Well, we are off to Bali. Forget tropical paradise and mysterious temples. I’m just excited to go to a place where I can buy tampons and a good bra. Sorry to all you faint hearted men out there, but these are important items in any modern western woman’s life and sorely missed when they are not available.
I’ve been a good sport about making bread from scratch for every meal. My family has been very accommodating as well since I’ve found one recipe that works well in the Betty Crocker Easy Bake Oven. Whether it’s shaped like a biscuit, roll, hotdog or hamburger bun or breadstick, they all taste familiar.
I’ve also been happy enough to wear flip flops everywhere along with my jeans and long sleeve shirts in 90 degree humid weather. But a good foundation is necessary and now that the baby is weaned and all the ten pounds I’ve managed to get rid of since her birth seem to only be from my chest, something new is required. I’ll leave the other comment as it stands.
One other mystery of life I question before I sign off; why is it that even though Rob will only get to play one round of golf while we are in Bali, he has to take his golf clubs? Why can‘t he just rent?
Ciao!
Saturday, February 10, 2007
House Turnover in Banda
These are pictures from one of Rob's house turnovers. It is such a great experience to witness this and you feel very humbled to think that these people have been living for two years without a house. You go to the community building where the village chief says a few words, the local Imam says a prayer, the keys are handed over and you have a little snack together. Women and men sit on opposite sides of the building.
Here is where some of these people were living.
Here is a brand spankin' new CRS house. Very nice.
Construction
Some happy kids at the house turnover.
Christmas 2006
Oh it's a slippery slope! Sabrina's first barbie and boy does she love it!
Santa DID find us!!
Counting the booty
The race to the 'tree' in Banda.
Christmas Eve Dinner Aceh Style
Thank goodness for great friends! Between hoisting forks to our mouths and phone calls to the office to figure out logistics for the floods in Northern Aceh, we had a great dinner together.
Sabrina enjoying her first big shin dig and sitting at the big kids' table!
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Tsunami Recovery, CRS Featured on Morning Edition, NPR
NPR: Two Years On, Tsunami Recovery Lags Promises
Morning Edition, December 26, 2006 .
The Asian tsunami of 2004 killed more than 170,000 people in the Indonesian province of Aceh alone, washing awaytens of thousands of homes, schools and businesses. Two years later, reconstruction is underway, but the recovery effort is not as far along as many had hoped it would be.The provincial capital Banda Aceh is booming with new stores, restaurants and hotels. There's something else new -- and not at all welcome -- in this once-sleepy city: traffic jams. All of it seemed unimaginable just two years ago, says Paul Dillon, who is with the International Organization for Migration.
"I arrived two days after the tsunami and have been here ever since," Dillon says. "And I'm constantly amazed to see the extent to which reconstruction occurred. That said, there remain major challenges when it comes to housing and infrastructure, and those are going to persist for years to come."
Families Crammed into Small Barracks
A gaggle of children greet a visitor in the muddy courtyard outside their temporary home in the town of llokgna, several miles up the coast from theprovincial capital. It took just a few minutes for the tsunami to leave a half-million homeless in Aceh.
Two years on, some 70,000 are still living intemporary wooden barracks like this one. Entire families -- sometimes more-- live in a single 10-by-20 room. Marzuki, 28, is a fisherman and widower who shares his room in the barracks with two other families. He wants to get on with his life and start a new family to replace the one he lost, he says. But he can't -- not while he has to live in such cramped conditions.
"They tell me I have to be patient," Marzuki says. "But they won't tell me when I'll get help to rebuild. It might be a few months, it might be longer. They just tell me I have to wait."
The United Nations recovery coordinator for Aceh, Eric Morris, hears Marzuki's frustration. He says things should be better.
"I would say a B+ for effort, and something less in terms of actual accomplishments for stated targets," Morris says of reconstruction efforts.
Early Promises Proved Hard to Keep
No one disputes that the initial response to the tsunami was extraordinary,and extraordinarily successful. The reconstruction phase has been less so --in part, Morris says, because of promises made early on that proved impossible to keep.
