Viktoria Vidali

    To know the road ahead, ask those coming back. — Chinese proverb A healthy balance in reporting expats’ real-life accounts is beneficial for readers to gauge the character of a place, with readers being the final judge of the writer’s intelligence and honesty. Here I narrate for your consideration my personal experiences in Ecuador....
By Viktoria Vidali For every expat, moving to a foreign land means acclimating to a new culture, defined as “those shared patterns of belief, knowledge, and conduct typical to a particular area of the world.” Depending upon your character, adapting to the culture can be easy or difficult. However, cultural flexibility should not be confused,...
By Viktoria Vidali When we journey beyond our countries of birth to foreign lands, we place ourselves in different cultures among people who speak a language we don’t fully understand. In the process we learn many things: what amenities we need to be comfortable; what foods are agreeable; what kinds of social connections are important...
By Viktoria Vidali In 2013, the number of people leaving their home country reached 232 million, up from 175 million in 2000 and 154 million in 1990, putting global migration at an all time high. A common question expats the world over are frequently asked is: What brought you to this faraway place? We may each have a...
By Viktoria Vidali Knowledge is the spring of creative talent. As it expands, it engages the artist’s deeper self and flows into a river of new combinations and relationships, from the quest for peaceful pathways to powerful reflections in color, motion, and feeling. This has been the profound personal experience of painter Janda Grove, native of...
By Viktoria Vidali Much has been written about the “expat experience,” often in bulleted or numbered prescriptions, but we humans are not programmable like computers,and even when following good and well-meaning advice, many of us are still unable to quell those emotions of lingering uncertainty and sadness for what we left behind. There’s something to be said for...
By Viktoria Vidali High-school and family reunions, alumni gatherings, birthdays, anniversaries, cultural holidays, or the chance meeting with an old friend—such are life events in which we retell stories and relive experiences we have in common. On these social occasions, it seems second nature to compare what we and others remember about our shared past....
By Viktoria Vidali Editor’s note: Viktoria Vidali has been a piano teacher, publisher, TV and documentary producer, photographer, and executive director of an environmental and educational nonprofit organization. Her first children’s book, Francisco and Gabriel’s Blue Moon Adventure, a magical tale of two brothers, is available on Amazon. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area...
Editor’s note: Viktoria Vidali has been a piano teacher, publisher, TV and documentary producer, photographer, and executive director of an environmental and educational nonprofit organization. Her first children’s book, Francisco and Gabriel’s Blue Moon Adventure, a magical tale of two brothers, is available on Amazon. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area , she’s now...

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The Cuenca Dispatch

Week of March 17

Banks and Cooperatives will pay almost $200 million in taxes to fund the internal armed conflict.

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Illegal mining advances uncontrolled in the Ecuadorian Amazon and threatens protected areas and indigenous communities.

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Foreign Minister Sommerfeld refutes the notion of ‘bukelization’ in Ecuador’s fight against organized crime.

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