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Repatriation Articles
Our articles continue here ...
- REPATRIATING WITH FAMLY, written by Pam Perruad, offers insight on repatriating with a family.
- REPATRIATING ALONE, written by Susan van Alsenoy, who repatriated to New England after living in Belgium for over 30 years.
- REFLECTIONS ON MEDICARE, written by Helen Hootsmann, reviews the accessibility of medicare overseas and how it affects repatriating citizens.
If you would like to share your repatriating experience, please submit your article to the Repatriation Committee Chairwoman.
ARTICLE
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Repatriating Alone - A Sense of Place
"You can't go home again."? Nonsense. It might not be the place you left, or if it is, time will have changed it, too, and familiar things might not be where you expect them. That could make your return more difficult.
But you can go back to the topography and the language of an area where you are most at ease, where your self recognizes its sense of place. Emily Dickenson wrote, “The soul selects its own society." I think it selects its own geography, too.
For thirty-two years I lived in flat Flanders in a highly-industrialized and intensely populated part of Belgium and never lost my homesickness for those parts of the world where the hills and the trees come to the sea, the air was clean, and the people were not stacked on top of one another.
So when our last child finished his studies, I moved to Maine, a place that I had dreamed of living in even as a small child growing up on coastal Connecticut. In doing so, I have encountered a few things that I hadn't expected that might be of interested to others who make the return journey.
I thought that I had enough Social Security quarters to qualify for minimum benefits if the credits I earned while working in Belgium, a country which has reciprocity with the U. S., were taken into account. And indeed eventually they were, once all the paper work was taken care of. But don't expect the process to be a quick one. I filed for early benefits, and these were initially denied even though all my paper work on both sides of the Atlantic had been done.
But this did not qualify me for Medicare. You need the same number of quarters to receive Medicare benefits as you do for Social Security, but all of those quarters have to be earned in the United States. Foreign earned credits do not count.
Medicare is undergoing some radical reorganizing and restructuring. For just one example, many people take an additional supplementary or gap insurance to increase their retirement insurance benefits. Most people still carry their Medicare card and the card issued by the secondary insurer. But these are combining now into one card. There are also many different kinds of gap insurances and you need to try and figure out the right plan for you. And just to make things more interesting, there is a certain time period just before and just after you turn 65 when you have “windows of opportunity" regarding these gap benefits. You thought filling your taxes was a nightmare?
If you are or will be receiving a pension from your host country, you might have to keep open a bank account in that country for that money to be paid into. In Belgium, this is the case. Your pension check is directly transferred into a Belgian bank where you have an account and cannot be sent to a third person.
Difficulty leaving family and friends? Of course. But we did it before, and if the desire to return compels you, you will succeed and you will be happy.
Suggested Reading
I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson. Broadway Books (1999) - If laughter is the best medicine, this book is a guaranteed vaccine against the “Repatriation Blues." After living in England for 20 years Bryson returns to the US and finds everything different and of course, very funny.
The Art of Coming Home – Craig Storti – Intercultural Press (1997) - This is a more academic approach to the problems of repatriation. Renowned interculturalist Storti dissects the problems by assignee, spouse and children and provides useful tips and suggestions for all.
Homeward Bound by Robin Pascoe - Expat Press Limited (2001) - A solid, touching and humorous look at the real problems of repatriation by Ms. Pascoe who is often referred to as the “Seinfeld of the relocation business".