Expat Women August Home Page 2011

Hi Everyone, I hope you are enjoying (or enjoyed) a lovely weekend! Please take a few minutes to read, enjoy, share and tweet about our new August home page features below. Thanks so much and I wish you a wonderful week! Andrea

Success Story
Aurélie Gilles
Inter-American Development Bank (IADB)
Aurélie Gilles has defied many odds in her short lifetime. She is one of the 12 percent of Haitian youth who have completed high school, one of the 1.3 percent of Haitians who have completed a college degree, and she graduated from the Université de Pantheon-Sorbonne with honors whilst battling cancer. After completing a double master's degree and internship with the United Nations Development Programme, Aurélie now works with the Inter-American Development Bank to restructure Haiti and improve children's education...
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Business Idea
Olive Kebab and Café
Elena Karoumpi
When Greek expat Elena Karoumpi left her career in the hospitality industry in London and relocated to Bangkok, Thailand in 1997, she loved the city's wide array of international cuisine, but wished the city offered her favorite food – Greek. Four years later she introduced Olive Kebab and Café to Thailand's gourmet industry. Olive can now be found at three retail centers and two stand-alone restaurants around the city. Under the Olive brand, Elena and her business partner also operate a supermarket deli corner, and offer home delivery options, plus event catering...
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Author Interview
Big in China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising a Family, Playing the Blues, and Becoming a Star in Beijing
Alan Paul
Suburban dad Alan Paul was supposed to be moving to China for his wife's once-in-a-lifetime adventure - she had been offered the job of Wall Street Journal China Bureau Chief. He ended up with an amazing adventure of his own, co-founding a Chinese blues band, becoming an award-winning columnist, creating a press identity as the Panda Dad (as opposed to the Tiger Mom), and already selling his memoir's film rights to Ivan Reitman and Tom Pollock's Montecito Pictures...
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Expat Confession
Raising Bilingual Children
Extract from Expat Women: Confessions
Our family is British and about to move to Brazil. One of my major concerns about our move is that none of us speak Portuguese. I worry about how our children will cope. Other people have told me that children are fast learners when it comes to language and it will all work out once I get there, but will it? I have no idea how to raise bilingual children and I question how much time I should invest in raising them bilingually, when they might forget it all when we leave...
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Expat Marriages
How To Help Your Marriage Thrive Instead Of (Barely) Survive While Living Abroad
Dhyan Summers MA, Licensed Psychotherapist
Sam and Susan fall into fairly typical patterns of "naming and blaming". Neither of them are taking responsibility for their own feelings and Needs. Instead, they are blaming their spouse. They are making demands instead of requests which only further alienates their partner. Jennifer and Richard, on the other hand, have learned Nonviolent Communication, or as I prefer to call it, the Compassionate Communication model of conflict resolution...
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Videos From The Expat Forum 2010: Hosted By Clements International

Hi Everyone, If you missed the Expat Forum 2010 in Washington last October, you might like to take a look at a few of the short video excerpts of the event here.

The panel comprised of four wonderful people. This will tell you a little more about each:

Alan Paul is the author of Big in China, to be released by Harper Collins in March 2011. (Click on the link just mentioned to see his awesome promo video that I loved - congrats Alan!)  It is a memoir of living in China as a male accompanying spouse, raising three American children in Beijing and the unlikely success of his Chinese blues band, Woodie Alan.  The book explores many issues of central concern and interest to expat families, including: raising Third Culture Kids; the challenges and joys of being an accompanying spouse; and the difficulties of being part of a very transitory community.

Paul wrote "The Expat Life" column for WSJ.com from 2005, when he moved to China, until June 2009, shortly after he moved back to the United States.  Paul's columns normalized the expat experience and earned a wide following.  The National Society of Newspaper Columnists named him 2008 Columnist of the Year.  He also reported from Beijing for NBC, Sports Illustrated, the Wall Street Journal, and other media outlets.  Paul has been a senior writer for Slam magazine since 1999 and for Guitar World magazine since 1991.  His writing has also appeared in The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly, People, ESPN.com, Rolling Stone.com, SI.com and many other publications and websites.  He has contributed to The Rolling Stone Jazz and Blues Guide, The Insider's Guide to Beijing, and several other books. Alan, his wife Rebecca, and their three children reside in Maplewood, NJ.

Alyson Rose-Wood is former international white water raft guide, Alyson Rose-Wood is a 2009-2011 Presidential Management Fellow with the National Institutes of Health.  She is currently on detail to the Office of Global Health Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services where she is assisting with the Haiti health relief effort.  Alyson has a Master of Science in Global Health and Population with a concentration in Infectious Disease Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health. She is interested in all things related to mosquitoes.

The child of U.S. diplomats, Alyson grew up in Botswana, Ethiopia, Mali, and Honduras.  She served in the Peace Corps in Morocco and has returned to Mali and Ethiopia to work professionally.  Her interest in the Foreign Service Youth Foundation stems from her own background as a Third Culture Kid but also her time spent as the Globe Trotter's Program Director (2006-2007).  She now serves on the Board of Directors of the Foreign Service Youth Foundation.  Alyson credits her peripatetic upbringing with providing her with a sense of adventure (and restlessness) but also instilling in her, from a young age, a desire to serve and put her cross-cultural "know-how" to good use.

Maureen Johnston is a Resource Specialist at the U.S. Dept. of State's Overseas Briefing Center at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) where she assists both new and seasoned Foreign Service employees and family members with a variety of transition issues.  She also does training for the life-skills section of FSI's Transition Center.  She holds a BS in Elementary Education from the University of Maryland and a Masters in Education from George Mason University.  She has taught both in the US and abroad. During her years overseas, as the wife of a Foreign Service Specialist in Europe and Africa, she also worked in various positions within the embassy including protocol secretary for an ambassador and Community Liaison Office Coordinator.  Both her adult children were born and attended school abroad.

Andrea Martins - If you are a regular reader of this blog (thanks, as always, for your support!) you already know me. But if you are new and would like to read my bio, feel free to click on the Clements International site - Expat Forum 2010 - Speakers Page. Thanks.

Have a wonderful weekend, Everyone! Andrea

Note to anyone who watches the videos: The only reason my hair was limp that day was because Jennifer Aniston's hairdresser was not available. I'll book more in advance next time. ;-)