Review of 16 months

I won't attempt a full recap of the last 16 months - if I did this resurrection would never happen! But I will give a brief overview.

I left off in Nov. 2009 (!!). January 2010 felt like a big month. We went to Malaysia for a week and had a nice time. When we came back C seemed to go through a major developmental spurt. Within 2 weeks he began swimming like a fish, riding his bike with no training wheels, and reading. It was really incredible, and very exciting! Then my mom and her good friend A (my adopted aunt) came to visit. We had a fabulous time exploring Jakarta and then the 3 of us went for a whole week to Bali and Gili Trawangan. A whole week! Yes, I left my hubby and kids in Jakarta while I went traveling with my mom and great friend and it was marvelous!

In March my dad came for his first visit to Jakarta - yeah! Again, we had a great time. We went to the national mosque in Jakarta for Friday afternoon prayers which was really interesting. The whole family went to Bali and J, my dad and I played golf at Nirwana golf course - gorgeous!

In May we potty trained LC and it went very well. It went well until June when we went back to the US for the summer. And then we had some steps backward, forwards, sideways, and it basically took months of hell until just last month (yes, 10 months folks, I'm not happy) when I feel I can now confidently say he is potty trained. I won't go into the stinky details, I will spare you, but there really were a few horrible months when we thought he might have a medical condition that could last for years (sometimes the internet is a bad place to spend time). Anyway though, we did have a fantastic time in the US - spent a few days in Baltimore and then 1 week at a beautiful cabin in W. VA with Jon's family and our DC friends, and then 3 weeks in WI.

In August LC started back at preschool with the 3 year old class and C started first grade. It was a harder transition for C than I thought it would be. I thought kindergarten would be the toughest transition, but 1st grade is evidently more serious, because C would come home regularly and complain that school is so booorrriiinngg! It took about 4 months before he stopped saying that. In September we took an adventurous trip to Flores island and Komodo national park. We hiked Rinca and Komodo islands to see the only home of Komodo dragons in the wild, sailed around some of the most gorgeous scenery I've ever seen, and did some of the best snorkeling I'd ever done (and C's first time!).

C and I took a quick trip to Singapore in November to visit friends and go to Universal Studios. It was really fun to go on a trip just the 2 of us! And then for Christmas we went to Melbourne! It was the first time I'd been back since living there as an exchange student when I was 16. It was incredible and I'm very happy we did it! We stayed with my host family and I became reacquainted with my neighborhood there and saw a friend from my high school. We then went to Hamilton Island, Queensland (lovely!) and I snorkeled in the Great Barrier Reef (a life long dream!). We ended our trip in Sydney and then flew back to Jakarta in 2011. In February we went to Manado, N. Sulawesi with 5 other families and had a wonderful time catching up with friends and seeing about 100 wild dolphins (amazing!!).

When we got back I started doing a short term work assignment which has been very interesting and has kept my mind off of the move, which is a good thing at the moment. I'm also happy to fill up my CV a bit with more maternal and child health work. I am busy planning our final trips before we leave this part of the world (Phuket, Kalimantan, Gili T. again), and preparing myself for a lot of moving tasks in the near future.

The boys are good. They are full-of-it boys in the most delightful and wonderful and of course sometimes most monstrous of ways. C is very smart and is the sweetest kid when he's not being totally silly. C seems to take after his father and is excelling in math, and is also doing well with reading. I love listening to him read. My son reads!! I just think that's the coolest thing ever. He did soccer and t-ball this school year and enjoyed them both, although we think t-ball may be more his pace. He is now doing tae kwon do and I finally got to watch him the other day and he's quite good - hopefully he'll stick with it. He loves to spend hours outside playing with all the children in our complex, riding his bike, playing soccer, chasing girls (already!), and playing with whatever toys are the flavor of the day. He is still a good drawer and I think he has my mom's talent, but right now he's too busy being 6 to spend much time drawing. His music teacher tells us he has good rhythm so hopefully he'll take up an instrument (I'm hoping for the guitar) in the near future. He keeps trying to convince me that he's going to be a motorcycle racer when he grows up, but I usually ignore him because that must be a mother's worst nightmare of a profession. Hopefully this will not stick! 

And LC, well, he's 3. And he's good at it. He plays hard and he sleeps hard. I've always said he is a very full-on kid - when he does something or acts a certain way, he does it to full capacity. As my father says, he is a joy to be with. He is a very happy kid who loves to smile and laugh and play, he is social and smart and rascally. And when he's awful, he does that full-on too. He is very stubborn and very independent. We lost him twice when we were in Australia (fortunately for only a few minutes, but it's scary to lose a 3 year old when you're near water!), and several other times he just plain walked in the totally opposite direction from all of us because that's the way he wanted to go. He likes to write letters and has started drawing a lot. He likes to play soccer and do tae kwon do like his big brother - he pretty much likes anything that C likes. He has lots of girlfriends in the complex, both younger and older. I have little doubt that both my boys will do well with the ladies. :)

So that has been our life for the last 16 months in a very small nutshell. It's been a very fun and eventful 16 months, and I'm sorry I haven't been sharing! 

Around the world with a conversation

I took some time the other day to scan my favorite blogs and explore new ones and I found a whole list of blogs written by expats living in Indonesia. Many of them wrote about the bombing that occured here in Jakarta in July, and when writing about it all of them expressed their deep sadness for the expats and Indonesians who were harmed in the tragic event, and their own bafflement at this horrendous act and their deep love of this country.

