I have loved Portugal for nearly my whole life. I first came here as a little girl for summer holidays with my parents. I can still remember the dry heat of the Portuguese summer, the ice-cream from the beach stalls that was never quite frozen, and the delicious pastries in the cafés. I’ve been coming back to the same city, the same coastline ever since.
The result is that, although I’ve only been actually living in Portugal for over a year, I sort of feel like a local. Take me anywhere in Portugal today and I’ll probably find the place imprinted somewhere in my memory, even though I thought I’d never been there before. I can go to the same ice-cream parlour I went to over 20 years ago and order the same flavour. There are family photos of little me sitting at the top of the farmer’s market steps just like my son does today. No wonder Portugal feels like home.
And then sometimes it is jarringly obvious that I’m not from around here. My Portuguese accent is from Brazil; sometimes I even still have problems understanding the local pronunciation. In the summer, most shop-owners think I’m an English tourist on a week’s holiday. I don’t vote, I’m not up-to-date with Portuguese politics and have no idea what’s on Portuguese TV.
But my most glaring lapse is that I don’t have any Portuguese friends.
It’s not by choice. The local expat community welcomed me with open arms and I simply haven’t had to look elsewhere. In Brazil, you could basically count all the foreigners in the city on one hand. Outside of the big cities, people would look at you funny if you spoke English. Waiters at restaurants would often confuse England with America, London with Miami.
Here, playgroup alone includes mums from Sweden, Germany, the UK and Holland. On Saturdays the organic market is full of French and German people. There are English, American and German schools up and down the coast and nobody blinks an eyelid when you say your child is bilingual.
On the one hand, it’s lovely to be part of such an eclectic international mix of people. In some ways I feel more at ease with other nomads like myself, who know what I’m talking about when I mention living out of boxes or moving every couple of years. But I worry that I’m missing out on the real Portugal. Did I really move here just to buy Waitrose tea at the supermarket and chat about the weather with other Brits?
Of course it’s lovely that I can buy peanut butter and proper English tea bags at the supermarket, but shouldn’t I be experimenting with local ingredients?
At the playground it sometimes feels that there is a bit of a “them and us” mentality between expat and local parents. Of course it’s difficult to mix when you’re not sure if the expats speak Portuguese (many of them don’t). Different attitudes to parenting don’t help: most Portuguese parents look aghast when I let my son splash through puddles without shoes or climb the slide – I in turn can’t believe they take their children to the park in such beautiful clothing (the washing! the ironing!). I wish it weren’t so. I don’t want my son growing up in Portugal but not a part of Portugal.
Since I’ve had no luck sidling up to Portuguese mums in the park, I’m trying to find other ways to connect with my community. A couple of weeks ago I bought a bus pass – what better way to get to know the neighbourhood than via the bus route? Plus, there’s always a friendly pensioner looking to chat about the weather.
Are you an expat or a local in your country? If you’re from abroad do you find it easy to mix with the locals?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Julie of Portugal. Photo credit to the author.
I am a local, but have many expat friends and neighbors. I moved to a neighborhood where a good percentage are expats, and part of my decision to move there was because of the large int’l community. I feel more ‘European’ than American, since I was raised by European parents, and so am very happy to have found this niche for my kids.
That’s it! I’m not sure I’d fit in with the local community in Germany or England either…I’ve become too much of a nomad already and feel more comfortable with other nomads.
What an interesting post. I think you have to scope out new ways to plunge into the culture — maybe hang out at a local library? Sign up for a mommy and me class outside the expat world? Find universal topics to engage in with parents in the park? All easier said than done. Buying the bus pass is a great start, too!
Here’s the difference, though. Now you have indicated that you want to immerse into the culture more, so you are bound to be receptive to more ways to engage in your every day life. I bet with this mindset that you will learn a lot more and make more friends in the months to come! Keep us posted!
Jen 🙂
Never thought it was so hard to fit in as an expat. As we Portuguese are very warm and friendly. Not sure in what city/part of Portugal you are at the moment, but I’m in Lisbon’s outskirts and we don’t block the expat community, not at the park, playground, beach or any other place.
Of course that we have different ways of dealing with our kids and our life, and yes we don’t go out without our clothes properly ironed (even if the kid is going to roll over on the grass and making a mess two seconds after), that’s our culture, please don’t take it too serious or as a sign that you are not welcome.
Have you tried to get your groceries at the local stores (not pingo doce/continente and others of same kind), farmers market where portuguese go (not organic markets where only expats go)? They are great places to start with.
Check your city hall agenda most of them have lots of activities for Parents/Kids to do together, like music concerts, reading at some school library, mine has visits to a farm to see the donkies for example.
I hope you find your way.
In case you are living near me maybe we can have a coffee one of these days 🙂
Oh, I hope I didn’t come across as too negative about the Portuguese people! They are one of the bes things about this country.
I think the main problem where I live is that there is just such a large expat community so there is very little reason for us to move out of our comfort zone.
This is a bit random but a book I read recently suggested noticing smells to immerse yourself more deeply in the community. It’s also about just stopping and noticing the neighbourhood around me rather than just rushing off to the next expat mum meet-up
I have lived in Brazil for most of my life and my mother is Brazilian, but growing up I often felt like an outsider because I looked foreign and people frequently treated me like a foreigner. When we first arrived here we lived in a small town and for several years I was known there as “the American’s daughter”!
Hellow, i´m from Venezuela, my native language is spanish, i haven´t practice my english very much, but here i´m happy to find this blog. I moved to Lisbon, Portugal last september with my husband and toddler, before that we spend a year in Warsaw, Poland. Is not been easy to mix with locals (in neither country), mainly because of the language, though i find portuguese much easier than polish, probably because of the similarity with the spanish, anyway i haven´t make yet enough effort to socialize, i have felt full handed with all the changes and a toddler, but i´m looking forward to it. When i go to the parks with my toddler i find the portuguese open to speak to me and my toddler, they are very kind and sociable, but i feel very uncomfortable by been unable to express myself in their language, sometimes i understand half of what they are telling me and most of the time i end up speaking spanish with a little bit of portuguese, i get so embarrassed, but i suppose that is the fight i must continue until i knock down this language barrier. In the meantime i´ll love to join or create a group of mothers and toddlers (of any country) to socialize, share and make activities with the kids.