by Sophie Walker (UK) | Oct 27, 2014 | Africa, Journalism, Media, News, Priorities, Sophie Walker, UK
Do you know who Dr Stella Ameyo Adadevoh is?
Don’t worry. I hadn’t heard of her until just a day or two ago.
When I read about her, my first thought was how wonderful she was. My second was how glad I was of the opportunity to find out about her. My third: what a strange week of news.
It’s largely thanks to Dr Stella Ameyo Adadevoh that the World Health Organisation was able to announce recently that Nigeria – that chaotic, corruption-riddled country – was free of Ebola, the deadly virus currently killing thousands across west Africa in the worst outbreak of the disease known so far.
Dr Adadevoh was the doctor who took care of Patrick Sawyer. Sawyer was the Liberian man who brought Ebola to Nigeria. Nigeria had never had a case of Ebola before. Sawyer denied having had any contact with Ebola, despite his sister dying of the disease. He fought to get out of the hospital. His employers fought to have him discharged.
Adadevoh not only diagnosed a disease previously unseen in her country, but she resisted huge pressure to let it go, according to accounts from the doctors who worked with her.
She quarantined Sawyer – no small task, given his violent attempt to flee – “He pulled his intravenous (tubes) and spilled blood everywhere”, said one witness. She rebutted accusations from the Liberian ambassador that she had kidnapped Sawyer. She contacted the authorities, and she got hospital staff the training and materials they needed to treat Sawyer safely.
Sadly Adadevoh herself contracted the virus and died on August 19, one of eight deaths in Nigeria from Ebola. Not long afterwards the Nigerian government released its National Honours list for this year. Adadevoh was not on it because, as a government spokesman explained, the awards are never given posthumously.
I’ve seen two stories this week about Dr Stella Adadevoh. She did a great thing, and died for it, and too few people noticed.
In contrast, I’ve seen at least twenty-two stories this week about Rene Zellweger, an actress who changed her face and prompted acres – and acres – of media coverage.
I have nothing against Zellweger. Indeed, I have a degree of (angry) sympathy. I recognise the pressure on actresses over forty who are looking for work.
But what a strange week of news, when a woman who has done so much was unseen by so many, and another woman was not just seen but ripped apart for being far too visible.
I’m a journalist by trade. I accept that much of this disparity is down to skewed ideas among major media outlets of what makes news.
But we too – by we I mean us women – bear a responsibility for the way in which women’s lives and achievements are reported. Too often we read and comment on the scandalous stories. Too often we’re boosting the click rates and thus telling those media outlets that yes we are interested in reading this stuff. We are perpetuating the myth that it’s ok to pass judgment on other women purely because of the way they look. We are contributing to the noise around the non-stories that is stopping us from hearing the real ones.
I want to read about more Stellas. Don’t you?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Sophie Walker of the United Kingdom.
Writer, mother, runner: Sophie works for an international news agency and has written about economics, politics, trade, war, diplomacy and finance from datelines as diverse as Paris, Washington, Hong Kong, Kabul, Baghdad and Islamabad. She now lives in London with her husband, two daughters and two step-sons.
Sophie's elder daughter Grace was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome several years ago. Grace is a bright, artistic girl who nonetheless struggles to fit into a world she often finds hard to understand. Sophie and Grace have come across great kindness but more often been shocked by how little people know and understand about autism and by how difficult it is to get Grace the help she needs.
Sophie writes about Grace’s daily challenges, and those of the grueling training regimes she sets herself to run long-distance events in order to raise awareness and funds for Britain’s National Autistic Society so that Grace and children like her can blossom. Her book "Grace Under Pressure: Going The Distance as an Asperger's Mum" was published by Little, Brown (Piatkus) in 2012. Her blog is called Grace Under Pressure.
More Posts
by Mirjam | Oct 13, 2014 | 2014, Childhood, Cultural Differences, Family, Life Lesson, Netherlands, Uncategorized
I’ve always had trouble knowing where to fit in. I have never known which box I was supposed to climb in or which label to stick on my forehead.
I was born in Surinam, but most of my life I have lived in the Netherlands.
My parents had a strong sense of culture and raised me accordingly.
We lived in a small town in the northern part of Holland that did not have many people of color.
Needless to say, things outside of my home were very different to things inside.
In my home there were loud voices and singing, dancing and vibrant music.
Outside of the home it felt like I needed to be ashamed of my mother’s loud voice,and I tried my best not to speak too loud.