Their writings and conversations made me think back to the conversations I've had over the years with fellow Americans and people from many different countries and the profound sharing of our lives and our cultures that is involved. In particular I thought about my experience as a Peace Corps volunteer (PCV) in Mali, W. Africa from 1996-98 . This was a seminal experience of my life, an adventure that introduced me to my beloved husband, career and Africa. Every PCV embarks on their journey with a specific Peace Corps assigned job - for example I was tasked to be a "natural resources management extension agent" (yes, quite a mouthful!). Many PCVs also take on secondary projects because either they are interested in them or they are asked by their community to help in that way. My secondary project was to work with the village midwife, which is how I became interested in my current career of public health. The work PCVs do is the first of three goals of Peace Corps, which is to "help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women."

I've always considered this goal to be very important of course; however, it is really the second and third goals of Peace Corps which I believe to be the most significant. These two goals (to educate foreigners about America and to educate Americans about foreigners/foreign countries) address the idea of cross-cultural awareness and the sharing of experiences and values and beliefs among people from different countries. I believe most returned PCVs have found the most meaning and the most enduring benefit of Peace Corps to be this sharing and education that they have both received and given. As a matter of fact, many exchange programs, such as AFS, were established in order to heal the wounds of war and to prevent future wars from starting. After all, when you know and love a person from a foreign country, war and strife in their country becomes profoundly personal. If more Americans had know more Iraqis, would we have let Bush invade their country? Maybe not. If more Americans knew more Sudanese and Somalis, would we continue to do virtually nothing? Again, maybe not.

Sometimes I've been surprised by the effects that these cross-cultural exchanges can have, or how long they can last. I have relationships with foreigners that have lasted decades and I suspect will last forever. We share a love for global travel and new experiences, and have shared special moments in eachothers' lives which will never be lost. And it is amazing the effect a person can have on another's ideas about a whole country, either for good or for bad. And coming home from my adventures has been an educational experience as well. It has given me an opportunity to see my home country with new eyes, to enable me to be more open-minded about its flaws and to appreciate its beauties. I also learned more about my own family from these absences, and how their deep interest and insightful questions made me realize how much they care for me and how interested in the world they truly are.

Traveling the world is an amazing opportunity that I cherish on a regular basis. It reminds me just how harsh and how lovely people can be, and how different we are but moreso how similar we are no matter where we are from. It provides the most amazing opportunities, and I believe the best education a person can gain is through global travel. I feel blessed that my sons are experiencing life in a different country, and pray that they these benefits will last a life time.

Happy Mother's Day!

A new era

Yesterday (for me!) an estimated 1.5 million people braved the cold, crowds and long lines to witness first hand a most historical event in USA's history - the swearing in of its first African American president. While it doesn't matter to me what race Obama is, I do recognize the significance it bears and how greatly this shows just how far my nation has come. What matters more to me though is the end of the Bush era, the end of a leadership that was the most tyrannical, blind, selfish, narrow-minded, elitist, and hateful that I have ever had the misfortune of witnessing in America. There is very little that Bush did right, and the wrongs that he committed will take far longer to repair than was taken to make. But I have hope that at least some of those wrongs will be righted, and that today starts a new era filled with hope, light, fairness, inclusiveness, diplomacy, civility, and intelligence. I am not naive, I know that things will not be made perfect nor will it or can it be done quickly, nor is Obama my perfect ideal of who a president would be, but I do have hope and I do believe that he will do a lot of good in the next 4-8 years. Mostly, I am so happy to feel hope and to be positive about the direction our country is now going, rather than the despair and anger and frustration I have felt for 8 years. 8 years!

I had high expectations of watching the inauguration on tv. However, being 12 hours ahead of Wa, DC, and feeling quite sick all day, I couldn't make it past 10 and didn't see anything other than the first crowds and the long lines for the metro (subway). I would have liked to be there in person, but even if we still lived in DC I don't know that we would have gone. I suppose it would have depended on daycare first of all... There were parties here in Jakarta as well. There was a gala event at the Ritz Carlton hotel that was to broadcast the swearing in, and there was also a free event at the J.W. Marriott that was also going to broadcast the proceedings. That would have been fun. Instead our evening transpired like most do, and there was no cheering or fanfare. But I was there in spirit.

Finally - Congratulations President Obama! We welcome you to the privileged office of being the president of the USA, and are thankful that you do indeed view it as a privilege and not your right. Good luck to you, as you have a very, very tough road in front of you.

The Big Day

In honor of Super Tuesday, we'd like to officially cast our ballot:

On a side note, we did already send in our absentee ballots, not that it will matter much in Maryland.

100th post

This is my 100th post here on Indoprism! Yippee! I think a celebration is in order... While I've had some lulls, I'm pretty happy that I've kept the blog going for almost 2 years. I still want to start a "style" type section similar to dooce.com, but have it focus on Indonesian and Asian style/design/photos. Hopefully I'll start that someday soon, probably next year. Right now we're busy preparing for our trip to Cambodia next week and J's sister's visit, plus trying to get through my 'to do' list that seems to be permanently stuck on 18 items.

Happy 100th post Indoprism!

Birthday

It was my birthday on Sunday. We started celebrating on Friday night though with presents and my favorite chocolate cake in Jakarta (from a place called Gourmet Garage). Then on Saturday J and I stole away to a hotel in the center of Jakarta for the weekend. We spent a lazy day shopping, getting massages, relaxing at the hotel, and enjoying a delicious dinner at one of our two favorite restaurants in town (we went to Scusa, the other being Blowfish). The best part of the meal was that I discovered why people think tirimisu is such a big deal, because when it's done well, it really is a big deal (see photo above)! Yum! We slept in on Sunday, although unfortunately didn't sleep well, thanks to the idiot who kept calling my phone at 5 a.m., even though it was obviously a wrong number! We then enjoyed a lazy brunch and then headed back home to take care of the troops. And that's when my husband informed me that the "festival of B" was over. So sad.

