When I read the Week 9 post it immediately brought to mind my wonderful hybrid sisters. They deserve to be named: Anastasia Ashman, Tara Lutman Ağaçayak, Rose Deniz, Sezin Koehler, Judith van Praag, Elmira Bayrasli, Catherine Salter Bayar and Jocelyn Eikenburg.
These are women consistently remind me that being myself is ok, in fact, that it is terrific. Our backgrounds are varied, our locations global, what unites us is a belief in ourselves and an acceptance of our hybrid nature.
What do I mean by hybrid?
Most of us have experience of living in several cultures, some of us have married into a second culture, some of us are third culture kids. All of us acknowledge that this multiculturalism has uniquely shaped our worldview 
and given us a perspective that many don’t have.
How did we meet?
In gatherings of ones and twos. I’ve known Anastasia and Catherine since Tales from the Expat Harem, met Rose and Tara at a Tedx. Our gathering culminated in Dialogue 2010, a global conversation curated by Rose Deniz. Since then we’ve kept in contact, we’ve written blog rings about things that touched us. We renewed our conversation in January.
What’s in our future?
Our hybrid ambassador core group remains the same but like-minded people gather, so Anastasia Ashman and Tara Lutman Ağaçayak are building our very own home on the web, our Global Niche.
These women allow and encourage me to be myself, to be authentic in all I do. I am so very grateful to them for inspiring me every day.
I can’t imagine life without the Hybrid Ambassadors, can you Catherine?
I love being your hybrid sister, Catherine! Thanks for sharing with A Year With Myself.
By the way, we’ve got a new quarterly series of Hybrid Ambassadors interactive online chats — it’s how we’re continuing the conversation we started so many years ago with the Expat Harem book in 2005, and Dialogue2010. The next one coming up is April 27, 2012 — and it’s open to the public. Details: http://www.globalniche.net/hybrid-ambassadors/
We’ve also expanded into Pinterest, where we have our own Hybrid Ambassadors pinboard — visualizing these multiculti, kaleidescopic concepts that have such a huge effect on our lives and are becoming ever more relevant in a globalizing world. http://pinterest.com/globalniche/hybridambassadors/
Thank you, Catherine! So true, all my hybrid sisters not only inspire me daily, but give me the strength to be myself. It’s a wonderful gift for which I’m grateful. January’s convo with you all is still in my head.
Taking the inspiration further as a group on Pinterest is turning into a visual feast. Sharing the gift of this sisterhood with the public will be eye-opening. We have so much to share – how to pick one topic?
Indeed Tara, the ambassadors inform a lot of what I do!
I love the way the Global Niche is expanding in new directions. I guess it’s a function of our willingness to embrace new things and new ways of doing things. The future is an exciting place to be!
Thanks Catherine. That’s the beauty of the conversation it’s freewheeling and can touch any topic that we are interested in. We’ll never run out of topics to talk about!