Egads! Yet again, time has flown by! Herewith, a few tales from the past six months…

From a Ramadan special overnight stay at the 7-star Emirates Palace, to sorting through garbage at school with our Green Team, the semester has been busy with a mix of work and play. Sam is playing lots of tennis, as well as soccer and basketball. He swam on the elementary swim team this fall. He most recently tried out for the elementary school play and was cast as the CHICKEN in Jack in the Beanstalk. I have high hopes for my boy!

Sophia keeps busy with piano and tennis, and making up plays with her friends. She also has a propensity to want to recreate anything she experiences: we recently saw an exhibit from the Guggenheim and headed straight out to the nearest art supply store to get paints, which we set up at home and proceeded to paint madly for an afternoon. The paints were then shelved to make way for her sewing gear. Then, after a trip to the mall for clothes shopping, she got it in her head that she wanted to sew a dress for her teacher’s little girl. I have NO talent in this area. Before I knew it, she had found an old piece of cloth and cut out two sides of a “dress” and there we were, sewing it together. Luckily, she was content to put it on her doll, instead of giving it to the poor little girl! Next up was her idea of converting her closet floor into a bedroom. This closet is tiny – the floor space is maybe 3 feet by 1.5 feet. She lasted half of one night, fell out and ended up in our bed. Most recently, after playing at a friend’s house with a balcony, she has been trying to get me to collect cardboard boxes (BIG ONES) so she can build her own balcony! Ach!!! Imagination is a fine thing, but I now dread the next great idea…

I have been to Turkey twice this Fall, once over the Eid break with the family and then again with the intrepid Grade 7 for our annual Week Without Walls trip. The trip with Sam, Sophia and Jared was a 10 on Rodgers family vacations. We hit Cappedocia, the region I have been back to for the past two years now. Sam was in climbing heaven, as each hike we took had loads of boulders, perfect for scaling and jumping. Sophia is one game little girl. She kept up with her big brother, undaunted by vertical climbs and dizzying heights.
She only balked a few times when it was time to come down! We rode horses in the valleys, rented ATV’s which the kids LOVED, and hung out in local cafes for hours reading books and eating chocolate gozleme, Turkey’s answer to French crepes. The highlight of the trip was the hot air balloon ride we all took as a family! On my return trip with the 7th grade a few months later, it snowed and we all had a huge snowball fight. On the days it did not snow, it rained; luckily, we all come from the desert where it NEVER rains or snows, so the kids thought it was the best trip EVER!

Traffic musings

I have commented on traffic in Manila and Jakarta and here is the take on car hell in Abu Dhabi. Basically, on the roads you see a disproportionate number of top of the line cars from Italy, Germany or any other kick-ass car-making country, ranging from mini sports vehicles to the biggest, most egregiously carbon-sucking Hummers I have ever encountered, usually painted in gold. This would not be so bad, if only the drivers had some road sense. The drivers only know two speeds: extremely fast and screeching to a halt. Even if they are approaching a red light, it is like a road race as each car jockeys for the best position at the red light. I can speed up to a light and still be passed by many cars, which then squeeze in ahead of me just before the light. Drives me mad. The other annoying thing is the way they zoom up your butt like a dog in heat, trying to sniff in places uninvited. I have recently bought a cute little Volvo, so I know my rear end is good looking, but yeesh! Enough with the snout in my rear! Often, you cannot even see the front of the car behind you because it is so close to my tail. The one good thing is that there are still stretches of road with little traffic, so you can really let it out – hey, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!

Go Green: UAE-style!

The other day I joined the 9th annual UAE Clean-Up event, sponsored by a highly regarded environmental group here in the UAE. I had high hopes, as I encouraged my middle school kids to meet me at 8.00 am on a Saturday morning, to help save the world. I have to comment on this event, as it was spectacularly awful. During the weeks that led up to this country-wide event, I made countless phone calls to the organizers, trying to find out where we would be meeting. Two days before the event, I was finally told to go to the Corniche, by the newly opened restaurants. This is a lovely area of public beach, cleaned by little Sri Lankan men each day, so it is one of the cleaner spots in the whole country. We met at 8.00, got our free t-shirts and caps (hmm….how much carbon output when into making those???).

Finally at 9.30, 30 minutes after the supposed start time and one HUGE unexpected downpour of rain later, one of the sheiks showed up to start the speeches. Yikes…another 30 minutes later, the speeches were finished, mugs were given out along with other various presents. Finally, we were ready!!!! We were given a glove and a bag and sent on our merry way, down the cleanest beach I have ever had the joy of cleaning. The four students I was with and I barely filled half of one small trash bag in our hour of searching. Upon return to the event center, I was horrified to see box after box of water bottles, juice boxes, and chips being thrown joyously out onto the beach. The event organizers and their little workers unpacked the boxes and happily gave us each drinks and chips to thank us for our lovely contribution to cleaning up the planet. Check out the photo of the trash generated from this event and then take a gander at the pathetic pile of trash bags the group was able to collect from beach litter. Meanwhile, camels are dying daily, due to ingestion of plastic waste out in the desert. Lesson learned: home grown clean-ups are best! Of course, as we were leaving the event, trails of empty chip bags and plastic water bottles lay strewn along the corniche – good thing the Sri Lankan workers were not far behind!

A bit of culture in our cultural wasteland…

Recently, I sang in Handel’s Messiah as part of the ACS holiday choir concert– we amassed about 60 people from the community, practiced FOUR times and put on quite a fantastic show, I must say, accompanied by a small orchestra of community members. It was a highlight to my Fall.

Meanwhile, Jared has been a busy boy – taking course for his masters, coaching a team of adults to run the Dubai marathon in January, going to Dubai for the rugby 10’s, attending the Killers concert, and generally giving up sleep in order to complete all the tasks he has set out for himself. A friend of ours recently wrote a poem about Jared – inside the poem was a hidden message, “Jared never sleeps”. It is true.

As we head into the Christmas season, we will head to the airport in a few hours, hop on a plane to Switzerland where we spend Christmas with Jared’s sister and mom and assorted in-laws. Then, to top it off, we will spend a week skiing in France – we are all so excited.

We wish everyone a happy and safe holiday season.

Summer 2009

Ah, the Summer of 2009…fun in the sun, fog, rain and clouds. After a whirlwind visit with Erna in Williamsburg and then with my family in Baltimore, which included a fabulous cookout at Maija’s house (thanks for coming, everyone!), we spent almost the entire summer up on Nantucket, reconnecting with friends, playing lots of tennis, riding bikes, doing yoga, motoring in Jared’s mid-life crisis motorcycle side car, enjoying beach picnics which featured digging ever bigger holes and jumping off of the lifeguard chair.

