In this episode of Audio Alumni, we hosted Mariam Raza, who has had the privilege of residing and working in four countries and extensive travel to over 20 countries. These diverse global encounters have significantly shaped her life, career, and perspective, ultimately influencing the person she is today. Her compelling message to our listeners emphasizes the importance of making deliberate decisions, seeking no one's permission, and staying true to what you feel is your path.
CBIE Audio Alumni - Mariam II F1 230629
Emily: [00:00:00] Before we begin, we would like to recognize that this podcast is hosted from the traditional and unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe. We at CBIE are grateful to have the opportunity to learn, work, and live on this land. Welcome to Audio Alumni, a podcast that features both Canadian and international voices sharing their lived experiences of going abroad.
Emily: These conversations offer insight into the opportunities, the challenges, and the transformational impact that an international experience can bring. In this season, we are talking about working and traveling overseas. You'll hear personal stories from our guests about what inspired their travels, what obstacles they had to overcome.
Emily: Com and ultimately how their time abroad shaped their lives Today, this podcast is brought to you by the Canadian Bureau for International Education or C B I E in partnership with International Experience Canada. C B I E is a national nonprofit association dedicated to supporting the Canadian international education sector in its global engagement through advocacy, [00:01:00] capacity building and partnerships.
Emily: International Experience Canada or i e c gives Canadian citizens aged 18 to 35. The opportunity to work. And travel abroad. I E C provides youth with a path to a work permit or visa to work and explore one of the 30 countries and territories. Taking part in I E C allows youth to gain valuable international work experience while exploring the world and finding inspiration.
Emily: My name is Emily Harrington and I am so excited to be your host this season for audio alumni.
Emily: She defines herself as a conscientious traveler today. Let's welcome Miriam Razza. She's had the privilege of living and working in four countries and has traveled to over 55 cities in 20 countries since her undergrad years. These global experiences and opportunities have changed her life, her career, and her outlook, influencing who she is today.
Emily: She believes that experience and skills gained by exploring global opportunities are not only invaluable, [00:02:00] but also essential for the future of Canadian students. Maryam is currently pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Western Ontario in Educational Leadership, where she will write her dissertation on implementing global initiatives and global engagement programming in post secondary institutions.
Emily: Her message to listeners is to make intentional decisions, not ask for permission, and not let anyone else limit your path. Join her podcast and position yourself for different experiences. Miriam, it is so nice to meet you. I'm so excited to get to chat with you today. Like I said, I dove into your story a little bit and say that you've lived in 55 different cities.
Emily: Like visited,
Mariam: not lived in. That would be, I don't know how that would work, but yeah, visited.
Emily: Okay. Well, even that is insanely impressive. Like, do you have a picture of a map at home that you just pinpoint everywhere that you've been? I
Mariam: don't know, but I do think it's important that we don't just say countries, because if you go to one country, you like.
Mariam: You could say, Oh, I've been [00:03:00] to China. Well, what does that mean? Like, where did you go in China? It's such a big country. So I think we should, we should stop. Cause I see people counting, like how many countries they go to. And I'm like, it's a totally different experience based on where you go. So, um, I, I started counting cities, like, I don't know, maybe 15 years ago or something, and I was like, I'm going to count cities, not countries.
Mariam: Cause you could keep going back to the same country and have a very different experience. Very cool.
Emily: So let's dive into your journey in the beginning because it says that, from what I understand, you started taking on international experiences when you were still completing your undergrad,
Mariam: correct? I didn't study abroad or anything.
Mariam: I basically dropped out of a semester and went to India with my mom. And it was probably a bad idea. I knew, I know it was a bad idea because it was, I withdrew from school. I delayed my graduation by a semester. So it wasn't an academic experience or anything tied to my program. It was just like, I just wanted to get away.
Mariam: And I had this opportunity to go to India for like four months. And I was like, ah, what's the [00:04:00] worst that could happen? I'll delay my graduation by four months. Um, so I did, I withdrew from my program and it was my second, it was fall of fourth year. So I just left in fall of fourth year. It was pretty crazy.
Mariam: I don't recommend anyone doing that, but I did. Yeah. So I went to India for four months that last. the final year, the fall of the final year.
Emily: That's amazing. And I mean, as much as you say, you don't recommend it, like that's an incredible trust of your gut to say, you know what, this is what's right for me right now.
