LETTERS FROM SUMATRA: LEXIE'S BIRTHDAY BASH

20th January, 1992

Howdy there folks at home,

Is everybody freezing their little tushes off?  I spent all afternoon Sunday on my big purple float that has  little holes for your drink in the armrests.  I deserved it, after all I went through putting on Alexis' 9th birthday extravaganza.  I hope my friends there are duly appreciative of being able to let McDonalds or the roller rink do all the work for you.  I guess it wouldn't have been so bad if Santa Claus hadn't brought her this stupid book full of party ideas.  She chose the "Enchanted Garden" theme, which meant we were getting all the twinkle lights back out to string in the trees, hanging wind chimes, cutting out a bazillion little gold moons and stars to hang from the ceiling, baking fairy ring cakes and pixie pizzas, and trying to figure out how to make a wishing well from a trash can.  Then of course, it rained the entire day, so we had to move everything indoors (18 little girls, and one little brother, dressed up as fairies, pixies and leprechauns, bouncing off my walls!).  I guess it was all worth it though -- at least the kids had a great time.

Smartest thing I ever did?  Putting the older kids in charge of entertainment!

A lull in the rain allowed them to try out the bubble wands.

We're starting up a new session of after school activities this week.  Instead of teaching cooking to toddlers again, I decided to try teaching a craft/sewing class to 2nd through 6th grade girls.  I think it will be fun.  Alexis signed up to take tennis from another mom who is supposed to be really good.  She had her first lesson today, and seemed to have a great time.  If she gets good enough, maybe she can teach me!  Austin will be taking "Fun with Bikes".  Hopefully, it will include some bike safety lessons. He makes me really nervous!  I still haven't got around to trying out my golf clubs -- I seem to be putting it off.

Not much else to tell right now.  We've been invited to one of those "How to Host a Murder" parties next weekend, by a couple that's pretty zany, so it's sure to be interesting.  Also, we're having an exchange with the international school in Medan.  About 30 of their kids are coming down here for a fun-filled weekend, and we will have a 3rd grade boy staying with us.  Guess that's about it.  Take care, and write soon.

Love,
Becky, John, Austin and Alexis

P.S.  Theda, Lex loved the books about Molly McGuire that you sent her.  Did you know that they are part of the American Girl Doll Collection?  We gave her the "Samantha" doll and books for her birthday.  The next time you are at Sam's, check their book department and see if they still have some of the American Girl calendars, diaries, activity sets, etc.  Those would all be great things to put back until next summer, for her birthday and Christmas.  There are also all kinds of clothes and accessories that you can order from their catalog, to go with the doll, but they are outrageously expensive, so I thought I would see if the tailors here could make some matching dresses for Lex and her doll, if I show them some pictures from the catalog. (Her doll is dressed in the styles of 1904 -- sort of Victorian, with pinafores, etc.)  Also, I might be able to get some wicker furniture made to fit the doll.  Can you tell I'm having as much (or more) fun with this as Alexis?

Oh yeah.  Did you send some books to Austin as well?  If so, I'm sure they will be there when we go to Singapore of Feb. 7th. (we're finally taking the kids to the orthodontist -- the dentist here thought Austin should to as well.  He thinks if they start "expanding" his jaw early, maybe they could avoid pulling a bunch of teeth.)  The kids both thought the Kids Discover magazine you sent was really cool, and would love to get more of them!  Well, take care.

AZIZ: BATIK GENIUS

Dearest Friends,

On Christmas Eve we went to an open house given by our next-door neighbors, Bob and Judy.  We were pretty worn out from all the partying by then, but I spotted something there that perked me right up -- some pictures kinda like these:

They had the lights dimmed for the party, and until I got right up close, and could see all the little crackle lines, I assumed they were water color paintings or pastels.  They were absolutely nothing like any batiks I had ever seen before -- the mass-produced sort in garish colors that appeal to tourists -- so I immediately went to find my hostess, to pump her for information.  I found out that they were done by an artist in Medan, by the name of Aziz.  We paid him a visit, first chance we got.

For some reason my favorite art has always been of ordinary people, doing ordinary things, whether it be selling veggies at the market...

harvesting cacao beans...

or shopping for fabric.

What I loved most about this artist's work was that, though he may have created hundreds of these fabric stall scenes over his lifetime, each one was unique, differing in hue, texture, pattern and expression.

I don't remember how much we paid for them, maybe two or three hundred each?  Then we had to pay that much again to have them properly framed and matted in Singapore.  Anyhoo, it was an exorbitant amount to me at the time, and the most extravagant purchase I had ever made -- which is why we only bought three for ourselves, over the next three years, plus one smaller one as a gift for my artist mother-in-law.  Whatever they cost, they are worth twenty times that to me now.

During our last year in Indonesia, my friend Teri somehow managed to convince Aziz to come to our compound and teach a two day workshop at our school, for all the kids.  I volunteered to help out, and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

Miss Melody, our Austin, and little Emily learn how to block out certain areas on their batiks with wax, before dipping them into various dye baths.

I wish I could tell you more about this gentleman, but since most Indonesians only have one name -- a name that thousands of other Indonesians share -- I had no luck at all when I tried to "google" him.  All I can tell you is that he was ageless, he worked from his small home surrounded by children and grandchildren, the formula for his special dyes were his great secret, and that they were so caustic that they had eaten away all his fingernails, as he refused to wear gloves when he worked.  Oh, and one more thing -- that I am very blessed to have met him, to have seen a true artist at work, and to have these examples of his genius in my possession, even if the rest of the world is now oblivious to his existence.