"Many of the targets -- particularly with respect to permanent new housesfor tsunami survivors --most of those targets were probably unrealistic,"Morris says. He says there was an insufficient awareness of obstacles in terms of procurement, construction supplies, logistical constraints and other issues that have prevented early expectations from being fully met. Competition between aid agencies has sometimes gotten in the way of cooperation, Morris says, as non-governmental organizations rush to build houses with money generously donated by governments and ordinary people from around the world.
"There are different ways of going about rebuilding these settlements and these communities, some of them very effective and some of them less so," says the International Organization for Migration's Paul Dillon. "And as aresult, what you have is a mishmash of different qualities and styles of construction, and that can be very problematic."
The town of Peuken Bada offers a good glimpse into the progress and problems so far. Only a handful of buildings were left standing after the tsunami. More than half of the town's population was swept away -- 10,000 people gone in an instant. Pueken Bada is on the mend. Construction crews are busy rebuilding hundreds of homes, which have sprouted like mushrooms among the marsh grass and tidalpools near the shore. Some, built early on by a south African charity that'ssince left, are so small and poorly built that they sit empty, with residents refusing to move in. Others are bigger and better.
Waiting to Start a New Life
One of the people we've been following over the past two years is Mursalin. He is the proud owner of a new house. It sits just a few feet away from the crude, one-room shack he built last year on the foundation of his old house,which was swept away -- along with his family -- when the tsunami hit. Mursalin gives a tour of his nearly completed home, one of 200 built in Peuken Bada by Catholic Relief Services. It has two bedrooms, a living room and a bathroom -- more than enough space for Mursalin, his new wife andtheir 8-month-old son.
"We were supposed to move in a few months ago," Mursalin says, "but now they tell us there's a problem with the contractor."
Mursalin says he hopes they'll be able to move sometime in January. But Catholic Relief Services Aceh Director Scott Campbell says that's not going to happen.
"We're having certain issues with the contractors based on the houses they're building," Campbell says. "CRS [Catholic Relief Services] is committed to making sure that the houses we build are structurally sound. And when those quality standards aren't met, we have to take certain actions to ensure that contractors in the field are building to a certain standard."
Campbell says it could take five or six months more to retrofit the houses in question. Mursalin is disappointed but still grateful. When it is finished, he says, it'll be a good house -- better than many here. He just wishes it would happen sooner.
A New Home Worth the Wait
A few hundred yards away, another house is nearly completed. This one will be home to Samiruddin, his wife Rohani and their two children. We've been following this family since the tsunami first hit. When their house was washed away two years ago, the family fled to the home of Rohani's mother, several miles further inland. Samiruddin is nearly done building their new home, with materials and some labor provided by Uplink, a German NGO. It has taken a while, Samiruddin says, but the wait has been worth it.
"Our old house was a little bigger, but this one is stronger," he says."It's all concrete. And the walls are much thicker than our old house, or even those new houses that CRS is building over there. So I'm pretty happy with the way things are going."
His trucking business is going well, too; Samiruddin says he has more work than he can handle. Samiruddin's 11-year-old son, Yusran, is also eager tomove back.
"This is where I used to live," he says, "so I'm happy to be coming back. I'll be able to walk to school and play more with my friends who've also come back."
Yusran says he's no longer afraid of the water, as he was immediately afterthe tsunami. His mother, Rohani, is. She's been reluctant to move back from the beginning, and is no less reluctant now.
"I'm still afraid," she says, "but not really. I'm afraid in my heart that the water will come again. I know my husband and my children want to move back. But if it were up to me, we'd just stay with my mother."
But many survivors don't have a choice. They will continue living with relatives or in barracks for some time to come. Initial estimates put recovery time for the battered province at three to five years. Officials now say it may take a decade -- and even that depends, to a large extent, on whether a post-tsunami peace agreement between Acehnese separatists and the Indonesian government continues to hold. Most Acehnese hope it does. Between that decades-long conflict and the tsunami, they reckon they've suffered enough.
Morning Edition, December 26, 2006 .