Some highlights include playing in a mixed doubles tournament with brother, Richard. Having not played tennis together since last year, we did pretty well, completing 8 sets in one day. We finally got beaten in a three-set match, which ended as we were due at a cocktail party. Such are the delights of summer fun. I bought myself a bike, called The Commuter. It had a huge, comfy seat, and I could ride for hours without my derriere feeling a thing. I rode into lots of yoga classes and was feeling quite fit by the end of the summer.

We also tried to eat more healthy foods. Thanks to buddy Batia, I opened my pallet to beets for the first time since childhood and was sure I had contracted Cancer by the evening when my pee turned red!

The kids really enjoyed new-found freedom this summer. We extended our living room to include most of the village of Sconset, so Sam could ride all over to visit his various friends. Sophia spent another summer in the public park’s tree, fighting off strangers who dared to want to climb “our” tree. Richard’s girls came up again and the four cousins had a blast riding waves, creating and performing plays, riding up to the lighthouse on their own, and learning how to be independent.

It was a truly American small town summer: from the 4th of July bike parade replete with games in the church yard to a festival of lights in which we all partook by dancing in the streets, to attending the church and the old folk’s home fairs, where $20 got the kids two hours of fun, to Sophia sewing her own 1800’s style “poppet”, to homemade lemonade stands and walkie talkies serving as babysitting.

As always seems to happen in summer, I turned a year older and Sophia helped me celebrate by helping to organize a luncheon surprise party. Although I knew about the actual party, I was surprised when it actually occurred, as Sam, in his attempt to lure me into the living room had to resort to telling me he smelled smoke in the living room. I raced in and, thanks to my crappy eye sight, I saw flames behind the front door. As I began to panic, I noticed the group of faces smiling at me and a cake being held by a friend behind the door. After I got my heart to stop racing we had a lovely party, with entertainment by Sophia, in her Nantucket cheerleading dress. One of the cheers went something like this: Mommy works up high, Mommy works down low. Mommy works all the time….GOOOOOOOOOO MOM!!” I do tend to do more housework in the summer, as we have to leave behind our lovely maid in Abu Dhabi. The kids are not used to hearing me yell at them to clean up their rooms and take their dishes in and put their clothes away. I think we are all glad to be returning to normalcy!
Other highlights included a trip to Great Point and a climb up the lighthouse, a boat ride over to Toppers restaurant in Wauwinet, Sam and Sophia’s first real bike rides To Krisi’s house into the biggest wind of the summer, getting a pedicure and a drink at the Chicken Box with my GIRLFRIENDS, and being a witness to my Goddaughter Katrina’s baptism!

As I write this, we are sitting in the airport restaurant in Frankfurt, chowing down on Nurnbuger sausages. So much for the healthy foods of Nantucket. The countdown is on for schoolyear 2009-10. Stay tuned…

Time Flies!

 

Egads! Is it really May? My new year’s resolution has been flushed down the toilet! Herewith, I will attempt to skim over the last five months, since my last batch of more than five minutes to ponder my life was way back in January.

 Jared ran the Dubai marathon with brother-in-law, Sal! Awesome!

In late January, a colleague and I traveled to Doha to meet some of the education gurus du jour. We got charged up about standards and benchmarks and returned to ACS pumped and ready to implement. Doha itself was devoid of green, full of construction and cars, cars, cars. Not impressive at all, really, although the school American School of Doha was sparkling new and looked fantastic!

 

I kept playing lots of tennis through February and into March, at which point I managed to injure my foot in such a way that I had to take a hiatus from all sport for 6 weeks or so. I am just now getting back on the court and it feels great!

 

At the end of March, my FAVORITE band came to Abu Dhabi: Cold Play! It was one of the BEST concerts I have ever been to (Elton John came last year and was pretty darn amazing!).  The venue was outdoors at the Emirate Palace, just like the EJ concert had been. 

The most amazing part was that it POURED rain for the first 25 minutes of the concert. Who would have thought that a lightening storm and downpour would lead to tales of a great concert? Not only did the band make the best of the shocking weather, but they managed to weave in hilarious lyrics about the situation into their songs. After the storm ended, we were all soaked but felt cool and wonderful! At one point, the band walked out to a small stage in the middle of the crowd and we were standing only feet away from them. It was a fantastic event!

 

In Early April, we traveled to Goa, India for spring break. We signed up for a package deal through Expedia, a first for us. It was pretty much as I had imagined. A 3-star hotel (hah!) and flights through the night…all for a low, low price. After getting over the shock of the shoddiness of our lodging, we got into holiday mode. The kids did not even notice the crumbling walls and shoddy construction, although the constant presence of flies was hard to ignore. The really cool thing about our room was that it had TWO bathrooms! That should have been a hint that we would be spending many hours in them….indeed, Goa belly was had by most of us and we became good friends with the two toilets in our suite. But the beach was nice…the cows even came out for a visit on the beach each night at sunset and sniffed all around the lingering tourists. That was usually while I was receiving  my daily massage out on the beach…it was a wee bit disconcerting to be sniffed by a teenage bull while I was lying prone and half naked in public!

 

Sam and Sophia also tried their hands (and entire bodies) at parasailing. They LOVED it and could not get enough of the thrill. We sent them up a few times throughout the week; I am convinced one of my children will become a stunt performer one day!

 

Other exciting events included a visit to a spice farm, watching Sam and Sophia wash an elephant while sitting on its back, shopping for our summer jewelry sale, and eating a variety of great Indian food. (I think it was the German place at which we had breakfast that caused me such digestive distress!)

 

Back to Abu Dhabi for the final few weeks of cool weather before Hell weather returned. Sophia turned 7 and had a slumber party with 6 screaming girls. I barely got out of bed the next day. Was I ever like that??? Sam turns 9 next week and wants a slumber party of his own. We broke down and bought the Wii game just today, so I reckon the boys will keep busy with that!

 

In our free time on the weekends, we have been spending lots of time at the club we go to. There is a small beach there and we have been watching the bay become a canal as the construction trucks dump loads of sand on the island across from our club. It has been fascinating to watch the process of an island being created where there was only water before. The worker bees spend days packing down the sand and now are at the stage at which they are constructing 20-story buildings upon the sand. At one point, Jared and I counted over 80 cranes on the horizon as we sat sipping our drinks. I dread to think what would happen if an earthquake came rumbling through.