Emily: And being able to trust your own inner guide at, you know, your early twenties. I don't
Mariam: know if it serves me well, but I did. Yeah. I, I, I moved and then I moved back and then I finished in January, I came back and I finished everything up. And then I went back again in May. So I went back again for eight months because I wanted, so I, like, I, when I came back, I thought I'm just going to go back, finish my studies and then come back because I did acknowledge to myself that it was important that I finished and graduated.[00:05:00]
Mariam: So I came back, stayed here for 4 months, finished, um, finished my studies and then went back to India for, so I spent most of the end of 2003 and most of 2004 in India. That's
Emily: amazing. So what was that experience like living in India for two different chunks of time?
Mariam: Oh, well, yeah, and I lived in India again a few years later.
Mariam: But, um, the first time I went, it was very like extended family holiday kind of thing, because I was with my family, but we moved around a lot. So that was the first time I was actually getting to see India because I would usually just go to India with my family and stay at my grandma's house. And it's pretty sheltered and they don't let you do anything because you're a foreigner and they don't let you cross the street by yourself.
Mariam: But this trip that I made, I was. 23. So I was, and my cousins were all much, much older. Uh, we were all like, you know, in our twenties. And so I had a lot more freedom and we lived in different places. So we lived in Heatherbrook for a month and we lived in Lucknow for a month. We lived in Delhi for a month.
Mariam: And so we were moving around. There was a whole bunch of stuff happening. There was like [00:06:00] weddings and all kinds of things going on. So I really started exploring India as Like an adult, like an individual adult without my parents and my relatives, you know, handholding the whole thing, which was. It's really where I fell in love with kind of traveling on my own.
Mariam: I always enjoyed traveling, but I was very much sheltered and, you know, like you can't do this, you can't go there. And that kind of made me, that was like the beginning of, you know, I want to keep doing this. So it was a very different trip. And then when I went back after I finished my courses, I lived in New Delhi with my aunt and I worked there.
Mariam: So I was on my own with her, um, and I lived there for the next eight, nine months. And I worked for the first time in another country. And I would like take public transit home and like go to work and work like really, really long shifts because the work hours are longer there. And, you know, buy things on my own and have my own budget and, and really do all of that for the first time in another country, which was like.
Mariam: Incredible, I think, now that I think back. [00:07:00]
Emily: That's amazing. So, did that really kickstart, like you said, it kickstarted your love of travel, and how did that kind of lead you into finding all these other opportunities? Because it sounds like going to India was kind of a natural first step with the family connections, which I'd imagine made it a little easier to get settled as well.
Mariam: Absolutely. It did definitely kickstart. I think there's a lot of... Like diaspora Indians and South Asians that don't go back to India other than a family trip every two, three years. And a lot of us, as I mentioned, are very sheltered when we go there because our relatives are like, Don't let them drink that.
Mariam: Don't let them eat that. Don't let them go there. They don't know how to speak the language. They'll get like ripped off or whatever. And so this was like the first time for me that people were starting to actually think I was a local because I was showing up at the regular places and I had my own tailor and I had my own hairdresser and I had my own.
Mariam: So like you become part of a place and your parents aren't there and your family isn't there. [00:08:00] And you're kind of like, okay, this is me. I have agency. I have independence and this it's up to me. So definitely it. It made me realize what living on my own was like in another country, which was like a huge realization, right?
Mariam: Like you realize, okay, it's like I'm in a new country and sure I have someone I know. My aunt was very hands off. She was like, you do what you want. If you need me, I'm here kind of thing. So that helped me a lot. She was not at all. Where did you go? Don't go there. So I had my own friends. I had my own network.
Mariam: I had my own job. I had, you know, like everything was just me on my own. And I did come back. Later that year in December, and I went back to school again. So I, I, I went to Sheridan college for a year after that. And then I worked and I, those three years, all I wanted to do was like move abroad again. I was like, I just want to leave.
Mariam: And I was, I was, there was lots of stuff going on in my life at home here. And. I just was like, I need to leave again. I need to [00:09:00] leave again. And I didn't know where, I didn't know how. I was just like, I have to leave again. How am I going to get out of here again? And that's all I thought about those three years is how do I get myself to a place where I can move abroad?
Mariam: And, you know, have a job where I can sustain myself and like rent on my own and like kind of thinking about long term, you know, sustainable living abroad, not just like camping out in your aunt's spare bedroom kind of thing, but like actually moving abroad and living abroad. So I was always hungry for the experience, I think.
