Published on and written by Cyril Jarnias
Leaving your country to settle in Togo, whether in Lomé or in rural areas, is often an exciting adventure… until homesickness sets in. Missing family, culture shock, having to create new bearings, sometimes material difficulties: all of this quickly weighs on morale. Yet, research on homesickness among expatriates and migrants shows that it is neither a weakness nor a whim, but a normal psychological reaction to the loss of familiar reference points.
Good to know:
For an expatriate, a member of the diaspora, or a student, the challenge is twofold: integrate into Togo without renouncing ties to one’s origin. The integration strategy, which combines attachment to one’s original culture and immersion in the host society, promotes better mental health, enriched social relationships, and greater professional success.
In this context, how can one concretely manage homesickness in Togo, taking into account local realities – stark inequalities between rural and urban areas, sometimes limited infrastructure, but also a very present community solidarity and expanding public or associative initiatives?
Understanding homesickness before trying to “cure” it
Homesickness is defined by researchers as a negative emotional state linked to separation from one’s familiar environment and loved ones. It manifests as intense nostalgia, an idealization of “home,” a feeling of alienation in the new environment, and difficulty adapting to it.
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Homesickness can account for up to nearly one-third of the decline in psychological health among students and expatriate workers.
These studies emphasize another aspect: homesickness is not confined to the emotional domain. It has concrete effects on work, studies, and daily life. Among employees or expatriates, it increases occupational stress and reduces performance, motivation, team spirit, and service quality. Among students, similar results are found: decreased concentration, drop in grades, and social withdrawal.
Caution:
The mechanism of mental rumination (cyclical thoughts about home, family, the past) consumes cognitive energy. This phenomenon, described by the work-home resources model, prevents mobilizing the resources needed for work or studies, reducing the ability to listen to instructions, manage tasks, and interact with colleagues.
In other words, taking homesickness seriously in Togo is not a psychological luxury: it is a condition for adapting, working, and living properly on the ground.
To cope with homesickness in Togo, one must first understand the environment in which one operates. The country has contrasting realities between Lomé, relatively better endowed with services, and vast rural areas still marked by poverty and lack of infrastructure.
Example:
The country ranks low on the Human Development Index, with a 40% drop in score after accounting for inequalities. Rural regions in the north are much less developed than the capital, and nearly 60% of rural residents live below the poverty line, compared to about 25% in urban areas.
These economic difficulties are compounded by a lack of access to essential services: education, health, drinking water, sanitation are often insufficient outside urban centers. A recent survey shows that nearly 99% of the poorest populations and more than eight out of ten rural residents say they are very concerned about access to healthcare and clean water. Internet and telephone coverage remains concentrated in large cities and along major roads, making it more complex to use digital tools to stay in touch with family back home in some remote areas.
Tip:
Due to insufficient formal social protection, Togolese society relies on forms of social capital: mutual aid networks, savings and credit associations, and support systems for illness, schooling, or investment. Although this can create dependence on group rules, for a newcomer, these networks are a valuable resource against isolation.
An expatriate or a member of the diaspora returning to Togo thus finds themselves at the intersection of several tensions: sometimes difficult material conditions, especially outside Lomé, but dense social fabric and strong integration opportunities, provided one is willing to invest in them. This framework has a direct impact on the intensity and form homesickness will take, and on the strategies that actually work on the ground.
Staying connected to your home country without cutting yourself off from your new “home”
Research on coping strategies of expatriates is clear: the first line of defense against homesickness is maintaining contact with family and friends left behind. Studies show that regular contact – video calls, messages, photos – reduces loneliness and distress, provided it does not turn into a virtual retreat into the past.
Good to know:
In Lomé and major cities, mobile internet allows for video, messaging, and social media use. In rural areas, low connectivity requires planned calls, intensive messaging when the network is available, or a return to letters and audio recordings.
Qualitative studies on expatriates are full of creative examples: one person sends a daily video of their commute to a loved one and receives one from their home country in return; others regularly record audio messages or organize remote “rituals,” like watching the same series at the same time, even thousands of miles apart. These shared routines nourish the sense of belonging to the family, even while settled in Togo.
Plan communications
Key advice for managing homesickness: establish a stable rhythm of exchanges with loved ones
Schedule weekly calls at regular times to secure emotional stability.
Planning prevents compulsive phone checking or staying suspended in anticipation of news.
However, care must be taken not to let these virtual ties become a permanent escape that prevents rooting oneself in Togo. Researchers emphasize that too much immersion in memories and networks from the home country can delay local integration and foster a feeling of “double absence”: neither truly here nor truly there. The balance is delicate but essential.