The Asian tsunami of 2004 killed more than 170,000 people in the Indonesian province of Aceh alone, washing awaytens of thousands of homes, schools and businesses. Two years later, reconstruction is underway, but the recovery effort is not as far along as many had hoped it would be.The provincial capital Banda Aceh is booming with new stores, restaurants and hotels. There's something else new -- and not at all welcome -- in this once-sleepy city: traffic jams. All of it seemed unimaginable just two years ago, says Paul Dillon, who is with the International Organization for Migration.
"I arrived two days after the tsunami and have been here ever since," Dillon says. "And I'm constantly amazed to see the extent to which reconstruction occurred. That said, there remain major challenges when it comes to housing and infrastructure, and those are going to persist for years to come."
Families Crammed into Small Barracks
A gaggle of children greet a visitor in the muddy courtyard outside their temporary home in the town of llokgna, several miles up the coast from theprovincial capital. It took just a few minutes for the tsunami to leave a half-million homeless in Aceh.
Two years on, some 70,000 are still living intemporary wooden barracks like this one. Entire families -- sometimes more-- live in a single 10-by-20 room. Marzuki, 28, is a fisherman and widower who shares his room in the barracks with two other families. He wants to get on with his life and start a new family to replace the one he lost, he says. But he can't -- not while he has to live in such cramped conditions.
"They tell me I have to be patient," Marzuki says. "But they won't tell me when I'll get help to rebuild. It might be a few months, it might be longer. They just tell me I have to wait."
The United Nations recovery coordinator for Aceh, Eric Morris, hears Marzuki's frustration. He says things should be better.
"I would say a B+ for effort, and something less in terms of actual accomplishments for stated targets," Morris says of reconstruction efforts.
Early Promises Proved Hard to Keep
No one disputes that the initial response to the tsunami was extraordinary,and extraordinarily successful. The reconstruction phase has been less so --in part, Morris says, because of promises made early on that proved impossible to keep.
"Many of the targets -- particularly with respect to permanent new housesfor tsunami survivors --most of those targets were probably unrealistic,"Morris says. He says there was an insufficient awareness of obstacles in terms of procurement, construction supplies, logistical constraints and other issues that have prevented early expectations from being fully met. Competition between aid agencies has sometimes gotten in the way of cooperation, Morris says, as non-governmental organizations rush to build houses with money generously donated by governments and ordinary people from around the world.
"There are different ways of going about rebuilding these settlements and these communities, some of them very effective and some of them less so," says the International Organization for Migration's Paul Dillon. "And as aresult, what you have is a mishmash of different qualities and styles of construction, and that can be very problematic."
The town of Peuken Bada offers a good glimpse into the progress and problems so far. Only a handful of buildings were left standing after the tsunami. More than half of the town's population was swept away -- 10,000 people gone in an instant. Pueken Bada is on the mend. Construction crews are busy rebuilding hundreds of homes, which have sprouted like mushrooms among the marsh grass and tidalpools near the shore. Some, built early on by a south African charity that'ssince left, are so small and poorly built that they sit empty, with residents refusing to move in. Others are bigger and better.
Waiting to Start a New Life
One of the people we've been following over the past two years is Mursalin. He is the proud owner of a new house. It sits just a few feet away from the crude, one-room shack he built last year on the foundation of his old house,which was swept away -- along with his family -- when the tsunami hit. Mursalin gives a tour of his nearly completed home, one of 200 built in Peuken Bada by Catholic Relief Services. It has two bedrooms, a living room and a bathroom -- more than enough space for Mursalin, his new wife andtheir 8-month-old son.
"We were supposed to move in a few months ago," Mursalin says, "but now they tell us there's a problem with the contractor."
Mursalin says he hopes they'll be able to move sometime in January. But Catholic Relief Services Aceh Director Scott Campbell says that's not going to happen.
"We're having certain issues with the contractors based on the houses they're building," Campbell says. "CRS [Catholic Relief Services] is committed to making sure that the houses we build are structurally sound. And when those quality standards aren't met, we have to take certain actions to ensure that contractors in the field are building to a certain standard."
Campbell says it could take five or six months more to retrofit the houses in question. Mursalin is disappointed but still grateful. When it is finished, he says, it'll be a good house -- better than many here. He just wishes it would happen sooner.