Emily: That's amazing. So where did your next adventure take you? I mean, I haven't, I didn't go that far down the rabbit hole to know the whole chronological order, but I was very excited. So,
Mariam: till then, I had not traveled a lot, so I would say till then I had probably been significantly, like, quite a bit over India.
Mariam: Not too much, though, and I'd been to, like, you know, like, I'd been to Cuba on a holiday, and I'd been to the States, like, on a number of holidays to visit family, but I hadn't even been to India. I think it was that, [00:10:00] like, the next year I went to Paris for the first time on my own. And so I started doing these little holidays on my own because I thought, well, if I can live in India, I can go somewhere on my own.
Mariam: Like, you know, so that confidence of like, I went to the full extreme. I went to a country with like a million people. So now I can go to Paris on my own. So I started doing these little trips, like go to New York on your own, go to Paris on your own, you know, go here and there on your own. And then, um, three years later, I think in 2008, I moved to Singapore.
Mariam: So I did actually move to Singapore with my Canadian job. So I had a job in Canada and I would like obsessively look at the job board and my friends know I'm like a job board buff. I look at job boards all the time. Even if I'm not looking for jobs, I look at job boards and they're going to laugh when they listen to this.
Mariam: But, um, I was looking at, I worked for a bank and I looked at the job board and there was this position in Singapore and I went. Oh my God. Imagine like moving it. And I had one friend in Singapore, a childhood friend who, I [00:11:00] mean, hadn't lived in Canada for so long, but, but we had kept in touch and I emailed the department in Singapore that handled that job.
Mariam: And I said, I wanted to apply for this, but I live in Canada. Is this open to like applicants outside? And they said, um, we're not looking to hire an outsider, but since you already work in the company. You know, we won't disqualify you, you just won't get like a package because this job doesn't have like an like, you know, those expat packages where they fly you in and they give you a combination.
Mariam: Like this job doesn't have like an expat package attached to it, but if you want to move here, you can apply. So I was like, okay, I'll apply. So I applied and I flew there on my own dime for an interview. So I spent like. I bought a 2, 000 ticket. I know it sounds crazy. I bought a 2, 000 ticket and I flew there for two weeks and I interviewed and I got the job.
Mariam: So they were kind enough to pay for accommodation for a month because they were like, okay, we [00:12:00] get it. Like you want to move here. So I trained for that job in downtown and it was so, it's a funny story. So I have to say it. So that job that I got was. In anti money laundering department, and because I had to work the Singapore hours, when I moved back to Canada, they said that I had to train in downtown Toronto for about six months, but I had to work the Singapore shift.
Mariam: So I would start my shift at like 2am and then leave work at like lunchtime and then come back home and then sleep and then wake up again at midnight and go to work. Oh my goodness! I could train for that job! Anyways, I moved to Singapore and I didn't come back. I didn't know that at that time that I wouldn't come back to Canada for eight years.
Mariam: I stayed abroad for eight years. I didn't know that. I was like, Oh, let's go check it out. I was just hanging out there. I ended up leaving and coming back eight years later. So
Emily: did you stay in that job for the full eight years?
Mariam: Nope. I mean, come on. [00:13:00]
Emily: I had to ask.
Mariam: How do you know? I unfortunately only stayed in that job for about six months.
Mariam: If you recall in 2008, if you're as old as I am, there was a recession and there was a lot of stuff going on and global banking. And so I then I was married at the time and my partner had an opportunity to work in India. So I said, Oh, I've done that before. Let's do it. So I moved to India again, and this time I moved to a completely different part of India that I had not really, I'd never visited and I had not really been to, and I did not have a job at that time.
Mariam: So I was like, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. So we moved to India to Chennai, also known as Madras, and I didn't have a job. So I was like, where should I work? And it was really like. Really frivolous and irresponsible now that I think about it, but I was like, I'll just work here. I'll just work there.
Mariam: So I got a job like at a really low salary, like kind of [00:14:00] interning at like an advertising company. And that was fun. And I was like, whatever, I'll just like, you know, just do whatever. I knew that we were only there for a couple of years, so I thought I'll just like figure out what I'm going to do. But I had left the banking industry after like about eight years of working in banking.
Mariam: So that was a little painful for me, but I was just. Hanging around and then four or five months later, someone called me, I can't remember who and they said, do you know the company MAC Cosmetics, the makeup company? And I said, yeah, and they said, they're opening stores in India and they're looking for people to work in their stores.
