Fais ce que dois, advienne, que pourra.

Intro

I'll be honest, I do struggle to properly finish the sentence in the title. There are options. For someone, it would be "leaving your home" or "immigration". For others, it would be "crisis", "catastrophe", "danger", "persecution". In general, I lean towards "the worst" or maybe even "anything".

In autumn 2021 I visited Turkey and met a guy there. His name is Ahmed, he ran from Afghanistan to save his life. He is a refugee. At the time, he was working night shifts as a receptionist in a small hotel. At a much lower rate than his local colleagues, of course. He lived in a small apartment with a number of his relatives. He was under very strict limitations on his ability to move around the country, even a trip to a neighboring city needed to be approved beforehand by authorities. And chances are he'll never get a normal residence there. Despite that he was extremely friendly, hardworking, helpful, cheerful and chatty.

His story made quite an impression on me, and I keep returning to it again and again in my thoughts. We tend to think bad things happen to other people, until they happen to us.

Disclaimer

• The following is a guide/checklist/suggestion on how to be prepared at least a bit for bad events that will kick you out of comfort zone by a mile. Nothing here guarantees you'll be great, and you'll do great, but it'll increase your chances.
• A lot of us live their lives far from places where bad things happen, oblivious to even the slightest possibility that it can happen to you next week or tomorrow. When I say bad things, I mean even those things that will force you to leave your home or fight for it. It turns out it can happen to anyone anytime.
• Some things here can be very country-specific and depend on your culture, your laws and traditions.
• You most likely don't need that information if you can rent a jet to fly anywhere in the world. You most likely won't appreciate this list if you live paycheck to paycheck, hopefully you'll manage to get out of that cycle soon.
• I really hope that you won't really need to use anything written beneath in a rush of an emergency or a tragedy. Most of these things are just a good general precaution to be prepared, you know, just in case.
• This guide is based on personal reflection and experience, but it is also heavily influenced by other people and sources, especially written by Ukrainian and Russian citizens in light of recent events. If you would like to add, extend, recommend or correct anything here, please, use comments functionality.

Money

Money comes first in the list simply because it makes things easier. If you have them, you have more options to choose from. It’s not about luxury and comfort here. For all the technology we have and modern fintech startups, when shit hits the fan you’ll most likely need cash. Everything else can be bought.

Obligatory

• [ ] have around $5000 - $10 000 (or equivalent in different currency) in cash, it's the most common cash amount you can bring with you to most of countries without declaring it at customs, and it's the amount that will keep you going for quite some time almost anywhere

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