 

At the time of writing this, there are 14 days of school left. We are spending most of the summer on Nantucket and the whole family is looking forward to sleeping in, playing tennis, going to the beach and climbing the tree!

A New Year Begins

Alas, one of my new year’s resolutions is to keep my blog updated. After the dearth of postings in the last year, I have decided to try a new method: the short, more frequent bits and bobs. We shall see how it goes. Since it is only January 3, there is clearly not much to say, if I am only to report on 2009 thus far. I have spent much of my time at the tennis arena in Abu Dhabi over the last few days, volunteering my services at the Capitala Tennis tournament, featuring, as I noted in my December post, Nadal, Murray, Davydenko, Federer, Roddick and Blake. It has been fantastic to see them play from such a close distance. My head is exhausted from so much swiveling! This afternoon I head back for the third and final time to see how Murray fares against Nadal, the young 22 year-old stud. His game is truly astounding! Even Sam was able to sit for five hours and watch two matches yesterday, a tribute to the high entertainment factor of these tennis stars.

New Year’s Eve was somewhat subdued here in the UAE. Due to the distressing events in the Gaza strip, all live music events were cancelled in Dubai, leaving the Abu Dhabi Shakira concert the only live event worth attending in the whole country. We Rodgers were struggling to overcome jet lag, having just returned from the U.S., so we had a low-key evening with old friends visiting from our Manila days.

 

Shakira must have recuperated from her big night, as she was seated in the royal family box at the tennis tourney yesterday. The fans were heard alternating cat calls from “Rafa!” to “Shakira, I love you!”, to “Go Niki!” during the Nadal vs. Davydenko match.

On our way home from the match yesterday, both of our two decent radio stations were playing classical music, a sign that someone important in the UAE had passed away. It turned out one of the sheiks from a tiny Emirate met his maker over in London, thus beginning a period of mourning throughout the country, replete with 24-hour dirge –like music and three days of closed government offices.

It is to this dirge-like theme that I will drag my holiday-laden buttocks off to school TOMORROW. In sh’allah, I will be able to find the time to keep you posted on the comings and goings of the Rodgers clan in the coming year!

 

Photos from Christmas

Sam and Sophia with Grandi on Christmas morning.











The Rodgers try their hand at skiing, to great acclaim! Rountop, PA ROCKS!















36th Street in Baltimore in all its splendor!































American Idol in Greer and Gero's living room!


















Jared and Richard at Christmas.






Family on Christmas eve.















We run into Steffi on way back through Frankfurt.









Cousins at Christmas.

Happy New Year 2009

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!












Alas, one of my new year’s resolutions is to keep my blog updated. After the dearth of postings in the last year, I have decided to try a new method: the short, more frequent bits and bobs. We shall see how it goes. Since it is only January 3, there is clearly not much to say, if I am only to report on 2009 thus far. I have spent much of my time at the tennis arena in Abu Dhabi over the last few days, volunteering my services at the Capitala Tennis tournament, featuring, as I noted in my December post, Nadal, Murray, Davydenko, Federer, Roddick and Blake. It has been fantastic to see them play from such a close distance. My head is exhausted from so much swiveling! This afternoon I head back for the third and final time to see how Murray fares against Nadal, the young 22 year-old stud. His game is truly astounding! Even Sam was able to sit for five hours and watch two matches yesterday, a tribute to the high entertainment factor of these tennis stars.

New Year’s Eve was somewhat subdued here in the UAE. Due to the distressing events in the Gaza strip, all live music events were cancelled in Dubai, leaving the Abu Dhabi Shakira concert the only live event worth attending in the whole country. We Rodgers were struggling to overcome jet lag, having just returned from the U.S., so we had a low-key evening with old friends visiting from our Manila days.

Shakira must have recuperated from her big night, as she was seated in the royal family box at the tennis tourney yesterday. The fans were heard alternating cat calls from “Rafa!” to “Shakira, I love you!”, to “Go Niki!” during the Nadal vs. Davydenko match.
On our way home from the match yesterday, both of our two decent radio stations were playing classical music, a sign that someone important had passed away. It turned out one of the sheiks from a tiny Emirate met his maker off in London, thus beginning a period of mourning throughout the country, replete with 24-hour dirge –like music and three days of closed government offices.

It is to this dirge-like theme that I will drag my holiday-laden buttocks off to school TOMORROW. In sh’allah, I will be able to find the time to keep you posted on the comings and goings of the Rodgers clan in the coming year!

Farewell to 2008

I am sitting at Dad’s kitchen table as I write this; amazingly, I have been in the US since early December. Thanks to a confluence of Muslim and Christmas holidays, along with the 37th birthday celebration of the UAE, our school has the entire month of December off this year! The family Rodgers is taking advantage of the good fortune to come Stateside and cavort with family, especially among little cousins.

Besides a fantastic visit to Amsterdam on the way west, during which Sam bonded with an old buddy from Manila, Sam and Sophia have had nary a friend nor cousin to frolic with thus far, and at this point they have each invented imaginary friends who kick the heck out of each other. First Sophia invented Flora and then, in response, Sam created Knuckles and his dog, both of whom torture and abuse Flora at every turn. It is time for some playmates! Jared’s side of the family will provide fun in triplicate as his brother’s kids arrive tonight. I, meanwhile, have been given the gift of time alone with Mom and Dad here in Baltimore, which has been fantastic!

As a quick update on the past few months, we returned to Abu Dhabi after a lovely summer on Nantucket. Summer was spent playing tennis, going to the beach and trying to ignore the scary news that accompanied the weekly reading of the Sunday New York Times. I hope this past summer does not turn out to be the last hurrah!

Our second year in Abu Dhabi has not yielded the tales of interest that last year did. When one arrives with a fresh set of eyes to a new location, unique observations abound. At this point, I have seen enough five-o’clock shadowed, dish-dash wearing, cell-phone clinging, dark sunglasses wielding young men to stop craning my neck and pulling my children closer to me each time they pass by. I still have to stare in disbelief when I see the black-clad local women float by in the mall, with diamonds dripping from their sleeves and other precious stones adorning their head scarves, but with no hint of a human being present underneath the garb. I do not care what cultural explanations are ushered forth to explain such dress styles; it seems absolutely archaic to me.

