The More Sibyl Podcast

Mo! Sibyl
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On The More Sibyl Podcast, Mo! talks mostly with an invited guest, who she is inspired by, on a variety of issues, related to cultural experiences or other lived experiences related to third culture. If your concept of home is fluid, you feel like you are neither here nor there, or you consider yourself a cultural hybrid, then this podcast is for you. Mo!'s unique perspective is derived from her experience growing up in Nigeria to now living in the US, learning Korean, and enriched by the adventures her travels have brought on. Join Mo! every week to get More Sibyl.

  1. 19h ago

    아이의 호기심을 지켜주는 법| 32 Years of Homeschooling: What Ms. Sundae Taught Me (Again) | Episode 10 (2026)

    The More Sibyl Podcast Presents: 아이의 호기심을 지켜주는 법| 32 Years of Homeschooling: What Ms. Sundae Taught Me (Again) | Episode 10 (2026) What if the problem isn't how your child learns, but how we expect them to? Thirty-two years. Six children. One mother who decided that raising lifelong learners mattered more than perfect grades or impressive transcripts. In this episode, I welcome Ms. Sundae back to the podcast, four years after our first conversation. Back then, I couldn't imagine homeschooling my own child. Then life took me to South Korea, where I found myself doing exactly that, and struggling! So, naturally, I went back to the woman who had been doing it for over three decades. Ms. Sundae shares the lessons, mistakes, and unexpected rewards of homeschooling six very different children. We talk about the daughter who spent an entire year learning fractions, the children who turned their creative interests into businesses and careers, and why her greatest accomplishment might just be raising children who genuinely enjoy one another's company. We also explore learning through play, unschooling, neurodivergence, socialization, parental burnout, and knowing when to abandon a curriculum that simply isn't working. But perhaps the biggest lesson is this: our children don't all need to learn the same way, at the same pace, or on someone else's timetable. Whether you're homeschooling, considering it, or simply raising a child who learns differently, this conversation offers practical wisdom and a much-needed reminder that education should make room for the child, not the other way around.

    아이의 호기심을 지켜주는 법| 32 Years of Homeschooling: What Ms. Sundae Taught Me (Again) | Episode 10 (2026)

  2. Oct 22

    나의 첫 마을, 한국에 온 엄마 | The One with My Mom: My First Village, Our Korean Chapter | Episode 9 (2026)

    The More Sibyl Podcast Presents: 나의 첫 마을, 한국에 온 엄마 | The One with My Mom: My First Village, Our Korean Chapter | Episode 9 (2026) I've known this woman all my life. Or at least I thought I did. When I received my Fulbright fellowship to South Korea, my mom packed up her life in Nigeria and moved across continents to help me care for my children. Seven trips to the Korean embassy (yes, SEVEN! ), countless uncertainties, and almost a year in a country where she didn't speak the language. All because her daughter needed her. But somewhere between being her daughter and becoming a mother myself, I realized how much I still didn't know about the woman who raised me. So, I finally got Gwamma on the podcast again! We talked about her childhood in a Nigerian village, her dreams of becoming a doctor, her journey into motherhood, and her life in Korea. We also discussed what she wishes she'd known at 40, her future dreams, and her advice for grandmothers and daughters navigating different generations and cultures. And, of course, why she still thinks I share too much of my life publicly. Her sacrifices have also made me wonder whether I'll ever be this kind of grandmother. Because packing up my life for almost a year to raise grandchildren? Ah, I have travel plans! But perhaps I'll think differently when that time comes. More than anything, I loved getting to know my mom as a woman with her own stories, hopes, and dreams, beyond being my mother. Have you ever asked your mother who she was before she became your mom? And do you know what she still dreams of becoming?