So yeah, I turned 36. I've decided that this must be the official start of middle age. At least that's the way it feels to me. I'm on the downward slope to 40, I can't get away with saying I'm in my "early 30's" anymore, when life held the excitement of starting my career in earnest, buying our first home, having children. Now we've been there - done that. What makes the late 30's exciting and spectacular? I don't know...compared to our early 30's and our 20's it doesn't feel like much. Granted there will be another big move in there at some point, either back to the US or to another country, but other than that, it will be about career development and the kids getting older, but "excitement" doesn't come to mind. Don't get me wrong, I'm not depressed about turning 36, just reflecting on my life thus far and feeling like I've entered my era of middle-ageness (yes J, I know that's not a word). I guess that's all ok, in a kind of mundane way.

Annoyed

I'll start this post out with admitting that everything is annoying me these days. So, of course, why wouldn't a sweet innocuous little memoir on motherhood by Anna Quindlin not annoy me as well? I'll get to that in a bit...just let me say that I'm tired. Really, just very very tired of my life right now. Nothing seems to be going great and yet I don't have anything significant to complain about. So yes, I'm tired of x, y, and z, and yet I'm also tired of my internal dialogue complaining about how tired I am of everything! I'm obviously having one of those low weeks where you want to crawl into your shell with a lot of good movies and good books and really good ice cream and get away from your life and your thoughts for just a couple days. A deserted and beautiful resort in the mountains sounds perfect, but a place where I don't have to deal with another human being but am completely pampered. Yes, that sounds nice. Really really nice.

So this sweet little memoir I referred to...why is it annoying me? Read the excerpt below and I'll explain...

"But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less."

I am not so annoyed that I can't agree with it, because I do. What aggravates me is that I do agree with it, and I'm living it now, but if she truly remembered correctly she probably thought the same thing as she was "doing" but still had to focus on the getting it done too! Yes, wouldn't it be nice to think about how lovely it was to sit on that blanket on the perfectly warm and sunny summer day with your 3 beautiful children playing perfectly all around you. And there is the mom, sitting prettily in her perfect white dress with a sweet smile on her face, basking in the glory of her perfect children and the perfect day and everything is so glorious that she has the time to enjoy the smell and the warmth and the sounds of her children and not think about another thing...

WRONG! Dear Anna, first of all that is not how it all came down. Maybe it was warm but you had to keep repositioning the blanket because it kept getting in the sun and it would be too hot. The cold food and the hot food was luke warm. There were ants and flies and odd flying beetle things buzzing all around you. Your 6 year old was constantly tormenting your 4 year old, knowing all the right buttons to push and pretending that she knew it all and was the boss. Your 4 year old was whining about said 6 year old, about the heat, about the food, about not having his toys, about wanting to go inside, about... And your 1 year old was exhausting you. She couldn't walk yet but wanted to be on the move all the time, so you were spending the entire time running after her and trying to keep her from eating the grass and getting underfoot of the other 2 kids. So here you are, trying to feed your 3 children in the sun with bugs flying all around listening to them bicker and constantly getting up to remove your baby from wandering too far or eating too much grass and all you could think about was how nice it will be when they're asleep and you can have a moment of peace and quiet before you have to clean the dishes and pay the bills and remember the 100 things you have to do but wait, gee!, I should be enjoying this moment in my life because before I know it they won't want anything to do with me and then they'll be out of the house. Right?

Or maybe it's been so long and she's so delusional that she actually misses that too. She misses the constant and emotionally draining sleep deprivation and the constant running to keep up with her life and the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that are her children. Maybe she does. And maybe I will too. But right now I'm just really tired of this existence and what I'd really like is some good long deep sleep.

LC kept us up half the night and it's not like it's been a long time since that happened before. He's the most random sleeper despite having had a very constant and set routine most of his life. Mostly he does ok. Mostly I get sleep. Not enough sleep, usually not totally uninterrupted sleep or past the break of dawn sleep, but I get some. So when these bad nights happen they just push me back farther into the sleep deprivation bank and I'm back to running on empty. LC is on his 4th ear infection and has 4 teeth pushing through (2 of those are already out somewhat thank god). I'm working on 11 months of sleep deprivation, for the 2nd year in the last 4 years, and it's taking its toll. I'm tired.

I'm tired of my job. I'm frustrated daily with trying to manage a US government funded project largely by myself, part-time, with no in-country support and from my home. With 2 young children it is nearly impossible to get my hours in during a normal day and without constant interruption by family or home demands. Since we lost our nanny (we have a new one) C has been especially demanding on my time and doesn't want to play with anyone but me. So it is a constant stream of whining and complaining from him all afternoon. And to him work is not a credible reason for not playing with him. I am tired of not having more support for a very demanding position. I am tired of not being able to schedule the non-work part of my days because work demands often take precedent should they come up. (Fortunately my work life has an end date in sight - more on that another time)

I am tired of our lonely social life. Not since college have I had so many friends and done so much socially, and yet it's been a very long time since I've been so lonely. I like my friends here, but it is a pretty superficial friendship. I don't have a single friend here with whom I'd share truly personal thoughts. I just don't have much in common with them. Most of my friends here don't have a career and haven't worked in years. Most of them also have had no exposure to the international development world so for this reason and because a career isn't important to them I can't talk with them about my work. Most of them also don't volunteer or even take classes or anything. They go to playgroups, they go to the spa, they go shopping, they go out with friends and drink too much and make sure their nanny comes in early the next day so they can recover in peace. It's not that they're living a pampered life that I have a hard time with, I guess it's just that what do I have to talk about with them? We talk about kids, where we bought furniture, where to go on vacation. It just gets old. I have a few friends who do work in my field, but they work full time so we only occasionally see them on the weekends. Indonesia is a strange place for expats. There are so many here, there is so much going on, it's very easy to meet people but difficult to find people with whom you have a lot in common. And I never thought it would be so hard to meet people more like me and J. Every other country I've worked in I have been surrounded by the development community. But here we really are in the minority. The oil companies and private enterprise are much bigger players.

