YOU KNOW YOU'RE BEGINNING TO ADJUST WHEN...

7th April, 1993

Dear Friends and Family,

Sorry it's been so long since my last letter, but I was just way too busy having fun, with visiting sister Kathy, to stop and sit at the computer! We really had a blast, but I guess you could say her agenda ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. We started off by picking her up in Singapore and going straight to Penang. We stayed at the same place we went to last year -- the one with all sorts of organized activities for the kids, the great rock slide into the pool, massages on the beach, little flags to raise when you wanted another drink, etc. (you get the picture!) Then we took her to Lake Toba back in Sumatra. Carolyn is the only one who can fully appreciate what you have to go through to get there, for she has now "experienced" travel in Indonesia!

Sister Kathy, a.k.a. Gus

First we had a one hour flight back to Medan -- not too bad, although you might not recognize any of the foods they serve on board. The Medan airport itself is the real adventure. No air-conditioning, lots of clove-scented smoke, millions of little porters in yellow jumpsuits who scramble for your bags, whether you want them to or not, and then head off in ten different directions, etc. Then there are the mobs of people, none of whom believe in queuing up for anything! Assertiveness goes first so, of course, we are always last.

We were met there by a very nice driver with a van who, unfortunately, spoke not one word of English.  (sad to say, our Indonesian isn't so hot either) He took us to lunch at Pizza Hut, and to the grocery store to stock up on "survival food." Then we embarked on the four hour trip up to Lake Toba, and this is where words fail me. All I can say is, thank heaven I had on my motion sickness patch, and was able to sit in back with my eyes closed the entire trip. I thought I had developed nerves of steel with regards to the local driving habits, but this was a true test! It was worth it though (easier to say, now that I've come out alive) for the lake truly is amazing. The island in the middle of it is larger than Singapore (so imagine the size of the lake itself!) and was originally the home of the Batak tribe, who were cannibals (we got to see some of their ancient stone tables, chairs and execution blocks) and they managed to withstand the influence of the Moslems by isolating themselves on the island and eating any strangers who ventured in. At least one intrepid missionary must have managed to infiltrate the island without being eaten, for now they are all Christians. They really love music and singing, and you see "Batak Singers" listed as entertainment at clubs all over Asia.  We stayed in some really neat cottages that resembled Batak houses, with roofs that are pointed on each end -- no A.C., but you don't really need it since it's nice and cool up in the mountains. Oh yeah, did I mention that this lake was formed in an ancient volcano crater?

After spending a few days here, we had to do the whole tedious trip in reverse. Unfortunately, I had used up my last patch, so I was green most of the trip. We were convinced of our driver's excellence when he managed to find us a little minit mart type place to stop at on the way home that actually had a clean bathroom. No, the toilet was not western style, but at that point, we really didn't care. Hey! That reminds me! A friend in Jakarta found this in her book on culture shock:

You know you are beginning to adjust to Indonesia when...

• you spend the night on the toilet, and don't bother mentioning it the next morning
• you sleep through the 4:30 A.M. call to prayer from the mosque's loudspeaker
• you don't flinch when faced with squatting over an Asian-style toilet
• you are positive cars in American movies are driving on the wrong side of the road
• you go on home leave, and try to bargain in the department store

I guess you could say we are very well-adjusted now!

Poor Kathy thought she was going to end her vacation by spending the week here at our house being waited on by our staff, lounging around the pool, and having facials and manicures at the salon. Unfortunately, she arrived right at the end of Ramadan (I swear I didn't know this when Bud bought her ticket last summer), which meant the help was on vacation the whole week, and the salon was closed. She's convinced I planned it that way so that I would have her help doing all those dishes by hand, and having to hang laundry out on the clothesline, since the dryer quit working the day she arrived! We still managed to have lots of fun and sun, then had a great couple of days in Singapore (hey Gus, remember eating Boober Cha Cha for tea at the Raffles, and almost wetting our pants, we got to giggling so hard?) before she had to head home. All in all, this has been a fantastic year for me, but next year will be rough. We are fairly certain we won't be having any more visitors from home, and the longer we are here, the more homesick we get. Also, the older Alexis gets, the harder it will be on her at school, since there will be less and less kids near her age.