Mariam: And if you are Canadian, and if you lived in greater Toronto, you would know a place called Glarishots. that used to put makeup on you and take pictures of you in the mall. And that was one of my first jobs when I was like 17. So I was like, I can do makeup. I worked at Glamour Shots. And so I called up the people and I said, Hi, I'm Canadian and MAC Cosmetics is a Canadian company.
Mariam: They were bought out by Estee Lauder. But I called [00:15:00] them up and I said, I am a Canadian. I live in, uh, Chennai and I heard you're hiring. I wanna meet you. So I met them that night and I'll never forget, I met them that night at, at a, in a hotel lobby, and they were like, we'll train you because usually you have to be a seasoned makeup artist to get a job at these big cosmetics companies.
Mariam: But they were willing to train. So I got hired and I opened, I helped them open their very first store in Chennai, and now I think Chennai has like a bunch of stores, which is amazing. I think there's like, Over 50 or maybe more stores in India now. So I worked at the first Mac store in Chennai for about two years.
Mariam: And that was a blast because I met so many people in makeup, fashion, film. Um. In that industry in India, which is like a really cool industry to be part of. And I met like fashion designers and makeup artists and movie stars and models and film producers. And like, just, it was incredible. Like, like, [00:16:00] like movie stars would walk into the store and we'd be like frozen.
Mariam: And then my boss would be like, you need to go and ask them if they need help. And I'd be like, I mean, I'm star struck. Um, so it was amazing. And the funny thing that I still laugh of is. I don't know why. I don't think I'll ever figure out why, but for some reason, I ended up in the newspaper all the time.
Mariam: So I go to this. So in India, there's this thing called page 3, which is like the tabloid page, the social, uh, the social event tabloid page, and this is circa, like, when I lived there. I don't know if they have this anymore. But because Chennai is not that, I mean, it's a big city in the sense that, yeah, there's millions of people there, but the film industry is quite prominent in Chennai, the Tamil film industry.
Mariam: So whenever we would go to an event through our job, like we would get invitations to attend like Like a launch party or a fashion show party or like, I remember when there was, um, IPL cricket tournaments happening, there were all these after parties and we'd go to all these parties and the media and the [00:17:00] press and the paparazzi would be there and for some reason, I would end up on these page 3 cutouts and so every week I got really addicted to it and I'd be like, I'm not on page 3 this week, dammit!
Mariam: So... I have these cutouts of these newspapers from when I lived in Chennai, where I would end up on the, like, page three of the Times paper, and it would be like, you know, some label, you know, like Miriam and Friends, or it would be like Filmstar and Friends, you know, night out at this new restaurant. And I would be in the picture because my friend would be like a movie star or a model or someone like that.
Mariam: So it was, uh, quite a fun experience. Quite, quite awesome. Those two years were fantastic. And of course, when you live in India, you travel all over. I traveled all over India. It was, that was probably the most memorable part of living there is that I got to travel like all over the country by plane, by train, by car, and really, and India is just so vast and the language, the cuisine, everything changes [00:18:00] every hundred kilometers.
Mariam: So it's just, You can never ever stop exploring. Yeah. I mean, I could explore India for a lifetime and I learned so much more about India, living there on my own, exploring on my own and figuring out like what I like, um, versus just visiting my parents hometown and visiting my grandparents. It was such a rewarding experience to be able to explore just on my own and go places that my parents even haven't been like, they would call me and be like, you're going where?
Mariam: And I'd be like, I'm going here. And they're like, you're crazy. So, yeah, definitely a little bit more, um. Uh, risky behavior than they would have liked to have me indulge it, but it was a wonderful, wonderful
Emily: time. That's amazing. So you spent two years there and did you stay in India for the rest of your time abroad or?
Emily: No,
Mariam: I moved, uh, after a couple of years, I moved to the Middle East. I moved to Dubai and I lived there for five years. So I spent most of the eight years in Dubai. All right. So. And I still continue to work for [00:19:00] MAC Cosmetics. I moved into head office with them. I worked in their training division with the brand manager for India and Middle East, and then I started doing internal event planning for them.
Mariam: And then that made me have the opportunity that gave me the opportunity to travel more through work. So yeah, I traveled. through just for work events to like Lebanon and then back to India a number of times for work and, um, within the UAE. And it was just incredible, like to work for them. And it was just absolutely amazing working for, it was my first time working for something really multinational in that sense, where.
Mariam: I was dealing with people from all over the world and my job and especially the Middle East and India region, but also like Africa and Europe and Russia. And it was just really, really incredible. But yeah, I spent the next five years there. And then I, I ultimately ended up leaving Estee Lauder. And then I worked for another famous Canadian company.
