Mariam Navaid Ottimofiore is a Pakistani expat author, writer, researcher and economist. When she was 19 years old, she left her home in Karachi with a blue suitcase and a one-way ticket to Boston. She has lived in nine countries as an expat child and an expat adult: The Kingdom of Bahrain, the United States, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Ghana. 17 years and four continents later, her life on the move is messy. A 40-foot container, an expat husband from another corner of the world and two children born 3,000 miles apart have added complexity, challenges and many joys to living a multicultural, multilingual and multi-mobile life. She currently lives in Accra, Ghana, with her German/Italian husband and her German-Pakistani-Italian kids, born in Singapore and Dubai. Passionate about languages and cultures, Mariam speaks fluent Urdu, English, Hindi and German with some Italian, Danish and Arabic on the side. She is an expert at making embarrassing mistakes in every new language she picks up, is perpetually lost in every new city she calls home and can never remember her new address or where she packed those suede boots!