January 2004

If you ended up here, this is really a page for family and friends for photos and information about how and what we are doing. There's nothing here particularly educational. Just some portraits of what life is like for us over in Sumbawa with the hope that it will entice a few of you to come over here and visit us once we finish the new house in Sekongkang, Sumbawa.

This is the third update on the family page. Su and the kids just returned from a month in Bali yesterday. The plan ( why I ever plan on anything here is a constant mystery to me, but I continue to do so even after 14 years) was for them to go to Bali for a week vacation, but then the company that takes care of the visas for the kids called to say that Meredith had an expiring passport so they had to leave a week early. Then Su had a tumor that needed to be looked at and then operated on. It turned out to be benign. So eventually after a month they returned to Sumbawa. The photos on this page are from the past two days. The first photo is of Su pretending to be a housewife. She just finished feeding one of the children here. The first day back I decided not to go in to town and work. I took the kids and apple down the beach to a place where the big waves are. We spent a few hours swimming there.

The second day, Sunday, the kids wanted to swim on the beach in front of the hotel. This beach is protected by the reef and thus has smaller waves and never gets deeper than a few meters even when the tide is in. Rebecca, Sam and I went out first while Mercedes decided to stay home and get ready for her first day of school tomorrow. Meredith stayed back as well with her friend and Su. The waves were good enough but manageable. Rebecca wanted to bring the boogie board out with us. She's quite confident on it.

That being said, she can get overconfident, and she took a few good spills. The kids have all gotten more comfortable with the beach here which is a lot different from the beach in north Bali which almost never has waves. Rebecca took a few spills today. Still, she spent as much time as possible on the board. Sam had his first good ride today on a good two meter wave. That was enough for him to give up the board for a while as he recovered from the rush and all the water that he sucked in. Rebecca finally got tired of waiting for her sisters to show up and went back to the house to find out what they were doing. In the meantime, Sam decided to get back on the board along with one of the cute young ladies that works here at Yoyo's. He had a good time playing around.

Life in Sumbawa isn't just about the beach, waves and trying to build houses and make parties.We also have to eat, and just like in Bali or elsewhere in Indonesia, bakso plays a large part in daily life. Bakso is a soup like dish with what are called in one dictionary Chinese meatballs along with some vegetables and noodles. Usually people take it fairly spicy. I like it on occasion. The kids and Su eat it every day. Bakso is actually fairly expensive here - a bowl costs about 38 cents. Out in our somewhat remote area, the bakso guy come by on a motorcycle. He arrrives at the same time everyday. First he goes over to where the Yoyo staff lives and takes care of their nutritional needs and then he cruises by here. The kids all have a bowl or two, and we usually give Apple, the dog, a bowl or two as well. In this photo the kids are giving him their order.

On the work side, we just started a new semester. We lost a few kids, but things go on as usual. We have a conference coming up in Bangkok at the end of the first term (ten weeks from now). The movies for this month are of Sam and Rebecca at the beach today. The kids have grown up with the ocean as their front yard, and their life at Yoyo's is not much different. You can hear me on the last movie yelling at our Shepard who was pestering me like he loves to do.

Interestingly enough, as I am writing this (instead of doing my school work), I'm listening to a CNN report on the world's diappearing reefs. Surprise, surprise. Those of us who have lived on the ocean in Bali for the past decade or so have seen the reef and coral devasted by overfishing, dyamite fishing, the use of poisons to catch fish, tourists trampling the coral, and other factors not related to the local population like the rise in the water temperature. More on this later.

One last movie for this month is the kids getting their bakso fix. Life could be a lot worse.

I put a little guestbook here so you can leave a message here for us if you are having trouble reaching us by email.