Seventy-eight-year old first-time author Monica Murphy tells the story of changing careers at the age of 50 to become a world-travelling English teacher.
The book is called Wats, Wadis and Waterfalls: A Canadian Woman’s Travel and Teaching Experiences in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
The idea had been sparking for a while before she made it happen.
“Friends kept telling me ‘you should write a book’ when I would tell them stories about things that had happened overseas,” Murphy recalled.
Before she ventured to foreign lands Murphy was an unhappy telemarketer who thought she’d rather go on an adventure than spend her working hours on the phone.
“I just couldn’t stand it anymore, bothering people on the phone,” Murphy said with a shake of her head.
So off she went.
“In most countries I was treated pretty well as they have a lot of respect for their elders,” Murphy said. “The food was a big part of it and there was a lot of delicious food. The experience of teaching and the friends I made along the way were highlights for me. In some places there was a big ex-pat community. That was true especially in Oman – we were busy almost every night of the week. It was fun getting together with people of different cultures – and not just the culture that we were teaching in but those I was teaching with because there wasn’t a lot of Canadian teachers.”
Educators mostly came from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
Murphy took on more contracts as the years passed taking her all over the world. Finally, Murphy returned to Canada with Milo, a pup that came from a Cambodian street dog’s litter but that story is best left for Murphy to tell in her book.
Murphy will host a book launch locally later in the summer and in the meantime the book is available at Books & Co., and online at FriesenPress, Amazon, Apple and other book-selling outlets.
