Imagine that you are living in a tropical paradise, experiencing an ideal life with your family, and a minute later you find yourself in another part of the world where the seasons amount to four. More or less, this was the case for Melissa Howie and her family two-and-a-half years ago. “We were living the perfect life in North Queensland [Australia] back then, my husband was always in and out of the house because of his job in the mining industry, our three boys were going to school and I was working as a social worker,” she says.
Then one day. the phone rang and a headhunter offered Melissa’s husband Rob an executive job in a land none other than Bulgaria. Having in mind the fact that Melissa’s family had never moved outside Australia before, the decision did not come easy for them. “Of course, the first thing we asked ourselves was what we know about Bulgaria,” she says. They started with the usual way of searching for any kind of information on the country. “It is funny today when I think of it, but back then in 2005 the news about Bulgaria was dominated by the bird flu outbreak, so it was not exactly nice research,” she says, smiling about it now.
Moving to another continent, to a country about which you know nothing, and having three children is not an easy thing, so the Howies had a lot of thinking to do. “At the end, our children told us that they should not be the reason that we should not have moved, so we headed for Bulgaria,” Melissa says. The fact that Jesse, Kelcie and Flynn were fascinated by the idea of snowboarding in Bulgaria helped a lot. “Snowboarding at the weekends is not something usual for the area where we lived.”
Once decided, the family flew to Sofia one wintry day. “We arrived in the middle of winter. Imagine what we had to spend on clothing and on winter gear for the car for the first few weeks,” she says.
Having lived in a tropical climate, they had little knowledge of what to do with the snow outside their front door. “Now we know,” she says, smiling.
For Rob, his daily routine as general manager of Chelopech Mining started quickly. Melissa took on organising their life.
“Leaving friends and family was hard, but coming to a place where Australians were less than a minority was a challenge,” she says, or at least so they thought.
Indeed in 2005, there were three Australian families of which the Howies knew in Bulgaria, this information coming from the children’s registration at the Anglo-American school; this fact turned into an advantage for them.
Because Australians back then were just a few, the news of their arrival was something big for the expat community here and by the time the Howies arrived, everybody knew them. “We didn’t have to sneak into the back garden and felt very much welcomed.”
Over the past two years, with the help of Melissa, the Australian community in Bulgaria has been developing really well. Globalisation made its presence noticeable and today, says Melissa, together with all the children, there are about 40 Australians living in Sofia. “Back then, we had little support from our embassy, based in Athens, we had to do everything by ourselves.” Fortunately this was not an obstacle for Melissa and in 2006 she helped organised the first Australian stall at the International Women’s Club Christmas Charity Bazaar. “We did pretty well, I must say; we raised about 16 000 leva, with the support of Chelopech Mining.”
I met with Melissa just as she was returning from her Bulgarian lessons. “I do ok with the language, getting along with our landlord and at restaurants, but it is still a challenge.”
Living in Bulgaria has earned Melissa a special status back in Australia. “Our friends back home view us as some eccentric people who decided to go to the other side of the world. For them, Bulgaria is a mystery country, the same way some Bulgarians think of Australia.” Eccentric or not, Melissa says that some of her friends are jealous of the way that she and her family have led their life so far.
With Bulgaria came a new style of driving for Melissa. “I think I am more or less used to it by now and recently I told my husband that driving in Bulgaria is getting better, to which he replied that probably I was getting used to it,” she smiles. “But wait and see how they drive in Egypt.”
Coming here for Melissa and her family meant coming to Europe, and they have taken full advantage of the fact. The fridge door is full of pictures from all the places they had visited during holidays. “It is amazing for the kids as well. One day they are studying about the pyramids and the next day they are next to them exploring what they have read. This is what I believe will be of big advantage to them in the future and I am glad that we are here where the are in an international environment.”
Since 2005 the Howie family has grown in number. Now they have a stray cat under their roof.
Despite her warm feelings about Bulgaria, Melissa has experienced other feelings as well. “I am just in the process of registering a business that will offer counselling support to both the corporate sector and at a personal level, and it has already taken me three months. In Australia we would have needed a week for the paperwork.”
Another thing, which she calls a reminiscence of communism, is the lack of trust. “Here you have to always prove that you have good intentions. For example, at the IWC bazaar, we had to always prove that the money we had collected would be used for good purposes.” In general, Melissa remains a fan of Bulgaria, describing it as “ready to take off with plenty opportunity and more positive attitude”.
