Apa Kabar? FAQ Number 2

Egads. I am way behind in my journaling, so I’ll just get you all up to date quickly and in random order, much like I live my1ife.

School

We have finally put the kabosh on the ‘endless summer.’ The school supplies made it out of Indonesian customs and I am in the midst of cramming 200 pounds of academics into the brains of Zach and Jared. We have completed day four. Yes, it is now November and we have only now been able to start school.

To complete the illusion that I do actually take the education of my children seriously, I am having playground equipment installed into the backyard. This required hauling one of the drivers to the steel shop to translate. Thankfully the shop had an order book and I could point at what I wanted; a steel merry-go-round, a rope climb and monkey bars. So far we have two of the pieces in the backyard. Now to find someone who has cement so we can ensure no small child is crushed while playing on the equipment,...

Otherwise the boys have been playing soccer with the guards and have taught a few of them baseball. Unfortunately, our front yard isn’t too big and the boys keep hitting the ball over our cement wall into the neighbor’s yard. Our neighbors are very nice; the dad is a becheck (motorcycle taxi) driver and they have four small children, so they don’t mind the balls coming into the yard. The problem is they have a flock of ducks and a duck poop swamp in their yard (at least during rainy season). The last time we ran over to get the ball we watched it float on the surface of the poopy water and then,.. sink. You can’t find baseballs in Banda Aceh very easily! We are now down to two. Needless to say, we are being very careful with these last ones!

Halloween

I now realize how American the Halloween holiday really is. No one else celebrates it. I scoured Autralian Kmart and grocery stores, and nary a chocolate eyeball, candy corn or orange and black M&M did I find.

Of course, this didn’t stop us from bringing the tradition to Indonesia in our crafty way. As usual, I didn’t pay any mind to the fact the lady selling me fruits and vegetables in the market thought I was absolutely crazy for buying seven pumpkins. I needed them for the party my friend agreed to throw for any and all expats with children who might like to celebrate Halloween.

There really is nowhere to buy Halloween costumes, obviously, so the boys were left to their own devices. Jared and Zach put on a huge football jersey and became a two headed monster. Kyle put on the dress up plastic knight armour and rode on Sabrina’s toy Zebra. Rob and I put on snorkels, masks and swim suits. Sabrina wore a pretty batik outfit Rob had bought for her before we moved to the country.

Since we don’t have a vehicle, we instructed the guard to flag down two bechecks to carry all of us, seven pumpkins, Halloween candy and the necessary camera equipment to the party. We were quite the sight!

The party was a success – my friend made home made pizzas, then the kids bobbed for apples (Kyle immersed his entire upper torso into the water bucket) and made ‘ghost’ shakes by painting scary faces on the inside of a glass with melted chocolate then filling the glasses with vanilla ice cream. Then the adults had ‘grown up shakes’ complete with fresh pineapple and contraband rum.

Each family got to carve a pumpkin, even though the Tajikistani family couldn’t really comprehend the significance. Rob, being the engineer, had the boys draw out their faces and then took loooooooots of time making sure the carving was an exact replica of the plan. Then, he got quite miffed when someone stole the top of his pumpkin and cut it to fit their own. Foreigners just don’t understand the horror of pumpkin top abduction.

Finally, we set up ‘trick or treat’ stations at all the doors leading to the outside of the house and attempted to explain the whole ‘trick or treat’ concept to people from Tajikistan, Pakistan, France, Indonesia, Australia and Japan.

For the actual Halloween night, we celebrated by having a scary dinner complete with ‘worms for brains’ (spaghetti inside an orange pepper carved to look like a jack o lantern) and chocolate cup cakes with gummy rats on top. The boys wrote scary stories during ‘school’ and read them by candle light after dinner. Maybe not the ‘bring a pillow case to heft all your candy back to the house’ trick or treating they’ve been accustomed to in California, but they had a good time!

Zach Turns 7!

We survived our first kid birthday party here in Banda. I am not a fan of kid’s parties. If I have my druthers, I’d prefer to buy the kid off through the copious purchasing of massive amounts of birthday toys. However, since deep down inside I know this is the wrong way to go about it, and the kids need to have face time with other kids, I orchestrated a birthday party for Zach.

Zach turned seven on November 5, so to celebrate we threw him a party. Can you believe we actually scrounged up eight other expat boys to invite to the party? We had them all come over to the house first and planned to drive everyone to the party venues.

We reserved a car from CRS the night before. What do they send over? Not the van we’d asked for, but a pick up truck. I met the driver in the street and instructed him to go and switch cars. Unfortunately, none of the vans had gas, so I gave him the equivalent of five bucks and had him go fill ‘er up.

Finally, with a van at the ready, we and one of the unsuspecting dads drove eleven excited boys to the local supermarket, ‘Pante Pirak’ where there is a ‘Funland’ in the basement. It’s a little busy on the weekends, so between Rob, myself and one of the other dad, we had our work cut out for us keeping a head count during the hour we were there.

Of course, upon arrival we realize we don’t have enough money to keep the kids going for a whole hour, so Rob is dispatched to the ATM. The moment he leaves, a mother’s worst nightmare happens; the power goes out! Total darkness and I’ve got eleven little boys spread all over Funland. All these parents trusted me not to loose their children and now this happens,.. Thankfully the power comes back on after a few seconds and after a quick head count I find I still have eleven little boys.

An Indonesian man sees our little group as I’m yelling instructions at the bouncing boys. He asks the dad who accompanied us if these were all his children and he tells him ‘yes!’ The Indonesian man winks at him and gives him a thumbs up.

After an hour of sensory overload and feeling like some sort of mafia don as I dole coins out of a bag to all these little boys, we drive to Pizza House and have lunch. The boys eat their body weight in pizza, sing happy birthday and eat the chocolate cake that has taken me three days to cook in my Indonesian version of a ‘Betty Crocker Easy Bake Oven.’

I found powdered sugar and made actual frosting, but then I decided to get fancy and color it green with some local food coloring I found. Unfortunately, the food coloring is also flavored. The green color happens to be melon flavored. Not too bad, but not the taste your American tastebuds are expecting. Half the kids like it and the other half don’t. At least the actual cake turned out okay and was edible. (not a small feat for me!)

Zach had his best birthday ever, as one boy brought him a couple of turtles and another brought him a BB gun. So, for a little boy who was crying in his bed a few weeks previously because there “aren’t any toys in Banda Aceh” and he “doesn’t have any friends,” the day turned out pretty darned good!

Now We're Cookin' with Gas!

Well, I have come to terms with my cooking arrangement. It basically consists of a two burner cooktop hooked up to an ominous looking bottle of gas and a small toaster oven affectionately known as the ‘Betty Crocker Easy Bake Oven.”

I have no cookbooks. I have no Internet connection, so I can’t readily go to a Web site and grab whatever recipe I’d like. I am able to run over to my Tejekistani friend’s house and puruse her recipe books.

I have no measuring devices either. In lieu of a measuring cup I use a baby bottle. Instead of real table- and tea- spoons I use whatever spoon I have on hand. Or, I use my favorite kind of measuring; guessing!

The only bakeware I can find that will fit inside the BCEBO are square shaped rickety metal pans. They do sell nice glass bakeware, but it won’t fit in my oven. It’s too long. This means the only breadpan I can fit in there is a mini loaf pan. Do you know how long it would take to bake a bread recipe using only one mini loaf pan? A long time.

Otherwise, I can bake square bread.

I did make bread the other day, and it was not too bad. Unfortunately it was a rather large recipe, requiring 13 cups of flour. (It’s the only recipe I had at the time, AND it had the double bonus of requiring squash. Since I had a few extra pumpkins left over from our Halloween escapades, I decided to bite the bullet and go for it!)

I had to send my nanny/’real cook of the family’ out several times to procure plastic rubber-banded shut bags of flour before I had enough. I’d measure out the flour in my baby bottle, fish in my purse for another few thousand Rupia and send her back out to the local wood-shed-with-serrated-metal-rooftop that constitutes a store. She’d look at me in wonder and say “Tapung lagi?!?” (More flour?!?)

I found a very large metal bowl where I put all this bread dough, draped it with an old hand towel that has now become a kitchen towel since I can’t figure out which little store sells towels here in this city, and left it to rise. I came back to check on it after hearing the dog growling and barking in the kitchen. I found the dog growling and barking at my rising bread. Now, if that’s not a sure sign that I don’t bake enough, I don’t know what is.

At any rate, I baked my squash bread and it was fine.

I have since made friends with a German man who has built his own stone oven and sells bread and pretzels. Much easier to send him a little text message in the morning and have fresh, warm bread hand delivered to my door. I’ve been on a pretzel and whole wheat roll binge for the past few days. Needless to say, I’m finding it difficult to live in a country that doesn’t believe in bread and cheese.

I am doing everything in my power to stay away from the little store on the way to Rob’s office that sells fresh, hot donuts in the morning for the equivalent of ten cents each. I don’t think the treadmill would like that very much.

I joked around with my friend who threw the awesome Halloween party that I was so excited to see frozen turkeys at the Boulee store and I had an idea that if I cut the turkey into chunks I could actually cook one for Thanksgiving. Then I’d feel like I was actually on an episode of the hit TV show “Lost” because I’d have to keep going back every 50 minutes to turn the buzzer back until the bird was cooked through. (She has since arranged a very nice get away on the island of Pulah Weh for Thanksgiving to which we are invited, I am sure if for nothing more than to save my family from the chunked turkey I was planning.)
After this experience I don’t think the Iron Chef has anything over me. I’d like to see him come and cook in my kitch

Richardsons Down Under

As those who have traveled with small children know, vacationing with lots of small kiddies is never ‘rest and relaxation.’ True to fashion, we spent just enough time in our hotel room in Perth, Australia to pee, shower, sleep and heal Zach’s foot that swelled up to five times it’s size due to some untimely fire ant bites he received by hunting tree frogs in our backyard the night before embarking the airplane.