A New Home Worth the Wait
A few hundred yards away, another house is nearly completed. This one will be home to Samiruddin, his wife Rohani and their two children. We've been following this family since the tsunami first hit. When their house was washed away two years ago, the family fled to the home of Rohani's mother, several miles further inland. Samiruddin is nearly done building their new home, with materials and some labor provided by Uplink, a German NGO. It has taken a while, Samiruddin says, but the wait has been worth it.
"Our old house was a little bigger, but this one is stronger," he says."It's all concrete. And the walls are much thicker than our old house, or even those new houses that CRS is building over there. So I'm pretty happy with the way things are going."
His trucking business is going well, too; Samiruddin says he has more work than he can handle. Samiruddin's 11-year-old son, Yusran, is also eager tomove back.
"This is where I used to live," he says, "so I'm happy to be coming back. I'll be able to walk to school and play more with my friends who've also come back."
Yusran says he's no longer afraid of the water, as he was immediately afterthe tsunami. His mother, Rohani, is. She's been reluctant to move back from the beginning, and is no less reluctant now.
"I'm still afraid," she says, "but not really. I'm afraid in my heart that the water will come again. I know my husband and my children want to move back. But if it were up to me, we'd just stay with my mother."
But many survivors don't have a choice. They will continue living with relatives or in barracks for some time to come. Initial estimates put recovery time for the battered province at three to five years. Officials now say it may take a decade -- and even that depends, to a large extent, on whether a post-tsunami peace agreement between Acehnese separatists and the Indonesian government continues to hold. Most Acehnese hope it does. Between that decades-long conflict and the tsunami, they reckon they've suffered enough.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Christmas is Coming and the Chicken Turkey's Getting Fat!
Tomorrow is Christmas! Even our little corner of this island is starting to feel festive. We found a ‘tree’ at a nursery and that helped the spirit quite a bit. Then we found ‘chasing lights’ to put on the tree. Basically, your every day Christmas tree lights, but the package says ‘chasing’ instead of ‘Christmas’ here in Sharia land.
We made a couple of ornaments out of homemade salt clay. It’s so humid we had to leave them out to dry for days. After awhile you forget about them. By the time we remembered they were on the floor on top of a piece of cardboard, there were only a few left, thanks to Sabrina and the dog sampling them. So, whatever the dog and Sabrina didn’t eat we put on the tree.
I made a garland with some fuzzy white yarn left over from my never finished scarf I was attempting during Jared’s football practices, and some sequins. We cut out snowflakes and made an angel out of a toilet paper roll. Very high brow!
Then on to the kitchen. Christmas to me has always meant baking and cooking, but here with my Betty Crocker Easy Bake Oven and a house full of boys, I’ve realized I have to adjust my wants to meet my reality. In this household a few batches of homemade red and green playdough and some red and green frosting covered cupcakes fit the bill quite nicely.
I did have high hopes. I scoured the Internet and found a fudge recipe not requiring marshmallows (very hard to find and when you do they will put you back about $8 US a bag.) that turned out quite nicely. I did the cooked eggnog so as not to show up at tonight’s holiday party with a “Merry Christmas, would you like some rum with your Avian Flu punch?”
Rob thinks the eggnog is much better with the rum than without as it cuts the flavor of the UHT milk. I think rum makes pretty much everything taste better.
Tonight’s Christmas Eve party is all about not eating rice and rendang, but recreating the best we can the foods we are familiar with. I am in charge of the traditional if not kitschy green bean casserole. My friend who is hosting the party called me up excitedly to tell me a package from her sister in law just arrived and is complete with the Durkee French Fried Onions. Now that is the sign of a good Christmas.
Next is my traditional fruit salad inherited from my mother. She discovered it while living in Alaska when I was a baby. It has everything in it a grown up person isn’t supposed to eat; marshmallows, cream cheese, canned fruit. The story I got from her is it was so hard to find fruit in Alaska way back in the late ‘60’s they relied on the canned variety and spiced it up a bit. My thought is, if the cans of fruit cocktail needed ‘spicing up’ by being smothered with cream cheese and marshmallows, I question the intelligence of eating them in the first place. At any rate, now I’m addicted and I too must have the fruit salad.