Mariam: I don't know what it is with me and Canadian companies, but, um, it's a [00:20:00] company called Thompson Reuters. If you've heard of Reuters news or right Thompson hall. So I worked for them for two years and an incredible experience. That job I had was just. Absolutely fantastic. I met some amazing people again, meeting people from all over the world.
Mariam: Like I'll never forget the first time I heard someone speak with like an accent from Manchester or like an accent from New Zealand. And I was like, Oh boy, I don't understand anything this person said. And I felt so, I felt like the smallest person in the room because you know, here, everybody was so comfortable.
Mariam: And that was like culture shock for me in the sense that I haven't even spoken about people who. Don't speak English as a first language. I'm talking about the shock of just listening to people speak English as a first language, but with a different accent than me, because I was so sheltered in North America and Southern Ontario.
Mariam: You know, I really had only heard. People speak like me or some people who had maybe moved to Canada and who, like my parents who were immigrants and who spoke English with whatever [00:21:00] accent they spoke it with. But then I heard people from Manchester and people from Ireland and people from Australia and people from South Africa.
Mariam: And I was like, how does everybody sound different? How, why do you guys all sound different? And they would laugh at me because I was so sheltered, but it really was so eye opening for me that. There was all these amazing things to learn about people from all over the world. And Dubai is such a multicultural place.
Mariam: You get to meet people like really who are from all corners of the world. Like people from Mauritius, people from Fiji. I met someone from Papua New Guinea, like just incredibly diverse population of people all coming together in Dubai. So it was really, really a wonderful experience.
Emily: Very cool. Well, and one thing that I think we forget too about North American English versus other countries English is that the dialect and the slang terminology and just The way we identify objects and things and people in places is so different from place to place.
Mariam: I was the minority, like North Americans were the minority in my office because most of the people [00:22:00] from the West who worked in the offices were French or British mostly, Australian, South Africans. And so there were not a lot of North Americans and most people did not speak English. In a way that sounded like me.
Mariam: So I had to adapt and realize that people don't call a trunk a trunk. They call, like, you know, like I was like, what do you call this? Oh, you don't call it. Okay. Right. Oh, okay. I better learn that then, because I was the one who had to change myself, which is something I think, you know, perhaps we can do better in North America is like, not think that the whole world has to adapt to the way we do things, but it was really, really
Emily: eyeopening.
Emily: That's fantastic. So eight years and I think. The fact that you made this incredible shift from the banking industry to makeup and event planning, and you kind of were able to still tie in, you know, those original corporate roots with a job that you held for so long is so neat, like, really [00:23:00] speaks to the power of jumping on those international experiences.
Emily: Because if you had stayed in Canada forever, You probably would have continued in banking and never known, you know, all these other incredible opportunities that you were able to gain.
Mariam: No, not at all. And I didn't really have strong career goals. I will say that. I was working in retail banking in Canada.
Mariam: I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I just was like, I just landed here and I'm happy where I am now. And in hindsight, you know, I probably could have definitely used some more focus, but Part of the disadvantage of not having strong goals was that I took every opportunity that landed in my lap.
Mariam: Like I clenched it because I was like, Oh, a job. Yeah, I'll take it. Like, you know, so, but I will say that having those international experiences on my resume, I'm going to assume that it's helped me get where I am now, because I've been really, really privileged to have these wonderful multinational organizations and these like amazing cities, like, and I did not [00:24:00] plan this, but if you look at my.
Mariam: resume. It's like Singapore, India, Dubai. Like, it's, these are like, people look at it and they're like, oh, that sounds fascinating. And I'm like, oh my God, if you only knew how poor I was when I lived there. Like, it's, it's, there's definitely a glamorous aspect to it. Of course, there's the real ground struggle of financing yourself in a new place.
Mariam: I mean, I remember when I moved to Dubai and they were like, Most of the landlords wanted like six months rent up front. It was something I've never heard of in my life. How much money like, you know, and those are things that you don't plan for. And so I don't want to glamorize it and say that it's easy or.
Mariam: a breeze. It's, there's definitely a challenging, struggling side to moving to a new country. And every time I have students say to me that they've moved to Canada, I'm like, I know what it's like to move to a new country. I did it three times, like you sleeping on a mattress. And I remember I posted a picture of an air mattress on a bare apartment floor.
