Now, whether you´ve moved abroad or not, I guess many of you will at some point have moved from one place to another within the same country. So, for example, you´ve been living in Manchester and then for family or job reasons, or whatever, you decide to move to London and off you go. Or from Paris to Corsica. Or from México City to Cancún or whatever. But when you get to your new place, you realize that all of your routines change. You´ve not got the same group of mates on hand – or maybe no mates at all. Your work colleagues may or may not form part of your social life but if they do – then it won´t be the same way it was before anyway. And if you had any hobbies like hiking, or singing or playing any sport (or drinking loads of beer in the pub after work for that matter), then suddenly all of those communities and social engagements drop out of your life and off your calendar and you find yourself feeling a bit of a billy-no-mates with rather too much spare time on your hands.
Well, now imagine all of those changes – but you´ve also got to contend with a different language (which you and/or your family may or may not be confident speaking) and most certainly a very different culture and approach to leisure time activities. That´s the challenge that faces so many people when they move abroad – it doesn´t matter whether you´re a single individual, or a whole family unit. For many this is the biggest challenge of all when relocating overseas and can be the main reason why it doesn´t work out. And even if you do go with your partner and a bunch of kids, and even if they all seem to be getting on just great doing new stuff with new people, you still need something for yourself.
So ignoring the “Stay Idle and Do Nothing” option, which isn´t a great course of action, there are two paths you can take: firstly, you can look for groups of people who do exactly what you used to do before you moved. So if you´ve always been into, say, Ten Pin Bowling, then you do a bit of investigation, get brave and contact whoever you can find who´s involved in Ten Pin Bowling locally. But what if there´s no Bowling alley? Or what if your hobby was sea fishing and you no longer live anywhere near the sea - then that´s a bit of a challenge. This is where the second option comes in: have a look around you and see what other people get up to in your area and try to adapt your hobbies to what´s available and popular. Maybe sailing if you´re by the sea – or, if you were into Lawn Bowls then maybe try petanca if you´re in Spain or boules if you´re in France.
For me, once again (and there´s a clue in the pod´s title) I´ve been quite a Lucky Barstard in this respect, because I love all sports and without really being a Master of any, I´ve always been pretty good at turning my hand to whatever sport happens to be available. And over the years I´ve realized that there´s little better than sport and competition to break through language, cultural or any other barriers that might exist and which prevent you from integrating locally.
At 20 I lived on the outskirts of Paris on a Student campus. Most of the people I lived with were Canadians, mainly French Canadians, and they were completely nuts about Ice Hockey. These lovely, moderate, mature, conservative International Masters Students suddenly went beserk and became complete nutters the moment ice hockey so much as got a mention on the telly! And they only ever seemed to like the fisticuffs! Anyway, that wasn´t much use to me as there were no ice rinks where I was and skating definitely wasn´t one of my skills. But those students who weren´t Canadian were mainly Algerians. Lots of Algerians. And fortunately for me they liked football. So the very 1st weekend I was there I headed down to where I guessed they played, watched for a bit and then plucked up the courage to ask if they were short of a player or two in their squad. Now the team I was proposing to join were a bit shocking to be honest, and 8am Sunday morning kick-offs weren´t ideal for the party student brigade. The ball they used was rock hard, the pitch was red ash with load of holes in it – and the ref definitely needed protection money if not an armed guard or two. Anyway, I decided to go with my first opportunity, I was signed-up (not such an onerous process), given some kit and very soon I became their stalwart centre half for the entire season. I was shorter than most of them but none of ´em seemed to like heading the ball as much as I did so I tended to win most things at the back! In no time at all I had a whole load of Arabic speaking mates who had my back on the pitch and on campus for the entire year – and we barely lost a match!
My next example is from Venezuela. When I moved there many years later, I was desperate to find and join a football team, and there were plenty of them, but my work hours were so varied and long, and I was always working at the weekend, so I couldn´t really commit to anything. I did a bit of cycling on my own and even tried to learn how to inline skate at one point which was a complete disaster – but very, very funny for anyone watching and for my teacher, Lynne! Then one day I saw a guy carrying a squash racket down the road – and I´d played a bit of squash and even been involved in a few squash ladders in different places so I knew that I could hold my own on court. So, in my very pigeon Spanish at the time, I stopped him and asked where he played. Well, he was amazed I even knew what a squash racket was and it turned out his brother in law was a Venezuelan international squash player (maybe the only one at the time) and he´d built his very own court at the back of his house in the middle of nowhere. The court was a bit rough and ready to be honest, the lighting was a bit limited and there was no air con which was almost unbearable, but the dimensions were right and before I knew it, I became a part of this clandestine squash playing community, which included an International Superstar – it felt a bit like I´d joined a Secret Society! And of course, I got a bunch of mates and contacts on the “inside”!
Now, if you move to somewhere the size of a Cancún, then you pretty much know that there´s going to be plenty of sport on your doorstep. The Mexicans absolutely love football so there are pitches of every shape, size, colour and quality you can imagine all over the place, and games kicking off from 7am through to midnight 7 days a week. And the place is full of golf courses (if that´s your thing), and swimming pools, and a massive range of water sports; diving, windsurfing, kayaking, sailing, water skiing you name it – and there was an ample supply of tennis courts.