We did the necessary ‘Go to the wildlife park to feed the kangaroos, pet the koala bears (koala bees, as Zach calls them, along with his spice monkeys and chimparillas, see previous post), and hold the wombat (truly not a beautiful creature even up close),’ then it was the RICHARDSON PERTH PARK TOUR 2006.

Yes, dear friends, we hit every green space, swing set, beach side, park, BBQ pit and anything else that had any sort of turf laid down in the inner and outer limits of the city of Perth. We were wind burnt, sun burnt, abraised by the salty Indian ocean, and if that wasn’t enough, we bought a windsurfer so we could really live the ‘weigthwatcher vacations’ that Rob is accustomed to when he travels with me. (He usually keeps his girlish figure while dining on heaps of awesome food and lots of fermented beverages by hefting luggage and carrying children – usually one strapped to his chest, one on his back and one on his shoulders. I can’t do this, since I’m the navigator, and I need my hands free to point.)

We met a truly awesome bloke Mark, owner of SURF SAIL AUSTRALIA, (http://surfsailustralia.com.au ) who not only let us borrow a beginner board and accompanying hardware, but came down to the river bank to show us himself how to windsurf. We even were able to purchase a couple of sails for the boys, all of whom have had their spins on the board, and are now interested in owning surf shops when they grow up.

Now, I did windsurf in my youth, but as usual, 20 years and about the same amount of kilos later, it’s a little different. It is kind of like riding a bike, as when you finally do manage to stand up on the thing, heft the sail out of the water and point the board in some random direction, something clicks deep down inside the grey matter and your muscles fuzzily remember doing something similar a long time long before. Unfortunately for me it was ‘Oh yeah, I remember I could only sail in one direction and I’d always get stuck and have to swim back.’ But never the less, we gave it the old college try!

One question I’d like the answer to is, where in the world are the other beginning windsurfers in Perth? For that matter, where are the intermediate windsurfers in Perth? As we were struggling by the banks of the river to hoist the sail and keep our balance on the big ol’ beginner board, about 100 buff, suntanned Aussies came popping out of nowhere, whipped out their styrofoam boards, trotted to the shore, put one foot on the board and one hand on the sail and away they went, to the other side of the river. Never falling. Never even getting wet when they set off on the board. I wouldn’t be surprised if some still had on their business suits, they were so confident they wouldn’t even need to touch the water as they twirled in the bay at breakneck speed.

We on the other hand had bloodied our feet and legs from crawling back onto the board after being knocked off every 30 seconds, had to pull the seaweed out of our hair and wring out our wet suits. By the end of our time on the board, Rob had given our ship the customary lady’s name starting with a B, and I can tell you it wasn’t Betty.

We have since brought the big B to Banda and continue to bloody our legs and give the locals quite a spectacular show.

Hmm,.. what else did we do? We did drink quite the nice brews, and I must say my favorite restaurant had beverages listed as 'beer' and 'not beer'. Now, that' s talking my lanaguage. We visited the wine country where Rob put his snobby Californianized nose into the air and pronounced the whites not worthy of his sipping since they weren't 'wooded'. I, on the othere hand, said, 'who cares, it's wine and not whine.' and left him with four kids to eat ice cream at the vineyard's cafe while I sampled away in the tasting room.

What did we enjoy about our vacation the most?

1. sinks!
2. Not getting our feet wet when going into the bathroom to use the toilet, brush teeth or hair, or anything besides taking a shower
3. Western food! Even mexican food tasted good in Australia.
4. No mosque calls to prayer in the middle of the night.
5. The right for me to 'bear arms'! No high necklines or past the elbows shirts for me for 10 whole days! Yes, I was flashin' the clavicle in public again.
6. Power all the time. You could turn on a light switch and expect,.. light!
7. Water! Water to drink out of the faucet, even! The sacriledge!
8. The ability to buy alcoholic beverages without feeling like I was fakin' my age. Although it did make me feel like I was once again crossing the border to B.C. during college in order to consume legally,..
9. Being able to wear an actual swim suit to ,... swim.
10. Hanging out with daddy for the whole time.

We're back!

Hi! We are back in Banda Aceh after a great holiday in Perth, Australia. I will post details and pictures soon. Just finding it hard to get to the office and post on the Website. Still no Internet at our house, but our school books have finally arrived! Can't complain too much! Very busy, what with Kyle being bitten by the salamander hiding in his shoe (closed toe shoes are now stored inside, against the wishes of the housekeeper and nanny), and trying to figure out 200 pounds worth of elementry school material ("use the colored shape sorters for this activity,.." "What colored shape sorters?!?!") no time to breathe.

Legend of the Hairy Tooth Fairy

Online Scrapbook: Images of Life in Banda

Let's start our Internet scrapbook with the picture of the only sink (besides the kitchen sink) of the first house we stayed in. this sink is outside the only bathroom with a hotwater heater. It is outside the bathroom next to the stairs and visible from the main area of the house. There is another pipe for a sink in the actual main sitting area of the house. This pipe needs to have plastic rubberbanded around it to keep the wonderful sewer aroma to a minimum.

I'd show you the picture of our sink in our 'real' house, but, oh that's right, we don't have one!



Mandi-style! Here is the typical basin of water located in typical Indonesian bathrooms. It is full of water and has a plastic scoop to scoop the water out of for washing various body parts and the bathroom itself. The bathroom must be constantly sprayed to keep the mosquito population to a minimum and bleach poured into the water to keep the subsequently laid mosquito eggs from hatching.

I was against keeping the basins full in the 'real' house, but then realized that our water pump doesn't work when there is no electricity. So, we fill the basins!



To keep the bug spray aroma (smells like mothballs) / dog odor /general smells of urban tropical environment down, we are into the whole 'get something nice to spray/leave around the house'. We found this at the local grocery store. We are not certain what the white plastic thingy is, but this is our interpretation. It's a two level room deodorizer - if the actual scent doesn't work, then you use the white plastic thingy to plug your nose as a last recourse.



Kyle riding his bike by the old house. Nice dirt road, local fauna (cow).




Typical wellstocked first aid cupboard in Banda - bandaids and a year's supply of anti malarial prophelactic and bird flu antidote. Cheers!

Apeasing the Grandmas

Sabrina! She turns 9 months the 17th of this month, unbelievable, isn't it? Shes does love those convertible sports cars!





Jared loves his little sister! He's always stealing her from me to play with. They certainly look like partners in crime, don't they? She is clapping, waving bye-bye and giving hugs and kisses.



















This is Listre (TRAY as we brash Americans say). She is my second hand at home. Sabrina loves her since Tre is always giving her cookies and taking her on jalan-jalan's (walks) If I take Sabrina out, the entire way down the street I hear "Sabrrrrrina!" She is a very popular baby, as you can imagine.

Yay! Pictures!

Yes, as you can see, I have finally come into the 21st century! Still haven't found the USB cable to the digital camera, and all I receive are blank stares as I ask for a USB cable, or for pictures put on a CD. Usually if I wave the film canister around and say 'CD' I am invariably driven to a DVD/CD store that sells anything you can see or listen to for about 80 cents. Not bad, and I waste my time looking for the latest box office smash to bring home or Zach adds to his arsenal of Pokeman and other Japanese animation.


These are pictures of the boys body surfing at our favorite beach. They have boogie boards and skim boards. Rob and I are trying to figure out where in the world to get a windsurfer, and Jared is lobbying for a long board. We'll see if Australia is nice to him next week,... : )





This picture above shows the one standing mosque after the tsunami.















Doesn't it just look like King Kong is going to come out of those trees on that rock? How coolly tropical, eh? Well, there it is. The northern tip of Sumatra, the biggest island of the Indonesian archipelego on the Indian Ocean.

Ramadan is Here

In case you weren’t aware, we are right in the heat of Ramadan, the holy month for Muslims, as they take special time for worship and contemplation.

Unlike living in Cairo, which was fairly cosmopolitan compared to Banda, everyone here is expected to either live by Ramadan rules, or respect those who do by not partaking in any unallowable behaviors in public during the fasting times. This means no eating, drinking or smoking in public until sundown. At this time, and all through the night until sunrise, the fast is broken and families and friends get together to eat, pray and celebrate during the night.

This means most stores are closed during the day until late afternoon and there are only a handful of restaurants catering to the International community which are open during the day. These restaurants have their blinds drawn so those on the street can’t see in. There is a sign on one of these restaurants specifying that no Muslims will be served lunch throughout Ramadan. Actually, this same restaurant got raided by the Sharia police just this Tuesday and has been forced to close now until 4pm each day during Ramadan. Not much freedom of religion here!

Rob and the other expats have been requested not to eat in their offices during Ramadan in consideration of the local staff. Since there are very few restaurants open (and less every day, by the looks of it), there aren’t many choices for eating. Expats are sneaking into offices with doors to shove food in their mouths before returning to their desks for work. Rob has lost about 20 pounds because it’s impossible to maintain a 6’6” man on Cup of Soups for lunch.