Around my family I felt at home and liked my braids and dark skin.
Outside home, old ladies would sometimes come up to me and touch my ‘strange’ hair, and make me wish my skin wasn’t making it impossible to blend in or disappear.
There was lots of loud laughter in our home. My mother would read Anansi stories and we would laugh hysterically.
Outside of the home, I could not explain to people why any story that starts with: “Dear God, can you make everyone that laughs at someone else drop dead instantly…” is going to be a really funny one.
In Surinam culture it’s very important that children learn to respect their parents and older people. You never talk back, you never raise your voice and you always look down when you are spoken to by an adult.
At school the teacher would say: Look at me when I talk to you!
At home my parents would speak to each other and family members in Sranang tongo, their native tongue. They would speak to us in a mixture of Dutch and Surinamese, we spoke to them in Dutch. With my sisters I spoke in a mixture of Dutch and Surinamese.
At school I spoke Dutch and there were so many things I could not talk about or explain because there was no word for it in Dutch.
At birthdays, we had parties with lots of family and friends coming in from everywhere, staying for dinner and sleeping over. My mother would cook lots of food, aunts would help in the kitchen and the house was filled with all of these wonderful festive smells, and we would eat until we could eat no more.
When I was invited to a party of one of my friends, we sat in a quiet circle with mostly old family members having a polite conversation and we were given a piece of cheese with a little vlag stick (it’s a Dutch thing), everyone left before dinner and there was absolutely no music.
Growing up in these two cultures thought me how to adapt. I learned how to behave and what was expected of me in each situation. And because I was such a people pleaser, by the time I was in my teens, I could blend in anywhere and everywhere. and I knew what was expected of me. I also had lots of interest in different people.
The people I called my friends were a variety of ages, colors, cultures and mixtures and I loved every one of them.
Still, I always felt different.
I’m an adult now. I married a man whose skin color is the exact opposite of mine (no matter how much sun he gets). My children are of mixed culture. Their skin color is a mixture of ours, their hair is mixed, curly but not as curly as mine, dark but not as dark as mine.
My husband sometimes plays his (terrible) Dutch songs and I sing and dance with my children to old Surinam children’s songs. When we celebrate there’s lots of family and lots of food but no music, because my husband says he can’t have a conversation with music in the background. I teach my children to respect their parents and older people, but I also teach them that it’s okay to speak up and look people in the eye.
I mostly speak Dutch, but when emotional I turn to my native tongue, although my kids hardly understand what it is that I’m talking about.
I think here. With my own family a perfect mixture of black and white, Dutch and Surinam, east and west, I fit here.
Do you have a mixture of cultures in your family? How do you adapt?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Mirjam of The Netherlands.
Photo credit to the author.
Mirjam was born in warm, sunny Surinam, but raised in the cold, rainy Netherlands.
She´s the mom of three rambunctious beauties and has been married for over two decades to the love of her life.
Every day she´s challenged by combining the best and worst of two cultures at home.
She used to be an elementary school teacher but is now a stay at home Mom. In her free time she loves to pick up her photo camera.
Mirjam has had a life long battle with depression and is not afraid to talk about it.
She enjoys being a blogger, an amateur photographer, and loves being creative in many ways.
But most of all she loves live and laughter, even though sometimes she is the joke herself.
You can find Mirjam (sporadically) at her blog Apples and Roses where she blogs about her battle with depression and finding beauty in the simplest of things. You can also find Mirjam on Twitter and Instagram.
More Posts - Website
Follow Me:
by Olga Mecking | Oct 6, 2014 | 2014, Being Considerate, Caring, Helping, Humanity, Life Balance, Netherlands, World Motherhood
My eldest daughter and I are waiting in line at the chocolaterie. We both love ice cream and we’re discussing which one we would like best. My girl is impatient, giddy, excited. She wants ice cream and she wants it right now! But she can’t have it just yet because the older gentleman right in front of us is not done with his purchase.
He takes his time picking his pralines – the choice is huge and all of them look delicious. Pistachio. Orange liqueur. Coconut. With or without nuts. He can’t make up his mind, but until he does, we can’t get ice cream. My girl grows more and more impatient. “I want ice cream, why do we have to wait for so long?” The gentleman makes his picks, but asks the lady to make another bag of pralines for him, which she does. And then he asks her to gift wrap each little bag separately. She’s not that quick either, the lady behind the counter, and she takes her time, choosing the best fitting box, the right colour of ribbon to go with the chocolate box.