Mariam: And I pointed to it in the class once and I said, how many of you started your lives off like [00:25:00] this? And I raised my own hand and the class was stunned that that's how it started my life off. I said, I slept on an air mattress in probably six different apartments in my life where I just had nothing but an air mattress.
Mariam: So that's humbling. I think back, I feel like I need to put that picture on everybody's desk side, that air mattress on a parquet floor, you know, like that's really, really humbling because. You also respect and appreciate everybody's struggles around you. I, and I really, of course, because my parents are immigrants, but I, I don't even think children of immigrants understand their parents struggle because we live a life of privilege.
Mariam: We're born probably when our parents have just purchased their first house or shortly after we're born, our parents purchased their first house. And by the time we grow up, our parents have cars, you know, like we don't really see that struggle because we're babies. And by the time we're teenagers, our parents have kind of, you know, Settled into life in the new country, wherever they are, but try moving away from that and [00:26:00] renting and getting a place and, you know, facing all sorts of different discrimination because you're young, because you're a woman, because you're, you sound a certain way and facing that on your own in a brand new country, it gives you a perspective of what your parents might've gone through when they moved to, you know, North America or wherever they moved to.
Mariam: I understood so much better what my parents had gone through. After I traveled to all these places and realized, um, I remember renting a place and the guy like almost openly asked me if I had enough, if I was sure I had enough money to afford a place like this. And I was like, I'm pretty sure. And it was like, I was processing it as it was happening in my head.
Mariam: I was like, I'm pretty sure this is like, Racism or sexism, like something's happening here and I couldn't process it fast enough. And I was like, why wouldn't I afford it? And he was like, I don't know, just checking before I show you the apartment. If you're sure you can afford it. And this was in Dubai.
Mariam: And I was like, I can't afford it. Why can't I afford it? I didn't even understand what was [00:27:00] happening. And then after I realized, Oh, for some reason, I don't know, based on what. But that man thought that I couldn't afford the place that I was seeing and he didn't want to waste time showing it to me. So he wanted to clarify that I had enough money.
Mariam: And I just went, Oh my gosh, imagine how many of these types of experiences my parents must have encountered coming to Canada in the early seventies. Like it was really, I laugh about it now, but it's, it's very, very eyeopening as a young person to face that kind of discomfort
Emily: really well. And that actually leads into a really interesting part of the conversation that we haven't touched on yet.
Emily: Is that like that mental health aspect and embracing those struggles and how do you overcome those struggles because there are like said it is very humbling to start totally fresh that all you've got is an air mattress and you know you're picking up the pieces and building the pieces totally on your own without anyone around you to really support you and lead you [00:28:00] and guide you and how do you you Lift yourself up to embrace those new opportunities and see all, see all the possibilities in front of you.
Mariam: Yeah, it's very difficult. I would say most of the people that I know left Dubai, for example, because it's a, has a large expat population did so because they missed their family. And most of them were because we miss our family. We need to be near our family. And that's really important for some people.
Mariam: They really don't want to. Especially, you know, after you have kids and you have, you have a family of your own and you kind of, you've, uh, aging parents and you're, you know, like at least an eight hour flight or 16 hour flight away from your siblings or your parents or your grandparents or whatever the case may be, you don't have a support system where you are.
Mariam: And for some people that's okay. And for some people that's like a no go, like they need to be near their support system. And it does take a very high amount of resilience and grit to be able to work through. All of [00:29:00] those issues, especially as a woman in all of these new places, kind of navigating everything, making sure you don't end up in situations that you feel uncomfortable or you feel, you know, unsafe, or you feel like disadvantaged.
Mariam: And I was very lucky because my employers helped me a lot. The companies that I work with helped me in a lot of cases, like whether it was not necessarily like. Finding housing in the sense that they were finding housing for me. But there was places where I could go to ask for help. Like I would ask my colleagues, I would ask our HR department, like, does this sound like it's legit?
Mariam: Like, is this how this happens? And so I find when you live in a place with expats, like Singapore or Dubai. You find your own family, hopefully, because everybody is there from outside. And so that's really, really important to find your people, wherever you go, and find a network of people that you can call your adopted family, kind of, because someone said this to me a long time ago, like, as long as we're on this earth, we cannot function alone.
Mariam: Right? So, you can't [00:30:00] function alone, you can't do all this stuff alone, and you're gonna have to ask people for favors, and you're gonna have to ask people for help, and then give that help back, and... I will say the friendships that I made, I'm still friends with all of those people. Like I have lifelong friends all over the world who I would drop right now to go pick up at an airport.