Tonight is the dress rehearsal for John's play. He's done nothing but moan and groan about it from day one, so I was really shocked when I finally saw a rehearsal and discovered that he was great! The director says he is the most improved of all the cast members. His only problem is that he has trouble keeping a straight face when he says something funny, but I think the audience will love it all the more if he actually loses it during a performance! He swears he will never do this again, but maybe it will be like having babies, and he will forget about the agony after a while.

Not much else to tell, except to update you on our plans for the summer. Looks like we will be arriving in Cincinnati around 6:00am Sat., May 22, then in Dallas Sat., May 29, around 10:00 am. John will probably drive on out to Odessa the next day, but the kids and I will wait and fly out a week later. Luckily, we will be there to keep George company so that Theda can fly up to see Megan graduate from high school June 10th. Around June 28th we plan to head for the hills! (Texas Hill Country, that is) We hope to stop in and see the Reeh's ranch in Doss, meet up with the Sanfords in Fredericksburg, maybe take in Fiesta Texas in San Antonio, and finally end up by dropping Alexis off at camp in San Marcos on July 4th. We've discovered what appears to be a great one at Southwest Texas State University's Edwards Aquifer Research and Data Center. It's called Aquatic Studies Summer Camp, and they combine learning about pond, river and aquifer life with doing fun things every afternoon like tubing, rafting, and going to Schlitterbahn, Aquarena Springs, Seaworld and Natural Bridge Caverns. She's really excited, and it looks like her friends Lizzie and Jennifer Newsome will be going too (same one she went to Scout camp with last year).

Anyway, as soon as we drop her off we will head up to Dallas, since John has to fly out late on July 8th. Then I will have to turn around and go back to get Alexis the next weekend. Anyone care to go along for the ride?  It looks like July 16th will be the best weekend for our family trip to New Orleans, to celebrate Mom and Dad's 50th anniversary. May 1st is the actual day, but they are sneaking away on a cruise by themselves, and waiting until we get home this summer for the family celebration.

That covers just about everything, except for a 3 or 4 week orgy of malls, movies and restaurants, before the kids and I head back home around August 11th. Y'all take care, and let me know if anyone hears of any great activities for Mr. Austin to participate in this summer. We can't wait to see you all, and are counting the days until we head in that direction -- 43 to be exact!

P.S. I've got lots of pictures I'll be posting over the next few days. In fact, we took so many on these trips that I will have to sort through them first, and just pick out the best of the best!

PHUKET

Dearest Friends,

Up to this point, we had only taken the kids to Singapore and Penang -- both places were we never strayed too far from our hotel or resort, and where we seemed mostly to be surrounded by other expats. During the fall school break of our second year, however, we decided to be a little more adventurous. We took the kids to Thailand! Our destination was Phuket (no, that's not an F sound, it's poo-ket').

Of course, we were still in a nice hotel filled with tourists (we had to ease them into the real world gradually) but Thailand as a whole was much more, well, raw, than anywhere else we had ever been. The poverty was less hidden, the disparity between cultures more obvious, and the people weren't nearly as happy and easy-going as the Indonesians -- or maybe they just weren't nearly as adept at hiding their dislike of all these foreign intruders.

On the other hand, there was magnificent beauty to behold, and so much history to be absorbed. I'll share a bit of that with you tomorrow, along with a funny story that somehow made it into the newspaper here in the states, when we head over to Phi Phi Island (again, not an F sound).

THE RUNAWAY

Dearest Friends,

The three people "lurking" around our house all day were our staff -- the ones we inherited from John's predecessor, Doug May.  You had to have a driver, since we expats weren't allowed to drive off-compound, and you had to have a gardener since there was a lot to care for, and we had no equipment. However, since I was still of the same mind about live-in help as I had been in those early days, the place where I dug my heels in was by not hiring a live-in housekeeper, a cook, and a nanny.  Instead, we had Asnah.  Asnah-the-Wonderful!

Asnah, who didn't want to live in, because the Mays had built a nice little house in town before they left, just for Asnah and her mother to live in; Asnah, whom our kids adored, and who was more than happy to babysit whenever we needed something more than a teenager; Asnah, who claimed she wasn't a good cook, but who always fixed a lovely dinner for the kids when we were away, had one waiting for us whenever we came back from out of town, and who's recipes are still some of our favorites, to this very day; Asnah, who wasn't afraid of dogs; Asnah, who left by 4:00 every day, and took a day and a half off each weekend, leaving us in blissful solitude!


