This Messy Mobile Life

How a Mola can help globally mobile families create a life by design

Mariam Navaid Ottimofiore

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Do your family dinners happen in more than one language? Do you celebrate Christmas and Eid? Do you and your family feel at home in more than one country? If so, then you may be a MOLA Family and yes, this multicultural, multilingual, mobile life can get a little ‘messy.’

In South America, a mola is a shirt made from intricately stitched layers of patterns and cloth. Worn with pride, it represents who you are – inside and out. Mariam Ottimofiore presents a mola as the perfect metaphor for globally mobile families living between cultures, countries, languages, nationalities, identities and homes, who find their story hard to articulate. She has created the MOLA tool to help global families design and show their stories to the world. This is your ‘life by design.’

Pakistan-born Mariam is a writer, researcher and expatriate family specialist who grew up and lived in nine countries. Her husband is German/Italian and together they have raised their children in Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
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Raw, honest, inspiring and uplifting, This Messy Mobile Life comprises personal reflection, expert advice and survey research to help you take your global family from mess to mola.

​An outstanding new addition to the global family literature.

Robin Pascoe

Every now and then, a book comes along that leapfrogs ahead of others on similar topics. Accessible, engaging and thorough, This Messy Mobile Life IS that book.

 Linda A. Janssen, author of The Emotionally Resilient Expat

A wonderfully welcome addition to the mobile, cross-cultural, and ethnically diverse community.

Michael V. Pollock, Director of Interaction International, 
​Co-Author of Third Culture Kids

This book will make thousands of expats more secure in their messy lives!

Christine Sperr, Managing Director,
​Middle East, Santa Fe Relocation