I suppose my whinge fest is over. I'm not even sure this entry is worth posting. I hate listening to myself whinge and whine when I know I'm so blessed in so many ways. But I guess it's part of the sharing and the whole - just how are J and B doing over there on the other side of the planet? We're doing alright, hanging in there, trying to get through the days like most of you I suppose, just with a couple different twists. So enough of the bla, bla, bla...

I still have to write about what's been going on at work and about my trip to Bangkok. I will get to it, I promise. And I'm sure it will be far more interesting than this post was!

Plastic bags and the Go Green craze

It has been nice to see the number of articles in various mainstream magazines and newspapers devoted in some way or another to environmental conservation concerns. There are of course the places you'd expect to see them, like National Geographic, but then there are also magazines like People (that's right folks, I read People. Afterall, I need to get my fix of America popculture!) that have been publishing more and more related articles.

In the April 28 issue of People there is an article on the plastic bag ban. San Francisco became the first city in the US last December to outlaw disposable plastic bags. As of now it only effects large grocery and drugstore chains, but that most likely addresses the bulk of the plastic bags being distributed. Similar bans have already occurred in cities in Ireland, India, and Bangladesh. Similar programs, albeit voluntary, have been instituted in Australia and Taiwan has passed a law requiring retailers to charge customers for plastic bags and utensils. As a result, Taiwan has seen a 69% drop in use of these products. In addition, the country of China recently cracked down on plastic bag use by outlawing the manufacture and distribution of very thin bags, and requires retailers to sell any plastic bags distributed. Over 12 US cities and four states are currently considering similar plastic bag bans.

The concerns regarding plastic bags are many-fold. It is estimated that consumers use between 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags every year; in the US it is estimated to be between 20 - 100 billion. These bags in America are manufactured using more than 12 million barrels of oil! And sadly, only a small percentage are recycled. And the rest? You could still see them littering our lands and water 1,000 years from now. In addition, thousands of sea creatures (whales, sea turtles, seals) are killed every year after ingesting plastic bags.

A few grocery stores I know of are actively recommending the use of alternatives to disposable plastic bags. Whole Foods has recently completely stopped using disposable plastic bags. They sell inexpensive recycled plastic bags at their stores, and encourage you to use your own bags by discounting your bill by 5 cents/bag. And if you don't have a bag, you can still use their 100% recycled paper bags. Another one of my favorite stores, Trader Joe's, still offers paper and plastic bags but also sells cotton bags. I would think they'd follow Whole Food's lead in the near future though. Additionally, Ikea charges 5 cents for plastic bags.

Personally, we have just started using a reusable bag for our groceries. Like most people, about 92% of Americans, we reuse our disposable plastic bags for various things, mostly to carry something somewhere or to throw other things away. So we probably just reuse them once. Better than nothing, but not good enough. I had been considering using reusable bags for years, but even after putting some cotton totes into our car I'd forget to bring them into the store. However, with the increased press on the environment, a paper bag stocked full of plastic bags, and my recent purchase of a very cool bag, our family is trying to be more committed to not contributing so much to the billions of plastic bags used every year.

Our new, very cool bag is made from non-recyclable plastic waste that is collected by trash pickers in Jakarta. A project called XSProject buys the waste from the trash pickers, providing them with extra income. The project then collaborates with other organizations and small cottage industries to recycle the waste and construct different size totes. And guess what? It looks like you can buy some of these bags in the US!


As you may imagine, Indonesia doesn't have a recycling program. However, a friend in my complex is looking into having our management company install bins for recyclables to be picked up by XSProject (I think). It would feel so good to not have to throw all of our waste into the trash! I'll write more about that if it materializes.

So jump on the bandwagon if you haven't already - start using re-usable bags today!

The Stupid Iraq War and other musings

I have no intention of this blog becoming a regular political outlet for me to complain or lament our current situation, or to cheer those occasional things that go right. However, I am somewhat political so these ideas and emotions are there, and sometimes they just need to burst out. It is probably a good thing for all of our sakes that I don't let this become my own personal griping outlet. I can get pretty annoying and passionate about some issues, to which J would certainly attest. For example, my friend Emily, of Lovely and Amazing fame, recently posted a rant about SCHIP program funds being cut. Well, I could fume on and on and on about that one, but since Emily already did such a good job of it you can read it here if you're interested. So, if you are someone who actually thinks it's a good thing we're embroiled in this huge, multibillion dollar lie and mess they call a war (who could you possibly be???), then you may not like most of what I have to say today (although it's really not that offensive).


The reason for the political outburst today is because J and I watched In the Valley of Elah a couple nights ago and it was a really, really good movie. It is the story of a father trying to find his son who just recently returned from Iraq. It stars Tommy Lee Jones as the father, Susan Sarandon as the mother, and Charlize Theron as the detective. What makes it especially poignant is that the story is based on actual events. The truth of what happened to the son, and what happened to him during his tour in Iraq, is tragic in so many ways. For most of you, because I know who you are, the truth won't be that shocking. It's part of the reason why we hate war in the first place, why it should never be entered into as lightly as it was, and why we think the government is doing such a pathetic job of fighting this war and taking care of our troops. What does surprise me is this last part. I don't understand how anyone, whether you're for this war or against it, isn't forcing the military to do a better job of taking care of its troops both while they're on duty and once they return.