Of course, our Lexie had no way of knowing all this yet, as we had just arrived a couple of days before.  All she knew was that her parents had been told they needed to attend some afternoon event down at the restaurant, no kids were allowed, and she was not happy about it.  Not one little bit!  And she was going to make them regret leaving her with this stranger.

Danny Reeh drove past her about a block from our house, and something about her posture and the fiercely determined look on her face made him pull over.  A few moments later he came into the restaurant and made a beeline for us, grinning his head off.  Much to our surprise, he announced that we had a visitor outside.  We glanced over towards the windows, and there was Alexis, hands on hips, eyes shooting daggers at us.  I left John at the party, made my apologies, and went home with my daughter.

THE LAST LEG

Dearest Friends,

Earlier, when I asked the kids about their memories of those first days abroad, Alexis said "I was really excited to start at the new school, and was pretty amazed with the compound. Everything was so green and lush, the exact opposite of Midland, Texas. It was like living out my own fairy tale."  That may have been true, once we got settled in. However, there were a few rough patches right at first!

Gone Native!  Our friends Danny and Peggy, with young Beth and Travis.

By the time the co-plane landed at the tiny, open-air airport nearest the compound, we were more than a little frazzled -- and still had at least an hour's drive to go, if I remember correctly.  Lucky for us, our friend Peggy knew exactly how we'd be feeling, and just what we would need.  She met us at the airport in her nice comfy van (not the pedi-cab, or becak, in the picture, thankfully), with the AC cranked up and a cooler full of sodas and snacks.  I can't tell you how good it was to be greeted by a familiar face!  Unfortunately, that  would be the last we'd see of her for a good long while, as both her parents were seriously ill, and she was heading back to the states to care for them.

Lexi's new bedroom.

I think it was walking into our new home on the compound -- the one with nothing in it but the company-provided basics, and which wasn't a thing like what they were accustomed to -- that brought Alexis down to earth with a jolt.  Neither of our shipments had arrived yet, and until they did, the kids had nothing with which to entertain themselves other than what was in their suitcase and backpack.  There were three strangers hanging about the house and garage all day, watching everything they did.  The only other kid on our street was just four years old, and we had arrived at the beginning of the weekend, so they wouldn't be going to school for a couple of days yet.  School itself was another concern for Lex, since we hadn't been able to get there until a week or two after the semester started.  I'm sure she thought everyone but her would already know the teachers and have friends.  Yep, it's easy to see why Lex might have been having a bit of an anxiety attack about then.  Still, I'm just not sure how she figured on running away.  From an island.  Halfway around the globe from where she wanted to be!

COMING DOWN TO EARTH

Dearest Friends,

The Singapore airport is one of the most beautiful, easily navigated airports in the world, and Singapore Airlines has always been the epitome of luxury to me, with it's serenely exotic attendants clad in full-length batik sarongs with fitted tops.  However, from that point on, each leg of our journey brought our kids just a bit further down from the stratosphere.  The closer we got to our final destination, the wider their eyes, and the more serious their expressions.  I knew exactly how they felt!

image from tokyoworklife.com

It's all a bit hazy now, but I'm pretty sure we landed in Medan, the largest city on the island of Sumatra, and had to clear customs there.  The airport there is nothing like the one in Singapore!  I remember a large cavernous building, old and none too clean; sweltering heat; a small kiosk selling newspapers, candy, some bottled Fanta sodas, etc.; and the smell of those clove-scented cigarettes.  You know how I said the scent of Tiger Balm whisks me straight back to Singapore?  Well, it's clove-scented cigarettes that take me to Indonesia!  

As soon we had cleared customs, a swarm of little men in bright yellow or orange jumpsuits descended upon us and began grabbing our bags. They each insisted that they should be the one to help us, and that we should follow them, then they all headed off in different directions!  You always ended up having to tip five or six different people just to get them all back.  It was very disconcerting, and I never quite got the hang of keeping things under control.  My friend Crys always referred to them as "the bumblebees."  Of course, I should add that, in all that time, we never actually lost anything, and the total of what we paid those five or six was still probably less than what you would tip a single porter here in the states.  So, as they say, it's all relative.  It was pretty overwhelming to the kids though, especially since they were both very blonde when they were young, which made all the Indonesians want to touch their hair.

