My upbringing and life experience have made me a truly multi-cultural person.
I was born in Beirut, in Lebanon, a country where countless civilisations and cultures and religions have merged since thousands of years. Ancient greeks, romans, phoenicians, hebrews, pharoaos, babylonians, crusaders, arabs, muslims, turks and europeans.. are all an integral part of our heritage.
I was born in a arabic cultural environment, in a liberal muslim family. Arabic is my first language, and I can still remember my late grandma telling me the stories of the historical arab heroes. In my school I studied arabic litterature, and poetry, and history. I traveled through the arab world, in Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Egypt, and I can follow the news and the songs and the arts of all the arab countries, from Casa Blanca in Marocco to Dubai in the Emirates, passing by Cairo, Damascus and Mecca.
In Beirut, I was raised in a French Protestant private school. My school principal and teachers and textbooks were all french. I studied european history, french language and litterature, and western sciences. Later I would follow my Master Degree in France and live around 3 years in Paris. I speak excellent french, and I am very familiar with french arts, politics and cultural scene and I still have many friends and a brother in Paris.
I went on to study in the American Univerity of Beirut. My university president and my courses' textbooks were all americans. All my teachers were graduate from US, and my university is affiliate with New York University. I speak excellent english, and during my development work I worked with tens of anglo-saxon organisations. Today american culture is a big part of me, and I follow countless personal development teachers in US through internet, and also the US politics specially after Obama election
I also studied spanish for 3 years in the Spanish Cultural Centre in Beirut. I speak basic spanish, and did a 6-week internship in Spain during my university years. I understand well and love the latino culture, and I can sing spanish songs and latin-american songs!
Currently I live in Indonesia since 2005 in Aceh in the natural Sumatera island . That was a truly new tropical culture for me, with totally different mindset and language and habits and diet than the one I was used to. Today I can speak indonesian pretty well, and can eat chilli and fish in the morning, and I understand the country and the people and I love it.
My readings and spiritual exploration have also introduced me to other cultures, such as the yogi indian culture, or the buddhist philosophies, or chinese martial arts, or jamaican history. And during my work in development I also worked with French, British, Australian organisations and with United Nations, and I had to work and cooperate continuoulsy with people from different nationalities and backgrounds.
Am a truly world citizen and I am blessed with an exceptional ability to understand the world. I can follow breaking news at the same time on CNN, TV5 and Al-Jazeera TV and I enjoy watching how each channel presents the same information differently. I watch Larry King and John Stewart, and les Gignols in France. I read lebanese local newspapers, and also Le Monde magazine and the Huffington Post. I can sing spanish with Shakira, and listen to Balinese music or Indonesian rock!
My multi-cultural background is a great asset for me in reaching out to people. I can understand other people easily, and can adapt very quickly, and so I can communicate with different groups very effectively. I am confortable communicating with Yogi New Age crowd or with people in a local mosque in Aceh or with westerners or indonesians or arabs... They're all part of me!
I believe this would help me a lot in drafting messages and articles with MindValley designed to reach out to new groups of people and spread the message to new cultural crowds.