Most of our lives, however, are spent at our school. I am teaching the same curriculum for the second year in a row – the first time in my teaching career I have ever done such a thing! One would think it would get easier, but it is still quite an undertaking to deliver an exciting and challenging program to the little 12 year-old devils. I actually have the privilege of teaching the BEST 7th grade class I think I have ever had, which makes going to work a real joy every day. Jared continues to shape the minds of the 10 year-olds; they love him!

Sam and Sophia are in third and first grades. Sam is learning cursive and multiplication and Sophia is deciphering an increasingly complex variety of words and writing stories like a future novelist. Their lives mirror a typical American kid’s life, with sports in the afternoons and weekends, scads of play dates, Boy Scouts, piano lessons, and fun weekend activities like trips to the beach, the desert, or to our local club.

I have been playing loads of tennis. I am in a league and have a fantastic partner; we have a lot of fun and are undefeated so far. In January, Abu Dhabi is hosting a small exhibition tournament with some top names of men’s tennis: Nadal, Federer, Murray, Roddick and a few others will grace the center court at our city’s tennis arena (built four years ago and never been used! They are resurfacing the courts for the event!). I am on the list to volunteer my services for the event; my only hope is to get close enough to my heart throb, Rafael, to be splattered with his sweat!

Jared has been following a strict work-out regimen, replete with yoga, weight lifting, cardio moves and lots of grunting (not to mention sweat splattering!). Part of the paraphernalia includes a pull-up bar in the guest room. Sam and Sophia have figured out how to shimmy their way up the doorframe and grab onto the pull-up bar. You should see little Sophia’s burgeoning muscles! Jared is also working on a Masters degree in technology, in hopes of moving into a more tech-oriented position at school. More on that as events develop…

As you can see (if you are still awake), our lives have become quite…dare I say it…normal. The days of coups, floods, garbage crises, and eye-itching, lung-clogging air pollution are a thing of the past at this point. The challenges we face now look like this: Abdullah, our apartment manager is off to India for a few months, leaving us without a man to clean our car every day (egads!)…. traffic has gotten worse in the city; if we do not leave our house by 7.15 for school, it takes 9 minutes instead of 7 to get to school (oh, horror!)…. now that the weather has turned PERFECT, I can sleep sans aircon, which leaves us vulnerable to being awoken at 4.30 am with the morning’s first call to prayer (say it ain’t so!). With troubles like these, we really have no reason to complain (and I know people have a LOT to complain about these days).

As the sound of soft rain patters against the window panes, I will take a sip of my hot chocolate and bring my ramblings to a close. Dad, sitting across the table, is busily scribbling hand-written Christmas cards (sucker) and I need to go in search of some wireless internet to send my electronic creation off.

We Rodgers wish everyone a happy December and may good fortune shine upon you all as we enter cautiously into 2009!

Cooler Climes in Abu Dhabi

November, 2007

Yes, we are still here!!! I have been unbelievably busy since we arrived and am ashamed to note that there have been no updates to my Bloggaroonie since last February!!! Since the quick intro from August I was thrown into the pit of life in a new, burgeoning school. In early November, I spent a lovely week in Cappedocia Turkey with 60 seventh graders. It was an amazing place to visit. I cannot believe that I had never heard of Cappedocia before I was told about this trip. It is a MUST see! I took my first hot air balloon ride at dawn and was graced with the most amazing spectacles of light falling on weathered formations of rock and small villages tucked in between. We had a week without walls, and it lived up to its name. Each day we would find ourselves hiking through beautiful countryside, and the kids would stand and present a topic they had researched there on the spot where the event had taken place. Makes one resent those walled in classrooms with lined up desks…


For the first time we are living in a place where we actually are compelled to stick around on a long weekend. In fact we are in one right now – it is the 36th birthday of this young nation and the folks are celebrating in style. Lights with the number 36 are up everywhere and people are out and about in full force.

Last weekend was thanksgiving and we had a few people over and prepared a nice, American feed fest. True to the rules of Thanksgiving, we did not stop stuffing our faces until we were bulging from every bulgeable corner of our bodies. For the first time in 9 years, I have a kitchen which inspires me (and has Aircon!). Jared and I spent the day caring for our turkey, baking cakes, whipping potatoes and cooking shrimp appetizers. A fantastic Thanksgiving.

Because it was a long weekend, we arranged to try our hand at camping – it is the big leisure activity in these parts and the season has officially begun with the onset of fantastic weather. We started out with a mini camp out – at a beach halfway between here and Dubai. Our friends told us they had been there last winter and it had been nice, but we had heard murmurings that things were no longer the same….. We arrived at our destination in late afternoon, and put our vehicles in 4-wheel drive. We floored it onto the beach in deep sand and I immediately got stuck – in our newly purchased (second hand)_ Land Cruiser. Not to worry, a little gunning by my hero, Jared, and we were set to go. We pulled up alongside about fifty other cars and were assured that they would be gone when night fell. Around us dune buggies were screeching up and down the beach, we told our kids to look both ways before they made the 20 foot trek from our car to the water’s edge. Above us ultra light flying machines were buzzing overhead – cool to see but it added to the noise pollution. Distressingly, as the light faded and the gorgeous full moon began to rise, the buggies began to accrue and rev their engines; florescent lights went on in makeshift bars down the beach (all illegal), and music began to pound out of immense loud speakers about 50 feet from our pastoral camp. We eyed one another warily and pondered what to do. After downing a few more beers, the men went to ask what time the music would end. It turned out the loudest group comprised a bunch of Omani men, here for a month of partying. They told us in no uncertain terms that the music would go until dawn. At last we decided to pack up and return home. It was clear we would get no sleep and the dune buggies continued to drag up and down the beach, while more and more cars were approaching, in anticipation of a night of illicit drinking. Sam and Sophia were beside themselves with disappointment and Sophia has slept in her tent in her room for the past week!

Not to be deterred from a foray into nature, we are trying again tomorrow with a trip up to El Ain – about a two-hour drive. Tales of wadis and quiet, open desert have tempted us to dust off the sand in our sleeping bags and pack up again. I have warm brownies resting in their Tupperware, freshly baked bread and chocolate chip pancakes ready for the morning after.