Building a support network on the ground: the most powerful antidote to homesickness
All studies on homesickness converge on a central point: social support is one of the best shields against nostalgia and distress. The more a person feels surrounded, appreciated, and integrated, the more feelings of uprootedness decrease. Conversely, loneliness and social isolation fuel and worsen homesickness.
Researchers distinguish several forms of support: emotional (listening, comfort), material (concrete help), informational (advice, useful information), and network support (feeling of belonging to a group). Studies conducted among “non-local” students show that a high level of social support is associated with much lower levels of loneliness, adaptation difficulties, and rumination about the home country.
Good to know:
In Togo, solidarity groups, often women-led, are common in rural areas through savings and credit associations. They help cope with emergencies (illness, schooling, business). Being introduced by a contact can be a culture shock but also a key to local integration.
Projects supported by international organizations illustrate this dynamic well. For example, in the north of the country, associations like the “Club of Women of the Savanes for the Promotion of Culture,” backed by international bodies, have set up savings groups involving both refugee women and women from the host community. Testimonials from participants show how these groups helped break isolation, form bonds, access income-generating activities, and, in the process, reduce feelings of exclusion.
Good to know:
In Lomé, support networks are built through colleagues, neighbors, religious communities, associations, sports clubs, expatriate groups, or professional networks. Getting involved in shared activities (language classes, team sports, community engagement, parent groups) is the most effective way to transform an unfamiliar environment into a familiar relational fabric.
Research on staff on international assignment also shows the importance of employer-provided support: orientation programs, mentoring by local colleagues, networking with other expatriates, social events. When these mechanisms are absent or insufficient, the risk of intense homesickness increases significantly. Conversely, structured support promotes smoother adaptation.
Opening up to Togolese culture without renouncing your identity
Work on acculturation reveals four main ways of managing the encounter between one’s original culture and the host culture: integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalization. Integration – maintaining one’s cultural identity while forging close ties with the host society – is, by far, associated with the best psychological and social outcomes. People who choose this path generally show higher life satisfaction, optimism, social skills, and academic or professional success.
Transposed to Togo, this means the best way to combat homesickness is not to erase one’s original belonging, but to create a bridge between it and Togolese culture. In other words, accepting to become, over time, a little bicultural.
Good to know:
Intercultural adaptation in Togo involves cultural intelligence, which allows understanding local codes, practices, and history, adjusting one’s behavior, and staying motivated in the face of misunderstandings. This ability develops through experience, but also through training, readings, or exchanges with expatriates already settled.
Specialized organizations offer seminars dedicated to life and work in Togo: understanding culture, communication and decision-making styles, professional practices, and common sources of misunderstanding. The goal is to help newcomers identify what in their own “cultural baggage” might clash or cause difficulty, then develop more effective communication strategies. Feedback from this type of training shows that a better understanding of the local context significantly reduces culture shock and, consequently, homesickness.
Example:
Learning greetings in a local language, participating in neighborhood festivals, supporting a local football team, visiting markets, tasting Togolese dishes while understanding their significance, attending cultural events. Studies show that playing football or basketball with neighborhood children accelerates learning the local language and strengthens the sense of belonging to the group.
Studies on media also show that consuming host country content (newspapers, radio, television, internet) helps reduce feelings of strangeness: one learns norms, how events are discussed, and major shared references. Research on immigrant communities in other countries shows that the more migrants are exposed to local media, the more they progress in the country’s language, and the more comfortable they feel in daily interactions.
This effort to open up should not be experienced as submission, but as a way to equip oneself with new resources. Studies on diaspora youth in various countries show that those who manage to feel both proud of their roots and comfortable in the host culture have higher self-esteem, greater life satisfaction, and more social skills.
Learning local languages and French: a major lever against isolation
Togo is both a French-speaking and multilingual country. French dominates administration, education, and business, while national languages like Ewe or Kabiye play a key role in daily life, and other idioms are very present depending on the region. Research on the education system shows, for example, that from primary school onwards, instruction is in French, even when children have had very little prior exposure to it. English is introduced later in the curriculum.
better psychological well-being, better access to employment, higher income
Mastery of the host country language significantly improves migrants’ integration on psychological, professional, and economic levels.
Studies on refugees have even shown that high general cognitive abilities or strong motivation to find a job do not suffice to compensate for a deficit in the local language. Conversely, targeted training (both technical, health, and safety) that includes a language component has significantly brought workers closer to the communities where they worked, by facilitating exchanges and increasing personal satisfaction from the job.
Good to know:
Mastering French is crucial for accessing administration, healthcare, school, contracts, and news. Local languages, even with basic polite phrases, improve reception, open doors, and enhance safety.