    나의 첫 마을, 한국에 온 엄마 | The One with My Mom: My First Village, Our Korean Chapter | Episode 9 (2026)

  3. Oct 1

    이번엔 제대로|Second Tour, Second Chance: Kaitlin Barclay's Korea | Episode 8 (2026)

    The More Sibyl Podcast Presents: 이번엔 제대로|Second Tour, Second Chance: Kaitlin Barclay's Korea | Episode 8 (2026) Up next on my love-letter-to-Korea series...Kaitlin Barclay is a military veteran and a military spouse of almost fifteen years, now living in South Korea for the second time. The first time, she was in her twenties and mostly there for the nightlife. This time, she came back to do it right, and it changed her. Kaitlin has lived both sides of military life, first as a service member and now as a spouse. She tells me about six isolating months in a suburban house with a yard, and the huge apartment complex that changed everything. We get into beauty standards, being stared at for her fair skin, the whiplash of going home, and why "you're not allowed to age" here, though that's slowly shifting. We talk about the gyopo gray area, where foreigners get a grace that Korean-Americans often don't, and about being visibly tattooed across three continents, including in a country that only recently legalized tattooing. She shares the story of a subway stranger who tapped her shoulder, not to scold her, but to help. We also talk about what it costs a military spouse to keep a career alive while someone else's orders move her life every few years. Kaitlin holds three medical certifications, two bachelor's degrees, and a master's, and has still ended up working at Dunkin' Donuts and a pet store. She explains how volunteering became her bridge to paid work, the A3 visa rules nobody warns you about, and her non-negotiables for anyone hoping to thrive in Korea, not just survive it. It's honest, funny in places, and it doesn't flinch from the parts of expat life nobody puts on Instagram. “You truly need to experience everything, everywhere, as much as possible. And you need to be able to just take it in for what it is. But at the exact same time, prepare for some of the things to change you, in some of the best and worst ways possible.” Go listen to the full conversation. This one's for every military family, expat, sojourner, and anyone who's ever had to rebuild a life somewhere without instructions.

    이번엔 제대로|Second Tour, Second Chance: Kaitlin Barclay's Korea | Episode 8 (2026)

  4. Aug 31

    한국에서 다시 만난 우리| From Haiti to Seoul: Coming Home to Herself - The One with Tajmara Antoine | Episode 7 (2026)

    The More Sibyl Podcast Presents: 한국에서 다시 만난 우리| From Haiti to Seoul: Coming Home to Herself - The One with Tajmara Antoine | Episode 7 (2026) Let me introduce you to the two characters: Mo! the 언니 and Taj the 동생. We met in Seoul as neighbors and fellow Fulbright Scholars, and somewhere between spontaneous hallway conversations, shared meals, trips around Korea, and plenty of laughter, our 언니–동생 bond took shape. In this special episode, part conversation, part time capsule, we reflect on our Nigerian and Haitian-American immigrant experiences, our very different generations, and what happened when Korea took us outside the lives we had always known. We talk about racial burnout, learning to slow down, receiving kindness without keeping score, and realizing that you don’t have to be extraordinary to be worthy of love. Taj also takes us from her childhood in Port-au-Prince to Miami, NYU, global health research, and eventually Fulbright. She shares what happened when she rediscovered an autobiography she wrote in eighth grade, and realized she had already lived many of the dreams her younger self wrote down. And, of course, we investigate Taj’s very questionable understanding of U.S. geography. Is Oklahoma next to Arizona? 😂 This conversation is about Korea, but more than that, it is about coming home to yourself and the Fulbright experience that made that homecoming possible.

    한국에서 다시 만난 우리| From Haiti to Seoul: Coming Home to Herself - The One with Tajmara Antoine | Episode 7 (2026)

  5. Aug 18

    한국 비자 | The Nigerian Passport Tax — The Stress of Getting a Korean Visa: Episode 6 (2026)