Mariam: Like that's your new family. And that's the beauty side of it. Like you just meet people and you have new friends and new family that you otherwise would have never, ever, ever met in your whole life. But it is difficult. And there are lonely times and there are scary times. And there's times where you're like, okay, I am not.
Mariam: going to make it here. Like this is too scary or too lonely or too difficult, especially, you know, you're abroad and maybe you lose your job or, you know, you, your landlord saying, Oh, we got to evict you. Like, where do you go? There's no mom and dad to go camp on their sofa. Like, what are you going to do?
Mariam: And we've, I've had a lot of that happen. I remember when we first moved to Dubai. We thought we had housing and then our housing got canceled. So we didn't have housing. So we [00:31:00] had to spend 10 days on somebody's mattress, like in their family, or we just slept on their mattress for 10 days before we got another place.
Mariam: So there will be downs. Like, I think people don't anticipate that there will be downs and ups, but people go through those even here in Canada, right? Like, of course, some of us, I mean, had I stayed, would I have had. That much difficulty? Probably not because I have family around, but you can't explore the world and expect everything to be up all the time, right?
Mariam: There's going to be downs and ups and you need to have support. You need to have people in your corner who can empathize with you and understand you. And when I lived in Dubai, I had an incredible, incredible network of friends who, We're basically family, like taking care of each other's kids, like going and grabbing milk for each other, like dropping off pillows, like that's what we did for each other because we didn't have anybody else around.
Mariam: And I found it very hard to integrate back here coming home because I felt like I didn't belong anywhere. And that was a whole other struggle. That's
Emily: [00:32:00] interesting. And I think also an important piece of the conversation because. You've had all these experiences that have totally changed you and like you said, changed your understanding of that built family and the way that you rely on a village and now you're coming in as an outsider trying to start all over again when you've already done so much work in this whole other
Mariam: place.
Mariam: It's not easy and I was away for a long time, so I was in a way for just like a year or two when I came back, everyone had moved on with their lives and, you know, most of the people I knew were married and had kids and were eight years deep into their mortgage and we're talking about investment properties and cottages and I was like, um, did you check out this restaurant in Beirut that I went to last week and they didn't want to talk about anything I wanted to talk about and.
Mariam: I really felt like there was just huge gap in identifying with my friends because they had. Very different things they wanted to talk [00:33:00] about. And I was missing my life abroad. I was really, really missing my friends, my life, 48 degree beach weather. Like, you know, I was really struggling to fit back in. And like I said, most of the people who, you know, and I left in my mid twenties.
Mariam: Right. So in your mid twenties, your friends are your life, right? You're all up each other's grill. And you're like. Constantly talking to each other. But when you come back in your mid thirties, those same friends are constantly with their family. So most of them, they had kids, they had sisters, brothers, brother in law, sister in laws, nephews, nieces.
Mariam: And a lot of them, like, I'd be like, Oh, so hey, you want to hang out on Friday? And they'd be like, well, I have a shower and then I have an anniversary and then I have a birthday and then I have a wedding and then I have a, do you want to meet in August? And I'd be like, that's like eight months away. And so, because I was understandably.
Mariam: Why would they prioritize me over all this other village that they had built [00:34:00] in? And I think that was the biggest difference is that I had, I had this adopted family where I lived. We were each other's family. When I came here, I realized that I didn't belong in anybody else's family because I wasn't actually family.
Mariam: And I was trying to fit myself in and get the same priority as people's brothers, sisters, sister in law, cousins, and they had this closed network. Or they had this network of people who were their friends from university or their friends from high school. And I didn't belong in any of those. And I, I really, really struggled.
Mariam: Like I tried to fit in with some of my university friends and may have their own massive group of people who they didn't really want newcomers. It's really like adult social networks are really special. And I don't think we realize or understand. How cliquey we become as adults. We don't want new people in our groups.
Mariam: We have this group that's set up and we don't want a new couple. And so it was really tricky and it was very lonely. I will say the first three or so years were really lonely. I was really lonely and I didn't have a lot of [00:35:00] friends and. I really, really missed, um, living abroad. I was happy to be back in Canada and I, the move back to Canada was very, very intentional and planned.
Mariam: Um, but I just missed my friends and my, they were my family. So I essentially missed my family. I still do. I really, really do. I don't think I've built a network here the way I had built in Dubai. Oh,
Emily: that's heartbreaking to hear. Cause you are such a fantastic person. Like, I mean, we've only talked for a half hour and I mean, I want to sit down with a glass of wine and, you know, hear your stories for hours, but.
