Hi Steemit! An Introduction - A little bit about myself and my travels

Hi to everyone in Steemit! This is my first post and just wanted to introduce myself. I’m not really sure where to start as not only is this my first post on Steemit, but this is my first post ever (hopefully more to come!). I guess I could start by telling you a little about where I grew up.

During my childhood I travelled around a fair bit as my parents were expats. I was born in Harare, Zimbabwe but left when I was 7 years old.

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I don’t remember that much of it, but the memories I do have are all fond. Great weather and great people! We even had a mongoose (maybe more than one?) living at the end of our garden. He was a shy little guy and our dogs would love to chase him, he never got caught, and even if he did I think my dogs would have come off worse! Not only was it nice to see the mongoose but he was good for keeping snakes out of the garden.

After Zimbabwe our family moved to Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, in South East Asia.

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That was a big change for me! I was the only non-Bruneian person at the first school I went to, I remember being so scared on my first day, the people, culture, climate and everything was so different and new. How did I do you may be wondering? Well luckily for me the people of Brunei were some of the nicest, warmest and most welcoming people I have ever met. They were just as curious about me as I was about them, and they welcomed me with open arms! From day one I made friends there, they were so nice that it was hard not to! After that year I transferred to an international school, where I made not only more Bruneian friends, but also friends from all over the world. My friends were from Thailand, Argentina, New Zealand, Australia, Germany and many more other countries. I was fortunate enough to meet some very interesting people.

A little about Brunei, it is a Muslim country and their language is standard Malay. They have a population of less than 500,000 people, and I found that they had fantastic food…. I mean amazing. Maybe it even put a spell on me, because other than the kind people, the food is one of the things I miss the most! They also had beautiful islands and wild jungles. Growing up there my friends and I would often walk for hours into the jungles (only on known paths…. we weren’t crazy!), and find beautiful natural rock pools to swim and jump into. Even though the air was hot and humid, the river and pool water would be ice cold, making it especially refreshing after the trek to get there. It wasn’t without its annoyances though, the insects there were relentless, in the jungles you had to constantly top up with mosquito repellant, and on the beaches you had sand flies, whose bite was three times as bad as mosquitos! Also, there was an abundance of other animals there, most of them lived in the jungles, but the ones we came into contact with were mainly monkeys and snakes. First I’ll tell you about the snakes; the main species which crossed our path was the cobra, now you may be thinking that’s really bad (which it is), but it wasn’t their fault.

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You see we lived next to the jungle, and at the time large areas of jungle were being cut down to make way for construction. This meant all of the wildlife that was in those areas now had to move, snakes included. So once or twice a year we would find cobras in our garden, normally our dogs had cornered them and there would be a standoff. The cobras were just passing through trying to get to wild jungle as their habitat had been destroyed, and in my experience the snakes were always more scared of us, than us of them (and I’m not a snake specialist at all!). It was only when they were trapped or cornered that there was an issue. I even remember when my dogs had cornered a spitting cobra. I had expected it to be as big as it was, I had expected its hood to have puffed out as much as it had, but what I hadn’t expected was the great hissing and spitting noise it was making, I mean it was really loud! And through the eyes of me as a child, it was both exciting and terrifying at the same time! Luckily for us, in Brunei there was a specialist snake response unit. We would call them whenever we found a poisonous snake, and they would respond quickly. They would capture the snakes and either release them in a safe area, or use them to make anti-venom. They were very good, they had the skill set to noose and bag the snakes without hurting them.

As for the monkeys, they were smart and devious! I mean that in a good way.

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We had banana trees in our back yard, and the monkeys would come and do banana raids. We would try and shoo them away, but the fact of matter was… they weren’t scared or worried about us in any way. To this day I even think they enjoyed taunting us. When they got the bananas, they wouldn’t run back into the safety of the jungle to eat them, no, they liked to sit just out of our reach and eat them in front of us, I swear they were teasing us, it was a game to them! But it was a treat to see their young ones holding onto their mothers stomach or back, losing a few bananas was always worth witnessing that.

I spent my early teens in Brunei and then went to boarding school in Perth, Australia.

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Again this was a big shock to my system, I was now without my family and was awfully homesick, but the other boarders were all very friendly. There were kids there from Malaysia, Maldives, Thailand, even two American brothers. The majority of the boarders were Australian kids from the countryside; many of them came from farming families. The school itself was a great school, it had a huge emphasis on sport and it was here that I was first introduced to rugby. We had to choose a sport for the summer and for the winter, my summer sport was swimming, and my winter sport was rugby. Other than being homesick, all of my memories of Perth were good, there were beautiful long white sand beaches there, and the weather was great! It was a different heat to Brunei, much dryer, Brunei was extremely humid. My parents had some good friends there who they knew from Zimbabwe, so they became my legal guardians in Australia, and on weekends they would take me out. They had two younger kids who were great at sports and we all got along very well. Once of my most vivid memories of Perth was the Cockatoos.

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They were great birds, and let me just say that I love all animals, but if you don’t like waking up early then Cockatoos may not be your favorite haha. They are loud and wake up the whole neighborhood with their calls!

The reason I went to boarding school in Perth was because, at the time, the international school in Brunei only went up to a certain age curriculum, however this changed after 2 years in Perth, and a new international school opened. When this school opened I went back to Brunei. I already knew many of the students there and had a great time at that school! My family stayed there for two more years before we all moved to the UK where I currently am now.

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Life in the UK was one of the biggest changes I have ever experienced. I realize compared to countries such as Canada or Norway, the UK could be considered warm, but after living in Zimbabwe, Brunei and Australia, to me the UK was freezing! I don’t know if I have just been lucky with people in my life, but I found that the people in the UK were very friendly, and they had a witty sense of humor. What I miss the most about living in the Southern Hemisphere is the weather, and I don’t just mean because of the temperature, I mean because of the lifestyle warm weather can offer. For example, in Brunei if you came across a nice river or rock pool you would happily swim in it, in the UK I have lived near a river for the last twelve years and I have never considered swimming in it, it would be too cold!

The main thing I learnt about growing up in different countries during my childhood, is that it doesn’t matter your culture, your race, your religion, you can make good friends anywhere. Zimbabwe, Brunei, Australia and the UK are all very different countries, they all have their advantages and disadvantages, but as a whole I believe people are inherently nice.

After the UK who knows where I will live next? I have so many friends and family here now I’m not sure I will leave at all. If anyone has any recommendations I would love to hear them! And I would love to hear about all of your experiences.

Hope I haven’t bored you too much! I’m still not sure what I’ll write about on Steemit, but there are some great posts and people on here, I hope to enjoy the views and posts of as many of you as I can.