This movie did a really wonderful job of pointing out these flaws and of pointing to the horror these boys and girls and men and women have to face on a daily basis while they're there, and of the continuing internal horror they face once they've returned. What I especially loved about the movie is how it accomplishes this both very overtly, but also very subtly. You'll understand what I mean if you watch the movie. Which you really should do.

Onto some segues... After watching the movie I wanted to discuss it with J. I was in tears and very upset and couldn't help but imagine that it was my son in the story. I didn't relate much to the family, but I do have 2 sons and it scares the living crap out of me to think that they could one day be drafted into war, or even join of their own volition. It's not a big stretch to imagine this. So this is what I attempted to discuss with J. I asked if watching this movie enraged him like it does me, to see what this war did to this mother's/father's son and to other mother's/father's sons, to know that we're spending billions of dollars on this lie instead of on improving our health care or education, etc. which is in such desperate need. But he wasn't. Or rather, this movie didn't make him feel that way. And he didn't relate in imagining that boy being our C or LC. It became evident to me, and has before many many times, how differently we see things. Part of the reason we see things differently, I think, is the male vs. female perspective.

And this is why I can't help but wonder about the current Democratic party nomination choices. Firstly I'll admit that I haven't paid close attention to it. This is one of the benefits or drawbacks of living overseas, depending on how you view it. It's easy to ignore what's happening back home. So I point this out because I couldn't tell you how the candidates really differ on key issues. But I will also add that many of my friends who do pay attention say there aren't huge differences anyway, and honestly this had already been my impression so far. If Hillary wins, fantastic, if Barack wins, that's cool too.

Why I'm bringing this up is because of what one of my pro-Barack friends said. He sent out a Vote for Obama email and added, "Vote for Change". It's this last bit that I don't entirely agree with. Yes Hillary is seen as being too entrenched in Washington politics, and perhaps this is true. On the other hand I think it would be good to have someone with substantial experience leading the country. Barack also has a very international background which of course I respect, and he could bring a very interesting perspective to the White House. And yes, he's not white. Maybe this will make a difference too. But when it comes down to it, he's still got a penis. And this is where my previous conversations relate to each other.

Speaking in generalities here, a woman, especially a mother, would be far less likely to enter into war. The reason is because she can, very easily and without much of a jump, imagine if it were her child she were sending to war. She can imagine, in her heart, in her head, in her bones, that it was her friend or sister or brother's child going into war. She can imagine, without stretching that imagination past a 2 second thought, that it was the corner grocer's son or her nurse's daughter going to war. I'm not saying at all that men don't think these thoughts, because of course they do. What I'm saying is it just doesn't seem to be the same. And that's the kind of change I'd like to see in the White House. I'd like to see first hand a president who has birthed a child and who has struggled as a working mother in this totally unsupportive society we have. A woman does see things differently. The issues that she deems most important often do differ from what a man might see as being most important. Did you know that a woman who has been pregnant will never lose a part of that child in her body? Meaning that I will always, for the rest of my life, have C's and LC's cells running through my body. I think that's so cool, and so poignant! I'd like to see the changes this woman would make. I think having a woman as president could show more change than a man. (And relating to the SCHIP rant, at least Hillary tried to address the health care issue! No one else is willing to go near that monster, despite how desperately we need to!)

Onto yet another segue, and another review. Don't worry, there is relevance. I've recently read Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, which is a guide to helping boys develop their emotional skills rather than destroying them, as our society seems to value. The authors, psychologists, illustrate the research and recommendations with anecdotal examples from their work with boys. The book includes chapters on boys in our educational system, in our culture, relationship with mothers (which I found particularly interesting), relationship with fathers, etc. I consider this book, or one with similar content, to be a must-read for any parent of boys. We've been so focused on increasing the opportunities for girls (which was needed) that we forgot about what was happening to our boys (big mistake).

I think the book has been personally helpful. While most of the recommendations were not "new" to me, as they feel like common sense and based on how I was brought up, some parts were quite enlightening. For example, the chapter on boys in school was very useful, and I'll be sure to read it again in a couple years when C starts kindergarten and may come up against similar struggles as were described in this chapter. I also appreciated the chapter on mothers with sons, because I don't "know" boys the way I "know" girls - I can use the help!

And the relevance? Do I need to spell it out? Well, we send our boys off to war without any emotional training on how to deal with the horrors they see. They're ill equipped to begin with, and then we make them do and see incredible atrocities. And then we bring them back, hopefully, with no skills on how to reassimilate or how to make peace with their life in Iraq. This is the tragedy that happened in In the Valley of Elah, a tragedy that maybe we could help prevent by encouraging our boys to listen to and express their emotions and to support them rather than criticize. On a side note, while looking for a link to this book I found a nifty page on PBS with other information, guides, etc from Raising Cain.

What a bonus! You got a political rant, movie review, and book review all in one little post!

Moms visit

The hecklers are heckling and the audience is growing restless. It has been a long time since my last post. My attentions have been focused on work and my mom and so I do apologize my friends. I will try to get us back to our regularly scheduled program.

My mom's visit was very successful. Well, it was mostly successful. She spent the first week sick with high fever and exhaustion and hardly able to play with her grandsons. She was incredibly frustrated and so was C (I ended up having to work quite a bit). So her visit didn't really seem to start until her 2nd of 4 weeks.

Her 2nd week she and I spent 5 glorious days alone in Bali without husband or children. That's right, 5 days without attachments in lush beautiful Bali, playing with my mom. We first headed to Ubud, which is regarded as the art and culture center of Bali. It is in central Bali, surrounded by lush vegetation, rice paddies, and mountains and volcanoes. The town itself is pretty funky. It felt to me like a Telluride, Colorado on the beach in a different country: some fun and hippie shops and some snooty and swanky shops; paintings and pottery and wood carvings spilling out from all nooks and crannies; women wearing long flowing skirts and halter tops; and the sound of Balinese or Bahasa Indonesia on the streets. It's kind of a strange place.

