Expat Party

We had our first ‘expat’ experience in Harare with our couchsurfing host, Philipp. I’ve lived in South Africa for over two years and haven’t found a place as ‘exclusive’ as the bar we went to in Harare. We went to a movie at the Alliance Francaise and then to a little bar to meet a friend of our host. The bar was nice with an outdoor patio and live music inside (Irish music, who would have expected that?), but one thing that caught both of our attention was the abundance of foreign white people. Everyone had a story like, I work for UNDP (United Nations Development Program) or USAID or the embassy of name-the-country. I even got bought a drink by the Honorary Consul of Cyprus. It was an interesting crowd in terms of the work that some of them were doing and backgrounds, but we couldn’t help feeling like it was just incredibly shallow. I guess I just don’t understand why you move to another country just to hang out with other Americans, Brits, etc. I openly admitted to someone that I’ve never been to a gathering like that before and just didn’t really know what to do and she asked, aren’t there a lot of foreign students at UCT and I said ‘yes, but I don’t really hang out with any of them’. I understand the need to meet up with people who understand your background and perhaps what you’re going through living in another country, etc, but I don’t understand the way the crowd seemed to be interested exclusively in only these encounters.