    The More Sibyl Podcast Presents: 한국 비자 | The Nigerian Passport Tax — The Stress of Getting a Korean Visa: Episode 6 (2026) If you've been with me for a while, you know how much I love South Korea. I spent a full year there with my mum and my kids, and that memory is one I'll always cherish. But loving a place doesn't mean staying quiet about the parts of it that aren't lovely at all. In this episode, I sit down with a guest I'm calling Sis. Her real name stays anonymous, because she's not alone in this, and a lot of people going through the same process right now are still afraid that speaking up could cost them their own application. Sis recently applied for a visa to visit Korea, where she now has family. She'd already been through other embassies before this one, so by every reasonable expectation, she assumed the Korean embassy in Lagos would be just as straightforward. It was not. Nine or ten visits. To an embassy that, on any given day, sees a handful of people, nothing close to the queues at the UK, US, Canadian, or Australian embassies. A checklist that changed depending on who was behind the desk, and sometimes even when it was the same person behind the desk. Staff who denied ever giving her instructions they'd given her days before. A two-hour drop-off window that assumes nobody applying has a job to get to. And in the end, her passport didn't land in her hands until the day of her flight, even though she'd booked that flight two months out specifically to give the process room to breathe. I bring my own family into this one too. My mother went through her own version of this: flown back to Nigeria for a TB test the embassy insisted on, even after we offered to have it done and verified locally. Seven trips to the embassy. Her visa finally came through the day before she flew out. Comparing notes with Sis made one thing painfully clear to both of us: this isn't a bad day at one counter. It's a pattern. This episode isn't really about Korea, the country I love. It's about a process that doesn't match the country everyone's currently falling for from a distance, and about the gap between the people running that system and what's actually happening to applicants on the ground. We talk about what we'd each fix if we could, and what we wish someone had told us before we started. This was a hard one for me to sit with, and an even harder one to put out. But if it reaches even one person going through this right now, or one person who can actually do something about it, it's worth it. If you've had a similar experience, at this embassy or any other, I want to hear it. Drop your story in the comments. Let's stop letting this stay in the shadows.

    한국 비자 | The Nigerian Passport Tax — The Stress of Getting a Korean Visa: Episode 6 (2026)

  6. Jul 2

    계속 선택하는 사랑 |Almost Forty Years, Three Countries, and What It Takes to Stay — The One with the Ibikunles: Episode 4 (2026)

    The More Sibyl Podcast Presents: 계속 선택하는 사랑 |Almost Forty Years, Three Countries, and What It Takes to Stay — The One with the Ibikunles: Episode 4 (2026) Love is patient, love is kind. Love hopes all things, and love endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). We all know this scripture. But the word I keep circling back to is endures. We love to dwell on the soft, beautiful things love brings, and we quietly skip past the harder truth tucked inside that verse. To endure something means there is resistance. It means something is pushing against you, and love is what holds on while it tries to pull you apart. In this episode, I sit down with a couple who have endured, with love, for almost forty years, across three countries, and they are still choosing each other. Dr. Tayo Ibikunle and Dr. (Mrs.) Tokunbo Ibikunle met more than once before they ever said yes (God, it seems, enjoys arranging these things), though she'll tell you plainly he wasn't her type at first. “Surely not you,” she told him. What followed was Nigeria, England, America, a letter written to her father, and a marriage that shaped how their own sons are being prepared for theirs. We get honest about the things that quietly pull marriages apart. The years it can take to learn to say sorry and mean it. What it means for home to feel like a castle instead of a battleground, and what happens to a man when respect is withheld until he shuts down. What it means to trust your husband's place instead of quietly outsourcing it, and we ask the harder question about female friendships: at what point does leaning on your community of women friends start filling a role that should be his? The endless, urgent pull of black tax, and the “tyranny of the urgent” that taught them to protect what was theirs first. What immigration actually reveals about a marriage. The fifteen-minute rule that rescued their worst arguments. And why, in her own words, “the older I get, the more I'm enjoying being married.” If you are newly married, in the thick of it, or quietly wondering how anyone stays connected across decades, this one is for you. Press play.

