Here are 25 random facts about me
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Welcome to my first blogpost. I will be posting blogs here on various topics that are of interest to me and I hope you will also find interesting, educational and perhaps challenging.
In this first post I want to introduce myself so that you can know a bit more about me. Rather than write a long post detailing my birth, education, employment history etc, I thought it would be more fun to share twenty five random facts about me. This list was originally written as part of an essay application for an MBA essay I completed a few months ago. I hope that through this list you will get to know a little bit about the many sides of me.
I was born and raised in Cameroon in West Africa but currently live in Accra, Ghana.
After nearly a decade in the United States, I returned to the neighborhood where I grew up in Cameroon. There, I saw the small modest home where I was raised and was very appreciative of how far my family and I had come. I decided to take a picture of that small house and posted it on Twitter, juxtaposed with a picture of my Harvard ID. To my amazement, the tweet went viral and became one of the most viral tweets of all time with more than 2.2 million likes.
My hobbies include reading, watching TV, playing volleyball and spending time with friends. I have also recently began dabbling in fiction and nonfiction creative writing.
I aspire to be a writer and my goal is to write a popular novel or biography.
Although I grew up poor, throughout my life many people (including, family, friends, strangers) have supported my education. I’m grateful to them.
Over a year ago, I was involved in a terrible car accident which left me with a broken femur. Through the experience of getting surgery in Cameroon, I got a first-hand experience of challenges that patients face in accessing high quality healthcare in Cameroon and many low and middle income countries. My goal is to help change this.
I occasionally enjoy having deep philosophical conversations about life with my friends.
I love reading history books and I do it to compensate for the very little history education I received while growing up
I have been to 15 countries worldwide, mostly in Africa, North America and Asia. I've visited 19 states in the US.
I enjoy learning about other people’s cultures and finding commonalities between mine and theirs. It turns out we have a lot more in common than that which separates us.
A major event that has shaped my life is the murder of my father on the 28 March 2020 in the ongoing civil war in Cameroon. After he was killed, my mother and I started a non-governmental organization called the Jumbam Family Foundation to support families that had been affected by the war. So far, we have provided psychosocial care and business training to over 45 widows, turning despair into hope. We plan to launch the Ngek Constantine Jumbam Scholarship Fund this summer to support high school students in Anglophone Regions that have been impacted by the war.
I once had a last-minute international trip from the US to Tanzania, with a connection through Washington DC. When I arrived in Washington DC, I realized that I did not have my passport. It turns out I had forgotten it in the backseat pocket on the previous flight, which was now in the air headed to Seattle. I had to spend the night in DC while I waited for the next overnight flight to bring my passport back. The crew and customer service of the airline were so kind. I learned my lesson the hard way.
I enjoy cooking. It’s one of the ways I relax after a long week of purely intellectual work. Recently I've been learning how to make Indian dishes.
I think a lot about how I ought to live my life. So far, I have four simple principles that drive me: seek truth, do good, love and be authentic.
I am the kind of person who can watch one tv show several times over. I have watched certain comedy shows in their entirety more than 10 times over the years. I’m not sure what that says about me as a person.
Organic Chemistry is one of the hardest college courses for pre-medical students. To motivate myself to do well in the course, I decided to set the target of being a teacher’s assistant for the course the next semester. This meant I had to do exceptionally well in the course and that I did. I was the TA the next semester.
In high school, my friend Philip and I had a bet about who would be the first to dunk a basketball. This glory was mine, when one day after a game, driven by pure adrenaline, I decided to give it a try. I soared to the sky and dunked. This was one of the best days of my life. It was luckily captured in a photo for my friend as proof.
Famous people who inspire me include Nelson Mandela, Wangari Maathia, Thomas Sankara, Chinua Achebe, Patrice Lumumba and Martin Luther King Jr.
Oddly, since moving to Ghana three years ago, one of things that I miss most about the US are burritos; chipotle, Qdoba, local restaurants. I miss it all!
Throughout community college, undergraduate and graduate studies, (seven years) I worked an academic peer tutor, tutoring other students in classes I had taken the previous semesters. I needed the money and it motivated me to do well in all my courses.
I am fascinated about the positive and negative ways the internet has affected our societies and imagine what future societies will look like. It is simultaneously exciting and dread-inducing. Check out the Social Dilemma on Netflix.
I find value in inspiring the next generation of African leaders. So, whenever I get an opportunity, I speak at high schools back home and mentor a few youths.
I love coffee shops. One of the first things I do when I go to a new place it to check out their local coffee shops. I'm currently writing this post from a coffee shop in Accra called Kukun.
I can be indecisive especially when it comes to fashion shopping.
I love my family dearly!
I enjoyed reading this piece 👌👌👌
I love this piece.
And hey, about 23, that's my habit too. Happy that someone one the other side of Africa is doing the same.
Abraham( Addis Ababa)
Fantastic piece. I totally enjoyed reading this. Well done.
Number 12 cracked me up 😂 it was good reading the random facts about you. Very interesting.