Hello, my name is Monique Macías and over the coming months I’m going to be sharing my experiences about living in North Korea with you from a very unique perspective: as a foreigner who lived in Pyongyang between 1979 to 1994.

But before I start my column, let me tell you a little about my background and how I came to end up living in North Korea.

I was born in Equatorial Guinea during the 1970s, a small country in West Africa that got its independence from Spain on October 12, 1968. My father, Francisco Macías, was the man who spearheaded