This is the last day of August, and I don’t want the month to end. For one thing, it’s my birthday month, and I don’t want the parties to end. Additionally, August is the month when I, as a child, typically flew away from home to live at boarding school four hundred miles away. You can read about the challenges in my previous blog posts.

Now, however, I’ve just returned from an epic two-week vacation in Australia. Chris and I flew Down Under specifically to spend time with two close friends from Kent Academy (KA), our boarding school in Nigeria.

Britta’s family came from Germany, where her father was a businessman. Once in Nigeria, he found out the SIM boarding school had openings for his three daughters. When Britta began seventh grade at KA, she had to learn English quickly, and she did very well. I didn’t meet her then because she was two grades behind my younger sister. But I heard Britta’s name mentioned quite often as Cindy related stories of their friendship.

Similarly, I don’t recall any personal interactions with Jeanette at KA. However, I clearly remember watching the precocious first-grader running around the KA playground, her long, blond hair flowing in the breeze. Her older brother, Johnny, was a good friend of my youngest brother, Grant, and I kept up with the family through those two.

During the past few years, I’ve happily reconnected with these young women via our KA Facebook group. As time has passed, the age gap has narrowed. We’ve become fast friends, bonding over stories of our shared childhood overseas.

Most importantly, we’ve become advocates for the many students who suffered harm and abuse at the school. The separation of children from parents that boarding school demanded left an indelible mark on many of the students. Initially, neither of my friends realized there was abuse at our school. But other voices began addressing it. Then, when they started examining their own years at KA, they found there was much pain in their lives that had been normalized, ignored, or buried.

I’m so grateful that my husband was willing to make this happen so I could spend ten days with these gals who started up the team of advocates for the survivors of our boarding school.

Our first stop was in Brisbane, where we met up with a cousin of Chris’s mother. Eileen and her husband, David McMath, immigrated to Australia from Scotland approximately twenty years ago. They treated us to a lovely lunch at a restaurant on the banks of the Brisbane River and offered us excellent ideas of which sights to see. I highly recommend the river cruise on the CityCat, a catamaran, as well as the giant Ferris wheel, which gives extensive views of the city.

Two days later, Chris and I flew north to Townsville. It was then that I discovered how huge Australia is. If you lay the map of Australia over the US, you’ll see they’re nearly the same size. Because I’ve recently visited three islands (Vancouver in British Columbia, the Isle of Wight in England, and Oahu in Hawaii), I mistakenly pictured Australia as just another small island. If you thought that too, I am here to break the news–Australia is a continent.

We met up with Jeanette on the flight to Townsville. She lives down south, in Melbourne, where it was cold, rainy, and gloomy. Yes, it was winter in Australia, but when we arrived in the north, we discovered a delightful tropical climate that felt more like a Miami winter.

Then we rented a car and drove an hour and a half southwest to Charters Towers, an old gold rush town. There we finally arrived at Britta’s home. How surreal for the three of us to be together in person after so many years. Her front walkway is a tunnel under a lush arbor of green vines, whose purple flowers were starting to bloom–just for me, she said. We missed Dan Robinson, another KA friend who had planned to join us from Canada. He had a health issue arise, which kept him home.

Britta took us on a tour of her town, including the original stock exchange building, the telegraph office, and other refurbished landmarks from the Gold Rush era of the 1870s. The town ballooned in size to 70,000, but is now just 8,000. The warm climate, tropical trees, and gorgeous bushes reminded us so much of Nigeria. Jeanette had the distinct pleasure of climbing one of the three–yes, three–mango trees Britta has in her large backyard. I discovered a dainty white flower with a yellow center that I played with in our front yard in Egbe (pronounced egg’-beh), and I’ve never seen them since.

“It’s a weed,” Britta said. She should know since her husband, Wayne, is the grass guru. He is a legend in his field of biosecurity, protecting the natural grasses and landscapes of Queensland.

At the lookout point on Towers Hill, we had a sweeping view of the surrounding brushland and rolling hills. I saw my first wallaby…and left my safari hat behind, by accident (I laid it on one of the picnic tables). It was surreal to be there, experiencing Britta’s everyday life that I’d been hearing about in our many video chats. The three of us enjoyed many cups of tea whilst talking about our shared passion for antique china teacups and teapots.