Research on language teaching in West Africa also emphasizes the role of linguistic models. If English, for example, is still widely taught as a foreign language with an Anglo-Saxon “native” model, some linguists suggest adopting West African varieties as a more realistic reference for learners. The logic is similar for an expatriate in Togo: the goal is not necessarily academic perfection, but practical ease that allows communication, even with an accent or approximations.
In the short term, investing time each week in basic learning – through classes, apps, informal exchanges – might seem secondary in the face of material urgencies. Yet, scientific literature shows that this investment is one of the most profitable for sustainably reducing homesickness: each new mastered phrase becomes one more small step towards feeling “at home.”
Creating a “home” in Togo: familiarity, routines, and safe spaces
A constant emerges from expatriates’ accounts studied by researchers: the feeling of “never really being at home” in the new country strongly fuels homesickness. Everything is different: smells, sounds, climate, rhythms, unspoken rules. When the apartment or house remains impersonal, this reinforces the feeling of being in permanent transit.
Example:
Research on homesickness recommends making one’s living space familiar by incorporating personal items like photos of loved ones, textiles, trinkets, books, music, or specific kitchen utensils. Expatriates cite, for example, the importance of a mug, a flag, or family photos printed locally to feel at home.
Many studies also emphasize the power of routines. Establishing daily or weekly habits – coffee time, exercise, market, walk, family call, “home country dish” evening – gives the brain stable reference points. This reduces the mental fatigue of constant adaptation and creates a form of continuity with the previous life. Some studies even speak of “meaningful rituals,” mixing elements from the original culture and the host culture: cooking a dish from home with local ingredients, celebrating a family tradition by inviting Togolese friends, etc.
Tip:
Integrate social routines rooted in the Togolese environment: regularly frequent places like the neighborhood market, the beach, a sports field, a café, or a maquis where you see the same faces. Also participate in community life through a religious community or an association. In rural areas, get involved in collective village moments: community work, meetings, and celebrations.
The literature on well-being also stresses the importance of maintaining basic health habits, even when everything seems unstable: adequate sleep, balanced diet, regular physical activity. In a country like Togo, where the climate, tropical diseases, and variable water quality can fatigue the body, taking care of one’s body plays an even more direct role on morale. Prevention (vaccinations, malaria protection, food precautions) is also a way to limit the “layers” of stress that can amplify homesickness.
Relying on existing solidarities and mechanisms in Togo
A point often overlooked by expatriates or returning diaspora members is the existence, in Togo, of programs and actors that aim not only to meet material needs (water, education, health), but also indirectly contribute to reducing isolation and distress.
Organizations like SOS Children’s Villages Togo, Caritas, CARE, or the National Agency for Community Development support projects for school communities, canteens, day centers for street children, or social safety nets in villages. These initiatives create meeting places, trusted spaces, networks of adults and families who share similar concerns: children’s success, access to care, protection, professional future.
Good to know:
For someone arriving in Togo with children, the choice of school is both practical and social. Participation in school life (meetings, extracurricular activities) allows integration into Togolese society and combats the feeling of rootlessness, while benefiting from support from local institutions.
On the diaspora side, the Togolese government has, in recent years, strengthened its policy of mobilizing its nationals abroad and those who return. Structures like the “Maison de la Diaspora” or “Fenêtre Diaspora” have been created to facilitate administrative procedures, support investment projects, provide information on available programs, and offer a framework for dialogue between authorities and Togolese living abroad. For a returning diaspora member, these spaces can play a dual role: technical (helping to settle in, set up a project) and symbolic (reaffirming that their place exists in Togolese society).
Good to know:
Reintegration can be difficult: gap between expectations and reality, administrative complexity, feeling of strangeness. Joining forums, meetings, or using dedicated services helps reduce loneliness and avoid feelings of failure or rejection.
Avoiding false “solutions”: medication abuse, extreme withdrawal, and running away
Research on coping behaviors for homesickness mentions a category of strategy called “medicalization”: resorting to medications (sleeping pills, anti-anxiety drugs) or alcohol to “numb” the suffering temporarily. Some accounts report that these substances provide initial relief, especially in the form of drowsiness. But upon waking, thoughts about home are still there, sometimes even more intrusive. Studies warn against these behaviors, which can reduce felt distress in the short term, but lead, in the medium term, to a decreased ability to mobilize social support, risk of addiction, and loss of control over one’s life.
Good to know:
Seeking a new job or country may seem like a solution to homesickness, but research shows that without addressing the underlying causes, difficulties are likely to recur elsewhere, even in a more supportive environment.
The most effective strategies are those that combine, according to researchers, several dimensions: socialization (networks, activities, family), personal effort (learning, curiosity, initiative), institutional support (employer, associations, public mechanisms), and, if needed, structured recourse to psychological counseling. Homesickness is not just an emotion to be numbed, but a signal revealing a need for connections, meaning, and reference points to rebuild.
