TCK

My New Book is Out!

The day has finally come. It feels like I have been working on this book forever.

But now, here it is!

I have set up some pages to go with the book. Lots of pictures and videos. Praise from readers. And info on where to get it. Also info on how to get a review copy. Click on Much More Info below or on Echoes of a Global Life in the menu above.

ECHOES OF A GLOBAL LIFE by Kathleen Gamble
A story of survival from Burma to Moscow and beyond. Memoir. Travel stories. Living in interesting times.

Echoes of a Global Life is part memoir, part travelogue, part history lesson. Kathleen lives in a world of constant change. Moving from city to city she says goodbye to one and starts to explore the next. Never two the same. She is a survivor. She keeps on going. Through trauma, including a plane crash, and other scary times, there is also humor. Kathleen was born in Asia and lived on five continents before she was eighteen. She takes you to Burma, USA, Mexico, Colombia, Nigeria, Switzerland, and Russia. She weaves in parts of each country she carries with her. Her family lives through a coup in Burma, student rioting in Colombia, two coups in Nigeria, and political unrest in Russia. Sometimes things are fabulous. Sometimes they are not. She is a Third Culture Kid, rootless and restless. As an adult she lived in Moscow for nine years during the 1990’s where she witnessed history in the making and a terrifying exit. Life is never boring.

Much more info

Friday Photos
With my mother in Colombia

I am featuring random photos each week that pertain to my upcoming book, Echoes of a Global Life. My photos seem to be fewer and farther in-between during this period. Can’t find much. Here are a few of Africa during the 70’s.

Friday Photos – To Ithaca and Back again

I am featuring random photos each week that pertain to my upcoming book, Echos of a Global Life. We left Burma when I was three and moved to Ithaca, New York. When I graduated from Nursery School, we moved back to Burma. After only one year, there was a coup and we had to leave. We took our time on the way back to the US and ended up in Rye, New York.

While living in Ithaca we traveled around the East Coast to Virginia and Washington DC with my grandparents.

Shenandoah National Park
Niagara Falls

That chair currently sits in my living room. I like it.

When I was five we moved back to Burma.

On the left is a Chinthe. A Chinthe is a Burmese “lion”. They don’t have lions in Burma so this was what they thought a lion might look like. They guard and protect the temples. In the background is the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon. On the right I am practicing my Burmese dancing.

That year we took a trip on the Irrawaddy River and spent some time at an elephant camp where I got to ride an elephant.

On the way back from Burma we stopped in Taipei.

And Tokyo


Bus tour in Tokyo


My new Japanese Dolls

Clubbing in Washington DC

The Cosmos Club was formed in 1878, at the home of John Wesley Powell, a geologist and explorer. It has moved several times and expanded and was renovated and is now in a French Renaissance mansion on Massachusetts Ave in Washington DC. It is a private club for people distinguished in Science, Literature, and the Arts. And apparently politics because it boasts “Our members have included three Presidents, two Vice Presidents, 14 Supreme Court justices, 36 Nobel Prize winners, 61 Pulitzer Prize winners, and 55 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom–and this list continues to grow.” My friends and I were none of those things. But we got invited to the party anyway. The place was impressive.

It was a quick trip but we managed to hit three Smithsonian Museums. At the Hirschhorn we saw an amazing Basquiat painting. He started out in the 1970’s as a New York City graffiti artist SAMO. Basquiat died at 27 of a heroin overdose so the exhibit was not a large one….

From there we hit the African Art museum to see a show by a Nigerian artist – Onobrakpeya. I didn’t think the show was very inspiring. I liked his earlier work better. Then we moved on to the National American History museum because we wanted to see Abraham Lincoln’s hat and Julia Child’s kitchen.

The airport was all ready for the holidays. Bye Bye Washington DC.

Books Books Books
books in black wooden book shelf
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Lives and the Courage to Live Them: Thoughts of a Third Culture Kid Therapist by Dr Rachel Cason

Dr Cason is a British therapist who is also a Third Culture Kid (TCK) and caters to TCKs. In this book she touches on all the things TCKs celebrate and struggle with. Trauma, change, moving the furniture, resilience, loss, boarding school, language, relationship, balance. It is a very real and helpful book that is easy to read without a lot of professional mumbo jumbo. I highly recommend it to anybody with a nomadic childhood.

Africa in my Soul, Memoir of a Childhood Interrupted by Cheryl King Duvall, PhD

Cheryl moves to Nigeria with her family when she is eight. Her parents joined a Christian Mission and are sent to Lagos. Soon she is sent off to boarding school at the missionary school in Miango northeast of Lagos. The school is very strict and confining with no privacy and even her letters are censored. She has a difficult time adjusting. But when not at school, she takes every opportunity to soak up the sights and culture of this African country. She falls in love with it. She also lives through the start of the Biafran war and sees people gunned down in the streets. She struggles to come to terms with her family’s decision to move there, her difficult time at boarding school, and her return to the US. Even through all the heartache, I came away with a positive feeling.

The Black Attaché, Vignettes from a Life by JK Cheema

JK Cheema was born in northern India when India and Pakistan were still one country. She shares her loving memories of visiting her grandparents in a small village when she was a child. And the confusion when her mother managed to get them on the last train out before the border was closed on the newly formed Pakistan. As an adult she is accepted into a PhD program at the University of Michigan in International Development. From there she joins USAID and works in Burkina Faso, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Eritrea. She shares memories of each country along with visits to her own India. This book is a lovely stroll through JK’s life.

Happy Third Culture Kid Day
aerial photography of body of water
Photo by Asad Photo Maldives on Pexels.com

Apparently it is Third Culture Kid Day. I can’t find any information on why it came about or what the date means, if anything. It used to be simple. Third Culture Kids are people who grew up outside their passport country because of their parents’ work. Now pretty much everybody and their mother is included under the umbrella. 

I remember we used to celebrate Children’s Day in Mexico when I was growing up. We got an extra treat with our juice in the morning at school. I suppose there must have been some kind of monetary benefit with sales on toys etc. 

I found a publisher for my memoirs so I am working on re-writing them and updating them as well as incorporating a few of my mother’s letters. My parents went overseas in 1952 and my mother wrote home every week for the next thirty years. My grandmother saved most of them. Unfortunately it was not until after my mother died that I got my hands on them so I could never ask her questions about them. 

I guess I’m having a rather cynical day today. 

Apparently they thought the Maldives would disappear with global climate change but they are not disappearing. Quite the opposite. Maybe I can emigrate there….