WOW!!!!

Why not?

you guys sound like my hubby and me My student loans....his completing school and getting some experience b4 moving sounds just about right


Seriously, Olivia?
WOW!

I'm in my 50's and have thought about retiring to Belarus when I finally decide to quit working. I'm not ready to quit working yet though, but I could retire over there a lot sooner than I could in the USA. Working in Belarus would not be practical because the prevailing wage scale is so much lower than in the USA. Better to work in the USA for more $$$. It would be much cheaper to live there than in the USA, but the falling US dollar has made that option less attractive in recent years. Who knows how the US dollar will fare in the future? In the near term the US dollar will remain weak.

Unfortunately my Russian language skills are rather poor, so that would definitely be a problem. My wife nags me to learn more Russian, but learning another language is 10 times more difficult at my age than it is for a younger person. I have no incentive to learn while living in the USA and not enough time to invest in learning because of my work schedule. I had more luck learning when I had to. Usually when I was over there and immersed in that country. You learn a lot quicker when you have to. However, I think it would take me many, many years of immersion to become fluent. I think that would make my life in Belarus very limited until I could somewhat speak the language.

It's really not such a stretch to imagine myself living in Belarus. My grandparents (my mom's parents) were born there and I have Belarusian relatives that I maintain a relationship with that live there. My wife is a citizen of Belarus even though she was originally born in Russia. I have visited there many, many times since the breakup of the USSR. I visited my relatives there even before I met my wife. Unfortunately the Belarusian government is repressive and hostile to the USA. Being an American, it might make living there uncomfortable.

Uh, well, that would be nice and all, but I don't see my husband's country getting stable anytime soon. I voted no, but if Iraq gains decent stability within my lifetime and I'm not too old, I might consider it. There wasn't an option for that though.

I woud not want to live in the States, so no.

Yep, would definitely move back there. But this time, I'd make sure that I had a plan for making $ that didn't include teaching English with no hope for any sort of movement up the career ladder.

I would like to wait a few years because I really like my job and am at a time in my life where I want to thrive professionally rather than stagnate.

But I think I'd go cuckoo living in his village again and things in Cancun aren't too pretty right now, so we'll have to see!

I'm there,considering financial stability.

Thanks for contributing guys!

Bit late on this one (again!) but fwiw, I can't wait to get out of Blighty. And that's just as well, because 'er indoors has told me on more than one occasion that she's too much of a "spoiled ### American" to live anywhere else.

Seriously though, it's about getting "bang for yer buck." I mean, let's take housing: for US$150,000, I can get a brick, ranch-style, 3 or 4 bedroom home on a couple of acres in her part of rural Southern Illinois. Kincaid Lake and the Shawnee National Forest are just a few miles away, too. Conversely, the UK equivalent amount (about £80,000 at the current exchange rate) buys me NOTHING in the South of the country, a 1 bed apartment in a half-decent area of the Midlands or up North, or maybe a small terraced house in an absolute fleapit of a place. I #### you not.

Nope, once I've left the UK I aint never going back (except to visit, of course).

Same here.

I would be starting a new life anyway because I'm graduating from school and moving out of my house (can't afford to stay in Bath - way too expensive!) I might as well be the one to move to the US where things are cheaper in general.

(Couldn't edit my post)



Same here.

Just to clarify on the expenses..

I pay £260 / $520 a month just for my one ROOM and I live with two people that pay the same. That makes it over $1500 a month for the flat, whereas in MA you can get an apartment from $500-800 a month. I pay almost $6 to use the bus for a day, whereas in the US we can get a tank of gas lasting a good few days or a week for $20.

Having said that, it would be great if we could move back to the UK in the future when we're better off; at this point, we want to be together and live comfortably.

Same here. I recently bought a 1,000-square foot condo in Alexandria, VA, for a sum of money that would've bought me nothing more than a garage in Rome (and not even in the centre). My fiancé would have had no objection to moving to Italy, but after thinking long and hard about that, we decided the best move for us was to have me move to the US. And, in spite of all the drawbacks I've heard about, I'm really looking forward to my new life. It does help that I've gathered a lot of info on the way, and I don't expect everything to be easy. Besides, I've already lived abroad for almost six years, so I know about the adjustment period and all that.

Count yourself lucky: I was paying £500/$1000 a month for a room in South London before I moved to Birmingham. Here, I'm paying that exact same amount for a nice 2-bed house in a quiet cul-de-sac!!

Screw London!!!!!!!!

$500-$800 in MA sounds......really optimistic. I paid $650 there 12 years ago for a dinky 1-bedroom and I was getting a really good deal on my place. This was in Braintree.

I would have no problem moving to the Philippines. I plan to retire there.

Lot depends on where in the Philippines you move to. Some areas are not that great for puti [white peeps]. Example "most" of Mindanao.
Can't get medicare so you'd have to pay your own way with medical. Very reasonable where we have our houses in La Union. Also very GOOD medical facilities and personnel.
I haven't quite figured out what would happen if you got a major illness or sickness and returned to the US. Don't know what the procedure is on qualifying for medicare again.

Did not realize how expensive it is in the UK!!! I guess thats why my family from the UK love to come to the NYC to shop

I'm am the SAME way about Jamaica! The moment I went there, which was spur of the moment all by myself, I felt like I belonged. I had this light bulb that just turned on in my head and said "Go to Jamaica". I had that thought on a Friday, and I was off to Jamaica on Sunday! That quick. I feel it was GOd leading me there, cause I had NO fear no reservations whatsoever. The same voice came when it forced me to go talk to my now husband. I felt a spiritual connection with that place from day one. Like you said. It felt like I had been there before.

I would move there in a heartbeat. I have so many things I dream of doing there with housing and development and seriuosly my days are filled with ideas and ways to make this happen. My husband sees my connection with it there too, and has been very supportive in making our dream of moving to Jamaica and being servents to the community a reality.

I am already living in my husband's country!

I tried.

I left my job and moved to Colombia. It was supposed to be until he can come here. Unfourtunately, I was unable to get a job because I am not fluent in Spanish (I tried). So, I had to come back to the US after three months. I did, however, spend four months over there last year (paid for by my job). That puts me living in Colombia for 7 months out of the last year, and I loved it. Aside from the earthquake, the robbery, the bomb, and the suicide in our building, everything was great. Seriously though, the people are great and I love it there. Just don't have the money.