    계속 선택하는 사랑 |Almost Forty Years, Three Countries, and What It Takes to Stay — The One with the Ibikunles: Episode 4 (2026)

  7. Jun 16

    침묵의 방 | The Room Nobody Talks About: On Sex, Shame and Christian Marriages — The One with Pastor Temi Areo | Episode 3 (2026)

    The More Sibyl Podcast Presents: 침묵의 방 | The Room Nobody Talks About: On Sex, Shame and Christian Marriages — The One with Pastor Temi Areo | Episode 3 (2026)  There is a room in most marriages that nobody talks about. Not the kitchen where the arguments happen. Not the living room where everything looks fine for visitors. The bedroom. The one that started full of something and somewhere along the line went quiet. No dramatic moment. Nobody planned it. It just happened. This episode I walked into that room with Pastor Temi Areo, co-lead pastor of Citizens of Light Church in Lagos, prophet, teacher, founder of a mentoring school, and author of several books including her newest, Undressing Sex. We did not tiptoe. The church has tiptoed for long enough. Here is what we get into: The three trouble spots almost every marriage runs into, and why couples can rarely tell you which one is actually doing the damage. The fire principle: why desire dies when you leave it alone, and what putting wood on the fire actually looks like in a real marriage. Pastor Temi's concept of expensive sex, and why leaving your own house might be exactly what saves it. What every husband should know about when sex actually starts for a woman. Hint: it is not at night, and it is not in the bedroom. The difference between sex as a binding agent and sex as a cop out. The line between softening a fight and skipping the conversation entirely. What 1 Corinthians 7 actually says about the marriage bed, the word defraud, and what it means to weaponize sex. Why God is not absent from your sex life, and the analogy that made it finally click. The shame so many women inherited from their culture. Why a lot of women in this part of the world do not orgasm, and why that is a cultural wound, not a body problem. The moment Pastor Temi got free of it herself. And the chapter of her own book that shook even her. Then a listener question from a young woman carrying vaginismus alone, with a response I hope reaches every woman who has ever been told her desire was dangerous. For every quiet room, there is a way back. Press play.

    침묵의 방 | The Room Nobody Talks About: On Sex, Shame and Christian Marriages — The One with Pastor Temi Areo | Episode 3 (2026)

  8. May 19

    이혼 그 후| After the Divorce and the Burnout — The One With Temi Oseni | Episode 2 (2026)

    The More Sibyl Podcast Presents: 이혼 그 후| After the Divorce and the Burnout — The One With Temi Oseni | Episode 2 (2026) This is exactly the energy I wanted to open Season 9 with. The rawness, the healing, the self-love. This episode is a tribute to every woman who has been through so 8and chose, eventually, to let go instead of push through. Temi Oseni is 38, Nigerian, divorced, three-fibroid-surgery-deep, and currently living her best life in Southeast Asia on a self-funded gap year she planned entirely for herself. No permission asked. No apologies given. But getting there was not a straight line. Temi takes us back to the beginning, the first-class degree she earned as an act of redemption, the marriage to her best friend of 12 years that unraveled within months, and the years she spent holding herself together in public while quietly falling apart. She also opens up about something many of us didn't know was even an option: taking paid mental health leave in the US without losing your job. Her seven weeks in intensive CBT changed everything. We talk about fibroids, the dismissive diagnoses, the surgeries, the Lupron, the iron infusions, and why Temi connects her physical healing directly to the mental work she refused to skip. And then we talk about the gap year, the one she gave herself. As an adult. As a Nigerian woman. In Vietnam. Alone. And completely on her own terms. This one is for the woman who has been strong for too long. The one with the unsent draft sitting in her Notes app. The one still waiting for permission to choose herself. Temi didn't wait. Listen to find out what that looks like, then send it to someone who needs it.

    이혼 그 후| After the Divorce and the Burnout — The One With Temi Oseni | Episode 2 (2026)
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About

On The More Sibyl Podcast, Mo! talks mostly with an invited guest, who she is inspired by, on a variety of issues, related to cultural experiences or other lived experiences related to third culture. If your concept of home is fluid, you feel like you are neither here nor there, or you consider yourself a cultural hybrid, then this podcast is for you. Mo!'s unique perspective is derived from her experience growing up in Nigeria to now living in the US, learning Korean, and enriched by the adventures her travels have brought on. Join Mo! every week to get More Sibyl.

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