It’s to a point where I won’t let the boys buy a Fanta at the store to drink since we are ‘outsiders’ and even though they are kids, you hate to offend anyone. It’s only been since the tsunami since many foreigners have been able to live in this area, because of the fighting between political parties. I’m just trying to walk the straight and narrow.

It’s taken me about a week to feel comfortable eating in my own home, since I’ve got quite the staff of Muslim personnel milling about, and I’ve forgone my morning cup of instant coffee in the car as we are driven to Kyle’s school. Haven’t had this much abstinence since Lent!

In Egypt I remember my horse riding instructor Ismail smoking an extra pack of cigarettes a day during Ramadan just to help keep his mind off food. There, I guess it was okay to smoke, or at least there was a little more freedom for personal interpretation of the rules.

I remember how stupid I was at Jared’s second birthday party when one of his Egyptian friends came over and I kept offering his mother food and drink, trying to be a good hostess, forgetting she couldn’t do either. Actually, I forgot and did the same to the Bahasa Indonesian teacher who has been coming to the house. Duh! Habits are hard to break.

One similarity between both countries is the fact that business slows down considerably. Most offices are only open until 3:00pm each day, and start times are much later, as well. Unfortunately, that doesn’t translate to Rob or many of the other expats. I still start my phone calling around 6pm to remind Rob that it’s dinner time and gee, it would be really nice to see him sometime during the day.

It has been quite a transformation here. There is no morning traffic, since the fast resumes at 5am and most people are probably worn out from nights of eating and praying. It is dangerous to be on the streets approaching sundown, as people race to get home in time to break the fast.

At sundown, a horn that sounds like an air raid siren goes off signaling it is okay to eat. At this time you could lay down in the road and not get hit, as there are no cars or motorcycles on the street, since everyone is eating. I’ve given up trying to get to yoga class, since it’s impossible to find a bechak (sidecar) driver who isn’t eating or praying, and I don’t dare get stuck somewhere away from home; visions of screaming babies and morose boys fill my anxious mind.

Before Ramadanthere were prayer calls in the morning, noon, and sundown. During Ramadan there are prayer calls all during the night. And a prayer call is an Imam (Islamic prayer leader) or recording of an Imam being broadcast on loudspeakers for all to hear, regardless if it is at noon, 11pm, 3am or 5am. In Egypt this was usually greeted with a cacophony of stray dogs singing along. I’ve started sleeping with a pillow over my head again.

One of the expats at the office told of how careful he had been to find a house that wasn’t near any mosques, just to find out that during Ramadhan, they open new ‘contracted’ mosques and one happened to be right next door.

If it isn’t the neighborhood mosque waking you up, it’s the guards as their friends and family bring them food during the night and they sing along to their radios, talk and have a good time. Now is the time I wish we had a little more insulation than what concrete block walls have to offer.

Oh well, another week and then it’s a two day holiday which here translates into an entire week of no working as everyone celebrates. You’ve got to love a country that honors religious holidays for Muslims, Christians and Buddhists. Not only do they recognize the Ascension of Mary, but it is a non working holiday. Now, if they would just recognize Jewish holidays, we’d only have to work half the year!

As they say here during Ramadan; “maaf lahir dan batin” “May you be forgiven for anything that may have hurt you.”

Reflections on Air Travel as a Mother of Young Children

Just got the news our Visas are approved for Perth, Australia! So, in anticipation of the packing and hauling of young children from yet one continent to another, in search of the elusive 'rest and relaxation' (kind of feel like we are looking in earnest for the Fountain of Youth, or the City of Gold), I offer up this oldie but goody reflection of travel from the eyes of a jaded maternal expat:

I have always felt safe in airports. No matter where you are in the world, if you’ve been to one, you’ve been to them all. Happy to have more security now, I do miss the days before September 11, when I was able to talk myself on to a plane using a Costco card with a grainy black and white picture as my sole form of ID. These days, you need to have your passport locked and loaded as you meander down the terminal, since they check it at every bend in the hallway. It’s as if they are afraid you entered as Dr. Jekyll, but now have turned into Mr. Hyde.

As for x-ray machines and security, now days I’m afraid I’ll forget to stop undressing once I get started. First the coat, then the shoes, then the belt; sometimes I’m so distracted with kids, computers and cell phones, I’m afraid I’ll just take my pants off and fold them neatly in the tray before anyone can stop me.

I am thankful that during the early years of my working motherhood, while I was nursing an infant, the security measures weren’t quite as stringent as they are now. In this day and age, not only would I have had to prove that the laptop computer I was carrying worked, but also the breast pump slung over my other shoulder. Why bother camouflaging it in a black simulated leather carrier if I’m just going to have to demonstrate it in front of one hundred of my closest friends in the middle of the terminal? Back in the day, I only had to utter the phrase ‘breast pump’ to the teenage boy disguised as a security guard when asked what type of equipment I was packing. He would come close to passing out thinking about the whole ordeal and wave me through. I could have been carrying a bazooka in the other hand for all he cared, he just wanted me out of there.

The joys of early motherhood and air travel never cease. When my first son was an infant, I would travel from Northern to Southern California for a day every week as part of my job. Trying to be a good mom, I was set on nursing, even after the first time my husband walked in on me pumping at our house and suggested something about being in a dairy. In order to perform this dignified task on the road, I purchased a cigarette lighter adapter for the car so I could pump in the relative privacy of my rental cars in between racing from airport to office and back again. Unfortunately, people are naturally curious. Why did it seem when I parked to pump in an empty lot, that particular bush next to the car was the one the gardener needed to trim at that moment? How many times had I parked in a field next to the airport to pump, only to attract other drivers who were wondering what I was looking at? Casing new office buildings and exhibit halls for bathroom stalls with access to an electric outlet for the pump became second nature, just as I’m sure CIA staff feel when they check building perimeters for points of entry.

As my kid, and subsequent kids got older, I started hauling children with me across the United States, and then between continents. We usually lucked out with bulkhead seating, where I would unload fifty pounds of snacks, books, puzzles and toys and like the pied piper of Northwest Airlines, attract every other child under the age of three to my ad hoc in flight babysitting service.

I’ve had friends who have successfully fed their children various medicines promising drowsiness to make for an enjoyable flight. I held out for a long time, relying on a new toy, piece of candy or promise of all the juice they wanted on the plane to keep my kids in line. Then I had to fly by myself from Cairo, Egypt to Seattle, Washington with a three year old, a one year old and the suspicious feeling I was pregnant again.

A friend gave me a few sea sickness pills that had conked her kid out for eight hours straight. I tried it on the one year as soon as I entered the first plane back to the good ol’ U.S. While I could have served drinks off his head he was so asleep, it only lasted one hour; not even enough to get us to Amsterdam. I gave up. I paced the airplanes for twelve hours straight, trying to keep a very active little boy occupied. I read stories, played with playdo, threw imaginary baseballs to pretend homerun hitters in an attempt to distract him from the X-Men movie playing on the screen right in front of our bulkhead seats. Wouldn’t you know that 45 minutes before landing on American soil, both the baby and the preschooler passed out, leaving me to heft two babies, one stroller, two carseats and various bags like some sort of alpaca off the plane.

For all the flying I have done, however, I feel I’ve survived everything those in the aviation business cared to throw at me. Man who only speaks Farsi having a seizure on the plane? Been there. Three hours from landing with only wine and Coke left to drink while I was six months pregnant? Yep. Security guards in small Egyptian airport decided they’d been working enough and shut off metal detector before everyone had gone through? Oh yeah. Lifting too many heavy bags at security that it put me into premature labor? Also, yes. Watching the stewardess give up when she couldn’t figure out how to secure a door during take off? Uh huh. Survived my three year old lugging a cap gun in his back pack through U.S. security when the guards drew their real guns and alarms went off? Oh wait, that was my husband.

Indonesian Language Lesson Number Two

Language lesson number two:

Max makan Alpo saja. Max eats dog food only.

Max tidak makan makanan rakyat. Max does not eat food from the dinner table.

Max makan makanan bakyat buat Max bau jekel. If you feed Max food from the dinner table, he stinks.

Love those German Shepherds! One of the traits of the dog breed happens to be a nervous stomach. Since their tail hangs low and is tucked under the body most of the time, if the stool happens to be a little ‘loose’ and sticks to the fur under the tale, it is difficult for air to get there and dry it out, hence the stinkiness.

None of the Internet sites, dog breed books or owners mentioned this unique characteristic of the animal.

I spent about two weeks in Boise, Idaho wiping one of our Shepherd’s butts, and vowed not to do it ever again. So, now it is Rob’s turn. Part of ensuring the dog’s constitution stays healthy is feeding it only things made to be digested by it. There is no ScienceDiet or Eukanuba here, only Alpo. Many breeders and dog owners will tell you that this is not a very high quality food, and may cause problems. Mix in the nanny who hates to see food go to waste, and we have one happy, albeit stinky, dog.

I really think Rob’s big fear is the fact that if bacteria start breeding in that area, there is a chance the glands will get swollen and someone will need to pop the resulting abscess. There are no veterinarians here and I think I can successfully argue that Rob has had more CPR and first aid training than me, so guess who should perform that lovely procedure?

Happy Monday!