We actually have had two journeys into the desert since we arrived in August. One time we accompanied our new Dutch friends to a farm out in the middle of NOWHERE. It is amazing how you can be in the middle of nowhere in this country, and still find yourself under a HUGE electric tower. This farm housed not only horses, but also two cheetahs, a few peacocks, emus, antelope-like creatures and small deer. We saddled up Sam and Sophia on the smallest of the equine critters and headed out..under the shadow of the largest electric tower I have ever seen. You could hear the current crackling along overhead. Amazing. Every so often a group of camels and riders would saunter by, on their way home from race training. It was great to get away from the glitz of Abu Dhabi where all the local Emirates are unbelievably wealthy, and everyone else is living here to sustain these people’s lifestyle. In fact, the workers (waterers, highway workers, construction, day workers, street cleaners, hotel personnel, etc) live in sub standard housing outside the city. Each morning they are bussed in to work long hours and then bussed back to their barrack like shelters at night. I see lots of these buses with exhausted looking dark skinned men each morning being trucked in to work.

I mention waterers, because, it NEVER rains here. Not a drop from the sky since we arrived. Yet there are flowers, shrubbery, and trees everywhere. There is the most intricate underground watering system I have ever seen here. Everywhere you walk or drive, there is water in the streets and the grass is green and lush and wet. Little men in florescent green and yellow uniforms are pruning, watering and carting away unwanted rubbish. Anyway, back to desert trip number two. There is a population of expats here who have been here for years. We newbies were crying that we wanted to join their reindeer games and at last the invite came. An afternoon foray into the desert about an hour outside of town was on the table. There were 14 vehicles and we travelled in convoy the entire way there. Highway to local road, all beautifully tarred. In the middle of nowhere, we passed one of the prince’s car museum (our neighbor the rainbow prince!). We saw an immense pick up truck, the size of a small motel – it has a café inside the bed of the truck! Onwards we continued until suddenly we all turned off to the right and stopped. Our fearless leader got out of the car, swung open a gate and in we went. It was private property – a HUGE expanse of desert, but he had permission to enter. We drove about one mile turning this way and that, until we stopped at the base of the most beautiful sand dunes I have seen. All 14 cars parked next to one another (kind of sounds like the beach I just wrote about!), but we were the only humans for miles around. We had a lovely picnic, some of the wilder ones went dune bashing, the kids all were given glow sticks when the sun set, so we would not lose them in the dark desert. The sand was lusciously soft (and got everywhere!!!), the company was great – I met a few geophysicists, who later came to my science class to talk about geology and such. The people here are wonderful – massively educated and in professions which are very interesting.

Anyway, the night is getting old, and I must rest up for tomorrows camping expedition. I end with the note that I feel extremely happy to be here. I have learned something about myself. I like things that work, I like order and infrastructure. Coming here after nine years in polluted, overcrowded , dysfunctional Asian cities is like entering paradise. It is funny to hear people who have lived here for years complain about traffic and how life has gotten so much worse here. To me it is close to perfection. There is no traffic, compared to the standstills of Jakarta, the weather is as close to perfection as one can get at this time of year (sunny and 80’s in the day and 70’s at night), the people we meet are fun and interesting. We will probably never enter the world of the Emirates, but I like my life here and yearn for nothing. Last night we saw a high school drama production, which was one of the most entertaining pieces I have ever seen. That was followed by a bunch of us heading for drinks and a few shisha puffs out at the bay, at an outdoor bar, watching the lights of the city and the moon rise over the water.

Next weekend, we play in a Frisbee tournament in Dubai and I sing in the holiday concert in the Abu Dhabi Choral Group. I am doing the things I love – do not get me wrong, I would never regret the years spent in Manila and Jakarta, for I would not have the perspective on this place that I have now. We have had wonderful experiences, all fodder for my tales, mwahahahahahah!

And with that, I will go move Sophia to her bed and pack up her tent for the desert!

Arrival in Abu Dhabi

August, 2007
Hello Abu Dhabi!

Wow! Upon first impression I was worried I would have nothing noteworthy to tell about this new post perched in the desert. Everything seems to work here and service comes with a smile. So the stories of rats, pestilence and bombs will have to change to tales of satisfaction and quaint vignettes of local spottings.

Among my first impressions here is the plethora of Pilipino workers everywhere from household help to fast food servers to service people in almost every shop in all the malls. I have not been called “mam/sir” for over three years – it brings a sentimental tear to the eye. I realize I have progressed (or regressed) from being “mam” to “Missus” to “Madam” over the course of our wanderings. That brings me to the best news yet: we seemed to have found our new magical sorceress in the personage of Nirosha, a nice girl from Sri Lanka. As a believer in first impressions and one who was lucky enough to buy the first wedding gown she tried on, I had the good fortune to hire the very first girl I interviewed. I should really say the first person, as many of the house help are men! Nirosha is 29, has a beautiful smile and a compelling giggle, which she employs regularly. Sophia seems taken, but Sam is still not sure – the nervous giggle sends him running for cover.

Our apartment is the size of a palace (this is a HUGE exaggeration, if you could see the real palaces which abound here!), but it seems quite large. We have a living/dining area of about 40 feet by 20 feet and if you are smarter than a fifth grader, you will know that covers a lot of area. Pardon the digression, but I had the misfortune to watch the show “Are you smarter than s fifth grader” the other night (you will read why in a moment) and was dumbfounded by the ignorance of our fellow Americans. I know they must screen the candidates first, lest they be able to actually calculate area and know how to count over a thousand, but the pace of questions, and the banter of the contestants with the moronic host was more than insulting.

So, back to the apartment…. We have four bedrooms and a lovely kitchen with lots of counter space – I would say I hope to be inspired to cook, but lovely Nirosha has begun whipping up delectable Indian food, so I may remain the lazy sot that has sustained me for almost a decade overseas. We have five bathrooms if you count the maid’s bath, which one should, as it is as beautiful as the other four. No balcony, but aircon (that’s AC to those of you Stateside) throughout the abode – a HUGE improvement over our other two Asian postings! All in all, this is a destination – we have purchased the fixings for guests, so let us know when you want to come!

As for safety…this place is among the safest (and most regulated and most “surveilled”) places on earth. If you take a photo of the wrong building you may be carted off and interrogated. I heard a story of a British man who gave a police officer the finger after not being able to pass him on the road. He was chucked in jail for three months and then deported along with his family. These, however, are among the measures, which afford us the luxury of not locking our doors at night. Speaking of locking doors, my security minded hubby felt compelled to double lock our door the other night and kept the key in the door for extra protection. When we left the next day, we forgot to take said key out of the lock. For those of you not in the know, such a manoeuvre precludes being able to unlock to the door when you return at night, exhausted from a day of shopping! This is precisely what happened to us. Two hours later and having used up a year’s worth of goodwill from our wonderful neighbour, the locksmith finally drilled out the final bit of the world’s toughest lock and our door swung open. This was when the kids and I were perched on the sofa of our neighbour and submitted to insult of the game show mentioned above.