Our social life fairly quickly centred around the Tennis Club we joined and that was without any doubt the best thing we did when we arrived to “break into” local society and the community. Time on and around court pretty quickly lead to coffee, long breakfasts, BBQ´s, parties and even holidays! Our closest pals for the entire time we were in México definitely came from the tennis community and most from that particular tennis club we joined. And many of them are still great mates to this day.
But I was also pretty keen to keep playing footy so when I heard that the parents at my kids´ school played every Friday morning from 7 – 8am, well I was delighted and I played virtually every Friday morning for years and years on end. For a short while we got banned from playing by the Headmistress for swearing too loudly – but, like the good schoolkids our own children were, we said sorry and our Friday morning game got re-instated pretty quickly. But don´t think this was a friendly little kick around – I´ve rarely known such a competitive bunch of blokes especially at that time of the morning. But what a great community to break into – and playing sport just made it so much easier and natural. When the school held its regular events for Day of the Dead, Christmas, Easter, Mexican Independence Day and all the rest (they loved a do at that school) then us footy dads knew that we´d always have a bunch of mates to chat to and have a laugh with!
One thing I can hand on heart say about the Mexicans, and T said it very clearly on “Spilling the T” at the end of the last Series, is that they are really open, warm, sociable and friendly. Nothing is closed off or cold in anyway – maybe the odd knife in your back from time to time - but upfront all is happy, welcoming and smiley. So that made life pretty easy when it came to mixing and merging into different communities. However, right or wrong, that´s not the case everywhere you go and, unless you do a very good bit of research or you have good friends who can give you the inside track, then you´re unlikely to know how easy or hard it is to “break in” to these local groups. Now, I need to be a little careful how I word this but quite often Islanders can appear to be a little closed off and not particularly open and welcoming. Whether the Island happens to be French, Greek, Spanish or whatever there is often a bit of mistrust initially when it comes to foreigners moving in (and by foreigners I mean anyone who´s not actually from the island itself – don´t think this is simply a nationality or racial issue). What are they doing here? What are they after? What are they coming to take away from me? And if the island also just happens to be a Tourist Hotspot, as many are, then that mistrust may be even stronger – and this is clearly based on many decades and generations of “outsiders” coming over and taking parts of the economic pie for themselves.
So if this is a situation you find yourself in, and you feel that people are not being as friendly or as open as you´d like them to be (you might think they´re being complete and utter rude barstards) then how can sport help to break down these barriers? Well, my example´s from Mallorca. When we arrived we looked to get into Tennis circles but realized fairly quickly that at our own level (which was reasonable, adult players – neither beginners nor budding professionals) there wasn´t a huge amount of competition or groups for us to join – and the cost and opening times of clubs and courts also made it a bit tricky. But the more we looked around, the more we realized that we were knocking on the wrong door if we wanted to break down barriers and the answer was right under our very noses. We needed to swap our tennis racquets for Padels and join the hordes of Padel players, groups and competitions that were thriving all over the island. And the more we played, competed and joined the padel community – the more people started smiling, opening up, having a beer with us and engaging. Before we knew it, taxi drivers were regaling us with their tales of drunken tourists, construction workers were telling us what they were building and for whom (like the sex dungeons under a fake church at the top of our road!) and everyone opened up about their favourite places, bars & restaurants - and all this because we swapped our Tennis gear for Padel gear! That´s what I mean when I say that one option to “break in” is to look at what people do locally and what is popular and adapt your interests to fit! By the way, all that only happens if you let ´em win…..hahaha.
Now then, I can´t finish this episode off without telling you how I was within one millimetre of becoming an International Cricket Superstar. Cancún Cricket Club was a very little known, organization comprised mainly of expats – Australians, South Africans and a couple of Brits, like GG, but mainly Indians, plus some curious Mexicans who wanted to learn the game. We trained from time to time on the football field of a local private school where we had an artificial wicket and some equipment stored. And very occasionally a team would come from Mexico City or even, once, from El Salvador. Anyway, our captain discovered that Mexico had a national team and that they were looking for players - and to be eligible you only had to have been resident in México for 5 years – which I was. So I reckoned that if I put in a reasonable batting performance (which I felt I did) on the day we played the team from Mexico City – then I would be in! When the day came for the squad to be named I was pretty confident I was going to be there – but low and behold I was down as first reserve! First reserve – how disappointing is that? And to make it worse I know for a fact that the last guy to make it in was not half the batsman I was! But he did sponsor our strips and most of the equipment so I guess he had first dibs. So close to being able to add “International Cricket Player” to my CV.
So on that disappointing note, it´s time for me to crack open a consolatory beer, and just dream of the career that might have been!
That´s it for today folks. An anecdotal look at how sport has allowed me to “break in” to a variety of otherwise closed, cold or even hostile groups and communities in different parts of the World. For me, sport allowed me to do this – but I know that sport is definitely not everyone´s thing – but if it´s not sport, there will be something else that helps to unlock doors for you. So my advice is, give it a go you may be amazed at the results you achieve.