My mother was very beautiful. Her job was to attract miners to the bar she worked in, and to get them to buy drinks. She also used to drink with them, and this resulted in three pregnancies, each one year apart, all with the same man – my dad, a French engineer in the...
When I was 15, my family moved from Mumbai to the Gold Coast for my dad’s business. At first, it was a massive culture shock. But I had always been a very social person, so I just decided to dive in and give everything my best shot. Many people said it would be...
I grew up in Kabul with nine brothers and sisters and forty cousins who all played together, fought together, and laughed together. When I was young, Afghanistan was a peaceful country, but when I was 10 years old, Russia invaded, and suddenly we saw soldiers in tanks...
It took us 3 near death attempts to escape communist Vietnam. The first time, I was six years old. Of the three boats, one made it to resettlement, one completely sank, and ours started sinking, until luckily 5 hours later a fisherman’s boat came by and rescued us. My...
One of my earliest experiences in Australia was having my first Tim Tam in the hotel room in Adelaide after a very long flight. I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, I have to keep the other one for my husband!’, but then after an hour, saying, ‘Nah’, and eating it myself!...