I’ve replaced the walnuts with cashews, since there aren’t any walnut trees anywhere on the island. I couldn’t find the canned pineapple, but I did find a can of tropical fruit and picked out all the weird gelatinous white fruits so they wouldn’t mar my memory of the coveted fruit salad. Canned papaya? Fine. Canned chewy fruit de cacao? Nope.
I tried to make marshmallows. Twice. All I can say is it’s impossible with a cooktop that goes from hot to hotter, no electric mixer and no candy thermometer. My second attempt looked promising; the sugar water/gelatin concoction was starting to turn white and grow. But just as my shoulder was starting to burn from the frenzied fork whipping and I excitedly called Jared into the kitchen, the froth of sticky whiteness collapsed in a heap of escaped steam and I was left with sugary sand stuck to the bottom of the pot.
I don’t know what kind of chemical reaction happened in my kitchen, as I am an Arts major, but I won’t be attempting that again any time soon.
So, yes in the spirit of the holidays, I sucked it up, bought the $8 US bag of marshmallows and admitted I am no Martha Stewart.
The cupcakes took five hours since I could only cook about eight at a time in the Easy Bake.
It is kind of funny how much food matters, especially living in stressful environments. I’ve done this all before; boiled down enormous squash to make ‘pumpkin’ pie; snuck ham underneath my underwear in luggage destined for other Muslim countries; traveled three hours by hot van just to find spegettios for my children. I’ve thought nothing of going over the weight limit on the airplane if it meant bringing back a few extra jars of peanut butter. I’ve been known to pay $15 US for pop tarts.
That, I must say, is the true test of honesty in a relationship. Do you confess to your spouse that you were idiotic enough to pay that much for some lousy pop tarts? You’ve got to really love somebody if you allow them to eat a pop tart when they are $3 US a piece.
Our language instructor asked what we were eating for Christmas. I told him turkey, which translates to ‘kalkun’ in Indonesian. Here they call them ‘ayam kalkun’ which means ‘chicken turkey.’
This discussion of course digressed into the various types of chickens you have here on the island. You have the ‘ayam pudong’, which is the big, white chicken. (Know as the KFC chicken, or as I joked, the bule ‘foreigner’ chicken).
Then you’ve got the ‘ayam kampung’ – the ‘roaming chicken’ which here could be called the ‘garbage eating chicken’ but in more polite societies we’ll call it the ‘free range chicken.’
Then of course, you have your ‘ayam kampus’ or ‘wandering chicken’ which translates to the loose woman of the village.
At any rate, we’re happy to have found not only a chicken turkey, but a friend who does not have an Easy Bake oven. It is, after all, the simple things in life that make you happy. Merry Christmas!
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Monday, December 18, 2006
This was so darned funny, I had to steal it from my Canadian friends, the Virginillos. Thanks Brenda! Of course, with a bit of a more American bent : )
For our liberal friends
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. We also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that the United States is necessarily greater than any other country. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the wishee(s).
By accepting these greetings, you are accepting the aforementioned terms as stated. This greeting is not subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher(s) to actually implement any of the wishes for herself/himself/others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher(s). This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher(s).
For our conservative friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
For our liberal friends
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. We also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that the United States is necessarily greater than any other country. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the wishee(s).
By accepting these greetings, you are accepting the aforementioned terms as stated. This greeting is not subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher(s) to actually implement any of the wishes for herself/himself/others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher(s). This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher(s).
For our conservative friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Belum, Tidok bericara bahasa Indonesia
Belum, tidok bericara bahasa Indonesia (No, I don’t yet speak Indonesian)
Jared, Rob and I have been taking language classes for the last few weeks. While I do feel like I am improving a bit, I need to accelerate the process. The worst part of the whole enlightenment of finding out what Indonesian words really mean is realizing how ‘Tarzan and Jane’ I’ve been speaking.
The second worst part is realizing that I’m getting old and it is starting to affect me. Case in point; I made flash cards for us in order to study. Rob and I were ‘flashing’ each other so to speak when Jared walked in the room. We made him join in on the game. The first round he didn’t know a single word. The SECOND round, he knew every one by rote. So unfair. Rob and I must have been 15 minutes into flashing each other 20 different words and we still got at least two or three wrong every time.