Since the company plane wouldn't be leaving for several more hours, we'd been instructed to take a cab to Mobil Oil's guest house, where we sat in a daze, along with several other Mobil employees, until it was time to head back to the airport.  At least it had A.C.!

The next leg of the journey was the part I'd been dreading the most.  Thanks to my propensity for motion-sickness, I was very leery of small planes.  Thankfully though, the company plane (or co-plane, as everyone called it) was a small jet with a very smooth ride, and I am happy to report that I never once got sick on it!  The planes were primarily for moving cargo to and from the plant sight, and the number of passengers allowed on depended upon how many rows of seats had to be removed to make room for all the cargo.  There was usually a huge pile of it, strapped down and covered with a net, right there in the cabin with us!  Finally, we took off.

ARE WE THERE YET?

Dearest Friends,

I thought those backpacks were a brilliant idea, if I do say so myself, and they did, in fact, keep the kids quite entertained.  For an hour or two.  Then we only had to put up with another 18 or 20 hours of "Are we there yet?"  You think long car trips with small kids are tough?  Try being cooped up on a plane for two days, with no way to "pull over" and let them run off some of that pent up energy!  In Alexis' own words, "The plane trip was exciting at first, with our new backpacks full of goodies that I couldn't wait to take out and play with, but it got pretty tedious, pretty quick.  I couldn't seem to sleep on the plane, and the food was really nasty!" (she ate nothing but rolls the entire flight, and most every flight for the next three years)

In order to break up some of that flying time, and to ease them into Indonesia gradually, as he had done with me that first time, John arranged for us to stop in Singapore for a few days, on the way over.  Woohoo!  Have I ever mentioned how much I looooooove Singapore?  Here's what Lex had to say about it: "Singapore was amazing.  I remember us taking a cab to our hotel in the middle of the night, and just staring out the window the entire time.  The next day, I saw that it was green everywhere, even though we were in the middle of a huge city.  I couldn't get over how different everything was!"

We made many trips to Singapore over the next three years, so it's hard for the kids to pinpoint which memories are from which visit.  Also, Austin wasn't quite six yet, so his memories are a bit more hazy than Alexis', and, as with all siblings, their memories of the same events can be vastly different!  I asked if either of them remembered our trip to Tiger Balm Gardens, one of three mythological theme parks in Asia that were created by the Aw family, to promote their line of analgesic salves, Tiger Balm.  Asians think it's almost a miracle salve.  The ads say "It works where it hurts!", and they believe it.  They don't just put it on sore muscles, they put it on everything.  If you have a migraine, just dab some on your temples!

image from www.gamasutra.com

Alexis replied to that question with, "Was Tiger Balm Gardens the place with the boat ride showing all the levels of hell, and that horrible stage show about the spirits of the four elements?", while Austin remembered it as the cool place "with the really funny stage show, where they pulled a guy out of the audience and made him pretend to climb something, then squashed him down into a squatting position, then made him try to climb up, then squashed him down again, over and over until the poor guy was about to collapse."  I don't remember a boat ride (she may be confusing that with another place that came later) but I do remember some pretty disturbing statues and dioramas, including the Ten Courts of Hell, which was set into the 60 meter tail of that huge dragon.

image from www.panoramio.com

What John and I remember most about the trip, while the kids barely remember this at all, is hooking up with old friends SS and SM, from our first stint in Indonesia, who just happened to be living in Singapore at the time.  SS was now married to a lovely woman (German or Dutch?) who was quite happy to spend her life hopping from one place to another, and they had just adopted a baby girl (from Romania, if I remember correctly).  SM and his auburn-haired beauty now had two sons who were around the same age as our kids, so they invited us to leave the kids with their housekeeper/babysitter, ordered pizza for them all, then the three couples went to one of the open-air seafood restaurants that overlook the ocean, gorged on chili crab and pepper crab, and caught up on all the news of friends from back in the good ol' days.  A magical evening for us, but all Austin remembers is "playing Samicon (the Japanese version of Nintendo) and watching a Stephen King movie (Yikes!) called Stand By Me, or something like that." (The Stand?)

