This week’s What Did I Have To Lose is one of my favourites. A mother talking about the loss of working mother’s guilt, an American woman losing the pressure to conform after years of feeling she had to contain her Americanisms, and a really interesting perspective on losing an easy answer to the question “So where’s home?”
I’ve said before that the question of What Did I have To Lose doesn’t need to be negative, losing something can be a positive thing – but I’ve had a few conversations with people who have really struggled with the concept. So, that being said, I’m changing the name. As of next week we’ll be calling our series “Here and There”.
I think Here and There is the perfect term for an expat, when we’re here we’re thinking about there and visa versa. The questions will be similar but we might investigate a little further, keeping in mind that we can’t really run longer than 5 minutes. What would you like to hear on Here and There? What would you like to ask?
In the meantime, here’s episode 5 of What Did I Have to Lose? Meet Felicity from the UK, Kelly from the States and Sarah who’s also from the US but has been living in Ireland for the past 12 years. And if you think you can hear a baby, you can, this week’s episode features two small babies who you can hear gurgling in the background. Oh, my aching ovaries!
Let me know your thoughts. Would you like to be part of Here and There? What do you think I should ask our guests? Shoot me an email contact@shamozal.com or leave me a comment here below…
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Ah, the first comment! I am playing catch up on your blog today, instead of getting on with the 50 million things I need to do before we head off for Christmas in the Frozen North. I wanted to ask about why the American woman feels so comfortable in Doha. I wondered if it is because the working expat population is huge? In comparison to Ireland and Germany where I’d imagine the expat is a bit more of a novelty? Then I think about my husband who is indeed an expat who has become a citizen here, at long last!!
Hi Mary_j_j I haven’t thought about why I feel so comfortable here! I think you are probably right about being surrounded by many expats, and not only Europeans or Anglos. Instead of being a novelty as an expat, most people have a shared experience of what it’s like not to fit in somewhere and can empathize with that feeling, which is something very new to me. However, I my experiences growing up really shapes my point of view (I lived in Sri Lanka for a few years as a child as well) and I genuinely love learning about different experiences, perspectives and cultures – and there are so many here! I love that you can get nearly any food in the world here – the other day I found cookies I ate as a kid in Sri Lanka in the supermarket, for example. While there are many challenges to living in a place like this, there are also a huge number of positives. As I mentioned in the video, I really feel like I have a lot more freedom to think through how I want to tackle a challenge, rather than conform to a set way of doing things because “that’s how things are done here”. Things are done in Doha in SO MANY different ways because people have such different perspectives.