Bangkok, Thailand      April 1967     Ann was born during the Vietnam War


         My life starts with my parents life decisions.  Both of my parents were from Sweden, and met in Stockholm in the 1960's.  It was a popular time to travel to other European countries and sell language courses, so that is exactly what they did.  They were engaged to each other at the time.  So off they went to Italy.  My mom loved art.  She was a nurse by profession, but painted and drew as a hobby.  My father was talented in many languages and loved to write.  When they were getting ready to return to Sweden, they saw an advertisement for a ship to go from Italy to Algeria.  They both had a heart for adventure, so instead of flying home to Sweden, they boarded the ship bound for Algeria.  It is here that they got married.  My mom did not understand the vows that were said in French, but she answered yes in French, and so did my dad.  Algeria had recently been through a devastating civil war, and there was extreem povery among the locals.  My father started working at a French radio station, since he spoke French.  By 1964, my eldest brother was born.  All the little children called their fathers" Baba" on the street, so of course that is what my brother came to call his dad.  This tradition carried through to the rest of us siblings.  We still call him "Baba" today, instead of "dad".
By 1966, my father was offered a position within the United Nations in the Congo, Africa, due to his excellent language skills.  He would eventually acquire seven languages to his linguistic skills.  Plans changed however, almost last minute, and his assignment changed to Bangkok, Thailand.  The Vietnam War was raging, and their neighbor flew across from the Thai border to Vietnam dropping Agent Orange.  I was born in the spring of 1967, and my birth certificate is written in Thai, with a U.N. translation into English.  Since my parents were Swedish citizens, and the Thai laws are different than the U.S. I acquired Swedish citizenship, but was also considered a Thai national.
We lived my first four years in Thailand, and my very first memories are faint but occur right about age three and four.  We had two monkeys, two ara macaw parrots my parents bought from a flea market, two large turtles we could ride on, an amadillo, and a cobra trained dog named Joey.  We were not allowed to go play in our cobra infested back yard,  unless Joey our dog was with us to protect us.  My brother and I learned to speak in Thai.  My first language was Swedish, my second language Thai.  English would be my third language, a few years later.  By 1970, we had another brother.  My parents gave us all Swedish first names, and our middle names were from the country we were born in.  So my eldest brother had an Algerian middle name, and my little brother and I had Thai middle names.  My youngest brother would eventually have an Indonesian middle name.  Sometime by early 1971, we moved from Thailand to Western Samoa, out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  We took a large cruise ship named Himalyia to get there.  Oh, just to add to the confusion of my background, my parents went on a trip to Nepal when I was one, where I learned to take my first steps.  We also visited Sweden when I was one, before returning back to Thailand.
Next Sunday I will continue my life's journey, and write about the next place we moved to, Samoa.