We stayed at this charming little place called Alam Jiwa. The properties (there are 3 little hotels) are set in lush gardens bordering rice paddies. Our room had a Balinese bed on the veranda where we huddled for a couple hours the first night under the mosquito net during a thunder storm. We had a great time talking the night away. The staff is excellent and friendly and they serve a fantastic breakfast. My mother fell in love with their papaya juice and pancakes, and I loved their pineapple juice - best I've ever had. We were quite busy in Ubud. We spent quite a bit of time shopping, and somehow it still wasn't enough - not even for my mom who usually hates shopping. We also spent a half day learning how to batik. It was actually pretty difficult and time consuming, but it was fun. We also spent a day visiting a few of the area craft villages and having lunch overlooking a volcano.

Our next stop was the Tandjung Sari on Sanur. The hotel was a bit disappointing - not nearly as charming or interesting as the less expensive Alam Jiwa. This was to be our relaxation time at the beach, sleeping, and nice dinners. We had some of that, but I could have used more of it! We went out in a boat to go snorkeling, which is when I learned my mom doesn't really swim! You'd think a 35 year old woman would know that about her mother... So I went snorkeling and mom put her face in the water for a few minutes. The snorkeling was just ok. We went over to Seminyak to watch the sunset at La Luciola restaurant, one of my favorites on Bali. Dinner was delicious and the sunset too cloudy. We took a walk on the beach and chased crabs into the water.

The rest of my mother's visit was a medley of spa visits (my mother is addicted to the facials), local sightseeing, and playtime with the grandsons. C had an especially great time with nana. They were playing together constantly and nana was the queen of story invention. She told C all kinds of wonderful stories about dinosaurs and volcanoes (C's current obsession) and little boys and bajajs. LC became more and more comfortable with her as the time went by. Unfortunately he didn't become an efficient crawler while she was here, but he did manage to show her that he could scoot around on his belly.

And then she was gone, back to the hard cold Wisconsin winter. C went back to his boring routine and I went back to work. We all had a wonderful time and we're so happy she came for a visit!

Not much to tell you since then. I've been working too much and trying to balance it all (story of everyone's life, I know). But we have another vacation in sight. Thursday and Friday are holidays so most people take advantage of the 4 day weekend. To celebrate we're getting out of Jakarta to Lombok, an island east of Bali. I've heard great things about it and we're looking forward to some quiet and relaxation. Then I'm headed directly to Bangkok for work for a week. I've wanted to go to Thailand since I was in high school so I'm pretty excited about it. So, we're keeping busy! I'll write again in a couple weeks.

Blogging birthday

I totally missed Indoprism's one year birthday (first post)! Happy birthday blog! I'm proud to say I've kept it fairly active for one entire year. I'm having fun with it and it seems to be well received, so I guess I'll keep it going! Here's hoping for another birthday next Feb.

Concerns for Kenya

Since the mayhem over the elections broke out in Kenya just a week ago I have been checking in with the news and with the Flametree blog that I regularly follow. The author has been diligent about writing and if you are interested in what's going on there I recommend checking in with her blog. I find it so much more insightful to hear a voice other than a reporter's when something like this happens. She mentions a few times about the surrealism of the situation - that despite the violence and strife surrounding her she must carry on with daily concerns. I remember feeling similarly after 9/11, and after the flooding here in Jakarta last January. I remember the odd feeling of having this ache in my heart and these fears for other people and this abstract knowledge that my life may change as a result, but that the reality of my day didn't change very much. I still had to go to class and do my homework (I was in grad school when 9/11 happened), or take care of C and find a house during the floods. Anyway, here's praying the Kenyan political parties figure out a solution.

Speaking of floods, rainy season has hit with a vengeance and there are once again floods in and around Jakarta. However, the situation is not nearly as serious as it was last year and the damage has been much more localized. Our complex was not affected last year so we have few concerns that we will experience any flooding.

Christmas and such

Santa came early this year, carrying a big bag o' presents. Since we're leaving Saturday for our grand adventure in New Zealand, we asked Santa to deliver most of the presents last weekend. Especially the big ones. Like C's new Batman Bike! It was a huge hit as expected. He is racing around the complex, feeling the wind in his hair, showing off to the girls... He really was in need of a new bike too. He had outgrown his tricycle and I felt a little bad watching his little legs peddling furiously as he tried to keep up with the big kids (and even kids his own age). Now he has a bike that is a little on the big side and has an adjustable seat, so it should last a while. LC didn't score nearly as big in the Christmas windfall. He has all of C's baby toys and doesn't know the difference anyway.

Christmas is more visible here than I had expected. There is Christmas music playing in the malls, decorations adorning shop windows, plenty of ornaments and fake Christmas trees. Thankfully it isn't overkill though; it doesn't make me want to throw up from all the dripping tinsel and jingle bells. It would be awfully silly if it were overdone anyway; it's already a little odd to see Christmas decorations in a Muslim country in the tropics.

In other news, C is really turning into a little boy. He has entered the "poopey head" phase. Evidently it is HILARIOUS! All of a sudden he will yell out, "poop!", and burst out laughing. He and his friends amuse each other endlessly yelling out different phrases with the word "poop" in it. I read that this is a healthy phase because they are developing their sense of humor, so I waver between laughing along or ignoring it depending on my mood. What I don't tolerate is the screaming. Agh. It's amazing how loud one 3 year old can be, and especially a group of them! He also seems to have a harder and harder time listening. We will repeatedly tell him no to something and he will do it anyway. The time-outs are returning with increased frequency lately, and we're getting quite sick of it. I'm bracing myself for the likelihood that this will last a while.

