Advice

[Samnl06]

Hi all......first of all i cud like to say tht this is a very friendly forum...... everyone is soo helping...its cute!! LoL

anywho..... i have questions to ask.......

my family and i ....... (and by family i mean big family....... my mom, my dad, me, my bro, and my 4 younger sisters........ thts my family)........ used to live in the US..... we lived there for more than 12 yrs...... im 21 right now..... so basically my whole life...... as anyone would imagine... i got used to life there.... and i really loved it........it was amazing.... the life there its just something else............. b/c of personal probs my dad decided it be a better idea to go "back"........ which is in Oman.....thts where my mom is from originally............ anyway now we are here........ we all hate it a lot!!....... i mean the life here is sooo different.... the culture, the people, the traditions...... life is just nt easy..... the whole life in oman is based upon wht kind of connections u have..... if u know ppl then ur life will be easy.... if nt then u r basically screwed......so neither of my parents are working..... but we own a business.... and the business is going good... bt the profit margin is reallly reallly bad..... so money is an issue........ and everything is really expensive............just as an example......we are living in a really bad area.... its nt dangerous or anything but its nt a good family area........ and we live in a tiny apartment....tht has a bathroom, tiny kitchen (if u can even call it tht), 2 rooms.....thts it .....and it costs us 200 RO every month..... which the equivalent of 600 US dollars.......for here its really expensive and not worth it..................thts besides the point................... wht im trying to say is tht bc no one is comfortable we would like to go somewhere else.............. where ppl are more friendly, everything is easy-going.........and just different kinda like the US...... here we feel like we are living in Saudia for god's sakes..... we have to wear veils everywhere ...... otherwise everyone will look u up and down.......... its soo bad......... ........................
so my mom was thinking of NZ......... bt after reading posts on the forum....... i dont think its such a good idea......................or wht do u guys think??............ its just seems like its kinda like here..... u gotta have connections to make every move............


can anyone plz give us suggestions abt where u think it wud be easy for us to go.......and settle............


thanks in advance to all ........................


i know this whole post sounds really pathetic...... bt thts the truth..... and i think its better tht i take advice of ppl who are acutally living there and have experince in all this.......so hopefully u willl all be able to help me out!!!

[MotherBear]

Yes, you're right about how things are in Oman now. It wasn't always like this. Now there's too much traffic, the cost of living has gone crazy, property owners have got greedy for more money to rent out their houses and are evicting people so they can put in people who pay higher rent, everyone is rushing about and many are quite arrogant now. Also the place is dirtier and littered, which it wasn't before and there's so much building going on that the amount of dust that comes into the house every day is unbelievable. We first came here for a holiday in 1999 and things were very different. It is a beautiful place but there's not much to do here, so everyone rides around in their cars or crowds into the shopping malls. You're also right about 'it's not what you know but who you know'.

NZ won't be a 'get rich quick' country and it's quite difficult to get in there because you have to be granted a long term visa to be able to stay. You need to have special skills to qualify and if you don't have these it isn't easy to get in. Wages in Australia are supposed to be better than in NZ but the cost of housing has gone up a lot. Also Australia is hard to get into, like NZ. Perhaps it's time to do some research on the Internet to find a country that you can go to that doesn't have such strict entry regulations. We are older and will hope to retire to NZ but, if they won't have us, it won't be so difficult for us because we don't have to worry about working in another country.

I don't know if anyone on here will have any ideas about other countries you could try because most of them are trying to get out of their own countries and into NZ so they are focused in that direction.

[Samnl06]

thanks for your help.......i really appreaciate it!!!! i've noticed all those things as well.... my mom is omani (this is actually her id...lol) and she said it was really different before!! basically everything tht u just said!!!

[Duke]

I dont know exactly what you and your families position is on the USA, but maybe moving back to the states could be a better solution. I heard North Carolina is the new hotspot for the states, I live in Ohio between Cleveland and Pittsburgh,PA and the realestate is in shambles, meaning you can get country living for cheap. Canada and Austrailia seem to be good options. What job are you looking to pursue, what is your families business? NZ, I think is a great choice, we visited back in 2007, and it was everything I imagined and more. The price of living is high, housing, food and fuel, but anymore what place isnt? What do you get w/ the high prices in NZ? Well I think you get some of the best water in the world to drink from the tap, a relaxed way of life if you dont need to live like the Jones', a chance to meet people from all over the globe, some of the smoothest roads to drive on and very few of them to choose from, and landscapes that look like oil paintings, and of course the So.Pacific. And you know what you can get from the US. Good Luck