Australia was the perfect equaliser. In an individualistic culture, no one really cares who you are. Individual freedoms are highly revered and respected – you can dye your armpit hair green, you can dress however you choose, you can actually hold public servants accountable.
There’s even the option of deciding whether or not a higher power exists. I remember a time when my dad learned the hard way that Western culture was an entirely different kettle of fish, and when I also simultaneously began to brandish powers never before accessed in my African upbringing.
I was fortunate that my parents were able to sponsor my education, and being Africans, my dad especially, assumed that as the principal payer of my school fees, he was entitled to access my university account so he could log in at will and monitor my performance remotely from Kenya – so he asked me to provide him with my passwords and like any teenager worth her salt, I said no.
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In any case, the thousands of kilometres separating Kenya from Australia gave me confidence to sleep with both eyes shut after declining my dad’s request. Time difference meant the threats pursuant to my refusal to provide my university login details did not reach me in real time, so I also had the privilege of choosing whether to respond.
Taking matters into his own hands, my dad contacted the university directly to enquire about my login details. Who pays the piper calls the tune was the summary of his request. What happened next sent shockwaves across the seas separating those two continents, when my dad was informed that the university could not fulfil his request because it would amount to a violation of my privacy.
Privacy: an entirely alien concept for African parents, and a freedom I was bestowed unceremoniously at 19 years of age, in a similar fashion to the way that it goes without saying that water is wet.
Having come full circle to where I am now working within the international education sector, I offer these experiences to parents and students alike, to prepare them for a reality opposite of anything they’ve ever known thus far. Whenever I am counselling students on living abroad as an international student, I often wish to emphasise one thing: a new personality is required to survive a culture and society severely different to what we have become accustomed to as Africans.
The sense of being owned by a community evaporates in first-world countries, where adults really mind their own business, and most people try to live within the parameters of respectful co-existence. People participating in each other’s lives is strictly by invitation only, and this invitation can be revoked at any time. Gate crashers are dealt with swiftly and harshly, as a warning that such behaviour is not acceptable.
I have to be honest, one of the things I miss about living in Australia is that it was so easy to disappear within oneself. It was also one of the reasons for my undoing in the depths of my homesickness, so I am currently cautiously navigating the space between the invasion of always being seen, and my soul’s desire to remain authentic regardless.
The writer is a lawyer and podcaster
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By Dorcas Mbugua