In all honesty, I am growing somewhat impatient too. My child is close to having a tantrum. I have a tram to catch to go back home, errands to run, a dinner to cook. But I wait. Because if that was me, I would appreciate other people’s patience so that I would be able to buy a beautiful gift for someone I care about.
And that’s what I tell my daughter: that we need to wait sometimes, be patient, try to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.
Soon enough, we get our ice cream. I take pistachio and mango, she takes strawberry and vanilla. After all, we had a lot of time to choose our flavours. And then, we’re on our merry way back home.
Since then, I’ve been trying to stick to this one sentence: “If that had been me”. If that had been me, I would want someone to help me, I think when I see a heavily pregnant woman picking something up from the floor. Or when I notice an older gentleman reaching for some item at the supermarket but struggling because his hands are shaking so badly. Or whenever I see someone who may need help. Putting myself in their situation helps me relate to people more, making me get out of my shell and offer help. It’s tricky sometimes. I am an introvert who would rather not talk to people unless she really had to. So asking someone if they need help is not that easy at all. But I do it, because the gratitude and relief people feel when they get the help they need is absolutely amazing.
Of course I can’t always rely on “if that had been me”. Sometimes I think people need help when they’re doing just fine, thank you very much. I once saw a pregnant woman in the street, hugging her belly in pain. She was in the last month, ready to give birth at any time. On the ground beside her was a heavy-looking bag with groceries. I approached her and asked if there was anything I could do. I was afraid that she was having contractions! She said everything was fine, and I really hope it was.
You can’t help someone who doesn’t want or need to be helped.
Neither should “If that had been me” be used to judge other people. “If that was me, I’d never let my children watch TV, eat sweets or behave like this”. Maybe you wouldn’t do these things, but I am sure you’d make other mistakes, so relax.
But when you’re out and about running errands, going about your day, or just going for a walk, look around, notice all these people and ask yourself, “if that was me, what would I need?”. And then go on and ask. Because it’s not really about you: it’s about other people. The very worst that could happen is that they won’t want or need you, but if they do, you’d be glad you asked.
Do you stop to help strangers? How do they react?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Olga Mecking, The European Mama, of The Netherlands.
Photo credit: Richard North. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.
Olga is a Polish woman living in the Netherlands with her German husband. She is a multilingual expat mom to three trilingual children (even though, theoretically, only one is trilingual since she's old enough to speak). She loves being an expat, exploring new cultures, learning languages, cooking and raising her children. Occasionally, Olga gives trainings in intercultural communication and works as a translator. Otherwise, you can find her sharing her experiences on her blog, The European Mama. Also take a while to visit her Facebook page .
More Posts - Website
Follow Me:
by Katinka | Sep 29, 2014 | Belgium, Life, Parenting, Uncategorized
On Wednesday the 3rd of September, our oven broke down in the middle of a pizza. We only have pizza about once a year, so the kids were looking forward to it like crazy. Italians, be warned, what comes next must be hard to digest. I warmed up the pizza in the microwave and then baked it in a regular frying pan. The idea was to get it warm and have at least the bottom a bit crunchy. The bottom turned out almost black and the entire thing looked inedible. The kids loved their very special pizza topped with extra cheese and ketchup to cover up the burnt taste.
On Thursday the 4th of September, our cooking range died on me in the middle of green beans and rice. I half expected it, since it was attached to the oven. I wanted to give up, but then my daughter came along. She secretly turned the oven on, thinking it a toy after it broke. For some reason, that reactivated the hot plate on top of it! Thanks to my mischievous five year old, we had a decent meal after all.
She told everyone she saved dinner that day, strutting around proud like a peacock.
On Friday the 5th of September, we asked my teen sister to babysit and went to my employer’s corporate party, all the while discussing how to rearrange our kitchen. We felt like we could handle our bad luck for a blissful twelve hours.
On Saturday the 6th of September, our car broke down in the middle of the road to my parent’s home. It stopped, just like that. We had to find another car and take my sister home, which made my husband late for work. His work being to clean up the party we went to the night before. Mere coincidence made me help dismantle my own employer’s party, to get things done in time. The kids had a great time, being allowed to help out dad and being at mommy’s party at the same time. They didn’t mind that they were the only ones singing and dancing in an empty tent.
