ARTISANAL

Dearest Friends,

To reach Bukittinggi by road was a 90 km trip, with a gradual climb to about 930 meters above sea level. It lies near Mount Marapi, which was formed by a still-active volcano. After leaving Singapore during WWII, the Japanese made this their headquarters, and left behind quite a network of underground bunkers and tunnels. The town had its origins in five villages that served as the basis for a marketplace, which might account for the many artists and craftsmen in the area. These are just a few of those we visited.

Here you are probably seeing the seeds of what was to become this blogging obsession of mine, for I seem to remember that while all my friends were busy collecting souvenirs, I was more concerned with collecting memories -- taking photos and trying to remember as much as I could, so that I could share it all in my letters home. Kind of funny when you think about it, seeing as I probably have just about the only hubby in the world who is actually disappointed, if not down-right irritated, when I come home from a shopping excursion empty-handed!

RUNNING OUT OF TIME

Dearest Friends,

There had been lots of opportunities for travel since we had arrived in Indonesia. Groups of women were always going somewhere -- especially those who were there without children and didn't have much to do. Mostly I had declined their invitations, thinking my kids were too young to be left, we needed to save our money, there'd be plenty of time for that later, etc. However, as I slowly came to realize that this might well be our last year in Sumatra, a sense of panic set in. There was so much I still hadn't seen or done! What if I never got the chance to visit this part of the world again? It was right around then that one of my friends (I think it was Carol) announced that she was organizing a ladies' trip to West Sumatra. Traveling to such remote places without my hubby involved stepping waaaaay outside my comfort zone, but hey, it was now, or never. I took the leap. Oh my, my, am I ever so glad I did.

The Rumah Gadang, or big house, wit pointed roof tips resembling water buffalo horns.

West Sumatra is home to the Minangkabau people, a matrilineal culture where property and land passes down from mother to daughter. Men don't have much say in village activities, concerning themselves mostly with religious and political affairs. Padang, the capital and largest city of W. Sumatra province, was to be our first destination. It is a common transit point for surfers traveling to nearby islands, and for tourists, such as ourselves, headed for the W. Sumatran Highlands, including Bukittinggi (High Hill) and Lake Maninjau. I knew next to nothing about any of the places we were headed, but one thing I knew for sure -- I was headed for a grand adventure!

LAKE TOBA

We just happened to arrive in Lake Toba on market day, which I thought was extremely fortunate. I'm not sure my sister agreed with me. I think the sights and smells were a bit much for her (that durian will get you every time). Even I, an hold pro by that time, was a bit disturbed by the stall where they were tossing live chickens into something akin to the spin cycle of an old washing machine, in order to kill and de-feather them in one fell swoop. Somewhat ingenious though, no? 

(click photos to enlarge)

The market area, seen from a distance.

Traditional Batak houses, with their peaked roofs.

Our hotel.

Hiking up to the ruins.

Hearing about the "good ol' days", when they still boiled intruders like us for dinner!

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!

RISKING LIFE AND LIMB

Dearest Friends,

In John's letter home, he mentioned our visit to a tiny Christian church in the town of Lhok Seumawe.  Visiting that little church was an annual event for a handful of expat families, and though I wouldn't call it our favorite Christmas activity, it was certainly one of the most meaningful.

The first time we were invited, my kids were pretty excited about it.  They'd practiced some songs they were to perform, and had been told it would include dinner, plus a gift for every kid there.  Of course, it wasn't quite what they had pictured.  We climbed aboard a little bus and made the hour's trip into town, arriving right at dusk.  The church was very small and rustic, with folding chairs rather than pews.  I'm sure the building served some other purpose during the week.  Under each seat we found a cold boxed dinner containing some local treats.  I'm guessing my picky daughter probably just rolled her eyes and stuffed it back under her chair, possibly grabbing a piece of bread, if there was one.

Once we had finished our meal it was time for the musical entertainment -- a few carols from our kids, a few from theirs, and a few we all sang together.  There was a lengthy sermon, difficult to follow even with the translator provided, and then there were the promised gifts -- a few small trinkets, rather than the shiny new toys my kids probably envisioned.  At last we climbed back onto our bus for the ride home.  The kids were probably asleep before we made it out of the parking lot, and were still rather bleary-eyed when they left for school the next morning.

So why did we drag our less-than-enthusiastic kids back for more of the same the following two years? Well, because sometimes it's good to be reminded that not all people have it as easy as we always have  -- especially where religion is concerned.  Some, like these families, like Jewish people throughout history, and like Moslems in America after 9/11, risk life and limb just to practice their particular faith amongst those who are rabidly opposed.  Though this small band of Christians was being tolerated at the time, they all knew that things could change in the blink of an eye, as it had in the past, with disastrous results.  Perhaps I was hoping that a little of their faith and certainty would rub off on me.

SANDS OF TIME

Dearest Friends,

Some of my very favorite photos of Bahrain are these that John took of an old palace, or what's left of it, that had belonged to the Sheikh's great grandfather.  Sometimes, if I stare at them long enough, they actually come to life for me, and I can imagine just what it might have been like to be a woman living there, in the late 1800s.  I'm usually pretty relieved when I snap back to my senses!