Two Sides to Every Coin

More on the problems in Banda that seem to be coming to a head again. As I've stated previously, there have been protests at BRR, the government agency in charge of rebuilding. Last week, the protest turned a little more agressive. It seems that most of the protestors were many still living in temporary wooden barracks created for the tsunami survivors as they await their new homes. (http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/JAK269386.htm)

None of this is new news. Last year, the media was reporting on corruption. Yes, it will take a long time to rebuild this area, and people are honestly doing the best they can, without the infrastructure, materials, or skilled labor they hoped they would have.
Reuters again is reporting on the situation:
Corruption, bureaucracy and heavy-handed security forces remain obstacles to economic development in Indonesia's tsunami-hit Aceh province, the head of the agency charged with rebuilding the region said on Monday.
The police and military still operate according to rules drawn up to counter a separatist insurgency even though there has been peace since last year, said Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, director of the Aceh reconstruction agency, or BRR. .........
Mangkusubroto said creating a business-friendly climate and overhauling a corrupt system were some of the challenges Aceh faces in the coming years.
International agencies and countries have already put $4.6 billion into the reconstruction of Aceh -- on the northern tip of Sumatra some 1,700 km (1,000 miles) northwest of Jakarta -- after it was hit by a devastating tsunami that left up to 232,000 people dead or missing in a dozen Indian Ocean nations.
Mangkusubroto said progress in the reconstruction effort had been "encouraging".He said all basic infrastructure would be in place by 2009 and all 128,000 new houses for displaced tsunami survivors would be complete by the end of next year.
The reconstruction agency is under fire after a leading Indonesian anti-graft group charged last month that there were financial irregularities in five BRR projects worth 23.9 billion rupiah ($2.6 million).
Some BRR officials said the report was inaccurate and could affect disbursement of funds from foreign donors. Mangkusubroto has said several staff were being investigated.
Corruption is endemic in Indonesia although the BRR has taken a number of steps to try to minimise or eliminate it in the recovery effort.

Read the article in its entirety at http://www.alertnet.org.thenews/newsdesk/JAK316906.htm

There is much going on here, from rebuilding houses, to helping farmers grow crops to healing children and adults from the worst tsunami on record.

On the 'soft side' as they say, in the NGO world, WorldVision successfully completed an Arts and Crafts Exhibit consisting of sculptures, handicrafts, and paintings from mroe than 200 children and 50 youth from Aceh Besar, southeast of Banda.

The exhibit attracted more than 400 people. Handicrafts inlcluded flowers sculpted from soap, wooden spoons, farmers hats and children's kites.

This article can be seen at http://www.alertnet.org.thenews/fromthefield/217167/115795372062.htm.

To give you a nice perspective on the whole shebang from the faith-based, NGO, CRS side of things, read this wonderful speech given last year, if you have a couple moments. Okay, maybe more than a couple. It goes back to something I said earlier about this organization being a good neighbor; something to be proud to be a part of, whether it is as a donor, a worker, or a discombobulated spouse. http://www.crs.org/about_us/newsroom/speeches_and_testimony/releases.cfm?ID=26

Tsunami Relief Under Fire

Well, I've been discussing a bit in previous posts the problems NGOs have been facing here. Several articles are hitting the media:
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2006Sep23/0,4670,TsunamiBuildingBadly,00.html or http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-tsunami-corruption,0,393624.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines for the story.

We see the brunt of it here personally. Many demonstrations at the government agency, BRR that will probably get worse as we get closer to elections. Rob has angry villagers in his office pretty much every day. The NGOs are working hard to get these houses built. We feel safe, but are certainly cautious.

Just Another Day in Indonesia

It’s just another day in Indonesia.

Kyle has a week long break from his ex-pat run kindergarten. It is located in the bottom level of a Japanese/Australian national’s house. There are about six other kids who attend: two Americans, one Nepalese, one Tjekastanian, one French, and one Canadian. A real melting pot. The teacher is an Indonesian woman married to a Swede. She speaks five languages.

We celebrated Sabrina’s eighth month mark on Sunday. She is trying so hard to crawl, but only manages to scoot backwards at the moment. She can stand on her legs with assistance. She loves to ‘dance’ to music if you sing to her; she bobs her head back and forth to ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ and other nursery rhymes. I am continually amazed that she is becoming more and more than just a crying, pooping, eating, sleeping blob every day.

Rob called. He is on his way to a meeting at the UN that may last well until after dinner. At the moment he is hiding out in someone else’s office waiting for a sandwich to be delivered to him. It seems there are a bunch of angry workers protesting outside of his office. The contractor hasn’t paid them and they want help from CRS getting their money. He doesn’t want to be late for his meeting, so he is trying to avoid the angry mob scene. He’s getting good at this angry mob scene, as usually it is villagers protesting outside his office.

The other night we went out to find a bazaar of hand made products from local women that has been going on for a week. Tonight was the last night. We made it just as they were shutting down. When asking when the next one would be, the reply was ‘next year.’ Argh! This is tough news from someone like me who takes my role in spiking the local economy very seriously. I think I had a measurable impact on the Philippine gross national product while we were stationed on Luzon.

I left dejected and we went out to dinner at the UN’s World Food Programme on the UN complex. It’s a nice little place for expats to go and have a meal; cheap and tasty. We knock on the heavy metal gates and they open, like we are at some Mob restaurant. Once inside we sign in to get our ID badge at the guard station. Then we order at the outdoor ‘cafe’, which is enclosed on three sides with shuttered windows on the walls and a roof. Trouble is, it’s darned HOT in this country and with the fry stoves going and the wooden shutters closed to keep out the stray dogs, frogs and mosquitoes, it is stifling. The boys enjoy the ambience of the neon light bug zappers and what do I care, at least I get out of my house. I’m so hot it’s hard to eat.

There is even a bar on the facility, since it is governed by UN law, not Indonesian law. Although a few weeks ago, the sharia police (Islamic police) got all the way into the facility and shut it down. After going all the way to the UN Director, the bar is back in business. Thanks, Kofi!

Otherwise, we are careful about the fermented beverage consumption. We go to a particular place of business and Rob strolls down the isle until the owner spots him. After a while, an employee of the store brings a case of “fanta”, “milk” or whatever tied with green ribbon to the car and we depart. We keep it out of sight and crush our cans.

That is because, honestly, if anyone suspects you are breaking the law (as drinking foamy juice is) they can call the police to inspect your home. This isn’t the US, they don’t need a warrant. There have been problems more with expat men mixing with local women and being charged with adultry and then caned. Not pleasant.

If you bring a case of foamy juice to a dive shop on a nearby island, it buys you a free dive.

There are some restaurants that cater to expats and they do serve special beverages. It is listed as non alcoloholic local beer (Bintang is the Indonesian beer that yes, is made and drunk in public everywhere but here in this province), but when you give them that special wink, it gets poured in the kitchen. There are special lookouts at these restaurants who will run up and warn you the Sharia are entering the premise and have you guzzle your brew before you are caught.

We spent another day at the beach this weekend. Beautiful weather. Unfortunately, there have been about 27 drownings at this particular beach. I can see why since you are forced to swim with all your clothes on. We watch the kids carefully as they boogie board and skim board. They’ve all gotten sand blasted from taking waves all the way into the beach, and two out of three have received bloody noses from being slammed by the water. When the waves are not so big, you can float without even trying, there is so much salt in the water. When we are out and about people who know us point and say, “The Richardsons swim at the dangerous beach!” Honestly so far, it’s got nothin’ on Newport. But we know to be careful.

Home Is Where the Heart Is

Ah,. finally in our new home. As Rob and I were relaxing yesterday morning, I realized this was the first weekend since the middle of June where we weren’t packing, in transit or living out of suitcases in someone else’s house. It feels good to be stationary for a little while.

The house is very nice. It is one story, which I’m thankful for, as we had a little ‘welcome to your new home’ earthquake yesterday. (just found out is was a 5.5 44 miles from Banda)

Jared has his own room. Both of the boys’ rooms have bathrooms. I’ve drained the large basin of water out of both for fear of someone drowning. There is a spigot, as usual, but no sinks. So I bought large plastic tubs to place on the floor under the spigots. Now, if (and it’s a large if, isn’t it?) they wash their hands, the water goes into the tubs and not on their feet. Voila! Sinks!

Sabrina also has a room, but since she’s getting up at all hours, she is still in the port-a-crib with us. The housekeeper and nanny have confiscated her room, turning it into the ironing space. And there is quite a bit of ironing since they iron everything including towels, socks, jeans and underwear.

We have an indoor kitchen! It used to be outside, but they walled it in and it doesn’t look half bad. There is only screen on the open concrete blocks and there are windows and a door separating the whole space from the rest of the house, but it’s indoors enough for me. We even have an air conditioner for it so it can actually be enjoyable.

There is no oven, just a two burner cook top attached to bottled gas. I think I’ll get a toaster oven, and that will constitute the ‘oven’ for the next year. I must say that pan fried garlic bread isn’t half bad.

I never thought I could sustain seven people off of a mini refrigerator, but I’m finding it can be done. And as if the fridge weren’t small enough as it is, the shelves inside of it are broken and being held together by saran wrap – which by the way – doesn’t work. So, we basically have one shelf in this little, tiny fridge. But it’s starting not to irritate me any more.

And that is because this house has water! We even have a hot water heater that works in our bathroom. Of course, this is the only place with hot water, so our bathroom is the designated shower spot. No bathtubs. No hot water to wash the dishes or clothes.

I bought a baby tub for Sabrina so the nanny would stop giving her mandi style baths – basically holding a naked baby on the floor in the bathroom and dousing her with cups of cold water.

She is using the baby tub and even relenting to filling it with ayre panass (hot water). But I can’t get her to do the bath in my bathroom where there is hot water. Instead, she insists on heating water on the burner in the kitchen.

