Cobras in the Playground, Rabbits in the Moon: Letters and Reflections of a Reluctant Expatriate - Paperback

As a teenager, Mary Ned Fotis would lie on the grass at her rural Midwestern home, gazing at changing patterns in the clouds, wondering if the sky looked the same in France, in Africa, in . Her questions were answered years later when, along with her peripatetic Greek husband and toddler son, she was plucked from the security of their New England suburb and plunked into Cairo, a place she had earlier vowed she would never return to. Her letters and reflections humorously follow her growing family as they face challenges ("Mommy, there was a cobra in the playground today") and delights (yes, there IS a rabbit in the moon-in Southeast Asia, that is) of six years of expatriate life in Africa and Asia.

"Mary Ned Nyberg Fotis has a great gift for seeing the world beyond the obvious, isolating the charm and wonder in ordinary sights and at the same time making some of those Seven Wonders more intimate. Her memoir is a reminder of how she's lived her whole life, interpreting even its most complex moments with a lyrical confidence that is contagious."

-Mary Ann Lindley, editorial page editor, The Tallahassee Democrat; former president, National Society of Newspaper Columnists, Knight Ridder 2005 Excellence Award Winner