Emily: For anyone who is, you know, on the fence about whether or not they should be taking these giant leaps of faith that you've been able to take, what is some advice that you would give them to try and make that decision?
Mariam: I don't know. I don't want to, like, discourage anyone, but you really need to do it with not a grain of salt, but like a bag load [00:36:00] of salt.
Mariam: And lots of courage and bravery because it's going to take a long time before things start looking normal and comfortable. And initially it's going to go from everything being foreign and strange and uncomfortable, and you're going to be nostalgic for home. And then there'll come a point where you're okay with it.
Mariam: And then there'll come a point where you don't want to leave it and it becomes normal and it becomes part of you. And then you're going to have the reverse problem that I had. So. It's a journey. You have to be ready for all aspects of the journey. You can't just be like, Oh, I'm going to go to Hong Kong and I'm going to get this amazing condo that my cousin has and everything's going to be fantastic.
Mariam: No, it's going to be a lot of discomfort and newness. And you're going to learn a lot about yourself, which is the beauty of it all. But people want the end result without the. So the end result, you know, of course, people, when I talk about, you know, where I've traveled and I have a lot of friends who've traveled, they're like, oh, wow, it sounds so cool.
Mariam: But it's like, well, there are dark times. So you have to be ready for all that. [00:37:00] And you also have to be ready for. The fact that you're going to miss out on whatever's happening here at home. So yeah, you're not going to be here for those births of those nieces and nephews and those weddings. And you're not going to be eight years deep into your mortgage.
Mariam: And you're not going to have that cottage that your cousins bought, like that part of life. You're going to accept that you have a different life. And so you can't be too hard. You can't, we can't have it all right. Just understand that it's a journey and it's a learning process and I wouldn't change anything for the world.
Mariam: I wouldn't, I wouldn't change it for the world. I would do it all over again if I could and I joke to people that I'm like itching to move abroad again. Like, I'm like, okay, I think time is coming for me to move again, but I'm getting a little itchy, but that's the truth is it's a bug. That's what they call it.
Mariam: They call it a travel bug, right? So. It's nice to be home. I love Canada. I, I say that I'm, I joke that I'm more Canadian than everyone else [00:38:00] because I left and chose to come back intentionally. Like I intentionally chose to bring my kids here to raise them here because I thought this was the best place in the whole world to raise my kids.
Mariam: But I also want my kids to go. Travel and live abroad and embrace the world for all its beauty and learn about other people and other places. And that's just as important to me as having a home basis, but calling multiple places home is just an extraordinary privilege. No,
Emily: that's amazing. And thank you so much again for taking the time to have this conversation.
Emily: It is so powerful. And not only that you had this experience when you were young, but that you took those formative years and. built your family around this idea of relying on each other along with building your village in all kinds of places.
Mariam: Yeah, absolutely. And now I work in international education.
Mariam: So it's really like full circle for me because when I see a student feeling [00:39:00] apprehensive or saying I always wanted to do that, I'm kind of like, I've been there. And even the incoming international students there, sometimes we have these really surprising conversations where. I know exactly what it's like that you've left your whole family behind and you've moved to a new, scary, cold place that you don't know anyone and the smells and the sounds and everything is different and on top of that, you're in school.
Mariam: I wasn't even in school, but it's scary. So it is not for the weak stomach or the weak hearted. It is really takes grit. But if you do it. You will not regret it. I don't know anyone who says, Oh, I really regret moving abroad. I really regret backpacking through Europe. Like 99 percent of us think it's an exceptional opportunity and we're happy that we did it.
Mariam: So if you need to just. Be a little brave and kind of, like you said, go with your gut a little. It's just an exceptional thing, I think, to travel and you don't have to go as far as Singapore, honestly. You can just start in baby steps, go to the States, explore the States on your own. There's so much to do in the [00:40:00] United States.
Mariam: Like there's places that feel and smell and sound totally different than, than Canada. So we don't really have to go as far as. You know, the other side of the world, you can start with baby steps, but do start. That's my advice to everyone.
Emily: No. Awesome. Thank you so much. And I can't wait to follow along with more of your journey.
Emily: See where you land next.
Mariam: Thank you so much, Emily.
Emily: And that ends this episode of audio alumni. We want to thank our listeners for joining us today. We also want to thank our guests for their openness in sharing their stories and our partner International Experience Canada for collaborating with us this season.
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Emily: Transcripts provided by Transcription Outsourcing, LLC.