Excitement is growing as the date for takeoff approaches. Accompanying our spouse to Washington, DC, to spend the next years with the World Bank group will give us access to high paying jobs, excellent schools for our children, health care in institutions that are at the cutting edge of medical research, and, maybe, we will be able to complete a masters or doctorate at one of America’s leading universities.

The thrill of these expectations is reinforced when wrapped in Hollywood images of twelve-lane highways, light-filled manicured houses with heating and air-conditioning neatly arranged on tree-lined streets, vast supermarkets overflowing with goods, yellow school buses filled with laughing children, smiling neighbors at backyard barbeques all set against the grandeur of Washington’s monuments, the center of international political action.

Any disagreement with America’s politics we may have harbored fades before the strength of the thought of the endless opportunities the next years will offer. Family, friends, and colleagues wish us luck in the land of plenty and wave us good-bye.

A few weeks after our arrival, we are wondering how, amidst the buzz of departure and new beginnings, we hadn’t appreciated, or had somehow forgotten, that being the world’s largest economy doesn’t mean America is a uniform lump of gold. Instead, as we try to decide whether to live in Washington, DC, Maryland or Virginia, search for a school to enroll our children in, a doctor to treat our stomach ache, or try to buy a car and understand what credit rating means, it begins to sink in that this country is constructed out of 50 states, 300 million people - most of our countries could fit several times into this one - and all the diverse ethnicity, rules, and regulations that that implies. And we gradually realize that only the Federal Government, television, airplanes, and English somehow glue this patchwork together.

We must make choices to get this new life moving. There are regulations we need to comply with. But what are the questions we should ask to get the information we need in order to make the right decisions? Have we brought the necessary documents with us from home? We begin to discover that it is up to us to do the research. We are consumers. It is hard lonely work.

The questions seem endless…The challenges of a “global nomad” lifestyle seem daunting but the rewards seem tempting. Doubts and uncertainties are inherent to any relocation. The divide between what we assume and what we experience may be a lot different. Take heart, the Multi-Org Workshop has been designed to alleviate all your doubts and fears about transition. To register for these two events, contact WBFN at familynetwork@worldbank.org, or 202-473-8751.

Imogen Morizet