Who we are
Contributors
PocketCultures wouldn’t be half as interesting without our contributors from all over the world. Meet them here.
Ana Astri-O’Reilly: Argentina
Ana Astri-O’Reilly is from Argentina, where she lived until five years ago. She currently lives in Dallas, USA with her British husband, but they move a lot. Previously a translator and English and Spanish teacher, Ana first started writing to share her experiences and adventures with friends and family. She speaks Spanish, English and a smattering of Portuguese. If there’s something you want to know about Argentina, contact Ana and she will be happy to write about it.
You can also find Ana on her blog http://anaastri-oreilly.blogspot.com/
Kitty (Alisara Chirapongse): Thailand
Kitty was born, grew up and still lives in Bangkok, Thailand. Her Thai name is Alisara Chirapongse but she got the nickname from her Catholic background - her saint is Saint Katherine.
Kitty works as a writer for several local English language publications and an online Asia guide by CNN called CNNGo.com. She also has her own blog at Gnarly Kitty
Carmen Cristal: Romania
Carmen has been working for the Sales Department of a Bucharest Radiostation for the last 13 years. She loves music ( especially U2), loves English and has a passion for Ireland. Carmen understands French and in a small measure Italian. She has a real passion for foreign cultures and people.
Carmen’s blog is Bucharest Daily Colours
Marcel Krueger: Ireland / Germany
Marcel is a German expat living in Ireland and working for an online company with a colourfull logo. He loves doing stuff with words, and did not go to school to learn this. He likes Heavy Metal and trains and dislikes many other things. He is so old he still buys CD’s, but has not yet caught up with the idea of becoming an adult.
Besides this, he loves travelling, has worked as a promoter for metalbands and a radio-DJ for four years. And has also won the Irish Blog Awards with his fellow writers of the Dublin Community Blog this year. Marcel also blogs at King of Pain.
Sean Oliver: USA
Sean Oliver is a project manager for Language & Culture Worldwide a cross-cultural training and consulting firm. He grew up in Ohio, has travelled extensively and lived in Costa Rica and Chile. He moved to Chicago during the Summer of 2002 and now has no intentions of living anywhere else; Chicago is one of his favourite places on the planet.
Having studied anthropology, he is interested in American, European, and Carribbean/Latin American cultures and subcultures. Sean will be writing about American culture, and drawing attention to the vast differences between Americans across ethnicity, class, gender, generations, etc. You can find Sean on Twitter @SeanJamesOliver
Marie Szamborski: New Zealand
Marie lives in Auckland, New Zealand but was born in the United States and is a dual-national. She has lived in five countries altogether but sees New Zealand as her true home. She loves travel, and living in multi-cultural Auckland is the next best thing to being out there.
As a teacher of English and literacy skills she has met many interesting people and is intrigued by the concept of identity. She explores the relationship between identity and food in her blog Threespoons, and you can also find her on her other blog Shantiwallah. She would be happy to hear from anyone interested in New Zealand or who just wants to say Kia ora.
Nuria Villalobos: Costa Rica
Nuria Villalobos is Costa Rican. She is a current English professor at Universidad Nacional Costa Rica and a former exchange student in the United States.
She loves languages and cultures and enjoys meeting people from different places.
Find Nuria on her blog World Experience.
Do you have something to add about your country? Become a contributor - find out more here.
Founders
Marcello Boschetti
Marcello is an Italian designer who has been working in web design for more than 10 years. He spends his days in a constant quest to make the Internet more beautiful, useful, simple and accessible to everyone.
At the moment Marcello takes care of the technical and creative side of PocketCultures.com
Lucy (Liz) Chatburn
Lucy is English and lived in the UK until she was 19. Since then she has tried to make up for it by seeing as much of the world as possible. She loves learning languages, learning about different cultures and hearing different points of view.
Lucy currently coordinates day to day running of PocketCultures.com as Managing Editor of PocketCultures and also tweets on behalf of @pocketcultures
Karim El Hamel
Karim lives in Turkey and spends his days working in the automotive sector where he is part of a team whose goals are people development and innovation. While living in west Europe, north Africa and north America, he discovered that everywere in the world there is so much to learn and be excited about.
He is currently taking care of business development for PocketCultures and works to ensure that inspiring local stories free from stereotypes can be always shared in the future between people like you.