The Courtyard at the Center of the Palace

Looking Into the Courtyard

Part of the Living Quarters

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS AND HIS SPECIAL BEACH

Dearest Friends,

Here's one quick paragraph about politics in Bahrain, as it might help you to have a little background information.  In the 70's, when we were there, the ruler was Sheikh Isa bin Sulman al-Khalifa -- a very interesting fellow.  He came to power in 1961, upon the death of his father.  In 1970 he formed a twelve-member Council of State, to oversee the many governmental departments that he and his father had created.  That same year, after the British government announced its intention to withdraw its military forces from the Gulf, many emirs from the southern Gulf states got together to try and form some type of federation, but you know what that's like, trying to get everyone to agree on anything!  Finally the Bahraini leader gave up, and instead issued a Declaration of Independence, after which Bahrain was admitted to the Arab League and the United Nations.  The Council of State became a Cabinet, and its president became Prime Minister.  In '73, when the newly elected members of the new National Assembly met for the first time (only men had been allowed to vote), Bahrain became a democratic, constitutional Emirate.

Of course, I didn't really know much about politics back then, and as far as I could tell, it still looked like the Sheikh pretty much ran the whole shebang...well, him and his huuuuge extended family.  But maybe I was wrong.  Remember that fancy white building with the gold dome that I posted a picture of earlier?  The one I thought might have been our hotel, or possibly a mosque or palace?  Well, as it turns out, it was the Guest Palace, built in 1954,  and it was just used for state banquets and the accommodation of visiting heads of state and other notables.

Here is the Sheikh's Palace, out at West Rifaa.  It was built in 1932 by his father.  As with many of the British monarchs of old, it is a longstanding tradition that every Bahraini has the right of access to the Emir, so here at his palace he held open receptions every other day, which anyone with a petition to submit or a problem to be solved could attend.

I'm sure he did a lot of good, and cared deeply about his country and people, but there was one thing that I found very odd.  You see, the Sheikh had this beach, a private beach that no Bahrainis were allowed to use, only expats.  I thought it was pretty cool at first.  It was the nicest beach around, with lounge chairs and umbrellas, and periodically little waiters would come around and serve us Pepsi and a snack.  But then I started hearing stories about how the Sheikh was sitting somewhere above us, observing all the expats in their skimpy swimsuits, and when he saw someone "interesting", he would send a messenger down to invite them to one of his special private parties.  If he found you to be really, really interesting, you might come away from this party with an extra special, extravagant gift.  I found that hard to believe.  Of course, back then I was a total innocent, and probably would not have believed anyone who tried to tell me what was going on behind the scenes with many of our American presidents and senators, either.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF ISLAND

Dearest Friends,

The place that was to become our new home, Bahrain, may have been another island that was part of an archipelago, just as Java had been, but that's where any similarity ended.  Thanks to its centrality to trade routes, and the pearl-rich waters that surrounded it, it had a long history of being fought over, ruled, and influenced by others, including the Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Portuguese, Arabs and British.  The following excerpt from Wikipedia, about the period when Bahrain became a British protectorate, explains a lot about the mix of people that are there today:

"Peace and trade brought a new prosperity. Bahrain was no longer dependent upon pearling, and by the mid-19th century, it became the pre-eminent trading centre in the Persian Gulf, overtaking rivals Basra, Kuwait, and finally in the 1870s, Muscat.^[35] At the same time, Bahrain's socio-economic development began to diverge from the rest of the Persian Gulf: it transformed itself from a tribal trading centre in to a modern state.^[36] This process was spurred by the attraction of large numbers of Persian, Huwala, and Indian merchant families who set up businesses on the island, making it the nexus of a vast web of trade routes across the Persian Gulf, Persia and the Indian sub-continent. A contemporary account of Manama in 1862 found:

“

Mixed with the indigenous population [of Manamah] are numerous strangers and settlers, some of whom have been established here for many generations back, attracted from other lands by the profits of either commerce or the pearl fishery, and still retaining more or less the physiognomy and garb of their native countries. Thus the gay-coloured dress of the southern Persian, the saffron-stained vest of Oman, the white robe of Nejed, and the striped gown of Bagdad, are often to be seen mingling with the light garments of Bahreyn, its blue and red turban, its white silk-fringed cloth worn Banian fashion round the waist, and its frock-like overall; while a small but unmistakable colony of Indians, merchants by profession, and mainly from Guzerat, Cutch, and their vicinity, keep up here all their peculiarities of costume and manner, and live among the motley crowd, ‘among them, but not of them’. WG Palgrave, Narrative of a Year's Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia (1862-3)[37] (Inserted by Miss Becky: For some reason, this description reminds me of the bar scene in Star Wars!)

”

Palgrave's description of Manama's coffee houses in the mid-19th century portrays them as cosmopolitan venues in contrast to what he describes as the ‘closely knit and bigoted universe of central Arabia’.^[38] Palgrave describes a people with an open – even urbane – outlook: "Of religious controversy I have never heard one word. In short, instead of Zelators and fanatics, camel-drivers and Bedouins, we have at Bahrain [Manama] something like ‘men of the world, who know the world like men’ a great relief to the mind; certainly it was so to mine."^{[39] 
(The one thing I would not find in any of the coffee houses when we got there, was women -- Bahrain was most definitely a "Man's World"!)}

The great trading families that emerged during this period have been compared to the Borgias and Medicis^[40] and their great wealth - long before the oil wealth for which the region would later be renowned - gave them extensive power."

Just as the pearl industry took a huge hit from Japan's cultured pearl industry, Bahrain became the first country in the Gulf area to drill for oil.  They didn't become an independent country until 1971, when the British decided to end all treaty relationships in the Persian Gulf.  By the time we arrived, in '76, the U.S. Navy had moved onto the base formerly occupied by the British, and civil war had broken out in Lebanon.  So, just as their own oil supplies were becoming depleted, Bahrain was able to step in and replace Beirut as the banking center at the heart of the booming Persian Gulf.  However, though everyone claimed it to be "the Hot Spot of the Middle East", that is not really how it appeared to us when we first arrived.  To us it just looked, well, hot!