Did I mention that we are in a totally new building and we are the first inhabitants of this apartment? That means there are NO holes in any wall, no hooks – everything is pristine and gorgeous. We got our shipment and among the goods are at least 20+ pieces of art awaiting hanging. I certainly hope we stay here awhile, as the damage we are about to inflict upon those empty walls will not be insignificant!


Speaking of damage…our shoes are suffering from an interesting phenomenon. As soon as you step out of our building, you and your shoes sink into deep sand. The owner has the clout and money to afford our own cul de sac for parking, but it is in the process of being built. Back in May, there was a lovely sidewalk leading up to our building, but the moment we arrived, the sidewalk bricks were ripped up and the bulldozers have been moving piles of sand ever since. We never know just how far we will have to jump into the sand pit each time we leave the place. I felt really sorry for the Crown Movers when they delivered the 129 boxes of our goods to our place, schlepping everything through the sand in 120 degree heat! Egads.

Earlier I mentioned the plethora of palaces dotting this town. We happen to live within a block of one of them. It is known as the white palace and it is HUGE – it takes up about four big city blocks, I am guessing. It belongs to one of the many sheiks; this man is known as the rainbow prince, because of his obsession with cars. Supposedly, he buys one of each color when he takes a fancy to a new model. He has the colors painted in the parking lot and his collection of cars sits in rainbow splendour. Speaking of cars, the SUV we bought from a departing teacher had a faulty window and was stuck in down position for about 10 days. Obviously, locking the door would have been ridiculous and so we never did. The back of the SUV was filled with old camping gear. Throughout the entire ten days of an open window’ed car, not one thing went missing – proof of how crime free we are here. I am sure there is crime, but I was pretty impressed with our ten day stint.

The interesting thing about getting around here is that there are really no addresses. For instance, to tell a taxi driver how to get to our building is quite a challenge, as it lies on a road with no name. Just recently, they changed all the main road names to names with numbers. I am slowly learning the numbers (it is easy, as it is basically a grid), but the taxi drivers still use the old names, which are all written in Arabic on the signs, and I have NO idea how to read the language. In addition, there are multiple 13 Streets, as each little block of housing has its own numbered grid, so if you want to go to the corner of 26th and 13th, there are several such corners. We new teachers are all realizing we can walk to each other’s homes, but for the first few days the bus driver would drive for ten minutes between houses, leading us to believe the place was more spread out that it actually is.

Have I mentioned how bloody hot it is??? No one would actually walk the hundred yards from one place to another at this juncture in the year. It is a heat I have only paid money for in spas upon entering a sauna. Truly breathtaking! I will say no more about it – it is like becoming a parent…you have no idea what it is like until you have experienced it.

The weather here is basically sunny all year and ranges to being HOT as hell to perfection in the winter months. Because there is very little rain, they have arranged for faux showers to occur here and there. I was at IKEA the other day and heard thunder! Sure enough, up above me there is a recurring thunder and lightening show, which repeats itself all throughout the day. This man made wonder includes rain showers as well; it is hilarious – you have a crowd of people sitting in an outdoor café (under cover of an air-conditioned mall), enjoying the sights and sounds of a summer storm.

Goodbye, Jakarta!

May, 2007 Selamat Jalan dari Jakarta! (Goodbye Jakarta!) As I sit here on my twentieth day in lovely Nantucket, I am struck by the dichotomy of life in Jakarta compared to that in S’conset, Nantucket. In one city, a visitor is introduced to the depths of poverty and the crush of humanity, and as you enter the other extreme, you are brought to the pinnacle of decadence and ostentatious wealth. I have not written since the disastrous flood of February, mostly out of a sense of lingering despondence, as we served out our final months in Jakarta. We yearned for the day we would leave that metropolis for the last time and when it came, I expected to feel some sense of sadness and melancholy, but all I could do was whoop for joy as we took off on our Singapore Airlines flight. Unexpectedly, I did shed a small tear as the man at Jakarta passport control stamped my passport for the last time and asked whether we would be returning to Jakarta. Once we hit US soil, the madness of a Rodgers summer began. We are the family of schleppers…with our trunk filled to overflowing and leg room consigned to my dreams, we set off for our annual trek from Williamsburg to Nantucket (not as adventurous as the trip from Milan to Minsk, I am sure, but as of yet, no sitcom has been written about our trials and tribs). We actually had a stellar stay up on the Isle -the weather was gorgeous, we caught up with old friends, played tennis, spent time fixing the house, eating, cleaning, eating, cleaning, answering the phone, dealing with laundry and cleaning and eating some more. Welcome to America. Ride’em Cowboy (and girl!) After our luscious five week stay on Nantucket, we were treated to the crème de la crème of the summer: a week at Moosehead Lodge in Moose, Wyoming. Mom and Charlie have been regular visitors there for a few years now and this year we were able to make it a family reunion with brother Richard and his crew. This place truly has earned the name of dude ranch, as each guest is assigned a horse for the entire week. My equestrian chariot went by the name of Dutch and must have gotten fat waiting for me to climb onto his back. Since Sophia was too young by a year to ride, we took turns hanging out with her while the others went exploring. The landscape was spectacular! Under the shadow of the Grand Tetons, with elk, bison, antelope and other hidden wildlife, it was an amazing spot to roam. At one point, we rode through a herd of hundreds of elk with bison within a Frisbee throw. The food was magnificent, the weather perfection – all in all it was off the chart for a perfect family vacation. Sam now wants to be a wrangler when he gets older. He was able to ride every day, and had some interesting moments on his steed, Autumn. He only fell off his horse once, when the horse broke into an unexpected canter. He held a rein in each hand and spread out his arms, and began to list to the right… and slowly slid further and further to the side, until he finally toppled onto the ground below. Amazingly, the only part hurt was a scratch on the left elbow. The other priceless entertainment was a visit to the county rodeo. Along with the gratuitous bull riders and a bevy of small girls doing feats of equestrian derring do, my favorite event involved the budding broncho buckers, aged 3-6 years(!), riding on sheep. Each child would climb onto the back of a sheep, the gate would swing open and he/she would hang on for as long as possible. The average ride lasted about 3 seconds and then the poor child would be thrown onto the ground and often trampled by the frantic sheep! The best one was the little guy who climbed on with his head at the sheep’s butt and his legs straddling the sheep’s head. He lasted the longest! Even Sam and Sophia got involved as all of the kids in the stands kids ran onto the rodeo arena to chase calves while trying to grab a red ribbon off of their tails. By the time our kids realized the rules of the game, it was long over. Poor Sophia was still chasing the calves after the other kids had headed back to their seats. She looked up and upon seeing us wave her over, the promptly face planted in the middle of the arena - to great applause from the adoring crowd. On the Road Again We ended our romp out west and headed back east where fog caused our final flight back to Nantucket to be cancelled. After a long day of travel, we were forced to take the bus to the ferry and the ferry over to Nantucket for our final night on Isle. Thank goodness Sam and Sophia are such seasoned travellers… We arose in the morning and had our final meal at the Downey Flake diner – replete with impromptu live music from a barber-shop quartet. We are still not sure if they just wanted a free meal or were so inspired by the lovely food to sing, but it was great entertainment. We got in the car to head for the ferry and I checked the time of our ferry only to discover we had missed it! Alas, a beautiful day on Nantucket is a nice place to be stuck for a few extra hours. We made it to our destination, Jared’s aunt and uncle in Orleans on the Cape and had a lovely dinner and snooze before rising again and heading to our final Stateside destination: NYC. I already mentioned the dichotomy of travelling from Jakarta to Nantucket, but this last stop brought home the reality of reverse culture shock. We spent one night in the Manhattan Club in central Manhattan. After paying the bellhop an outrageous tip for his “service with an attitude”, we turned around the next day to switch hotels to the adjacent Park Central Hotel. We had to persuade grumbling bell hops to transfer our17 bags of varying size and weight from one elevator shaft to another (along with another monstrous tip). After a great dinner at a local diner (with white table cloths and tuxedo’d waitstaff), a visit to a street market, it was pretty much time to head for JFK and the inevitable strip search and delays and unfriendly personnel. Nothing was different this time. We stopped in Frankfurt to meet up with the other new teachers headed for Abu Dhabi and here I end this instalment and prepare for our coming adventure!