The one place where all our memories are in sync, is on the upper floors of a building called Shaw Centre.  Shaw Centre was one of those ubiquitous Asian shopping centers that looks more like a tall office building than a mall.  In the basement was a Japanese supermarket and a food court (which sold foods our kids had never seen before), then there were several stories filled with shops, mostly selling electronics and video games.  One day we decided to keep going on the escalator, just for the fun of it, to see what was on the uppermost floors.  They were primarily filled with offices, with a few masseuses, acupuncturists, and clinics mixed in.  Several of the clinics had their windows plastered with photographs, a way to advertise the various problems they could relieve you of.  The kids ran over to take a closer look, and John and I couldn't help but follow.  The photo of someone's behind?  Someone with the worst case of hemorrhoids ever?  That is a memory we all share quite clearly, as much as we'd like to forget it!

As I was surfing the internet for info about Tiger Balm Gardens, I suddenly had the urge to go rummaging around in our medicine cabinet.  You'll never guess what I found!

A jar of Tiger Balm!  It has to be at least 20 years old, and neither of us ever uses it anymore.  So why have we never thrown it away?  Well, probably because, each time we remove the lid and take a sniff, as I did just now, it whisks us straight back to Singapore!

MISS BECKY, SHE SO FUNNY

Shoppers' Paradise - Main Street Cilegon

Dearest Friends,

Rather than drag it out, I might as well admit to my most embarrassing Anyer Beach moments all in one letter.  Notice I said "Anyer Beach moments", not moments ever, nor moments abroad, or even moments in Indonesia.  You see, humiliating myself is one thing I happen to be quite good at, so I've managed to collect at least several such memories in almost every place we've lived.

The fabric store, and an Indonesian math lesson.

The first in Anyer Beach was the avocado incident.  John's favorite salad at the AB restaurant was the Avocado Vinaigrette -- a half avocado with a bit of pickle relish placed in the cavity, that has been drizzled with a vinaigrette dressing.  Easy peasy, right?  So I decided to fix it for him myself.  Only, when I was scraping some food scraps into the toilet from the same plate that held the avocado pit, the pit got away from me and landed in the toilet too.  In fact, it went so far down the toilet that I was unable to reach it with my hand.  Believe me, I tried.  So, of course, the toilet got stopped up and I had to ask the little housekeeping fellow to come fix it.  He came out of the bathroom holding the pit in his hand, with a look of bewilderment on his face, then proceeded to explain to me, as if I were a two year old, how dumb it was to flush an avocado down your toilet.  From then on, whenever he saw me, he'd grin and waggle his head in wonder at the goofy American girl.

Learning enough Indonesian to do the mandatory haggling.

Not long after that, our bed broke.  We weren't even doing anything at the time -- just sitting there, reading, when suddenly it collapsed.  Of course, quite a few people witnessed the bed being carried out of the newlyweds' room in pieces the next day, and a new one being carried in.  Before long, everyone in the compound grinned and waggled their heads when they saw me -- those bachelors most of all. Eventually, I grew weary of yelling "We weren't doing anything!" each time they did it -- especially after I caught John giving them cocky winks behind my back.

The supermarket.

Last but not least was the trip to Kem Chiks.  As John had promised, a company van came to pick the ladies up each Wednesday, to drive us to a little grocery store in Cilegon (pronounced chili-gone).  It was at least an hour's drive, if I remember correctly, over those lovely bumpy, twisty roads, and one time I made the mistake of sitting in the very back seat.  By the time we got there, I wasn't feeling so hot.  I hurried up to the cashier and asked "Where's the bathroom?"  "Mrs. wants to take a bath?", she asked.  "No!  Your restroom!  Where's your restroom?"  "Mrs. needs to rest?"  "No!  Crap, forget it!", and I made a beeline for the door.  I got outside just in time to decorate their shrubs with violet-colored vomit.  Lesson learned: If one is prone towards motion sickness, one should never ride in the very back of a van or bus -- especially if one is drinking a fizzy grape Fanta.  From then on, everyone at Kem Chiks grinned and waggled their heads whenever they saw me.