The house came with a wardrobe for each bedroom which is very nice since Indonesians haven’t heard of a closet. We also have beds, TV set, and kitchen table. I can use a couple of boxes as end tables, and they don’t look half bad covered in sheets, but I do insist on having some real furniture. I’m not twenty and living in a dorm. I’m inching near forty and I have four kids. I deserve a couch.

So I hauled my husband and children out to the furniture stores to look at something to sit on. I do think there are only six different styles of couches in the entire city of Banda and they all came from either Elton John’s summer home or the production set of ‘That 70’s Show’.

We decided on a set of couches at the third store, since they were half the price of the others. Everything is sold as a set; a couch, love seat and chair. As a bonus (gratis) you get a glass coffee table.

My nice peach colored floral couch set got the thumbs down from all the boys so we settled on a very disco era brown plaid. I have an aversion to glass coffee tables on tile floors (overactive imagination visualizing children’s heads exploding) so Rob negotiated two wood end tables instead.

Since everything is cash based here, we shook on the price and then told them we’d be right back with the money. After three ATM machines not giving up cash and a frantic overseas call to the bank to make sure we were still solvent, we ended back up at the furniture store offering US dollars and debating the exchange rate.

We all came to an agreement for the amount. We loaded the three pieces into the back of the pickup truck and followed the owner on his motorcycle to his second store, where we picked up our end tables. Rob handed him his business card and told him if there was any problem with the money to let him know. We shook hands and off we went.

Friday, the shop owner showed up at Rob’s office. It seems the exchange rate at the time was a little less and we owed him six more dollars.

Now we have some nice couches to sit on, and I’ve been collecting wicker shelving for the 2000 pounds of kid’s toys we hauled over.

Pretty much everything is unpacked excepted for boxes labeled as books. I can only hope that some items that I was hoping would make it in the shipping container are actually there in the last boxes. Like the CD/DVD player we bought in the Philippines. I’ve set up four different households in four different countries now, and would really like to reuse SOMETHING once in a while.

Unfortunately, most of the stuff I was hoping to bring over got sent to storage. I blame this on my incredible ineptitude with anything having to do with space or weight.

CRS will allow families to bring over 6500 pounds, but will not pay for packing and storage of anything left behind. When we moved from Boise, Idaho we had 18,000 pounds worth of stuff! This wasn’t going to work for us.

Instead, we negotiated CRS pay for the packing and transfer of our storage and the shipping of 2000 pounds here to Banda Aceh.

In order for the company to pack you up, they send an agent out to do a visual assessment of what you have and how many supplies they will need. So, I showed the agent what I wanted to bring over; kid’s furniture, the kitchen, all the toys, my scrapbooking supplies. After the tour, I asked him nonchalantly how much weight I had. He told me 9000 pounds. 9000 pounds! I told him to forget the kid’s furniture. He said I was down to about 5000 pounds. Okay, no kitchen stuff. We can buy everything over there; heck I’ve done it twice before. Now we’re down to about 3000. Fine, take out my office stuff, including most of the scrapbooking supplies, all the grownup books because what am I thinking, I have four kids, I don’t have time to read, and half the kid books because I’m sure their minds won’t rot if they don’t have every Caldecott winner for the last two decades with them in the new house. Now we’re talking.

Great. Now I have to get the rest of what I own into a 10 x 30 storage unit down the street. Rob and I had been thinking of getting rid of the formal dining set, now was the time to do it. 3000 pounds gone. After several trips to Goodwill and about three dumpsters, I’m feeling pretty good about my house and it’s contents.

The shipper comes and asks me if I have the entire storage facility rented because I’m gonna need it. I start sweating. After two days of eye rolling, deep sighs, and ‘you sure have a lot of stuff!’ comments from the shipper, we squeeze it into the moving truck.

I’ve had Rob call ahead and rent out two additional storage units, just in case. I’ve been discussing storage options with the truck driver. “I want it packed really tight!” When I tell him finally “I want it tight – like a puzzle!” His eyes finally light up and they happily start wedging boxes and furniture hari kari in the unit. We make it into only one! We don’t even have to give away an armoire that was in the ‘toss if the ship is sinking’pile . It’s kind of depressing to see everything you own packed into a 10x30 storage unit.

Back to the house, we still have the overseas shipment to deal with. We have him bring a scale to the house to make sure we don’t exceed our designated poundage. You know how much it stings at Christmas time to pay to ship packages? Can you imagine how much it costs to send an extra few pounds to Sumatra, Indonesia?

We weigh each package. At the end we have 1500 pounds. 1500 pounds! I can stick 500 more pounds in there and everything I need to bring over, like cookbooks and silverware, towels and shoes are in storage. I start throwing in more kids’ stuff. The plastic playhouse. The Little Tikes car. The dumptruck and the wagon. We weigh out 500 more pounds of plastic kid stuff and finally seal the container.

Now, here at the other end, we have everything a child could desire, but the computer printer I was hoping for didn’t make it. There is no CD player. I can’t find ANY scrapbooking supplies. I have no cookbooks. I did unearth a fondue pot and 2000 pounds worth of kids’ toys.

If you think packing that fondue pot and 2000 pounds worth of kids’ toys was a lot of work, wait until the adventure of actually getting it to the house where we are now living.

The shipment made it to port here in Indonesia in about a month and was delivered to Banda Aceh even before we could move into our new house (had to kick out the man still living in it first,..) It was unpacked and driven down in a truck about the size of an American garbage truck. All 2000 pounds and a bevy of men rode in the back of this truck for God knows how long to get here to the tip of Sumatra. Then, it parked at the CRS office and was unloaded into two pick up trucks. The roads here in town are pretty narrow, and the roads to our actual house are only one lane total, most of which is either in dirt or has so many potholes, it might as well be dirt. It took three pick up truck loads for all the toys to make it to the house.

I was glad for the tinted windows as the locals stopped what they were doing to see the packing boxes tied six feet tall with green ribbon on the back of these NGO trucks. Expats who are neighbors commented they thought someone from the hills was moving into town since the trucks were so dirty (rainy season, hence lots of mud.) Yes, the Yucaipa Hillbillies have moved into town.

Now I am almost unpacked. I almost have time to use the treadmill we bought from the previous owner. It has its own room right outside the house with an actual air conditioner. You just have to dodge the lizard poop on the floor and have the tread do a few revolutions to get the flying ant wings off before stepping on.

Now all we need is a phone that works, and we’ll almost feel like we live in paradise. Almost.

Bathroom break Aceh style

Thought you might enjoy some pictures of Rob out and about on Pulah Aceh, another island where CRS and others are building shelters. Bathrooms (as seen here) , as are most houses, are not to Western scale!

It takes about two hours on a 'ferry' to this island. On this particular day we had torrential rain storms that night, but thankfully it had cleared by the time they made it to the villages for a look-see. Rob was afraid they'd all be on motor bikes in the rain since the CRS vehicle was on the fritz. Thankfully, a contractor had a vehicle for them to use so Rob at least, wasn't dragging his feet in the mud as he trekked around the countryside!

He's been having a quite a few days out in the field. CRS has finally turned over about 50-odd houses, (the first set!) and there was a big ceremony for that. He was invited to attend as they gave the house key to one of the village recipients - in this case an older single woman. Kind of a nice gesture in such a traditional Muslim country, honestly.

Then, another village, thankful for all the work being done for them, asked CRS to attend a traditional newborn baby ceremony, so Rob got to go there, as well. (I think he just enjoys the free meals!) He ate banana tree soup and checked in on the 7 day old infant.

He's plugging along trying to get these shelters done and working long hours. He's hiring an arsenal of new staff to keep up with all the work. It's been an emotional journey, as there was quite a bit of corruption going on and many contractors split after being paid for more work than they completed. Many houses need to be retrofitted before people even move in the first time, and Rob's had many angry villagers in his office asking CRS to pull out of their villages. This is happening for all the NGOs who are building shelters.

You forget what happened here, and why it's been such a struggle to rebuild,.. but don't forget that on December 26th, 2004, half a million Acehnese were left homeless, 1 million homes were destroyed and 650 villages were completely washed away. CRS and other NGOs are here to give these people new homes that will be safe ("build back better") and in some cases, relocating entire villages.

Rob just hired a new local engineer who lost his mother and two siblings in the tsunami. When Rob tried to assign him to Puah Aceh island, he admitted he had a 'fear of the sea.' I can't even begin to imagine,....

So, it's wonderful that he is here with all his knowledge and expertise to help in areas where he is needed, but it's been the most stressful move we've ever made. So, keep him and all the NGOs here in your thoughts and prayers!

Away on Pulah Weh

*** Sorry! Just moved and no phone line, hence no postings! Thanks for your patience! ****

English phrases needing to be translated into Bahasa Indonesia for next van rental on Pulah Weh:

“Do you know where you are going?”
“Please use your low gear.”
“Do you have benzene?”
“Do you have breaks?
“I see smoke. Is there a problem?”

Ahhhhhh,... paradise! Our little family of six found a dog sitter (unheard of!) and was able to break away from Banda Aceh for the weekend with our friend Chris and three Javanese ladies from the CRS Melaboh office.

After schooling our new found best friend, Wan the dog sitter, on how to manage the dog – complete with little pictures of a clock on a piece of paper showing him when to do everything – we left Saturday morning for the island of Pulah Wah.

CRS of course sent over a pick up truck instead of a van into which we squeezed Chris, the driver, Rob, me, three boys and Sabrina ‘hyper octopus’ Richardson into the four door cab. (Reminds me of the joke we used to tell in Cairo, Egypt – “how many people can fit on a bus in Cairo? One more!”)