On Sunday the 7th of September, I decided to bake some fine Belgian waffles. I had made a new school year’s resolution of baking cookies for the kids to take to school every week. Because the green me wants to lessen our piles of plastic waste, because the control freak in me wants to follow up on their sugar consumption, and because our daughter is just very picky when it comes to cookies (I’m not complaining). I wouldn’t let the broken oven break my resolution after just one week, so waffles it was. Broken crumbled pieces of waffles anyway. Not a single one came out in less than 23 pieces. The kids thought it extremely cool to have a little box full of waffle crumbs to take to school all week. They figured the tinier the pieces were, the more waffle could fill their snack box.
On Monday the 8th of September, I found almost all of our chickens gone. One was still there, without her head. I found her inside our completely closed den. No holes, no open door. The predator went in and out anyway. I told the kids a very cute little fox was probably very happy with his mommy’s endeavours. I also promised them I would get us a pig instead of those vulnerable little chickens. A very big one. We’ll call her Foxy.
On Tuesday the 9th of September, we bought ourselves a new car. The kind of family car I’d been wishing for, even before the previous one. Our son approved because the new car is close to his favorite colour, black. Our daughter approved even more because it had sliding doors in the back. No more accidents with neighbouring cars for her.
On Wednesday the 10th of September, I found a new kitchen when I came home from work. My husband had worked like crazy to surprise me. The oven and plates were not connected yet, but I was too overwhelmed to mind. We were getting used to cucumbers and cold salmon wraps for dinner anyway. It was a good exercise for the predicted power blackouts during winter as well.
On Thursday the 11th of September, I felt our luck was turning. We had been able to found benefits in all of our misfortunes. New car, new kitchen, new pet. Fate gave us Ethiopian New Year on that day. It’s liberating to state in the middle of 2014, that you’re heading for the year 2007.
It feels as if you can start all over.
That morning, our Ethiopian daughter went to school in her traditional white dress to show off. Our son wore his Ethiopian scarf for mere coolness. In the middle of my last science policy meeting of that day, I was already musing about our cozy evening to come, picking yellow flowers and having popcorn, as tradition prescribes in our daughter’s birth country.
That very moment, my husband called. I was to head for the hospital.
My little princess’s pristine white dress was covered in blood. She had had a nasty fall and an even nastier hole right between her eyes. They had waited for me to arrive before doing the stitching, because she desperately needed her mommy. I will never be able to wash away the image of that incredibly deep hole in her forehead. Nor of the terror in her eyes when the syringe for the local anaesthetics came by.
When it was all over, we promised her pizza. One from the local Italian, because the oven still didn’t work. Also because we were too exhausted to think of anything creative at 8 pm.
In the car back home, my daughter told me she couldn’t believe how lucky she was.
I thought I’d misunderstood.
I was having a very hard time staying composed. After this unbelievable week, my stress buffer was in shambles.
And my daughter, covered in deep stitches and steristrips, told me she felt so lucky?
“Of course,” she said. “We’ll have pizza night two weeks in a row!”
Do your kids also help you get past the most dreadful passages in your life? Can we learn from their ability to find innocent fun on every occasion, no matter how bad?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by K10K from The Penguin and The Panther.
Photo credit: Live Italian. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.
If you ask her about her daytime job, Katinka will tell you all about the challenge of studying the fate of radioactive substances in the deep subsurface. Her most demanding and rewarding job however is raising four kids together with five other parents, each with their own quirks, wishes and (dis)abilities. As parenting and especially co-parenting involves a lot of letting go, she finds herself singing the theme song to Frozen over and over again, even when the kids are not even there...
More Posts
by Shaula Bellour (Indonesia) | Sep 25, 2014 | 2014, Childhood, Expat Life, Family Travel, Holiday, Indonesia, Shaula Bellour, Twins, UK, Uncategorized, USA
From the window, I can hear high-pitched giggles and the sound of wellington boots on garden path gravel.
My daughter is next door with her new neighbor friend, pretending that the garden shed is an animal rescue center and the backyard chickens are actually wild monkeys. My son is bouncing on a trampoline with the friend’s big sister and I can see their carefree bodies flying above the wheat fields, in the shadow of the village church.
It’s past their usual school-night bedtime, but the sun is still high and we’ve stopped keeping track of these things anyway. Evidence of the day’s activities is scattered on the grass: badminton birdies, a rainbow of half-finished loom band bracelets, a decorated cardboard lean-to and sticky signs of an earlier snail race.
