“An outstanding new addition to the global family literature.”
Robin Pascoe, author
“This Messy Mobile Life is a wonderfully welcome addition to the mobile, cross-cultural and ethnically diverse community. Mariam honors one of the TCK ‘tribal elders’, Norma McCaig, deftly adapting the Mola layered artform into an image and a tool for adaptation and integration. Increasing family complexity meets powerful resource!”
Michael V. Pollock, Director of Interaction International, founder of Daraja TCK, International Educator, co-author of Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds 3rd Ed.
“Every now and then, a book comes along that leapfrogs ahead of others on similar topics. Mariam Navaid Ottimofiore’s accessible, engaging and thorough This Messy Mobile Life IS that book. No matter who or where you on your cross-cultural journey, you will be able to tease out strands (or chunks) of your own messy, mobile, multiple-multi, MOLA life in its pages. Simply stunning.”
Linda A. Janssen, author of The Emotionally Resilient Expat
“This is a perfect and honest go-to book for globally mobile families filled with practical advice brought to you through the intimate stories of Mariam’s family experiences. An inspiring guide on how a family can embrace the mobile life and thrive.”
Kristine Racina, Executive Director, The Expatriate Archive Centre
“Family members are unique when looked at in isolation but when the family unit is woven together it represents acceptance, tolerance, and unity. Ottimofiore’s MOLA is a great example of this. Having a technique for mixing multicultural identities and the permission to know that not everything needs to be equal to create a beautiful family tapestry is priceless.”
Julia Simens, author of Emotional Resilience and the Expat Child
“This book will make thousands of expats more secure in their messy lives! Mariam beautifully weaves her personal experiences with the concept of a MOLA to provide a practical guide for global expatriates.”
Christine Sperr, Managing Director Middle East for Santa Fe Relocation
“An outstanding book on how to raise a multicultural, multilingual, and multi-mobile family. Most informative and filled with practical suggestions. I loved the family stories, meaningful activities and the advice from the experts in the field peppered throughout the book. A fascinating read!”
Lois Bushong, author of Belonging Everywhere & Nowhere
“Expat families are more often than not a mélange of nationalities, cultures, religions, and anguages. This Messy Mobile Life deals with these complexities, and using the metaphor of the mola, helps the reader to design their own beautiful and colorful expat lives.”
Rebecca Grappo, President, RNG International Educational Consultants, www.rnginternational.com
“Mariam boldly addresses the challenges and complexities that come with being a globally mobile family. Armed with insight, expertise, and practical methodology, Mariam has untangled what can seem daunting and guides us through the process of sculpting the beauty of an international, crosscultural, multilingual lifestyle more and more people are embracing.”
Christopher O’Shaughnessy, international speaker and author of Arrivals, Departures and the Adventures In-Between
“In This Messy Mobile Life Mariam invites us to step into the space where chaos can turn into order and upheaval into beauty. This book reminds globally mobile and culturally diverse families that we can create an amazing MOLA of life from the many layers of ourselves we call home.”
Jodi Harris, Expat Coach and Mindfulness Teacher at World Tree Coaching, LLC and co-author of Kids on the Move
“A brilliant untangling of the complex situations and perspectives that multicultural families face. A blueprint for mobile families to transform a mess of cultural identities into a masterpiece.”
Lisa Ferland, author of Knocked Up Abroad
“This Messy Mobile Life beautifully weaves together story and instruction, giving us a remarkable tool for the global journey. Mariam’s voice emerges as authentic, wise, and strong as she speaks into this complicated yet extraordinary expat/TCK life. This book will soon be on the shelves of expats and third culture kids around the world, as well it should be.”
Marilyn R. Gardner, author of Between Worlds & Worlds Apart
“Mariam shares the beautiful story of her multicultural, multilingual, globally mobile family in her engaging writing style and gives tools to readers through her MOLA framework to transform a possible mess into a beautiful design to own, personalize and wear with pride. Her advice is supported by research, enriched with stories from other global families and addresses real-life scenarios. Highly recommend this book to everyone who lives a globally mobile life or supports those who do.”
Tamania Jafri, TEDx Speaker on Language and Identity and writer at UrduMom
“Not long after moving to Portugal, I was hearing captivating personal stories from women in the international community, the caliber of which caused me to take stock of just how exciting and stimulating it was to be mingling with a group of worldly, educated, well-traveled and intrepid, multi-lingual individuals. I decided some of those stories were worth recording, for posterity, because the oral histories that make up Women Who Walk straddle two centuries and the massive global changes that have taken place during that time. 
Insights and Interviews from the 2018 Families in Global Transition Conference: 
Adjusting to a new place can be difficult, whether you’re transitioning from city life to the countryside or learning about a whole new culture in a foreign country. While not everyone has the means or the desire to make such a drastic change themselves, we can all get a feel for what the experience is like by reading memoirs by those who have taken the plunge.