The finest and best restaurant on Koh Tao is a cosy little place called Mama’s. The eponymous Mama is a middle-aged blob of a woman, chubby and churlish, who makes the best chicken soup you may ever set spoon to in your entire life. Her husband is Yeh, a chuckle-faced and kind-eyed man with a…
Dear Mum and Dad,
Let me begin this by being profound: this is not an apology. In a bid to try and live my life as unapologetically as possible and in my true narcissistic style, this is an airing of my grievances.
Before you begin to panic, drawing conclusions as to what this could be…
“It’s a cock, girls,” Frank announced with glee.
Grace and I exchanged eye-rolls – we’ve seen our share of penises; we knew what it was. To be fair though, this one was plastic and hanging from a string around a 70-year-old man’s beefy neck.
With oily fingers, Frank gave the nob of the penis a…
“They put you on a night for your second shift? Bit harsh, but don’t worry: nights are generally quiet. Mostly we sleep unless someone comes knocking”.
Moria Refugee Camp is situated on the Greek island of Lesvos, the closest European island from Turkey. It’s the biggest camp on the island, and an estimated 6000 asylum…
They say that opposites attract, but every day, I'm realising that shit attracts shit. For example, I'm using Notepad to write this because Word isn't working on my computer – funny how life seems to enjoy aligning every aspect, right down to even the most irrelevant.
I had my day planned, and for it to…
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve more than likely seen reports coming out of the Middle East showing violence and bloodshed from the holy land. While there’s nothing particularly new about this, 2018 is set to be one of the deadliest years in history for Palestinians for a plethora – and ever-expanding –…
Pre-dawn raids are commonplace in this part of the world. Doors are battered down in the wee hours of the morning and stun grenades are lobbed inside, with authorities rushing in – torches blinding those in their path – to snatch an unwitting victim from their slumber. They are handcuffed, blindfolded and thrown in the…
A harsh light pierces my eyes from a low swinging globe above my face. I am lying on a bed. No. It’s a gurney. It creaks in rhythm with the tight pulling of my arm. A young Thai woman sits on a wooden stool next to me, threading me back together like a seamstress. She…
I abandoned my job teaching at a school in Thailand to volunteer at an organic farm. I'd heard about a beautiful property outside this place called Chiang Rai; it was described to me as "a little volunteer community in the mountains with rice paddies, yoga and organic food". Sold.
I pictured myself working in the…
I guess you could say my family has always been fairly open to having guests stay in our home. There are eight children (chill – not all from the one mum – my dad just got hitched a couple of times), with me being the youngest. Though we’ve virtually all moved out, our house still…
I grew up second-generation Italian. This means I am just removed enough from my heritage to feel like I can’t claim it without being a fraud – an uncouth Australian girl trying to assert some culture by announcing she’s Italian. But just close enough so that when, as a child, my friends heard my grandfather…