Both kids return with dirty feet and ice cream on their faces and I’m pretty sure they forgot to wash their hands after petting the donkey across the road. But it’s okay. It’s the summer holidays in rural England and it feels like the stuff childhood is made of. The only catch is that it’s not where we live…
Life is a series of trade-offs.
Back in Jakarta, we’re on our way to school and my children want to know why we don’t live in England. “Well…because we live here”, I respond simply, feeling a sharp pang of guilt. I go on to explain that day-to-day life in England would probably be different than the idyllic summer version. For example, instead of playing all day, they would have to go to school and soon the long sunny days would turn cold and wet. “That’s okay!” they chirp, happily unconvinced.
Luckily the conversation shifts and together we watch the city float past our car window. The daily mosaic of life here is colorful, chaotic and always fascinating. We read shop signs, point out our favorite kaki lima food carts and compete to find the most interesting motorcycle cargo…from pallets of baby chicks to enormous balloon bundles.
We talk about their new school classes and where all the children are from, realizing that there are nearly as many nationalities as students. We think about where we might like to travel for their half-term break and marvel at how lucky we are to be so close to so many amazing destinations.
Life is a series of trade-offs.
Sometimes, I feel sad about the fact that our children are growing up so far away from their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. But then I am also reminded that since our family is both British and American, we will always be far from someone we love regardless of where we live. We do the best we can to stay connected and are grateful for the precious time we get to spend together.
Occasionally, I see photos of my friends’ frolicking children and feel a twinge of regret that my own kids are missing out on the places and experiences I enjoyed as a child growing up in the US.
But then I examine my own assumptions…does their childhood need to resemble my own for it to be good? Of course not. My children may not learn to ski anytime soon, but they are seeing and doing so much more than I ever dreamed of at their age.
Life is a series of trade-offs.
I tell myself that we are lucky to enjoy the best of both worlds. But in reality, we can’t have it both ways.
This is the path we’ve chosen and there are limitations as well as benefits. Accepting these trade-offs brings a certain kind of relief and shifts the focus — emphasizing what we have instead of what we’re missing.
It’s a process, but I’m getting there.
How do you and your family balance life’s trade-offs?
This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Shaula Bellour.
Photo Credit: ClairOverThere. This image holds a Flickr Creative Commons attribution license.
Shaula Bellour grew up in Redmond, Washington. She now lives in Jakarta, Indonesia with her British husband and 9-year old boy/girl twins. She has degrees in International Relations and Gender and Development and works as a consultant for the UN and non-governmental organizations.
Shaula has lived and worked in the US, France, England, Kenya, Eritrea, Kosovo, Lebanon and Timor-Leste. She began writing for World Moms Network in 2010. She plans to eventually find her way back to the Pacific Northwest one day, but until then she’s enjoying living in the big wide world with her family.
More Posts
by Ann Marie Wraight | Sep 22, 2014 | 2014, Education, Government, Greece, School, World Motherhood
Who hasn’t heard of the name Pythagoras before? Or, for that matter Archimedes, Aristotle, Plato or Hypatia? Even if you don’t know exactly what these people believed or taught, those ancient names probably ‘ring a bell.’ For those of you fortunate enough to have had a good level of education you will probably be familiar with the Pythagorean Theorem. Remember those maths lessons back then when we were teens? Most of you will recognise the above names as originating from Ancient Greece. Pythagoras, for instance, is best known as a mathematician who lived in the 500’s BC and also pursued knowledge in the fields of music and philosophy.
Well, I’m really proud to live in a country which has such a history of academic and cultural excellence. In addition to the world of academia, remember that the first Olympic Games took place in Olympia in 776 BC! Can you imagine that? Most people think of the Games as being a much more recent creation. However, the concept of combining physical excellence and political and social benefits had its inception in Greece many centuries prior to the modern day games that we are currently familiar with.
So, with such an impressive and honourable history in sport, teaching and education, how does Greece’s glorious past influence its present generation of scholars?
Tragically, the politicians and educators who are responsible for the education system in modern Greece seem to have forgotten ancient past glories.
Pupils who want to continue to tertiary education really have to suffer years of hell in order to get the grades they need for university or colleges. The state education system has been a disappointment to teachers, parents and pupils for decades, REGARDLESS of which political party has been in power. Teachers are ridiculously underpaid considering the years of hard work and expense they’ve invested in getting their degree. Parents are forced to pay for private tuition and students miss out on many areas of their childhood due to running nonstop from day school to evening tuition.
