Did you ever have a foreign penpal?

[HelmutFrontbut]

When I was 15 I had an Italian penpal; he was from Sicily and his name was Massimo. We used to write letters (his in English, mine in Italian) and swap photos, he was sooo gorgeous 😍 He invited me over but my parents forbade it, citing the mafia as a reason Never forgave them for getting in the way of love's young dream cockblocking me

My husband did and they reconnected via social media. We met her and her husband when we were in Vienna a few years ago, it was lovely. Made me wish I'd had one.

I had three French pen pals, all boys. Two fizzled out quite quickly (I stopped writing to one of them because he said he was allergic to cats, so I decided he was a wimp ) but I stayed in touch with the third for several years. He turned out to be the son of an African diplomat, so not French at all, and he used to send me postcards from each new country his father was posted to. His cards from Japan and Taiwan were the start of my postcard collection.

I also corresponded with Carmen in Germany for about four years. She sent me a lovely parcel at Christmas full of German biscuits, chocolate and small gifts which seemed very exotic in the unsophisticated early Seventies. She invited me to stay but my parents refused as I didn’t speak any German.

I had a bunch when I was a young teenager but the one that lasted was a Japanese girl called Kana, we're still friends 15 years on! We met up once when we were about 14 and she visited London.

I was penpals with a lovely girl in Scotland when I was in secondary school. We lost touch after we went to university.
I sometimes wonder if she is on Mumsnet. She'd be mid-40s now, from Airdrie and was a huge RunRig fan.

Only once.
When I was 11, my school (in the US for context) paired up with a school in Africa... I believe the country was Kenya. We were warned in advance that English was not their first, and most likely their second language.
When my penpal replied, I remember feeling very disappointed. He seemed nice but then asked for a really large sum of money ($10000). I didn't have that kind of money (obvs) and wasn't about to ask my parents to fork it out!
Looking back at it, even though I was annoyed at the time, I realise that they really didn't have it easy there, and that asking for that money was pretty bold. I remember my friend's penpal was in very ill health. I think this whole thing would have gone down better had our school (and theirs) had made signing up optional.

Oh, in my above post I meant to say that English was NOT likely to be their second language either.

A Swede called Emmie from Uppsala. Still remember the Swedish she taught me 30 years later. Still jealous of the amount of snow...

I had a pen friend on death row. It was set up through school when I was 13, so 30 odd years ago. It seems pretty odd really, linking death row inmates with 13 year old girls at a girls only school. I still have about four letters from him, but things kind of petered out when I wouldn't send him photos of me naked.

It seems pretty odd really, linking death row inmates with 13 year old girls at a girls only school.

Can you imagine the uproar if a school tried to do that now?!

I am visually impaired and I grew up in Florida, and an elementary school, we had a program for vision impaired at the school. All of us were penpals with a member of the, I believe the Navy SEALs who were stationed in Alaska and that one. I think Japan. We made chocolate chip cookies for them one year though and they sent us back some hhats with the Navy seal logo. I really liked mine. I also had another penpal from Washington, another elementary school student with a vision impairment.

We would write in braille! And send a lot of tactile type things we would like. It was a lot of fun.

@HelloKittyMania
I'm visually impaired too! But everyone else was sighted so I had my reply read to me.