EP 1 — Intro with Maria

Welcome to Almost Local! In this kickoff episode, Maria shares the story behind the podcast, what inspired her to start it, and what you can expect in the episodes to come. From cultural shifts to personal growth, this is a space for honest conversations about the messy, beautiful reality of life abroad.

Transcript

Maria Barciela: 0:07

Hello everyone, I'm Maria. And this is Almost local, the podcast that it's bringing, stories and conversations about living your life abroad. And for the expat communities.

Maria Barciela: 0:24

I'm, as you can see, located in the Netherlands. I live in the Hague. I've been here for the past three years. I'm originally from Argentina. From Buenos Aires. So I left Argentina about 10 years ago in 2016, and before, relocating to the Netherlands where I'm right now, I was living in New Zealand, where I spent, about six, seven years. So welcome to the podcast. I know that some of you have been, listening, a lot about this community coming along.

Maria Barciela: 1:01

And I'm really happy that I'm introducing you to almost local, the podcast where we are aiming to have. Kind conversations about stories that bring us together about life abroad, about expat experiences. And the idea with the podcast is that we will share our experiences and especially our ups and downs and, the unfiltered truths around life abroad. We all know that, life, abroad in our countries, when you are, looking from outside, it looks super glamorous. But as an expert, as someone who left, home a while, I know, from experience that this is not as glamorous as, one might think, life is not as simple and perfect as everyone imagine. So the idea with the podcast is that, we'll be sharing these experiences and different dilemmas around life abroad. almost local is a community.

Maria Barciela: 2:09

We are building a community, where we aim to share all our experiences, our apps and downs about, what brought us to leave our countries to explore new places If it was because of adventure, if it was because of professional goals, family, whatever reason. We want to understand, what was your experience? We want to share and collaborate and see how, at the end of the day, we all face the same challenges. So grab your coffee and join us for kind conversations about life abroad.

Maria Barciela: 2:47

We also have our blog where we are, already posting some blog posts about, different, dilemmas that we are going to tackle during these conversations in the podcast.

Maria Barciela: 2:59

Some of these dilemmas about live abroad, are, where is home now? After leaving your home country, you have this sense of not belonging to one place, not belonging to the other place. So you start wondering, okay, where is home now? Another dilemma is about, cultural exchange and how do you become this new person where you are not as you were before, and you start becoming someone different. And how these new cultures, in a way, changes you. Another dilemma that, I particularly enjoy talking a lot about is raising kids, abroad.

Maria Barciela: 3:38

In my case, I have two kids, Amelia and Antonio, who are 14 and 12. They grew up. Out of Argentina. So they were born in Buenos Aires, but then we left. And so we are raising these global citizens who have friends from different parts of the world and they are really, growing up in a really different, set up as they would've if we were back in Argentina.

Maria Barciela: 4:02

So these dilemmas, we are also, tackling them in the podcast, together with me. I'm happy to have, in the team, two collaborators, who are Anita and Andrea. Anita. will meet her soon. She's going to co-host the podcast once in a while. Together with me, Anna is from Chile. She's also here in the Hague, in the Netherlands. as for Andrea, she is our, beautiful storyteller. Andrea is a writer. She has just launched her first, novel. We will share more about this soon. Andrea is from Canada and she's going to be, putting into words, in our blog, all that we will be sharing here in the podcast. So super excited to be introducing, almost local to the community. We are aiming to grow a global community.

Maria Barciela: 4:53

So if you want to participate in the podcast, just, to share your experience, to talk about what. What challenges you're facing at the moment. We are, welcoming you to, participate in the podcast or even write in the blog. this is just a casual conversation, so you are more than welcome to send us a message through Instagram or, go to our website, almost local.com, send us a message through the form and, let us know if you're interested in becoming part of this. Podcast and community, Again, thanks for, listening and for starting to be part of this, beautiful and global community.

Maria Barciela: 5:36

I wish I had, a place where I could have connected when I left. So as to have people who understand, the challenges we all go through. And that's the starting point of almost local that, that's, why we're here.

Maria Barciela: 5:52

Thank you again. I'm pleased to be, introducing you to amongst local. This is not about me, this is about us, all of us together. let me know if you're interested in participating. You will be, reaching out to a lovely community and, at the end of the day, It's good to know that we are not alone, facing all these challenges.

Maria Barciela: 6:13

Pleased to meet you again and, cheers. And I will be enjoying my coffee now.