The Day the Water Rose

The Day the Water Rose

I recently learned a new word in Indonesian: Banjir, meaning “flood”. Anyone who knows anything about life in Jakarta knows it involves risk of flood. I had heard tales of the Flood of 2002, the year before we moved to Jakarta, a flood which had our predecessors in a hotel for several days. I have kept that thought in my mind every February as the rainy season lubes itself up and dumps rain upon our little corner of the world, Kelapa Gading, a northern section of Jakarta, below sea level, I might add. Two years ago, I remember starting to move rugs and small furniture when I saw the water overflow the gutter outside our house. That was as high as it got that year. Enter February, 2007. It has not really rained much at all so far this year, and we were beginning to wonder if the rainy season might pass us by totally. In parts of Java there has been a serious drought for months and water has had to be trucked in to villages there. But this past week, that all changed.

On January 31 it rained much of the day and the water in the canals rose, as expected. By Thursday, it rained again all day and school was let out early, to help give people extra time fighting traffic and rising water levels. When I woke up on Friday, the water was lapping at our driveway. It was a school day and I wondered how people would get to school, so I phoned our new headmaster, in position barely three weeks, after the sudden death of our former headmaster. I asked him what the plan was and was told he would check it out. Thirty minutes later I received the news that school was canceled. By this point, the water was up to the front tire of our car and had filled the street up to our knees. We got the kids in order, moved rugs and a few other things to higher ground, and set out for school to help with any kids who might not have heard that school was closed. The road out front was in chaos. Cars were barely getting through, as the canal had overflowed hours before.

A few kids arrived on foot, after drivers had abandoned them a few blocks from school. Imagine how happy those drivers were to get a message, moments later, that they had to return to pick up their charges. A few kids had to stay for several hours, while their cars dried out. We began to worry that the water would continue to rise and that maybe we should move a few more things out of the way. Indeed, the level was creeping ever higher and was lapping at the back tires of the car by now. The girls who work for us, Sri and Asih, have been residing in our garage for two and a half years (the alternative being a small closet off the kitchen!), and it was clear that the water would enter through their room first, and that the hour was nigh. We frantically moved their beds, all of our storage boxes, and their few belongings into the living room up on chairs.

A few hours later, the water entered the garage and made its way back towards the kitchen. At this point, the hundreds of cockroaches who had been using our garage rent free for God knows how long, decided to evacuate to higher ground. Within moments they were crawling everywhere – the walls, the doorways, the living room floor. Sam grabbed our golf ball extender apparatus which is made for retrieving golf balls from ponds and such and began to thwack at the little buggers who tried to enter our realm. Jared would then try to grab them with paper towels and chuck them mercilessly into the toilet. He had a bunch of the critters fall through his shirt and crawl down his leg. Fun stuff. Sophia, our resident roach lover, would go up to the critters which had turned upside down, grab them by the wing and chuck them in the toilet. That’s my girl!

The day progressed with only a small change. It had stopped raining for the whole afternoon, but the water level continued to rise, albeit slowly. That’s when we heard that the unabating rains up in Bogor were causing more water to flow into Jakarta. We prepared to retire for the night and took one more look at the water level outside the house. By this point it was slowly entering up through the back terrace drain, and our downstairs bathroom had water seeping in through the drain and floor tiles. Clearly the ground was saturated and one more downpour would tip the scales. At that moment, we heard the pitter patter of raindrops on the roof. About two minutes after that, the water began to slowly wend its way underneath the front and back doors, in through the kitchen doorway and under the bathroom door. I went to bed and Jared stayed up for hours, keeping an eye on the rising water level and watching DVDs on the computer. Amazingly, we had internet and electricity throughout the night.

At 7:00 the next morning we heard a loud thunk, and in the next instant the electricity was gone. We went downstairs to see our murky living room full of about a foot of water. At this point the adventure lost its sense of fun and entered the realm of crisis. We decided it was time to evacuate to the school, which was a two minute walk on a normal day. Jared carried Sam over and they brought an inflatable boat back with them. Then we piled the important stuff (do you know what you would bring with you in an evacuation?) as well as Sophia and later me, onto the boat and floated over to the school.

We had heard that, due to the heavy rains in Bogor, the city was opening up a damn to let the water out and it would flow into Jakarta, likely causing the water levels to rise up to a meter higher. Luckily, this never appeared to happen. In Kelapa Gading, we stabilized at about 1 meter of flood in the road, with water lapping at the second step of our indoor staircase throughout the next few days.

