The Karrer family also takes advantage of their stay abroad to spend time with family: they spent their summer vacation in Indonesia.
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A year and a half ago, the Karrer family emigrated to Bangkok. The parents then presented their two children, not very enthusiastic, with a fait accompli. Today, if they had to do it again, they wouldn’t change a thing. What made their project successful abroad?
This content was published on
December 16, 2024 – 2:22 p.m.
“I made a lot of friends,” says nine-year-old Louis Karrer on the phone from Bangkok. For almost a year and a half, he has lived in the Thai capital with his seven-year-old brother Luc and his parents; he attended the Swiss school there. “My best friend is also called Louis, that’s why they now call me Luigi at school,” he says with pride.
At first, Louis and Luc were not very enthusiastic about their parents’ plan to live abroad. “We had to promise them that we would then return home,” said their mother Stephanie Karrer before their departure for abroad in the summer of 2023.
This is still the case today. “I miss my toys, the snow and our house in Switzerland,” says Luc. If it were up to him, he would happily return to live in Switzerland quickly.
Driving around Bangkok with the new family car: a golf cart.
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The vacation there helped
But overall, everyone acclimatized very well. “The 17 kilos of Lego that arrived with us made things easier,” explains Stephanie Karrer, who works as a teacher at the Swiss school. The fact that the family still vacationed in Bangkok before emigrating also had a very positive effect on expatriation.
“Louis and Luc were thus able to get an idea of their future home,” explains their father, Marius Karrer. Additionally, it was important that they already got to know people. “So the boys already had a playmate in mind,” adds Stephanie Karrer.
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New environment, new school, new friends: expatriation can arouse fears in children. Two experts give their advice.
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Finding your feet in a new role
The Karrer family is now almost halfway through their overseas adventure. It was planned that Stephanie and Marius Karrer would exchange roles for three years. She works full-time as a teacher in a Swiss school, he takes care of the housework and the children. Both of them first had to get used to this new family daily life.
Stephanie Karrer explains that at first it was difficult to let go of everyday organizational tasks. And for Marius Karrer, former management accountant, it was disconcerting to no longer have an overview of the finances. Indeed, as an accompanying person, the housewife does not have the right to hold his own bank account in Thailand. But “now everything is going very well,” says Marius Karrer about the exchange of roles between the two partners. He himself has three activities: student, housewife and football coach.
In the vicinity of the Swiss School in Bangkok, a football school has been established over the past eighteen months. Now even German Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund has joined in. In the Thai capital, the two Karrer boys now train at the BVB International Academy Thailand. Marius Karrer coaches Luc’s team and a girls’ team.
Marius Karrer joins Bangkok as a football coach at the BVB International Academy Thailand.
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Will the family play overtime?
With her work 100%, Stephanie Karrer is very busy. “It’s been a long time since I worked full-time in Switzerland,” she says. Furthermore, in Thailand, there is no half-day of free school per week, as is normally the case in Switzerland. She therefore does not have the opportunity to spend time at home with her boys.
But in the current phase her sons are in, her husband is exactly the person needed to be more present at home. “I couldn’t offer them certain things they need now like my husband can,” she believes.
Both Karrer boys love the sea, easily accessible from Bangkok.
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Whether the Karrer family will extend their stay in Thailand remains up in the air. “We love our house here, our new friends, football training and the sea,” says Louis. Unlike his brother, Louis would like to stay longer. And the Karrer couple is not opposed to playing overtime either. Indeed, the current family model allows them, when Stéphanie the teacher is not in class, to spend a lot of time with family. “Something that is not so easy to implement in Switzerland,” she says.
What they all miss is food: “My parents just brought 94 packs of crackers from Switzerland,” says Marius Karrer. Healthy snacks for children at snack time are rare in Thailand. And with the scorching temperatures, they sometimes long for the cooler weather in Switzerland. “It’s even regularly too hot to play football outside.”
In retrospect, the Karrers wouldn’t change a thing. They are unanimous: their stay abroad – whatever the duration – is a success.
Proofread and verified by Balz Rigendinger. Translated from German by Emilie Ridard using DeepL/ptur
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