Friday, October 30, 2009

The Weird Life of an Expat

Being an expat is like living out a really strange existence – one you never imagined. You do things you never foresaw you would do before you left your homeland on your work and locals naturally find you a bit odd. Every expat-especially women strive to have a perfect home similar to the one back home. In order to achieve their objective these women keep on planning one or the other tricks and tweaks with the material present in home. Reusing many objects is not only necessity for them but has also become their hobby.

“I like to collect shopping bags and never reuse them; I have a stash of colorful shopping bags just waiting to be discovered and reused in a very appropriate style” says Halima 55 year old, staying with her son’s family in UAE. Well there might not be any women who would throw plastic bag and would use it in a fashionable manner. Not only plastic bags but also cloth made bags which contain rice and other grains are largely used by women though for a very witty matter. Fiona, a junior assistant working for herbal centre says, “I cut out these cloth bag into small pieces and reuse them to wipe out oil on kitchen floor if it gets spill at times.”

Giving a second thought to other items which are almost used on regular basis in many homes, reusing them also gives a special touch to expat homes. Rashida, teaching in our own says, “ me and my husband use small and sleek mushroom jars as water glasses as the glass material is not easily breakable.” Must say a unique way of using glass jars. These kinds of oddity just not help them in their daily life but using it in a useful manner makes them proud.

Kitchen materials usually takes a lead because they are unique in some or the other way. Appliances after performing their job are still not retired and are used for another task until n unless it is left completely worthless. “Being a working woman I could not remember most of the food items which are needed to be stocked so I use my old chopping boards as grocery checklist” says, Dr Reena Begum, a dentist. Well a very fair way of using a chopping board, she list out the items with a marker and once it is used on one side the second side comes handy next month. On the other hand most of the food items become vital for serving as completely different purpose. Mohammad Shafique, 35 years old who has a craze for his plants and looks after them 24/7 says “I open used teabags, boils its tealeaves and use that water for my plants which help them grow faster and even protects them from pests.”

Other than teabag another food item PEPSI/COKE which is highly consumed by today’s generation is also used as a cleaning agent in most of the houses “when first I was given a can of coke to clean the toilet bowl I was stunned to see that it removed all the stains due to its acidic agent, I wonder what it must be doing to out bones and intestine when consumed.” Says Zayed, a 38 year old domestic worker.

Well the list goes on and on and it also teaches and assist other families how to make the best use out of very minor or major item so even they can be successful in making their homes a perfect place to live in.

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