At school, the local staff was hunkered down. Poor things, they were not allowed to go home to tend to their families. At this point, we thought of weathering out the storm at school and prepared a makeshift home in my classroom. Several teachers have apartments up on the second floor and they opened up their places for cooking and showering. We spent that whole day going between home and school bringing supplies from our bedraggled house. Just before dusk we got another scare of increasing water levels, at which point we rushed home to move still more things upstairs. By this point, we could barely see a thing inside the house and the entire second floor was filled with the flotsam and jetsam that we call our belongings. Now I do not purport to understand what the many victims of Hurricane Katrina went through, but this experience has brought me an inkling of the horrific conditions many of these poor people had to endure….for months!!!

By now it was Saturday night, and a truck was sent to take us all to higher ground at a hotel in the city center. We heard that life was going on as normal in many parts of the city and could hardly imagine it. We did, however, at school have cleanish running water and a generator with enough fuel to last two weeks. When the truck came and said it could take hours to get through to the hotel, we decided to tough it out at the school, along with most of the rest of the gang. About 6 people left that night and 10 of us stayed behind.

That night, the Rodgers family crashed on makeshift beds in my classroom, and I went to sleep with visions of rushing waters and earthquakes and other natural disasters floating in my head. Sometime in the middle of the night, we awoke to the sounds of the pouring rain outside. Moments later I heard Sophia wheezing, and it dawned on me that I had not considered the scenario in which someone gets sick and we might need to seek medical help! I tossed and turned until morning, determined to make it my mission to get the heck out of Kelapa Gading the next day. Luckily, the others were not hard to convince. We were promised that a truck would come get us by one o’clock. We spent the interim hours cooking food, talking to our maids, and making last trips home to grab longer term supplies. We ended up leaving all of the maids at the school – about 12 of them at last count. One teacher and his family decided to stay behind as well – he ended up being the mediator when food worries got the girls in a tizzy the next day. We left everyone with lots of food as well as a classroom of over 2,000 cans of food – we had just finished a school wide can drive, which was fortuitous.

Shortly before two o’clock that day, a military vehicle pulled in the school driveway. Our chariot had arrived! We clamored aboard, eight families and six children we were. We were off!! This truck would be stopped by nothing. Sure enough, we soon made it to higher ground, the nearest mall which was open and thriving. The driver turned to us and told us to get out…that was as far as they would go. But we were worlds away from our hotel – we could see the toll road up above us, but the access road to get there was totally submerged. We would have had to seek out eight taxis and beg them to risk their cars to get to the toll road and bring us to safety. There was not a taxi to be seen (above water level, anyway). A few frantic phone calls later, we continued our journey, with the military guys grumbling that saving us would take hours away from them returning to help more refugees (which was true!). We did, however, pick up a few more people from a floating taxi and brought them to the city center with us. Two hours later we pulled up in front of our hotel, the Sahid Jaya, a place whose former glory had faded long ago.

We checked in without further ado, and I raced upstairs to take a refreshing shower. I had purposefully waited to shower before leaving the school. Imagine my chagrin (and that is the mildest word I can find) when I turned on the faucet to see nasty brown water emitting from the tap. Jared, undaunted, cleaned himself with the foul stuff and then I decided what the heck, only to find that by that time the water had totally run out! When we asked downstairs what was up, they said some water pump had broken, but that water trucks would arrive soon. They did, and the water was still brown, but at this point I, the beggar, was not in a position to be a chooser.

We dined that night on snacks from the nearest Mini Mart and slept fairly well. At this point, a seed was germinating in my mind; that of taking refuge in Bali with the kids. With talk of more rain and potential threatened water quality throughout the city, I had images of huge cholera outbreaks and increased stress on medical care. The next day we spent hours getting our physicals at our local medical center. We needed this for our move to Abu Dhabi, and it was a perfect chance to get them done. The somewhat conservative doctor there thought Bali was a great idea, especially for the kids. We packed up once again and, leaving Jared to watch the replay of the Super Bowl at a local bar, the kids and I went to a friend’s house in a dry part of town …with clean running water. A pizza and a shower later, I was feeling much better. By now I also had the electronic Bali tickets in hand and had packed my bag.

It rained again that night and confirmed our decision to abandon ship. The next day we spent two and a half hours getting to the airport. A combo of nasty Jakarta traffic and some flooded streets made my last hours in Jakarta nail biting ones. We were in Bali by sunset and I spent the next day by the pool, watching the pool water lap at my feet, glad that it was not laced with all the bacteria and sludge of the lapping water of Kelapa Gading. At this writing, Jared and the two maids have cleaned out the bottom floor of our house, and though it still smells a bit, looks like normal. It continues to rain and water is slowly rising again, according to Jared. At this point, time will tell how the rest of this tale will play out.

My theme songs for this past week are two: one is the theme to the movie “Beverly Hills Cop”, thanks to the cheap light-up toy Sam procured outside our hotel in Bali. You twist the guy’s head and out blurts the theme song to “Beverly Hill Cop”! Needless to say, this melody has accompanied me throughout the past few days, unrelentingly. The other theme phrase comes from the movie, “Hoodwinked” at a point in which a hyperactive hillbilly character is hurling down a mountainside screaming out the words, “an avalanche is coming, and I am not prepared!” I close with a chuckle to myself at the ridiculousness of it all, as the only other option is to sit down and bawl my eyes out at the wreckage which now defines the lives of almost half a million displaced people in Jakarta.

Addendum: It is now February 17, and, with Valentine’s Day behind us, we have felt the love and are getting on with our lives. Our house is still in disarray, but we are healthy and lucky. On this final day of the Year of the Dog, I am troubled by how to help those victims of the flood, some of whom I know personally, who have lost everything. We are trying to raise money here at school, but, to my bewilderment, the giving is slow to come. I have decided to appeal to my outside circle of friends and family, many of whom can afford a nice lobster dinner on any given day, which could pay for a new set of furniture for someone less fortunate here in Jakarta. I am hoping to raise some money to donate directly to about twenty families whom we know have lost everything in the recent floods. The money will go directly to rebuilding their homes and providing them with food and furniture to begin to salvage their lives. These are people who work for the school, and to see smiles on their faces when told we can help them get back on their feet would bring me a much needed sense of happiness and satisfaction, knowing that we can make a difference in peoples’ lives. If you, Dear Reader, are interested in participating in this mini fundraiser, please e-mail me at jared_mimi@hotmail.com by March 1, and I can tell you how best to donate to this cause. It needs to happen quickly, as these people are already in the process of trying to rebuild. I leave you with that thought, on the eve of the Chinese Year of the Pig, 2007. Happy New Year!