There was a lot of publicity this summer when a bright 16 year old girl wrote a letter to parliament complaining that she was a human being and not a robot! She also expressed her fury that the new system implemented this year was EVEN WORSE than the previous one. Now students grades are counted in the last THREE years before finishing secondary school. That means if you mess up in one or two lessons when you’re 15/16, those grades will haunt you through school till you’re 17/18 and lower your whole grade average. You don’t have the option to rewrite the lesson either! Too much pressure for too many children. This both saddens and amazes me! Those who are responsible for the national curriculum are highly educated and experienced in their fields. So why has there been such a public outcry this year at the new “improved” system?
Well, quite frankly, it’s dreadful!
Virtually all Greek children who want to get good grades follow a similar programme. They go to their state run schools till around 2o’clock. As state secondary schools don’t have dining halls or refectories, the children then go home to eat lunch or take their own packed lunch to school. In the afternoon the lessons continue as most tuition in the day school isn’t adequate to prepare students for national exams. This means parents are obliged to hire private tutors, if the family budget can afford them, or children have to go back to “Frontisteria” or private tutoring schools. The second option is usually a little cheaper than the first. I know many families who have 2 children and the monthly tuition fees are at least ONE of the parents salaries. Imagine other families I know who have 3 or 4 children!!! It’s pretty common for parents to get bank loans or sell property for their offsprings education BEFORE they go to uni/college. The Greek State has prided itself for decades on its free education system. In practical and realistic terms, I don’t know any child who has entered university without doing private lessons, going to a private day school or following courses at the evening “Frontisteria.”
So the idea of a free Greek education system is a farce in reality. The tragic thing is that with a crushed economy, in some demographics we have an unemployment rate of 40-50%. Many families now have only one breadwinner and its not uncommon to have families with both parents out of work.
So how can these families afford education? Basically, they can’t. They have to rely on the goodwill of state school teachers to give extra homework or work through breaks to cover the material which comes up in state exams.
Their kids also have to make super human efforts on their own if they want any kind of realistic job prospects.
I’m a private tutor myself and some years ago I worked in the UK doing language summer schools. I had teens from all over the world but I remember that some of my shiniest stars were from Greece and Japan. The Greek kids were very knowledgeable in many areas and I assumed the Greek education curriculum must rock! That was just before I came to live here when I realised that those students usually came from middle class homes and could afford all the extra tuition not included in the state system.
So what’s happening internationally about our right to free education and knowledge until at least the age of 17/18? I’m British so I take it for granted that compulsory education should be till 16 and all levels of education should be free until the end of secondary school. Acquaintances from around the world have told me similar stories about education in their countries. The general consensus is that state curriculums are getting worse and trying to guarantee your child’s entry to tertiary education means forking out an awful lot of money! Friends in the USA, UK and Germany have put their children into private day schools or boarding schools. Colleagues who live in Denmark praise their system but this is only one that I know of personally which gets a glowing report!
I hope that your system isn’t like our Greek system.
As my ambitious 14 year old son says:”Going to school here is like being sent to PURGATORY!”
I’d be really interested to know about the education system in your part of the world. Do you have to pay fees or is everything provided by the government?
This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Ann Marie Wraight of Greece. Photo credit: Tom Brown. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.
Having lived in 4 different countries, Ann Marie finds it difficult to give a short answer about where she's from. She regards herself: Brit by birth, Aussie by nature, with a sprinkling of Greek and German based on her insatiable appetite for tasty food and chilled beer!
This World Mom has been married to her Greek soulmate for 16 years and they are the proud but constantly challenged parents of two overactive teenage boys. (She secretly wonders sometimes if she was given the wrong babies when she left the maternity clinic.) She can't explain the fascination and ability that her 13 and 14 year-olds show in math and physics or that both boys are ranked 1st and 2nd nationally in judo. Ann Marie can only conclude that those years of breastfeeding, eating home cooked meals and home tutoring really DO make a difference in academic and physical performance! The family is keeping its fingers crossed that---with the awful economic crash in Greece---continued excellence in math and/or judo will lead to university scholarships...
In addition to writing, enjoying a good glass of wine and movies, Ann Marie also works as a teacher and tends their small, free-range farm in the Greek countryside.
More Posts
Do you know who Dr Stella Ameyo Adadevoh is?
