Diaspor-ing (again)

Late in 2020 I returned to Wales after seven years working abroad. I planned to reconnect with my roots, and re-establish a life in a Welsh community as I approach middle age.

What I discovered is that I don't dare get old in Wales if I can possibly avoid it.

So bom dia, selamat pagi, dadeer di'ak. I'm having brunch in a café in a former Portuguese colony close to the equator, the air-con providing relief from the heat and humidity outdoors. A flat white brewed from locally-grown coffee beans and a sizzling skillet-full of huevos rancheros are getting my day off to a good start.

I've spent most of the last few days sleeping. Partly to shake off jet lag; more to start shedding the accumulated fatigue from being an unpaid carer back in Wales.

The thick windows don't keep out the roar of mopeds, navigating the Avenue de Portugal in shoals. Beyond them is the beach, complete with palm trees and outrigger fishing boats pulled up on the sand. Beyond them is the choppy turquoise sea. A green, mountainous island dominates the horizon.

People leave Wales for many reasons. A big one is this: there are no opportunities in Wales. If you want a better life, you'll need to find it somewhere else.

And that's my motivation, from a slightly different angle.

I first left Wales in 2002, for what was supposed to be a one-year contract, building an online learning system for the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Eight years later, via an MBA in Singapore, I was still in Asia. By now, I was teaching management to students at a university in Beijing and winning prizes for leading a team updating teaching methods from chalk-and-blackboard to blended learning using a Moodle platform I'd installed.

I was, in short, doing pretty well.

I came back to Wales to help my parents. My mother was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's disease and my father, her primary carer, was struggling. I moved back in with them to help, and for three years went through the intense stress and grief of witnessing my mother's suffering and decline.

That would have been bad enough but my new lecturing job proved to be equally traumatic, for me and many other staff members. I got a first-hand view of the beginning of the collapse of the universities, today becoming a sector-wide crisis which will unfortunately only get worse.

Caught between the two, the pressure had catastrophic consequences for my mental health, my career, and for my finances.

Now in my mid-forties, I was broke and at a dead end. I had to leave Wales again to try to rebuild - and started on a career teaching English as a Foreign Language. This took me to Russia, where I spent a productive time before being headhunted for a well-paid job as a language consultant for the British Council in Beijing.

By 2020, I was still in China and had saved a lot of money. Once again, I was doing well.

Then came covid-19.

From January of that year until the August, I was stuck in lockdown, with no work or income. In this period, both of my parents passed away. When the borders were briefly opened, I took my chance and bought a flight back to Wales, arriving just in time for lockdown here.

When lockdown ended, I found that an elderly uncle, with no family of his own, had become very frail and was no longer able to look after himself. Long story short, I've spent the last few years acting as his carer and as his intermediary with social services, the NHS, care agencies, occupational health therapists, and all of the other agencies needed to keep him living in his home - which is where he wants to be, and which minimises his call on NHS resources.

It's been hard for me. It was the right thing to do and I wouldn't change it. But, the consequences for my mental health, my career, and my finances have once again been devastating.

I've managed to establish a situation where I'm no longer needed: my uncle is now fully cared for, and I don't need to be involved any more.

But I'm now in my fifties and in dire need of restoring my fortunes. I've looked for work in Wales, but there's nothing available. More than that, getting old is getting real for me. My help made a difference to my parents when they needed it. It made a significant difference to my uncle, when he needed help.

There's no-one who will help me in the same way when I get old.

More than that, I've seen the difference between the support available to my parents, and then to my uncle a decade later. They all lived in the same local authority, and I dealt with some of the same people in both cases. Social services, the NHS, and the care agencies alike are all now under extreme pressure and struggling to function. The care available is still great - but it takes longer to get it. The people are still wonderful - but they're evidently cracking under the ever-growing pressure. My mother's carers were Welsh; my uncle's are from Africa and India. They're very professional, but for how much longer will they come to work in the UK when the growing medical tourism industry in Africa can provide similar opportunities closer to home?

When my old age comes, I have no reason to believe that the British, or Welsh, state will be able to provide me with more than minimal support. Like most people reading this, I'll get the help I can pay for; if I can't pay, I'll have to do without. It's not a pleasant prospect, is it?

The Labour government is already slashing benefits; there will be more cuts coming, making us all poorer. Does anyone seriously think a future government will restore them? The NHS we were accustomed to when we were growing up has already passed; as I've written before, we need to adjust our expectations accordingly.

The Welsh population is getting older and less healthy all the time. The need will grow, but who's going to be working and paying the taxes to fund support services? The older generation have homes and savings, but an awful lot of that will be consumed by care home fees. Not a lot will remain to be handed down to the younger generation. They'll just be broke.

So, once again, I'm out. If I stay in Wales, there's no work for me, and no prospects for the future. Out in the world, out in the growing economies of Asia, there are both. I've rebuilt my life from ruins before, and I'm confident that I have the knowledge, the experience, and the work ethic to do it again. I have my plans.

There's more, as well. This small nation where I find myself hasn't been independent for very long; their path to freedom was long and arduous. There are potentially many insights here for Wales as we seek our own place amongst the sovereign nations of the world.

Stay tuned.