Would You Move to ME/NA?

[sereia 0]

Everyone is responding to the POLL but hardly anyone making comments. ARGH! I wanted a discussion not just people responding "YES" and not telling me why they didn't do it.

Oh well. :/

[Nothing1234 2]

Everyone is responding to the POLL but hardly anyone making comments. ARGH! I wanted a discussion not just people responding "YES" and not telling me why they didn't do it.

Oh well. :/

Just cuz.....(has to be my favorite line... ) I did respond.

[SaadBell 0]

My husband was born in Egypt and moved to Kuwait and lived a while in America. When I asked him about us moving one day back to Egypt, he is not interested. I don't care where we live, as long as I can have good internet connection and some kind of good Satellite TV, I am gold. I don't need to have interaction with anyone, internet is good for me. We have talked about going to Doha, husband was talking to me about how nice it is there, once again doesn't matter, now if you are talking Holland, than yea I am already there in my dreams. His two brothers are living in Australia now that would be ok, but they have that ugly funnel web, and crocks, and once I saw the program about people getting eaten alive by crocks, that soured me just a bit. Not sure where I will end up, but there is always my dream of Amsterdam Holland.

[Staashi 371]

I would gladly move to Argentina - naturally not a MENA country but still a foreign one at that. I would move if I could have a nice lifestyle. We will definitely have a vacation/retirement home there someday.

[MrsAmera 41]

Well I think you already know my answer but yes we would move and were just about to buy tickets a few months ago. I have no problem living whevever and actually was excited about moving to Marrakech. Down the road I think it will be a reality. I would like both of our kids to go through primary/middle school there.

[palilover 1]

Dont we have this discussion like every month?

I'll go anywhere he does! But we need to have jobs and internet and good food. And just so the life is not too unbearable at work and when we leave our house to go shopping for food, decent people will be nice too.

aside from that, I don't care.

[~Jackie~ 30]

Would I leave America to live with Ibrahim in Jordan? Maybe. He has a good job with the government there. We would survive but that's all...survive. There is not much 'thriving' going on there.

I'm not sure my spoiled american azz could adjust. I visited there 4 times, but always knew I would be touching down at Ohare and going home to a hot shower.

jax

[Nutty 2]

I was living in North India (Kullu Valley, Himachel Pradesh) when I met my husband. I did try to live in Iran. But my husband's city SUCKED! Even other Iranians would say, "you live in the worst place of all of Iran." It was small, in the desert, nothing to do and nowhere to go. It had a reputation of being "drug central" on the route between Pakistan and Turkey.

When walking past the neighborhood park in the day, I only saw men hanging around, then at night (when the heat was not as bad) the families came out to the park. I asked about this and my brother-in-law said, "the drug dealers hang out during the day, the families go at night." I said, "its the reverse in USA, families in the day, dealers by night."

Then the Iranian rules of wearing a headscarf and jacket were oppressive to me (mentally and physically). It's a 115 degrees and I gotta wear a coat!

Then the middle eastern muslims are so different than the Indian muslims. Indian muslims still embrace color. But in Iran, only grey, brown, black, dark blue...Sober colors were acceptable.

So as a last option, we decided to live in USA.

But as you can see, that isn't so easy either.

Edited October 16, 2008 by Nutty

[Sofiyya 1,687]

I've owned a home in Agadir for decades, and have already lived there. We will be moving back to Morocco in a few years, insha'allah.

[prince+angel 3]

Dont know if I could actually live in Tunisia. Nice place to visit but .......? cant really say yes, cant really say no. Wish I had more of an answer for you. We talked about relocating when we met -the pro's/cons, in & out's and America won that one ~ for now. I did make the mistake of telling him once just give me 4 years, then the world is ours & he reminds me of those words from time to time.

[Y's_habibitk 2]

I would live in Irbid. At first there was no question... Im not living there!!! But now, I consider it all the time.

But, we think the smarter thing would be for us to both work here, save some cash and then end up there. Thats the plan anyway

Lisa

[amal 4]

At the time I met my husband I would have dropped everything and lived there NO QUESTIONS ASKED!!! but my son has 7 total years that he has to be disease free before he is allowed to leave the country so our only option was to have hubster come to the USA first.

We are working on a plan to move to Irbid in the future and have a new idea to start a business there all in the works. we're thinking it may be 5 years or so but we want to at least go for a few months a year if we can't do the business there.

I don't think I could do it full time coz honestly....I do like hot showers and dishwashers. I could sure have a fun time roughing it for a while but it would get old fairly quickly...

[KHPerfectMatch 1]

I thought it might be nice to retire in Egypt, until I lived there for 2 months... All my other trips (5 in all over the past few years) were 3 weeks or so. When I stayed 2 months I realized that was about 5 weeks too long... Now I know unless all my retirement money has vanished PERMANENTLY in the Wall Street meltdown of the last few weeks I won't be planning on retiring in Egypt... Not sure hubby would agree, but I bet in 15 years he won't want to live there again either... Gotta find a way to bring every one living there HERE... tehehehehehehehe

The cost of living in Egypt, unless you plan to live on US $$ (which when I retire in 15 years might not be worth much more than Egyptian Pounds) is OUTRAGEOUS. And over the last 4 years the cost of housing has skyrocketed... There is NO WAY I'd try to earn enough $ for retirement there. I know too many American women who moved there and now they can't come back to the USA because they can't afford to come back here... (They used up their 401K's and sold their homes, etc.) The worst case is one where the woman's husband has died (after using up all her money... ) and she's stuck there at the age of 60 with no family, few friends, and no savings left. She's just praying for her 62nd birthday so she can get her puny Social Security check which is going to be mighty small since she didn't work here for the last 10 years...

So at this point I'd say "nice place to visit, wouldn't risk giving up what I have here to live there"...

K (Iskandrania)

[sereia 0]

I know too many American women who moved there and now they can't come back to the USA because they can't afford to come back here... (They used up their 401K's and sold their homes, etc.)

So at this point I'd say "nice place to visit, wouldn't risk giving up what I have here to live there"...

K (Iskandrania)

Definitely a HUGE risk and a factor for many of us I'm sure. When I mentioned freedom in my original post that's what I was referring to. It would be scary to be stuck there with no way out if you needed it!

[S and S 12]

I think it is obvious why I don't live in my husband's counry and why he doesn't either for that matter, lol. He can't even get a visa to anywhere else at this point or residency so we live in fear of him being forced to go back to Iraq before he gets his visa to the US. I will say this, I love him so much, if they don't let him into the US, I will live wherever he does (but only as a last resort, much better for him to come here).

We have discused that if things get better in Iraq after, say, 20 or 30 years then maybe we will go back there. Another idea is after he has US citizenship if we really want to go to the middle east then it would be easier for him to get work as a doctor than it is now with Iraqi citizenship. All the hospitals over there take advantage of Iraqis being desperate. The best deal he could get in Jordan was to work as a doctor for free. Most hospitals in Jordan charge Iraqis $100 a month to work in the hospitals which is crazy, but they will lose their skills if they don't work. Syria wouldn't let him work in the hospital at all. One would think they could use doctors more over there, but I guess not if they are Iraqi.