We made it to the ferry terminal unscathed and bought our tickets for the one hour ride; about $6.00 for adults and $3.50 for children. The ferry was very nice, with upholstered seats. It went fast and we made it to Pulah Wah, about 30 miles in the distance, in less than an hour.

As usual, everyone got out of their seats and started the mad rush for the door before the ship even hit port. It wasn’t until we started getting haggled by people for a taxi we realized they opened the front doors to let the passengers out and the back door to let the drivers in. Enlightened, we pushed ourselves into the crowd and were unceremoniously spit out into a parking lot crammed with old ‘hippy’ buses (as Jared called them) and worn looking, leathery entrepreneurs beckoning us into their own personal death traps.

After kicking a few tires and making sure side doors would close, we selected the least ominous looking ride and started on our hour long journey to Gapang Bay. No aircon, but as long as the windows were open and the bus was moving, we at least had a breeze. I took all the clothes off the baby, we requested the driver please not smoke and were on our merry way.

Rob folded his legs up as best he could, but his forehead kept hitting the tassled, red satin ribbon glued to the space above the front window. Sayings from the Khoran embossed on gold medallions dangled from the rear view mirror. Our Javanese friends asked for rock n’roll music but the driver only had three choices, house music, house music or house music.

So we ambled up the road with the blown out speakers blaring some sort of indistinguishable techno pop as we traded language lessons, such as Chris explaining , “Jalan in English means shitty road.”

Half way through our journey we stop at a side of the road ‘store’ (naked child running around, make shift pieces of plywood nailed together to form what looks like an order window with small bags of snacks hanging on strings, old men with only three or four gold teeth left among them spitting and sipping coffee) to buy bananas for the show we are anticipating ahead – monkeys!

The bananas looked good enough to eat, so I did, only to spit out my bite. They have seeds; big, black ones. Didn’t see that one coming.

Instead, I join children in hurling bananas out the window at monkeys as they jump from thick trees towards the van. Van doesn’t stop for fear monkeys will climb inside. We have already witnessed the wrath of the monkeys in Rob’s pre-move Indonesia video where one hissed at the camera.

Zach, always the creative thinker, has named these ‘spice monkeys’ (he couldn’t remember the word for hiss, and ‘spice’ filled the spot nicely in his six year old brain). The spice monkeys join the ranks of his other favorite animals, hippomopotomuses and chimporillas.

Our van climbs and descends precarious switch backs leaving me either grasping the unbolted seat with white knuckles as we careen down mountainsides or leaning forward and waving to every other car as it passes us up steep hills.

Make it to Gapang Bay Resort. Check out dive shop and beach.

After Rob unloads luggage (which basically consists of two boogie boards, toothbrushes and a couple of diapers) into our cabin, we eat at the local restaurant. Excellent! We share ‘nasi goreng special’ (fried rice with an over hard fried egg and piece of fried chicken), chicken curry, fried potatoes and watermelon juice.

Afterwards, I take the boys on their boogie boards and we snorkel right off the beach. Amazing – the boys see “Nemo” and coral and dive for starfish. Then, Rob and Chris take off for the dive boat to go SCUBA in the Indian Ocean. The kids and I spend the next three hours playing on the beach. A local brings hot-from-the-oven donuts, coconut fritters and banana cake in her plastic laundry basket for us to buy. It’s great.

We ate fish cooked over flaming coconut shells for dinner. Zach catches hermit crabs by daylight and frogs at night.

Afterwards, we retire to our ‘bungalow’, which realistically, has more in common with a yurt than an actual hotel room. Whatever, right? All you really need is a bathroom and a bed, and this contains both. The beds have mosquito nets which Sabrina mistakes for a circus tent and goes wild after being held all day.

The next morning we awaken and stay safely enshrouded in bed, as quite a population of mosquitoes is flitting around outside the nets. That morning I wave good bye to the boys and the baby and hit the dive shop for my recertification. It’s been four years and a baby since I attempted to slide into my wet suit and I say a little prayer when it fits. Have fun diving for an hour, but never see the sea turtles we were hoping to glimpse.

Coming back to the beach area, I find Sabrina holding court with Rob and about ten locals all exclaiming how cute she is. (If only they had attempted to sleep with her under the circus tent.)

Chris and his friends have whisked Jared away to go snorkeling off a boat. Rob takes the little boys out in deeper water where they see a three foot long cuttlefish that scares Kyle to death. Zach captures an eight inch long baby lizard by its tail that was swimming on the shoreline escaping from a couple of playful dogs. When he puts it back down it turns around and hisses, which causes him to scream and all the locals laugh.

We hurriedly pack up and meet our scheduled van. This van is even worse than the first. I don’t think there is a single piece of original metal on the body of the vehicle.

We make it to the terminal, buy snacks from a cart and ride home to Banda. It isn’t until I step off the ferry back in Banda that I realize how nice it has been to get away. You don’t know how oppressive it feels to live in a stressful environment until you leave and come back.

It was a lot like leaving Cairo to visit Malta during Christmas our first year overseas. It was relieving to visit such a Catholic Christian country right in the middle of the Holy season. It reminded me of my polish family in Michigan, with all the tacky Baby Jesus dolls dressed to high fashion and stored in the front windows of the homes.

There are some things that just can’t be fixed by having your friend’s gardener fashion two shrubs together to look like a Christmas tree. Sometimes you just have to get away.

I think that might be Pulah Weh for us. An amazing beach, great diving, nice people and those darned coconut fritters,.

Banda FAQ

I have had many great questions, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to answer as many as possible.

What time is it over there?

We are 14 hours ahead of the West coast. So, when you are just waking up, I am finishing my last Bintang beer and heading for bed. The time difference gives people I work with the illusion that I am wonderfully efficient and dedicated, as if they request something from me, I can usually have it waiting in their inbox the following morning.

Is there fast food?

There is! There is KFC, A&W and Pizza House. Thank goodness, because I’ve got three boys to feed,... Fried chicken is a big thing here as it was in the Philippines. Not spaghetti though. You could find spaghetti everywhere in the Philippines, including McDonalds. And it usually came with hot dog pieces. Not my cup of tea.

Then there are the sidewalk vendors with all sorts of ‘goreng goreng’ – fried foods. And many juice vendors. I’ve tried the pisang goreng – fried bananas, which are awesome, especially with the chili sauce. Yum!

The guards brought coffee over too – in a bag! Very sugary. I’ve actually switched to Nescafe – yes absolute sacrilege to my Washington family and friends – but I’ve been doing the decaf dance for so long, I can’t handle the beans here. It’s so acidic and strong I have stomach pain and heart palpitations. Must be getting old,..
I have to say that I haven’t tried many other street food, and it’s not because I’m some snobby bule, it’s because of those two little words, ‘cholera’ and ‘typhoid’. Gotta build up the stomach of steel first.

How do you get food?

I’ve got several options. First, is the market where we attract quite a small crowd when we go in. The people seem very friendly and happy to see us, and I think they are charging me a fair price, although we communicate only with smiles, hand gestures and a calculator. And Jared rolling his eyes and correcting me when I get the wrong number or pronounce something weird.

Second they have ‘supermarkets’ called Pante Pirak – I think it’s the name of the company, like Safeway or Vons. But that is where the similarities end. I get so excited to get out of the house and go shopping – you know me – but I go down that first isle and NOTHING is in English and it gets overwhelming very fast. And I’m used to shopping at Costco, so buying things here means I have to go back to the store often.

The last option is a specialty store that opened due to all the NGOs coming into town in the last year and a half – it is affectionately known as the Bule (foreigner) Store. Here is where I can find dog food, pringles chips and various and sundry things that will keep my picky six year old from starving to death.

I bought out the frozen flour tortillas and no one seems to know what I’m asking for when I inquire about the next time they will be in stock, so I’ll have to figure out what substance is flour at the supermarket and smash little flour balls between a couple of plates someday.

What do you eat over there?

First of all, throw out everything you Southern California people are trying to do, like eat whole grains and grill everything. Here, if it ain’t processed or fried, chances are, I ain’t eatin’ it.

I can find whole grain bread, but it’s 20,000 Rupia ($2.20) which, yes, doesn’t seem that expensive, but when you pay for white bread and it’s only forty cents, you get kind of used to it.

And I can’t for the life of me figure out the oven, which is running on some sort of gas, and if it involves me switching on an explosive substance and lighting a small fire, it’s probably better if I don’t do it myself.

So I’m a fryin’ machine! And it takes me two hours to cook anything, since most everything is gathered from various markets (yes, I send my maid out to shop when it’s just too overwhelming and hot of a day to take three boys and a baby and my Indonesian phrasebook out.) and I can’t seem to find a vegetable peeler anywhere. Did find the cheese grater,.. now to find the cheese,...which is a processed kraft cheddar sitting on the shelves,.. along with the milk in UHT containers. Yum, yum!

Do I have household help?

Don’t cry for me Argentina,...Okay, so yes, I have a housekeeper. Her name is Rena and I love her. She’s the wife I always joked I needed. She cleans all the dishes I stack in the sink, she mops the floor, she irons the underwear. She works five days a week from 8 until 5 and she costs me $80 a month. I am never leaving!

Now, to disgust you even more, I am probably going to get a live in nanny, who will wipe runny noses, hold squawky babies and cook a meal here and there. She will run about $130 a month.

It’s been tough (if you can call it that) because we have the dog. The nanny may have to be imported from Medan, about 10 hours up the road. Dogs are not popular here. When I was discussing getting a nanny with Kyle’s Indonesian kindergarten teacher, her comment was “You might have to import a Christian from Medan.” So, Christians are thought of in this neck of the woods as being promiscuous and liking dirty animals. Not great.