As for LC, he is entering into one of my all time favorite ages. I feel that for the first 6 months a parent is making a deposit on the fun and wonder that comes in the next 6 months. LC is rolling over more and more often. He is always quite happy with himself when he does it, until he realizes he's stuck on his belly. He is laughing more easily now as well. His father is particularly good at making him laugh and smile and he has a wonderful full giggly laugh that is totally addictive. He is sleeping better too most nights. He has slept through the night or straight through until 4 or 5 a number of times in the last week or two. There are 2 main problems though (there is always something, isn't there?). He wakes up too early. Sometimes he doesn't go back to sleep if he wakes up at 5, and he almost never goes back to sleep if he wakes up at 5:30. If we make it until 6 I feel fortunate. I think it's crazy for a 5 month old to wake up so early, but maybe it's common. The other problem is his sleep has become totally random. One night he'll sleep through the night, and the next he'll wake up 5 times. I rack my brain trying to figure out why, but I can never come up with a consistent reason. It's maddening. And of course now that he's rolling over more he's probably going to sleep poorly again. Plus we're going on a major trip that, based on our Bali trip experience, is going to totally mess him up again. I just pray it doesn't take us 5 weeks to get back on track!

What other bits of randomness can I tell you... Work is in the lull before the storm I think. January is certain to be crazy and I expect I'll have to work close to full time. It looks like I'm going to have to open a project office, manage it, hire employees, and both do and oversee the technical work for the project to be up and running in March, all on 50% time. It makes my belly flip over just thinking about it. So let's move on to...

Our vacation to New Zealand in 4 days! (I'm going to ignore the fact that we're quite unprepared for this). I can't wait for the majestic views, cooler temps and fresh air! We're spending 4 days in Queenstown, 4 days in Christchurch (one of which will be seeing my uncle who now lives nearby), 2 days in Auckland and 4 days with my Aussie host parents (from when I was an exchange student in high school) on this island west of Auckland. I think it's a good itinerary, except for the 2 kid factor. We may be a bit insane to do this; I hope we don't end up having a miserable time... This of course depends on LC and how well he sleeps for us and how hard of a time he gives us about his naps. Having a nanny is great for so many reasons, but the down side is that he's accustomed to only sleeping in his crib and won't sleep easily in the car or stroller. Let's hope he learns how quickly on this trip! When we planned it we knew it could be very challenging. But, we've never been to Asia before and we have a lot to see in this part of the world. So, we need to start before we run out of time.

So, I'll have lots to talk about in the new year, and hopefully I will have time to write. Here's wishing you all happy holidays, safe travels, good gifts, much merry making, and warm toes!

The hungry boy and other randomness

We have moved on to a next stage in LC's little life. He started rice cereal 3 days ago and is already eating everything we offer him. I wasn't planning to start him on solids until he was 6 months old. I remember that it's a bit of a pain and I wasn't in any hurry. But then it finally dawned on me that perhaps the reason he kept waking up between going to bed and his 10 pm bottle was because he was still hungry. Actually, it was this and realizing the only time he is cranky after nursing (he's usually happy as a clam and starts chatting away) is after his 6 pm feed, so maybe it's because he's still hungry. Ah ha! DUH! So we'll see how it goes. The last couple nights he's only woken briefly so it may be the trick. I wish I had thought of this when J left for the US; it may have saved me many nights of hell and exhaustion...

C and I got flu shots today. It's the first shot C has had since this time last year. It's a different story when he's so much more cognizant of what's going on around him. He did a good job though. Sort of. He started crying before the needle even touched him, cried through it, and then promptly stopped when it was over. I've been sick 3 times since moving to Jakarta, so I feel like I need all the help I can get to stay well. I seem to pick up everything that C brings home from school. My defenses are always so weak when I'm run down, from being pregnant and now sleep deprived. Plus, we need to protect LC from getting anything bad.

J came home yesterday afternoon and we are all thrilled to have him back. And C waited a whole 2 minutes before he asked for his presents. I can't really blame him...J did come home baring some great gifts! Just one of his bags weighed 67 lbs, so you get the idea why it felt like an early Christmas. Some of the gifts for C are for Christmas, but he got a few right away (including batman matchbox cars - this boy is still crazy about his cars. He has so many and yet he never tires of more) so he's been busy playing with those and carrying them around with him everywhere he goes. Speaking of which, what is that?? Why do all toddlers and preschoolers like to carry bags and their favorite toys du jour everywhere they go? Anyway, so we are still basking in the glory of having our family complete again, although J is very jet lagged and was in bed by 9 tonight, which isn't bad actually. It is a very long way to come.

Worker bee

I haven’t really spent any time telling you about the work I’m doing here in Indo. Until last month there wasn’t a whole lot to tell as the amount of work I was doing was pretty minimal and only mildly interesting. However, as of 3 weeks ago my workload has been bumped up to half-time and has become much more intense. On one hand I am struggling to keep it to 50% because I could be doing this full time right now, but on the other hand I’m doing this largely from home and with 2 little kids in the house it’s proving to be very challenging to find the time. Plus, I don’t even have to be working right now. There are other things I want to be doing and I have to readjust my state of mind and schedules to find the right balance.

The work is very interesting though, and important. As some of you may know, more cases of human Avian Influenza (bird flu) have occurred in Indonesia (113 to date) than anywhere else. Because of this and the great fear around the world of this disease becoming either efficiently transmitted from bird to human, or even worse from human to human, the US government (and others) is pouring quite a bit of money and resources into learning about the disease and containing it. This is where I come in. USAID has a contract with my company to procure various drugs and supplies to donate to developing countries. In 2006 they decided to send some decontamination kits and personal protective equipment to Indo to help protect investigators when they go out to investigate an outbreak among birds. So for the last several months I have been doing a little work to help bring those supplies into Indo and track their use and reorder when necessary.

