Episode 4 - Sandra’s Expat Journey: Navigating Life as a Trailing Spouse | Sandra Showalter - Part 1

Rooted and Routed Podcast

🌍 Sandra’s Expat Journey: Navigating Life as a Trailing Spouse 🌍

In this episode of the Rooted and Routed Podcast, we sit down with Sandra, an American brand consultant and professional photographer, who has lived in Dubai and now resides in India. Since there was so much that we covered in this episode, we decided to divide it into two parts.

Part 1:

• Sandra’s experience of returning to her home country for a few years
• Missing the multicultural expat life
• Challenges of not being able to work in her home country after being an expat abroad
• Frustration with the "not allowed to work" visa restrictions that many countries impose on expat spouses
• How her husband’s company promotes building an expat community within the organization. A culture other companies should also adopt for expat families
• Untapped potential of skilled and experienced expat spouses hindered by visa restrictions
• Things that impact the overall well-being of the family and the success rate of expat assignments
• Sandra’s experiences with extracurricular activities in Pune
• Adapting to cultural differences and making the best of what the host country has to offer

챕터

1. Opener (00:00:00)

2. Intro (00:00:16)

3. Sandra's Background (00:01:11)

4. Sandra's First Expat Journey (00:02:05)

5. How was it going back to USA from being an Expat (00:02:37)

6. Challenges while moving from and to different countries (00:04:20)

7. Why being a photographer Sandra cannot work as an expat? (00:06:12)

8. Support from her husband's company (00:08:42)

9. Kids, US History, Language and Culture (00:13:40)

10. How as an expat - Sandra chooses a school for her kids (00:15:37)

11. Extra curricular activities in Schools in India and Barca Football clubs facilities (00:20:27)