I am left-handed and I have shitty hand writing. Godwin is also a leftie, but his writing is a little better.

Lesson: don’t ask a leftie to write your wedding invitations.

I have a scar three quarters across the middle of my tongue where it cut in half when I was a little girl. I was speeding on my tricycle when I hit the stairs, mouth open, and my tongue split. Ouch. It’s a great conversation piece at dinner parties or when sharing scar stories.

I have a picture of the sign to include here but the connection is so slow, I may add it later. Subscribe on the right by email if you want to stay in the G-lish loop.

Lesson: “Overspeeding kills”—actually, this phrase is on street signs between Cape Coast and Accra. You know, just “speeding” is ok though.

I’m divorced. (I can hear the “ooohhhs” . ) I don’t talk about this much because of the inevitable questions and there is usually not enough time. I chose to leave a relationship with a good man because it “wasn’t right.” I think that’s much harder than leaving one with a bad man—an experience I had soon after that. There is a whole lot of stuff in that “wasn’t right” that could fill a book. Met at 19. Married at 23. Bought a house at 24. Divorced at 31. It was scary and sad and I wondered if I’d ever be happy again. The tsunami that sent me on this journey occurred a few weeks before receiving the divorce papers. I wouldn’t have experienced this amazing journey if I had been too frightened to make that change. I don’t regret it.

Lesson: Don’t let fear determine your decisions. I thought the world had ended. Now look.

I have a deep-seated phobia of birds and fish—alive; I’m ok if they’re completely dead. You can keep your snorkeling and your budgerigars to yourself! You see, my parents had a pet shop when I was a wee baby. We had kittens and puppies and fish and birds and all different produce. One wall of the shop was lined with fish in tanks and the other was lined with birds. They used to leave me in my stroller with our blue heeler for protection while they tended to customers. Mum once told me that every morning she’d get up and go put the fish that jumped out of the tanks over night, but were not yet dead (the freaky flopping ones), back in the tanks in the morning. Bingo. It don’t take a shrink to tell me my phobia originated in very early childhood—the pet shop! I’m sure my fear of flopping fish (that early scene with the goldfish in Amelie freaks me out) and birds came from.

One of my worst nightmares

Lesson: Don’t leave your children unattended in pet shops lest they develop a fear of bouncing kittens!

Didn’t know hiccup was spelt hiccough until two weeks ago; I always thought they were named after “Wild Bill Hiccup” and I don’t intend any double entendres in this sentence!

Lesson: the English language is ridiculous. On behalf of the fools who developed such an illogical language, I apologise to anyone who has to learn English as a second language.

My grandpa, a dentist, pierced my ears when I was 7. There I was sat in the patient’s chair and Pa iced my ear lobes and used a good old fashioned needle to pierce my ears. It hurt like hell and I think I cried but I got my ears pierced and thought my Pa was the coolest Pa on earth. Lesson: No pain, no gain!

My ears really stick out and I have been very self conscious about this since I was little, but then along came Obama, my bat-eared hero. He gave “hope” a whole new meaning for me. I considered having surgery for that about 6 months before coming to Ghana. Since coming I realized what matters in life and it ain’t my ears.

Lesson: Use your faults to your advantage; be unique. To hell what anybody thinks.

I’m staring down the barrel of 37. That number seems like it belongs in Tajikistan—somewhere foreign. I don’t feel it.

Lesson: We’re all going to Tajikistan sooner or later and it probably won’t seem too foreign after we spend a little time there; embrace the wisdom that comes with the age.

I’ve not had children and I still don’t feel maternal, but if it happens then OK. And Godwin, an African man, is actually ok with this too.

Lesson: It’s ok not to give birth if you don’t want to. There are plenty of children or people on this earth who could use your love and attention.

I started learning Japanese when I was 11 at first year of high school and studied it continuously for the next 9 years. I worked in Japanese speaking environments for 10 more years after that. I was fortunate to have the best teacher I would ever know who turned out to be one of the best Japanese teachers in Australia—after teaching at our high school and making a name for herself when her students consistently performed highly, she was recruited to teach the graduate, new Japanese teachers in our state how to better teach Japanese; that’s how lucky we were. I received the benefit of her skills and love and attention for the better part of 5 years and this set me up for a love that still continues with that language, albeit it’s not a major part of my life now, but I even used those skills here in Ghana with JICA volunteers. Lesson: When you receive the grace of a generous, funny and skilled teacher, make the most of it—and don’t forget to let the teacher know. That was Mrs X—her surname really starts with an X. If you have any Japanese language questions email me. Seriously. I know a lot of tricks to make it easy, especially those awful “second-class” verbs.

I also majored in Korean at university but forgot most of it the moment I graduated. It’s very similar to Japanese, grammatically, and shares similar sounds and words derived from Chinese characters (Kanji) so it was easy for me, but I just didn’t get into it the same way as Japanese mainly because our tutor was a pervert and kept commenting on the females’ dress and looks. At one point he said his Korean friend was visiting and wanted to “ride a white horse”. For weeks I was wondering what was so great about white horses (as opposed to Chestnuts or Palominos—I’ve never been “fast”) when I suddenly realized that “horse” equaled woman. I use Lost, the TV series, to test the complete waste of time and energy that my Korean language experience was; I only hear prepositions and particles when Jin and Sun speak.

Lesson: Don’t take the easy road just because you can.

Person of many symbols

I was masturbated on in Japan when I lived there on exchange for a year when I was 17. Exhibitionism is a bizarre element of Japanese culture and it’s not uncommon for women of any nationality to find themselves “exposed” to pervy men pretty much anywhere. In our case, we three exchange students were using the public toilets when a man blocked the doorway. Right there, he began tugging his not-so-best asset. When my friend pulled out a film camera he ran away. Shortly he returned and did the same, and actually finished the job in front of us. We ran screaming to our fourth, waiting friend who didn’t believe us when we told her what happened (she, who came from outback Australia and couldn’t speak a word of Japanese then, ended up marrying a guy she met at Karaoke while skipping school that year and living in Japan for about 10 years—they now have 3 kids!). The one positive aspect of Japanese men’s “ettchi” exhibitionism is that Japan’s violent crime rate is still very low and this kind of violation usually does not go further than a few minutes of “heated” display after which the exhibitionist shamefacedly high-tails it out of there. So, while icky, you can 99% conclude that you won’t be physically harmed if you’re faced with such a situation.

Lesson: Always have a digital camera handy when traveling; you never know when you might catch a viral video.

You’re out of luck when it comes to a picture for that one.

OK, your turn. Tell me one (or two or three or as many as you like) things about you we may not know!

Photo credits:

Obama by  MikeWebkist

Sculpture by eyesplash Mikul