When and how to seek professional help?
Even with the best strategies, some people experience particularly intense and persistent homesickness. Research warns against trivializing this phenomenon: yes, almost everyone feels nostalgia for their home country at some point, but when it becomes constant, interferes with sleep, eating, work, or studies, or is accompanied by very negative thoughts about oneself or the future, it is time to consider that the situation goes beyond a simple “blues.”
Good to know:
It is recommended to seek specialized psychological support. Approaches like cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness, or narrative therapy help express experiences, reframe one’s personal story, and identify resources. Therapy also offers a safe space to address identity, loyalty between two countries, or the traumas of the migratory journey.
In Togo, access to this type of support remains unequal: mental health services are more available in the capital and in certain often costly private facilities, while rural areas have few formal resources. However, some international or national organizations now include a psychosocial component in their programs, especially for displaced or vulnerable populations. Projects mention, for example, listening and support services for women and children victims of violence, or psychological support sessions for refugee families.
Good to know:
International health insurance often includes 24/7 multilingual psychological assistance by phone or online. Returning diaspora members can combine local resources with remote consultations via online platforms. International directories list multilingual therapists experienced with expatriate populations in intercultural contexts.
Acknowledging that one needs help, in this context, is not an admission of failure in one’s life project in Togo, but rather an active step to give oneself the means to sustain it over the long term.
Connecting psychological well-being, material constraints, and engagement in Togolese society
Homesickness in Togo cannot be thought of only as an individual issue. It is interwoven in a context where many people – Togolese and foreigners alike – struggle daily against poverty, precarious access to healthcare or education, and marked regional inequalities. Studies on child health determinants, for example, show that the level of non-monetary household wealth and parents’ education, especially the mother’s in rural areas, directly impacts the nutritional status of the youngest.
This backdrop reminds us that, for an expatriate from a wealthier country or a diaspora member returning after years in Europe or North America, the shock can be double: culture shock and shock from material conditions. Conversely, for a migrant from a neighboring country also affected by poverty or instability, Togo may represent a space of relative stability, but with similar integration and access-to-services challenges.
Tip:
Getting involved in local dynamics, such as educational, economic, or social projects, or supporting associations, can be an effective remedy for homesickness. Public programs for the diaspora offer support to create businesses, invest, or transfer skills.
This movement aligns with the “dual involvement” that researchers describe as the most accomplished form of integration: maintaining ties with the home country while feeling fully part of Togolese society through concrete actions. In this perspective, homesickness does not necessarily disappear completely, but it changes face: it can become, as shown in studies of migrant artists or entrepreneurs, a driver of creativity, a source of energy to build bridges between worlds rather than walls.
Conclusion: taming homesickness to better inhabit Togo
Experiencing homesickness in Togo, whether arriving as an expatriate, foreign student, or returning diaspora member, is almost inevitable. Scientific studies show it affects the vast majority of those who permanently move away from their original environment. What varies, however, is its intensity, duration, and the consequences it has on health, work, studies, and relationships.
The most robust research converges on a few central levers:
Good to know:
Maintain measured contact with loved ones abroad, build a local social network through colleagues, neighbors, and associations, learn Togolese culture while preserving your identity, create a familiar living environment with routines, and monitor your physical and mental health, consulting a professional if needed.
In a country where resource inequalities are high and digital connectivity remains uneven, these strategies must be adapted, sometimes reinvented. But the essential remains: homesickness is not a verdict, it’s a signal. By taking it seriously, by mobilizing both individual, social, cultural, and institutional resources available in Togo, it becomes possible not only to get through it, but to make it a stage in building an enriched identity, straddling several worlds.
Ultimately, “feeling at home” in Togo does not mean ceasing to love or miss one’s home country. It means learning to fully inhabit this host country, with its challenges and beauties, knowing that the ties that bind us to “over there” do not oppose those we weave “here,” but can, over time, respond to and reinforce each other.
Reflection on integration
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Cyril Jarnias is an independent expert in international wealth management with over 20 years of experience. As an expatriate himself, he is dedicated to helping individuals and business leaders build, protect, and pass on their wealth with complete peace of mind.
On his website, cyriljarnias.com, he shares his expertise on international real estate, offshore company formation, and expatriation.
Thanks to his expertise, he offers sound advice to optimize his clients' wealth management. Cyril Jarnias is also recognized for his appearances in many prestigious media outlets such as BFM Business, les Français de l’étranger, Le Figaro, Les Echos, and Mieux vivre votre argent, where he shares his knowledge and know-how in wealth management.
