One promise we made to our daughter when we had to tell her that we would have moved to the other side of the world, was that we would have come back to visit her friends.

That was move number three for our daughter. For the first time, she could spend more than one year in the same school, and after four years she was going to farewell more than what can be called friends or community: she was going to say goodbye to her extended family. 

Because when you are abroad, friends become family. Friends are there to support when you don’t have family support. From school pickups to the shoulder to cry on when feeling nostalgic or coping with a hard life moment. From sitting at the same table to share a meal on weekends to cheer up at sport events. From helping up when you have to pack up the house again to celebrate birthdays together.

Fríends are there with a bucket full of wisdom or advice to help you get through the flu, hair lice, which painter choose to redecorate the walls, where to buy gluten free food staples, or how to navigate the burden of having to organise the care of aged parents back home.

For my daughter’s friends at school are the cousins and the pals with which she grows up. She learns how to be sociable, and suffer her first jalousie or misunderstandings. She understands the value of having people to rely on. 

We are fortunate enough that when we visit home we can hop on a low-cost flight and go visit our extended family for a weekend.

It is a privilege to be able to honour the value of those relationships that meant so much during our stay in a given country. 

And magically you pick up the conversation with those friends exactly where you left it when you had to leave. Even if busy life elsewhere hasn’t given us the opportunity to stay up to date with them about every life event happened meanwhile. You just build upon. And share more life moments, create memories, tell them what you have been through, which event taught you more.

My kids and I can’t wait to reconnect with those threads of warm woolly friendship.

And when I hug them again, tears of joy run over our cheeks, and I feel grateful to have them in my life.

 

La mia Torinesità si manifesta in strani modi.

Recentemente ho continuato a tenere un low profile all’idea di trasferirsi in Australia, Melbourne.

Alla domanda di amici e conoscenti, sei contenta? Rispondevo : beh certo non ci mandano in Afghanistan!

Era il mio modo torinese di non esultare troppo, non mostrare sfrontatamente la fortuna di questo trasferimento capitato per caso a causa del lavoro di mio marito.

È anche un modo un po’ pudico di non urtare chi rimane per anni nella stessa posizione, strada, città. Di avere rispetto degli altrui destini.

Ho sempre fatto attenzione a mantenere armonia e non creare disaccordo. Sarà la mia natura di bilancia.

Torinesi, come ci ha definiti la sociologa Chiara Saraceno: ”  sobri, discreti, perfino un po’ provinciali nel senso buono”.

Solo recentemente ho imparato a togliere quel velo grigino di understatement, dopo aver compiuto i 40 anni forse.

E anche dopo aver appreso un po’ dalla sfrontatezza di mia madre data dalla sua vita non facile.

E allora, che cacchio! mi son detta, una vita sola ho fra le mani, e viviamola a pieno!

 

La conseguenza è stata notare che sorrido molto di più, anzi spesso mi accorgo che la mia risata così sciolta spesso suona un po’ sopra le righe.

E mi sembra di vivere in technicolor.

Adesso che ci penso bene forse è iniziata prima, con la scelta del mio abito da sposa in tutte le nuances possibili del fuxia!

Eh si, in effetti c’è correlazione ….

 

Adesso noto che la mia torinesità si esprime in modi diversi, rimane sinonimo di moderazione, gentilezza, ed eleganza non vistosa.

Ma poi ognuno ha la propria personalità ed il proprio bagaglio di esperienze che modellano il modo di essere nella propria unicità.

 

E quindi alla prossima persona che mi chiederà se sono contenta del trasferimento potrò rispondere : Fair suck of the sav!

Che vuol dire esclamazione di meraviglia  (ne avrò certezza dopo averla sentita dal vero laggiù fra qualche giorno …).

I had just finalized the name of my blog when my husband comes home with a rumor of a new move for our family to another continent.

“It’s a great opening sentence for an article!” a fellow student in our writing group chat told me.
I was back home after a few days in The Hague attending the annual Families in Global Transition conference.

I swallowed the news and did a Google search for Cross-Cultural Coach in the new destination: the result was 100 competitors already practicing. I was left with a gloomy mood.

From that moment, my husband’s interview process started. I kept following my routine: working as a Relocation Consultant in the morning, full-time mum of two kids, Life Coach and Cross-Cultural Trainer squeezed in the calendar time slots. No sense in starting to plan a move until a signed contract was on the table.

And so it happened, a few months later my husband and I were beelike busy, working on paperwork, school and home hunting, following up reliable recommendations from friends and acquaintances.

 

I started my new career four years ago around an old passion of mine: cultural diversity.
I’ve worked to create my portable job, trained as a Coactive Coach and a Cross-Cultural Trainer. My biggest asset was my personal experience which started abroad as first-time expat in Thailand in my 30s.

 

My aim was to help other families in transition, supporting them in the delicate phase of settling in a new country, where everything seems foreign.

And so I have recently started facilitating cultural integration workshops for the new-comers in the multicultural country where I have lived for four years. An amazing tiny country, rich in diversity with big economic growth, attracting many families from all over the world.

 

Now it’s my turn to assist myself and my family, to face a change in life. To help my children settle in a new community and a new school. To keep the balance between the challenges of the unknown – and the setbacks of an emotional nostalgia for family and friends left behind.

 

As for my job: I will have to start over again. I was not prepared for a change happening so quickly! But the train is leaving and I have to catch it. I will learn on the way, the place I will call home again.

With this blog I want to tell about all the amazing cultural encounters we will make, and be connected to the global nomad families out there.