Kim Hays Follow

Kim Hays was born in the US, but grew up in Puerto Rico and British Columbia. At 21, she lived alone in Stockholm for a year and worked in a Saab factory. Twelve years later, in 1988, she married a Swiss and moved to Bern, Switzerland, becoming a dual citizen in the process. In Switzerland, she freelanced for an English-language magazine and a news website, writing about everything from traveling family circuses to the large number of marriages between Swiss and foreigners. She also got a job as a cultural coach, working one-on-one with the employees of large American firms to prepare them for daily life in a new country. As a volunteer, she did the same thing with Syrian, Afghani and Eritrean refugees for over a year.