How is Max doing?

Max the dog is in heaven, although sequestered to being inside unless we are out with him so he doesn’t give anyone a heart attack. Muslims believe dogs are unclean (as are pigs, so no pork bacon or ham unless you know where to go,..) so they are not allowed to touch dogs, and most are absolutely terrified of Max because they’ve never been around a dog before. And, unfortunately, Max is a big 80 pound German Shephard. The guards are fine, as is Rena the housekeeper, although they are very careful about not touching him. I had a nanny who lasted only three hours. She couldn’t get over her fear of Max.

How are the kids doing?

They are doing well! Kids are adaptable, thank goodness. Now that the initial shock that we can’t just go out whenever we want – I have no car and I can’t possibly get all of us in a pedicab, or motorcycle with a sidecar, we are stuck at home accept when I take Kyle to and from school, basically.

Kyle is enrolled in an expat kindergarten that has six kids in it – two from the US, one from Nepal, one from France, one from Kazakhstan and one from Japan/Australia – a real melting pot! The teacher is an Indonesian woman who speaks five languages. The school is on the bottom floor of an expat’s house.

The big boys get PE two mornings a week with a local man who is teaching them ‘football’ (Aunt Wendy will be so proud!) He had to go down to the football field with a shovel to move all the cow paddies so the boys could play.

As usual, we attracted quite a crowd and Zach had them all laughing as he missed the ball he was trying to kick, lost his balance and landed on his bottom on top of the soccer, er, football.

We are slowly finding other expat kids and that is great. That’s the hardest part of this – taking kids away from their friends.

We have found a swimming pool we go to once and a while during the week, as well. But nothing compares to the beach! It is awesome! White sand, nice waves and jungle cliffs to the side. It’s amazing and humbling to think that this is where the tsunami hit. You can still see debris tangled in the exposed roots of some of the trees that survived the water. And the big mosque, which as the only standing building after the tsunami that has spawned countless tales of the wrath of God.

What do you wear?

Well, it’s sharia law here, but I don’t dress all that differently than I did in Egypt. Jeans, long sleeve shirts, I have to watch the necklines! It’s HOT. The biggest bummer is having to wear clothes to the beach. So far, I’ve been wearing exercise capris and a tee shirt to go swimming in and that seems to be okay. I’m careful not to go in the water if we have a lot of locals around.

The boys and Sabrina can wear whatever they want.

I hope that answers lots of questions! Thanks so much for all your comments and emails! It keeps me going!

Who's Got the Power?

The power goes out intermittently here, which is no surprise. I’m actually quite pleased that it doesn’t go out more, nor does it stay out for very long. When we lived in Egypt, the power went out much more frequently. I remember many evenings bathing children by candle light.

Heck, during the time we were in Egypt, I witnessed more power outages when I traveled back to ‘civilization’ in Southern California during the summer than I did there. At my home office we were under strict orders not to turn on any unnecessary lights due to rolling black outs. As a telecommuter, the hallway was my office. At the end of my week stay, I suspected I actually had a better time of it in Cairo. At least there I didn’t have to hold papers up to my computer screen in order to read them.

The trick to handling a power outage, any adult will tell you, is to be prepared. I am the most unprepared adult I know.

So, when Rob called to say he was working late on a conference call, I didn’t give it another thought (accept, ‘leftovers again!’). Right when night had fallen and I had one little boy in the bathroom and another littler boy in the kitchen, (opposite sides of the house, of course) the power goes out. Pitch black. That means I didn’t think to plug in and charge the emergency lantern. It also means I have NO HOPE (Wendy, quit snickering) of finding my new Indonesian cell phone. The phone I tossed to my engineer husband the minute I bought it and said ‘here make it ring.’ The phone that as he tinkered with it (see previous posting describing the volt meter) he exclaimed, “Cool! This phone has a flashlight!” To which I promptly thought, “What a geek!” and “Why the hell would anyone put a flashlight in a cell phone?”

The little boys both start the crescendo of high pitched screaming. I am in the bedroom with the baby and Jared, who thank goodness is playing his gameboy. At least someone has a powered up piece of electronics that glows. I grab him by the gameboy holding wrist and we use the light of the screen to find his siblings. Right then the power goes on.

Moral of the story: for at least the next two weeks: 1. I will keep the emergency lantern actually plugged into the socket (the only one of about three I’ve found in this entire place. There is only one in the kitchen. You have to debate which appliance you need most at any given time; microwave, coffee maker, rice cooker, toaster or blender. You just can’t have it all,..) 2. I will know where my cell phone is and I will even have it charged. 3. I too, shall learn to use the flashlight on the phone.

Water, water everywhere

Water, water everywhere, but not in my house.

How is it I live on an island 20 minutes away from a fantastic little beach on the Indian Ocean, (by bumpy dirt road with maniacal motorcycle riders racing hither and thither) in a tropical, wet environment with rice paddies all around, yet I can not seem to conjure the water to come out of the well in the front yard, through the pipes, and into my sinks, through the washing machine, on my floors, or down my toilets?

When I first entered the country and took a peak at the bathrooms I thought to myself, “you have got to be kidding.” The Indonesian, or mandi style, bathroom consists of a ‘footprint style’ toilet (thanks, Dan Cassidy!) without a flusher – it is basically a butt print piece of plastic or porcelain, depending on how fancy you want to get – with one corner of the bathroom encased in a three foot tall square tiled basin full of water, most of the time dripping continually out of the faucet,(if you are lucky enough to have a water pump in your well that works!) which is directly over the basin. There is a drain in the floor. There is no sink. There is no showerhead. There is a little plastic one handled bucket, or scoop, or ‘cup of life’ (thanks bapak Goreng!).

This scoop is used for getting the water to wash all 2000 of your body parts. It is used for flushing. It is used to get the floor wet in order to wash it. It is used to carry water to every other part of your large, airy house because you can’t get water to come out of any of the faucets in your house. If you are in the country for any length of time, you will understand the necessity of the large basin of water, and even better, come to appreciate that cup of life. You even get used to every time you are in the bathroom, checking for dead, floating mosquitoes, scooping them out and then pouring a stream of bleach into the basin of water to kill any cute little mosquito eggs that might have been laid.

If the bathroom is ‘westernized’ perhaps there is a toilet with a flusher. Perhaps the toilet is attached to something so the flusher actually flushes.

A westernized bathroom will also include a showerhead. Sometimes, the more up the food chain in the NGO (non government organization) you are, you even have a hot water heater attached to that showerhead.

Once in a while, you may even have a bathtub in the bathroom. Once in an even greater while, you may have a hot water heater attached to the showerhead that is looming over your bathtub. But I doubt it.

The biggest anomaly is the sink. There is no sink in the bathroom. If the sink is included at all, usually to appease us irritating western people, it is an afterthought and included outside the door of the bathroom in the hallway or the middle of whatever room happens to be there. For example, the local fast food chain, A&W (or ah-way as it is pronounced here) has two sinks in the dining area of the restaurant.)

Some of us (Jared, my 9 year old) have come to embrace the cup of life shower. Jared can do the ‘cup of life shower’ in about three scoops. I have long hair. Just to shampoo it requires at least five. If I want to actually wash the soapy residue out of my hair, maybe seven. If I dream of getting a comb through it I need to squirt in conditioner, which will require another five scoops to rinse. And I haven’t even shaved a leg yet. The cup of life showers don’t work well for me.

Then, there is the scream factor. I feel mother’s remorse enough dragging four kids to a foreign country, away from friends and little league ball. It hurts to hear the shrieks of Zach and Kyle when daddy dowses them with the cold water from the cup of life while taking a ‘shower.’

I read in my Everyday Indonesia phrase book that it is customary to take a shower twice a day. I don’t think I have the stamina for it.

This whole scoop shower wouldn’t even be an issue if the darned water would just flow through the spigot when I crank the handle of the faucet. But no, it isn’t that simple here.

Our friend Chris came up from Meulaboh (an even smaller town, 10 hours down the windy dirt road, or one hour by UN aircraft) to visit us over the weekend. While he was here, our no water situation, and my crankiness about it, came to a head. After the third day at the beach with seven salty swimmers and the towels and bathing suits to match (and remember, this is sharia law country –they’d rather I swim in a business suit than a bathing suit, which is all the more laundry to do!), and NO WATER, I throw a bit of a tantrum. I have four kids; I know how.

So, Chris crept out into the night to find a shop that sold a ‘switch’ and some sort of other electrical stuff (I’m a geographer by trade, not an engineer).

He came back an hour later with a switch, volt meter and some other odds and ends. Of course, Rob and Chris being engineers got distracted and decided to test the volt meter on the new mosquito zapper, outlets and ungrounded water cooler before getting down to business. All I could think of the whole time watching this was ‘Darwin Award!’ and ‘Please don’t let the children seeing you do this!’

Once their curiosity was satisfied and some nice, dark clouds were in the sky promising rain, they tackled the electrical pump in the backyard.

Now, I think the water problem is because of the whole, darned set up. There is a well in our front yard that if a certain pump is turned on, a faucet in the backyard pours water onto a cement holding tank with a heap of sand. Then gravity pulls the water through the sand, ‘filtering’ it (as in, yes, we have no geckos in the main water supply to the house, but not the micro filter necessary to strain out certain strains of e coli and the like,..) into a large holding tank. There lies our ‘fresh’ water. Then, you turn on a switch that looks a lot like a doorbell lying in the middle of the grass which starts this little pump you can see whirring in another pipe, and it somehow sends water into the house.