It would also take several seconds to figure out what the word meant. I have a terrible memory. Where Rob can remember his phone number from when he was seven years old, I’ve already forgotten my work extension back in the home office.
I also have to make weird, murky connections in order to remember any words. For example, in order to remember the word ‘to cook’ – ‘memasok’, I need to think of Michael Jackson, then I need to think of the song that has the refrain ‘mama-say-mama-so-mama-ku-sa’ stuff in it, then I remember the Indonesian word sounds kind of like that, then I mouth the Michael Jackson song until I remember the right word is memasok, not memakusa. By the time I say it, the person I’m trying to converse with has usually moved on to someone else who doesn’t act like they have some sort of mental problem.
Up there in my worst things about learning a foreign language top ten list is having several half learned languages (sometimes I think English is part of that pack) bouncing around in my brain; Arabic, French and now Indonesian. This has gotten me into trouble recently.
For some reason, as I was looking at a container of yummy UHT milk (ha!) I saw the word ‘bebec’ and assumed that word was for milk. In my mind it was the closest sounding word to the other ‘milk’ words I know, like ‘leche’, since it has that hard ‘k’ sound in it. Never did I think it was actually ‘susu’, which to me sounds like ‘sugar’.
We run out of milk one morning. I don’t have access to a car and I don’t feel like flagging down a bechek (sidecar taxi) to go to the closest semblance of a grocery store. Instead, I hoof it to the nearest little ‘toko’ (store) which in my neighborhood usually is made out of plywood and serrated tin roof. There is usually a light bulb in the shack and a dirt floor. There is nothing but the essentials; bags (yes bags!) of oil, cleaning liquids and water; bags closed with rubber bands (yes, bags with rubber bands!) of flour and sugar, two full isles of cookies and sugar crackers and big plastic jars of candies. I looked around for milk. No milk. So, I asked the store owner, “Anda mapunya bebec?” I think I’m asking for milk. He says no. I insist that he perhaps he does have ‘bebec’ and he has forgotten. He consults with a young guy, probably his son who brings me some margarine. “Tidok,” I explain. (“no”). “Saya mau bebec.” Again I think I’m asking for milk. I try and make it clearer. “Anda tahu, bebec, bebec chocolat,..” I think I’m telling him “You know, milk, chocolate milk,..” Finally I locate a little carton (in the shape of a bag!) of milk in his fridge and shake it in front of him. “Bebec!” He just laughs and takes my money.
It isn’t until my next language lesson that I find out I was actually asking him for a duck. You know, a duck, a chocolate duck,...I find this out in the middle of the lesson when I interrupt what our great teacher Benny is trying to teach us (“Oh yeah! And what is the word for,...”) I have Benny laughing so hard he is crying. He can not believe he is trying to teach bahasa Indonesia to some American woman who goes to a store and asks about purchasing chocolate ducks.
Benny takes a deep breath to gain control. He closes his book, clasps his hands and looks at me. “Now, Ibu Karen, what other words do you need to know?”
Jared, Rob and I have been taking language classes for the last few weeks. While I do feel like I am improving a bit, I need to accelerate the process. The worst part of the whole enlightenment of finding out what Indonesian words really mean is realizing how ‘Tarzan and Jane’ I’ve been speaking.
The second worst part is realizing that I’m getting old and it is starting to affect me. Case in point; I made flash cards for us in order to study. Rob and I were ‘flashing’ each other so to speak when Jared walked in the room. We made him join in on the game. The first round he didn’t know a single word. The SECOND round, he knew every one by rote. So unfair. Rob and I must have been 15 minutes into flashing each other 20 different words and we still got at least two or three wrong every time.
It would also take several seconds to figure out what the word meant. I have a terrible memory. Where Rob can remember his phone number from when he was seven years old, I’ve already forgotten my work extension back in the home office.