Now, however, the US government has decided that vaccinating chickens against bird flu may help reduce the viral load in chickens and therefore help contain the disease. Well, there are 3 million chickens born every day in Indo. There are 17,000 islands in Indo. Complicated and overwhelming task? Yes! So, my project has been asked to procure the vaccines and get them down to the district level. They are only doing this in 6-8 districts in West Java, where 60% of the chickens are, so that makes things easier. I don’t think they realistically believe all chickens in Indo will ever be vaccinated. We can’t even get all children in Indo vaccinated, much less chickens! This task is further complicated by the fact that vaccines have to be stored at a certain cold temperature (4-8 degrees Celsius in this case) until they are used. This is a huge task in a tropical climate and developing country where electricity is not always ensured nor working refrigerators present in all locations. Therefore, we have to figure out how we’re going to get it there under the right conditions (cold chain logistics). Another complication to this already daunting task is the fact they don’t have a really efficacious vaccine. There are vaccines (for chickens, not for humans) and they work against some strains, but not against others. Being influenza, the virus is always mutating, so the powers that be will continuously have to monitor the ever changing virus strains (just like you have to get a new flu vaccine every year).

And seeing as I’m the only project employee living here, I will be doing much of the work dealing with the logistics of vaccinating a whole pant load of chickens. Plus I’m on a huge learning curve here. I do not know much about vaccines or chickens or cold chain logistics! It feels overwhelming, especially since this came as a huge surprise. Three weeks ago I had no idea I’d be thrown into this. I was going on my merry way thinking that come March or so I’d start drumming up some more work. And now I’ve got more than expected. Fortunately I'm working with some really great people who are doing other components of the work required to get this thing off the ground.

There are other things that have been added to my workload as well. Like organizing a workshop for the government's bird flu committee on emergency preparedness. Again, what? Zoinks scoob...

It’s exciting to be doing this work though. It’s an emerging disease and I’m living in the epicenter. I imagine I’ll gain a lot of expertise and will be at the forefront of what’s being done to combat it. The drawback though is that it’s taking me farther and farther away from my true passion of maternal and child health. That is what I got my master’s degree in, and yet my career so far has been related but not directly linked. But I do like it and it’s a good deal for me right now, and it’s certainly exciting!

In the meantime, again

Too busy to post, and yet I have so much to say, so much catching up... And the list keeps growing which makes finding the time to update you all on our activities even more challenging. In the meantime, here is a photo taken yesterday. I don't want you to think I've forgotten about you all...

Tummy time squared

Very cool website

So a friend of mine passed this on to me because she thought it was "so up my alley". Well, she's very right. This is a great idea for both giving and receiving gifts. If you're like me, at this point in your lives there's little that we need or want that fits in that gift giving price range or that you couldn't buy for yourself. So, what better way to avoid just accumulating more "stuff" - how about having that money go to a worthy cause instead?!

Check it out, especially when considering Christmas or Hanukah gifts this year.

No time for blogging

Between the kids, naps and the new Harry Potter book, I have little time for much else I'm afraid. Not much to write about anyway. My days are filled with baby, baby, baby and sneaking in sleep and rest and meals when I can. I keep hoping that LC will fall into a routine but his naps are so hit or miss. Getting him to sleep isn't that difficult, it's getting him to stay asleep that's the problem!

One interesting note on Harry Potter, I was surprised how greatly Jakarta bookstores jumped on the Harry hoopla. Some stores were open all night so as to start selling the book at midnight, others opened early, and all seemed to have some activity opening day (Harry Potter dress-up, crafts, etc.). The book they sell here is smaller than the size that is sold in the US. Don't know why...

Anyway, so I may not resurface again until I've finished the book.

Home, Sweet Home

I wasn’t sure coming back to Jakarta would ever feel so good (we came back last Friday). Especially when leaving the clean air, beautiful parks, great restaurants, and amazing efficiency that is Singapore. But it does feel so good to be home. We have our baby things now, we have help again, C has people other than his boring parents to play with, we have friends to hang out with, and we have space to spread out. I’m sure within a matter of a few weeks Jakarta will start to annoy us again, but for right now it feels great. And as we drove back from the airport, back onto our street where there were small children riding their bikes and men pushing carts selling nasi goreng and neighborhood guards chatting to eachother, I knew that this is a better place to be than Singapore. Jakarta is oh so much more colorful and interesting.

Then again, I’ve been thinking a lot about home. I’ve spent enough time living very far away from home to know about homesickness. What has surprised me this time around is that it has snuck up on me sooner than I expected. The reason, I believe, can mostly be found in my 2 wonderful sons. They have a fantastic family back home and they are missing quality time with them. We lived within walking distance of some of our best friends who also had children C’s age, and I so miss walking to the neighborhood park to meet them or sitting on our back patio having a bbq while the kids played in the back yard. And I have good friends back home who have just had their second babies or will soon, and I can’t believe that I probably won’t meet them and vice versa until LC is 1.5 years old. Sometimes I have asked myself if we were crazy to leave all that we had. And sometimes it feels that we were. But not for long, because I know that we are fulfilling a dream to live overseas and we would never be content until we realized that dream. I know that the experience our boys are having here will open up their worlds like nothing else can, and I believe they will be the richer and more wonderful for it. I know that career-wise it was a good move for both of us, especially J. I know that our friends and family still love us and that won’t stop no matter where we are. But, it is still hard at times to be away, to know the things that we are missing and what our boys are missing.

For now though, I’m going to focus on the fact that this feels like home, this place half way across the world in a tropical climate full of exotic food and dengue fever. And that before I know it this experience will be over and I don’t want to regret spending too much time thinking of my American home.