Moving was a constant factor in her life. There was always only a short time to make friends before she would loose them again because they would move on. She really wonders how people can live in one place all their lives, is it not boring? Victoria is looking for an international job because that's what she is comfortable with, that is what she knows. She says the best way to discover a culture is to eat the food. She ends by saying that she has to go and do something, learn a language or make a move.
Just like Victoria, I found it hard to answer the question: where are you from? I remember being embarrassed because there were things here in the Netherlands that I did not know about. To this day I am still not very good in Dutch geography, knowing where place are. I can tell you lots about places in Zimbabwe, would that do? I recently discovered that there is an online mentoring program for expat youths called Sea Change Mentoring. They aim to prepare young people returning to their "home country" to minimize reverse culture shock and to maximize the benefits of having lived abroad. That sounds really good, I wish there had been something like this when I moved from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe to university in the Netherlands. That was a real shock, I wrote about it earlier: The most difficult transition for third culture kids.
What was your experience like? Did you have embarrassing moments? Did you have a reverse culture shock? Do you have advice for kids returning to their "home" country? Do you know where you're from?
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