Friday, January 20, 2006

Three Must-do's for NRB's to Settle in Bangladesh

If you are a Non-Resident Bangladeshi who wants to return to Bangladesh (for whatever reason - family, better prospects, homesickness...) the three things that, in my opinion, you should sort out before making the big move are:

1. Children's plans - if you have children who grew up overseas, then keep in mind that such a move will impact them a lot more than it will impact you, so you need to give careful thought to where they will go to school, their commute, what they will do in spare time, etc. Many families that returned to Bangladesh had to go back because the children were unhappy.

2. Finances - only you know what your financial needs will be, and you should have some plan to address those needs. There are two scales of expenses in Dhaka: local and imported. Local scale is reasonable; imported scale is 5x-10x more expensive. That is, Dhaka can very quickly become very expensive if you want to indulge in imported goods. Decide where you fit in, do some calculations, and make sure you have the income, either from overseas or from a job or business in Bangladesh.

3. Spousal alignment: Making the move to Bangladesh is a huge change. So you and your spouse must be united in facing the challenges.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Thats stateing the obvious!

Unknown said...

I've seen people ignoring them.

Unknown said...

A lot of stupid people out there I guess.. well hope your advice helps and makes people think before 'going back' - I love to inshAllah go back one day in the near future to settle in my homeland.