We thought perhaps the doorbell switch was not functioning Perhaps the fact that you had to jiggle it on and off and place a rock and a brick on it to keep it in the ‘on’ position gave that away.

Chris and Rob replaced that switch, breaking the new switch in the process, but in the ‘on’ position, so who cares?

Now, this entire time, they think they are getting water to move somewhere. They turn on the showerhead. Water gurgles in the pipes; you can hear it; it really wants to get out! Out comes a trickle. Then a stronger trickle; enough to turn the hot water heater light switch to on, making you think ‘,yes there is enough water pressure to turn on the hot water heater, so TODAY is the day I get to have hot water for my shower!’

Each time this happens, Rob yells ‘We got water!” which sends me running into the room, stripping discretely (we have Chris, an over curious 6 year old and many male guards wandering around) and standing in full anticipation under the showerhead. However, still no water. I do this three times before calling it a night and going to bed with a salt crusted head of hair. I just wasn’t desperate enough to endure the cup of life shower and I was cranky.

It wasn’t until Tuesday, when STILL no water, I took the housecleaner, my four kids, a towel and a bottle of baby shampoo, telling the guard “Water BAD! Mandi Ruma EB!” (I think I said “We are bathing at EB’s house”), then stomped off down the road. When I came back, the guard tells me ‘Ibu (mother), strong water now!” And, yes, magically, there was water!

We still don’t know how, and I have to say, I cringe every time I turn on the water, expecting something other than that to come out the faucet.

What's A Little Dengue Among Friends?

I don’t know what was more alarming; that the lady we met was friends with Rob’s ex girlfriend from college, or that the entire family was just recovering from dengue fever. Or while we were visiting their little family of four we experienced a 5.2 earthquake (definitely looking for the one story house now). Or the call from the expat phone tree requesting anyone with O positive blood please depart on the five o’clock plane to Medan to take part in a blood transfusion. It seems someone from an International Red Cross agency was loosing her fight with dengue (latest phone reports say she is doing better).

It seems dengue fever is transmitted by daytime mosquitoes (great! I was busy worrying about the night time ones, you know, the ones that carry malaria!) It is an illness that starts with a high temperature (this lady’s husband had a temperature of 105) and has flu like symptoms. While it is not usually a problem, it can be for older people or those with compromised immune system. There is no cure. There is also no vaccine. All that is available is just a good smattering of insect repellent to keep the striped, daytime mosquitoes at bay.

The mosquito isn’t actually the bad guy – they are simply the unassuming host of a bad bug received when sucking the blood of an infected person. A person can transmit dengue for six days after their first symptoms.

So, as I sat sipping water on the back porch watching this nice lady’s 18 month girl scratch a fresh bite into a bloody heap, I tried desperately not to run screaming from the house to bathe my children in a vat of DEET.

While it was nice to find other bules, or foreigners as we are called, it certainly is a mixed bag.

It is always interesting to find other expats in a foreign country. One thing that amazes me is for the most part, other expats could really care less about the new western faces in town. I am always amazed we ignore each other as we do. It’s a weird sort of dance; in fact it seems we go out of our way to pretend the other doesn’t exist.

Being the new person in town, I tend to wait and see how the other person responds. Unless, of course, I am totally desperate which is most of the time. I’m a social person. Then I find myself tackling anyone who looks remotely interesting, such as they have children, look like they come from a western country, or are breathing.

Which is how I found this nice family, dengue fever and all.

Why Am I Here?

Well, here we are after one week of our adventure in Indonesia. Our family of six, which includes boys ages nine, six, five and a seven month old infant girl, has come with a nonprofit organization, Catholic Relief Services, to help rebuild after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. We have come to the area affected the most; to Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia for the next year and a half.

As I sit here at 10:35 am waiting for the car that was supposed to come at 9 am (island time!) with no water pressure to hose off my children, hoping Sabrina doesn’t blow out of the last two diapers in the pack before I can get to a store, I have to wonder, “What the hell am I doing?”

As my friends may know, my husband Rob has always been looking for the meaning in his life. He is forever searching for why he has chosen to do what he does. He is a civil engineer, following in the footsteps of his father. While I am perfectly happy to apply my college degree to a fun job, go the gym and shop at Nordstrom, he has always wondered why he has his talents, and how he can put them to the best use. I guess it’s easier being a mother; as long as the kids are fed, clothed and housed, I feel like I’ve performed at least my basic mission in life. The rest is all frosting on the cake.

So, when our insane friend Chris called (and I did think he was a bit off his rocker before he lured us to where I now sit!) and said ‘Hey, Indonesia needs a Rob Richardson’, we looked very closely at his request.

While it hasn’t been the easiest journey getting here, we’ve been able to make it work. I question myself about how messed up my children will be after a year of being home schooled by me, taken out of organized sports programs and forced to eat something other than Trix yogurt and McDonalds. But deep in my heart, I know it’s something we have been called to do.

CRS is quite a mixed bag. Administratively, it has been a very big test of patience. I feel like we have not only had blinders on, but have been spun around three times and forced to walk backwards to find our way here. We’ve had to figure out shots and medications, homeschooling programs, flights, dog shipments, shipment and storage of our personal belongings, and a place to live with not a lot of information. It makes me think longing of the swimming pool, BMW and diamond rings I left behind. I think about the lost ability to drive myself to the grocery store whenever I want. That I could go to a friend’s house any time. Find a playmate for my kids with little trouble. If a kid is bleeding profusely or has chopped off a limb, I can get them to a doctor. (the little things in life!)

Then we remember why we are here. Because there are a few thousand people in Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia who do not have a home a year and a half after one of the world’s biggest natural disasters. That what is missing in getting the houses finished is someone with experience with contracts, construction, dealing with accountants and auditors, and finessing the locals; they were missing a Rob Richardson.

There has been some grumbling that the places receiving money and rebuilding are the places where richer people are located. Maybe there is some truth in that, but I haven’t seen it yet. We’ve traveled to the beaches where whole villages have been decimated. There are permanent and temporary shelters built; roads redone. In a place where a large part of the coast line has been forever changed because of forces of nature, that is no small feat. CRS has been a part of that.

CRS has epitomized ‘love thy neighbor’ to me more than any other organization or single entity has before. While they are helping to redo the 80 year old Catholic Church in downtown Banda (the anniversary is September 10, of all things), they rebuilt the local mosque first. They are rebuilding a kindergarten and a large downtown park. They are building 2700 houses. I’m happy to be a part of this organization, even if it took a month for Rob to get his first paycheck and it’s now 11am and still no car.

I’m no saint. I’d like to be watching Good Day LA with a nonfat, grande, decaf latte in my hand. I’d like to use a hair dryer to dry my hair. I’d like to not go to an outside kitchen to use the stove. I’d like to have some hot water for washing my dishes. But then, I think about the fact that maybe Rob and I have been in training to do this sort of thing all our lives. That each move we’ve made has been a little less coddling and a whole lot more giving to those who need it. And there are countless others who are here with or without small children, working countless hours to do a little good in an area that needs it. If they can do it, why can’t I?

Count down to Banda

We have a week left here in Southern California. Nothing makes the move become more real than having all your beloved possessions tossed in boxes. Last night we ate speghetti standing up in the kitchen using paper plates and zutensils. We are counting down to a week now. Rob is frantically seeing what shots he needs and where to get a year's supply of malaria pills. We still have to write to the Indonesian consulate for permission to bring Max over. The boys are taking advantage of my stress and are asking for otter pops for breakfast and I'm granting it.
The passports haven't arrived yet. And it's only 9am. Cheers!

It all comes to a close,...

Well, we are finished with another school year. Kyle graduated from preschool! He had a nice ceremony and even sat in the front row with his cap and gown. He pantomimed a few preschool songs and got an award for 'Most Sensitive.'

Zach did awesome, too. He's now a first grader! He got a citizenship award (like honor roll, but they aren't graded), and a special award for getting a citizenship award for all three trimesters.

Jared also did great - GPA of 3.84 and a special award for being on the Principal's List (the good list for getting good grades.) He got a trophy for track, and won 3rd place in a schoolwide drawing contest where he got a four pack of free bowling certificates (watch out Grandma Z!)

Daddy surprised them and came out for the assembly, then we celebrated at Red Robin and went shopping - Jared and Kyle chose Heelys and Zach got a Robot Monkey. To be a kid again, eh?

Saturday Jared took mom jogging. What a mistake that was! While he was leaping over puddles and running stairs to waste time, mommy was trying to keep up. He kept looking back shrugging his shoulders and exclaiming, " I'm not even sweating!" And to think after a month on the couch with a broken arm, mommy would have had a chance!

Then to closing ceremonies for baseball. Zach and Jared received trophies for their participation. At Jared's swimming party at a fellow teammate's house he got the 'Best Attitude' award.

Then, unfortunately, we had yet another calamity,...Jared slipped and hit tummy/face first on the side of the pool and bit through his tongue. No, not joking. He's okay. We stopped the bleeding and thank goodness held the ER at bay. But he is in quite a bit of pain and having trouble talking, as you can imagine. And this happened on the anniversary of Kyle's broken arm. So,.. either we have closed on a year of bad luck, or we just keep our kids locked up in their rooms on this date next year,... Bad luck comes in threes, right? So after the broken arm, staples in the head and the tongue piercing, we should be good to go, yeah?

Time to get ready for the day,.. Happy Father's Day to all of you dads out there!