Ignacia Mallon grew up in Chile when women were only expected to marry and have children, not careers. But she persisted in having both, winning scholarships for graduate study of education in the US and also finding a husband. As an economic adviser to various governments abroad, he never lived anywhere long enough for her to find a permanent job. She thus had to find and create her own jobs wherever she lived. She developed a bilingual education centre for immigrant children and education programmes for child care centres while in the US, schooling for displaced children in Central America and child care programmes and new teaching materials for poor working women and village schools in Bangladesh. At the same time, she succeeded in bringing up two successful daughters, serving as social secretary and home maker for her busy husband, and being his constant traveling companion, so much so that readers might consider her memoirs a love story and travelogue.