The highlight of our trip was preparing a Nigerian meal. I brought the cookbook, South of the Sahara, written by another one of our KA friends, Elizabeth Jackson Quinn. Together prepared a meal of kosai (deep-fried bean cakes), suya (grilled beef coated in crushed peanuts), and fufu (pounded yam). Dan joined us via his Facetime box on the phone, walking us through the suya recipe. The mouth-watering smells emanating from the kitchen transported us back to our Nigerian homeland.

Britta and Wayne were wonderful, generous hosts. I was thrilled when two of their adult children, Brooke, Josh, and his girlfriend Billie came over to meet us. Britta is an expert at various crafts, and she crocheted scarves for each of us and a lap blanket for my mom in all our favorite colors. Or, I should say, “favourite colours.”

We also celebrated our birthdays on August 12, since Britta and I were born on the same day, eight years apart. During those five momentous days of our visit, we talked non-stop and our friendships grew richer. On the last evening together, Jeanette said, “We still have so many more topics to cover. We need to talk faster!”

The next day, we flew south to Melbourne with Jeanette, where the weather was decidedly winter: overcast and drizzly at times. Fortunately, there was not too much rain. She showed us around her neck of the woods. We toured through the suburbs of Melbourne and drove past the high school that Cate Blanchett attended. Jeanette took me past her own high school (she left KA after sixth grade) and pointed out the nursing school her mom attended years ago. It was amazing to see so many pieces of Jeanette’s life in the beautiful world Down Under.

I experienced my first hook turn, a distinctly Aussie traffic maneuver (manoeuver). I cannot adequately describe it, partly because they drive on the left, and this happens when they’re turning right from the left lane. Read about it here. Our expert tour guide also drove us through the lush greenery of Ferntree Gully at the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges.

On an unexpectedly sunny day, we took a gorgeous drive through Victoria’s famed Yarra Valley. We wandered the main street of the destination town of Healesville, known for its cafes, wineries, and antique shops. It was fun to meet Jeanette’s grandniece and grandnephew, who recently moved there (with their parents, of course)!

A very special treat was having tea with Jeanette’s parents, Uncle Brian and Aunt Bev, in their home in Ashwood. We were able to get my mom on a video call with them. And the next day, we connected Brian and Bev with my brother Grant and his wife, MaryLyn. It was surreal to think I was in Australia visiting with friends from so far back in time, yet also connecting by phone with my family back home in California.

We rounded out our time with trips through more antique malls, op shops (opportunity shops, the Aussie name for thrift stores), and craft shops. We bought our lunch and ate at the beach on the peninsula. Then we paid a visit to Emerald Train Station to see the historic steam engine, Puffing Billy, which still runs daily through the magnificent Dandenong Ranges with its lush fern gullies.

Jeanette even drove out of the way to find me a gluten-free fish and chip shop that advertised a deep-fried Snickers bar. Alas, they had quit making them because they kept messing up the fryer. However, I did enjoy their deep-fried banana and pineapple slices.

As a sweet surprise, Rachel Thomas, an MK acquaintance, messaged me after seeing my Facebook photos. “Will you be coming to Melbourne? It’d be so lovely to meet you!”

Five or six years ago, we met in the Facebook group called “You Know You’re an MK If…” which has 7,000 members. Since Rachel and I have only ever chatted online, I was excited to meet her in person. I enjoyed a fantastic visit to her apartment, where we discovered we have so much in common that we could be sisters.

It was hard to leave the beautiful country of Australia. To ease my melancholy, I promised my friends–now family–that we would return in two years.

My next set of adventures Down Under will be here before you know it.

P.S. In some exciting news, one of the members of our team, Peju Simoyan, has just published a book. Girls Can Be Doctors and Much More is her eighth book, and you can read details on her website.

“In this inspiring book, Dr. Olapeju Simoyan explores the diverse possibilities for women in medicine, extending into the arts, humanities and leadership. Honoring trailblazing female physicians of the past, she shares her own journey in academic medicine and highlights influential colleagues from around the world.” It’s available on Amazon.