I also have to make weird, murky connections in order to remember any words. For example, in order to remember the word ‘to cook’ – ‘memasok’, I need to think of Michael Jackson, then I need to think of the song that has the refrain ‘mama-say-mama-so-mama-ku-sa’ stuff in it, then I remember the Indonesian word sounds kind of like that, then I mouth the Michael Jackson song until I remember the right word is memasok, not memakusa. By the time I say it, the person I’m trying to converse with has usually moved on to someone else who doesn’t act like they have some sort of mental problem.
Up there in my worst things about learning a foreign language top ten list is having several half learned languages (sometimes I think English is part of that pack) bouncing around in my brain; Arabic, French and now Indonesian. This has gotten me into trouble recently.
For some reason, as I was looking at a container of yummy UHT milk (ha!) I saw the word ‘bebec’ and assumed that word was for milk. In my mind it was the closest sounding word to the other ‘milk’ words I know, like ‘leche’, since it has that hard ‘k’ sound in it. Never did I think it was actually ‘susu’, which to me sounds like ‘sugar’.
We run out of milk one morning. I don’t have access to a car and I don’t feel like flagging down a bechek (sidecar taxi) to go to the closest semblance of a grocery store. Instead, I hoof it to the nearest little ‘toko’ (store) which in my neighborhood usually is made out of plywood and serrated tin roof. There is usually a light bulb in the shack and a dirt floor. There is nothing but the essentials; bags (yes bags!) of oil, cleaning liquids and water; bags closed with rubber bands (yes, bags with rubber bands!) of flour and sugar, two full isles of cookies and sugar crackers and big plastic jars of candies. I looked around for milk. No milk. So, I asked the store owner, “Anda mapunya bebec?” I think I’m asking for milk. He says no. I insist that he perhaps he does have ‘bebec’ and he has forgotten. He consults with a young guy, probably his son who brings me some margarine. “Tidok,” I explain. (“no”). “Saya mau bebec.” Again I think I’m asking for milk. I try and make it clearer. “Anda tahu, bebec, bebec chocolat,..” I think I’m telling him “You know, milk, chocolate milk,..” Finally I locate a little carton (in the shape of a bag!) of milk in his fridge and shake it in front of him. “Bebec!” He just laughs and takes my money.
It isn’t until my next language lesson that I find out I was actually asking him for a duck. You know, a duck, a chocolate duck,...I find this out in the middle of the lesson when I interrupt what our great teacher Benny is trying to teach us (“Oh yeah! And what is the word for,...”) I have Benny laughing so hard he is crying. He can not believe he is trying to teach bahasa Indonesia to some American woman who goes to a store and asks about purchasing chocolate ducks.
Benny takes a deep breath to gain control. He closes his book, clasps his hands and looks at me. “Now, Ibu Karen, what other words do you need to know?”
Friday, November 10, 2006
Pictures!
Wow, I actually exceeded the word limit of my blogger, so for those of you in the dark, the last two letters in the previous post were 'en.'
He looks too relaxed, eh? And this is day 1 of the Perth Park Tour 2006!
Yes, Sabrina actually has enough hair that she gets 'bed head' like everybody else!
Just another crazy family ,... livin' the dream!
Here is Sabrina's snorky face - I keep telling her it's going to be hard enough to get a date with some hot highschool hunk with three older brothers and she should really not do the snorky-scrunch the nose up-and-smile thing, but she won't listen to me,... Or else she's practicing to replace Jack White's sister in the White Stripes band,.. maybe we should be listening to more Nursery Rhymes on the car radio,...
Okay, say it with me, "Wow! That's one fat Wombat!"
He looks too relaxed, eh? And this is day 1 of the Perth Park Tour 2006!
Yes, Sabrina actually has enough hair that she gets 'bed head' like everybody else!
Just another crazy family ,... livin' the dream!
Here is Sabrina's snorky face - I keep telling her it's going to be hard enough to get a date with some hot highschool hunk with three older brothers and she should really not do the snorky-scrunch the nose up-and-smile thing, but she won't listen to me,... Or else she's practicing to replace Jack White's sister in the White Stripes band,.. maybe we should be listening to more Nursery Rhymes on the car radio,...
Okay, say it with me, "Wow! That's one fat Wombat!"
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
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
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
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.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
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.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Thursday, October 12, 2006
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.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
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.
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