I have lived in many places, done a variety of jobs, and had numerous exotic experiences. Listing them may sound as if I'm telling tall tales. Since I write fiction, I guess I do imagine quite a bit. However what follows is true and factual to the best of my knowledge. Notice that little proviso.

My childhood was ridiculously dysfunctional. Oh, you didn't want me to go back that far. Okay, starting over...

I have spent more time in school that anyone should. But I love learning, so I couldn't help myself. Along the way I collected a BA and an MA in English. Since I'm into learning, it is fitting that I helped run a boarding school when I lived in Colombia, South America. Yes, I lived in South America: five years in Colombia and five in Bolivia. Somewhere along the way I picked up Spanish, which I haven't spoken in years, but I do find that sometimes, unexpectedly and rather randomly, Spanish words fly out of my month. Um, where did that come from? is usually my first thought. 

I arrived in Bogota, Colombia, with two children, a daughter and son, and had two children during those years, a son born in Bogota, and a daughter, born in Cochabamba, Bolivia. I was developing a lovely collection of children and a rather charming little family.

Having four children, has benefits: when I get old and decrepit, they can take care of me. However, I wasn't thinking of that at the time. Back then, I'm not certain what I was thinking. 

I might add that for part of my South American years, I lived in the jungle with snakes, monkeys, tigres (see, a random Spanish word), and guerrillas (no, that's not a typo; there were no gorillas--those are in Africa not South America). Yes, in retrospect, guerrillas can be ridiculously scary; when face to face, they are seriously terrifying. Did I mention that sometimes, I go off on tangents?

 Back to the jungle. We had a lovely little hut with a grass roof--rats liked to run around on the rafters; probably not something most homemakers would want to deal with after a hard day at work. For a while, I had a pet tarantula; until an American visitor killed it; he believed he was doing me a great favor. I had a garden and grew all manner of fruits and veggies. An ancient cocoa tree grew in my backyard, an expansive jungle complete with looming mountain and rushing stream. The monkeys liked to play in the cocoa tree, and I liked the chocolate. It was the only time in my life when I could literally pick chocolate off a tree--well, chocolate beans to grind. Enough of that.