LETTERS FROM SUMATRA: JOHN WRITES ON CHRISTMAS

December 24, 1991

Dear Mom and Dad,

We will probably have talked to you before this gets mailed, but I thought I'd start a letter anyway.  We got Dad's long letter and sure enjoyed reading it.  Your package with the magazines showed up this week.  I don't think we will do that again, at least not for a while.  Customs went through all the catalogs wanting to know what the value of each was.  I had a hard time convincing them that they were free.  After about 30 minutes or so, they finally charged me about $1 and let me go.  Not really worth the effort, considering what was in it.

We went to a real nice Christmas party last Saturday at the restaurant.  We had dinner and then the kids got a visit from Santa.  All the parents had brought gifts up earlier, so Santa would have something to give to each of the children.  It was a lot of fun, particularly for the kids.  They can hardly wait for tomorrow.  We will let them open one present tonight, but save the rest for in the morning.  There have been quite a few new faces around here the last couple of weeks, as many people have relatives in for the holidays.  If you are seriously thinking of coming over, this would probably be a good time to do it.  Nothing like floating around the pool on Christmas Day!

Speaking of trips, it looks like I will attend an ASME conference in Cologne, Germany June 1 - 4, so that will put us back home sometime around the 6th.  There's an outside chance I may have to spend the first 3 days in Dallas working on a committee, but this will just extend my home leave by that many days.  We will work out the details later on.  I'll be coming back to Indonesia around the first of July, but Becky and the kids will probably be staying through until mid-August, so there'll be plenty of opportunities to put the kids on the plane and send them down to you for several days.  I may come on down to Odessa right at first, then have the family follow a few days later.  Just don't know what the plans will be right now, but we'll get the kids to you as soon as possible.  You might even think about coming up to Dallas when we get there, if you want.

Word coming out of Midland is not too good.  I know it was hard on you for us to move away, but apparently it was announced that Mobil would reduce its workforce by 1/3.  That's quite a few layoffs.  They don't have anywhere near enough people nearing retirement that they can minimize the impact by using early retirement packages.  Mobil is selling a lot of properties as well.  It looks like next year will be a really bad year to be in the domestic groups, so it may have been a good move on my part, taking this job and getting out of the country for a while until things settle down.  I just can't understand Bush ignoring the domestic economy.  I read every day in the papers about other companies laying off people.  I wish our politicians would quit fooling around and do something constructive for once.  I would like to be able to come home some day!

Well, I guess you two are pretty happy now that Dallas has made it to the playoffs.  This was a funny year.  Houston and new Orleans finally won a Divisional Title, and Texas has a new coach.  At least Makovich isn't an old UT player.  I think it was high time to get someone in who has a different point of view.  I'll close for now and will add some later, after Christmas.

Dec.26

Well, it was good talking to you yesterday.  I hope your Christmas wasn't too quiet.  Ours turned out pretty nice.  I think the kids really enjoyed it.  They seemed pretty happy with everything they got.  We did miss all the family though.  I hope you two really do think about coming over next year.  I think you'd have a good time.  There are a lot of activities going on during December.  Anyway, we had a nice Christmas dinner.  Danny and Peggy Reeh came over, along with Allen Mobbs, whose family is in the US now.  We had a whole lot more food than we needed.  We were both pretty tired by 10 that night, and had no problems going to sleep.  Especially since Alexis had woken us up at 1:30 that morning.  Sound familiar?  Don't know what got into her and Austin, who came in at 5:30.  Usually it's Becky waking them up on Christmas!  Well, here we go, on into the next year.

My promotion and raise came as quite a surprise.  I had not anticipated that for at least a couple of more years.  I was led to believe they were going to be pretty tight about promoting people into the Tier II level.  I guess it helps to have Jim Wingate in charge of all the engineers in Mobil.  He was the one that approved my move over here.  I'm really sorry I didn't get to see him before he left Indonesia and went back to Fairfax, Va.  Anyway, the promotion is really nice, plus a sizable raise.  With all the extra bonuses added in, it amounts to another $900 or so a month.  Gee, I'm making so much money, I just don't know what to do with it all!  Sometime after the first of the year, when things settle down a little, I'll have to evaluate what my finances are and make a few decisions on what to do with some of this money.

Well, guess I'll close for now.  Take care, and we will be seeing you both before too much longer.

Love,  John

(a postscript from Miss Becky -- you have already seen the photos she refers to in previous posts)

P.S. Here are some photos that John took around the house during the holidays.  The furniture out on the porch belongs to P.T. Arun, but I had it recovered in fabric I brought with me.  The furniture in the living room is our new stuff that we ordered in Medan.  It got here just in the nick of time for the home tour!  I'll write more later.

MEDAN DELIGHTS

Dearest Friends,

I was never the dedicated shopper that most of my compadres were, but every so often, if there was something I really needed, if the kitchen cupboards were extremely bare, or if I just had a severe case of compound fever, and we weren't due to go out to Singapore or on vacation any time soon, I would let one of my friends talk me into a day-trip to Medan.

Image from igougo.com

Medan was the 3rd or 4th largest city in Indonesia, and the largest by far on the island of Sumatra.  If you wished to go there, you made sure your hubby got your name in the hat for a seat on the co-plane well in advance.  If they decided they probably had room for you, you needed to be up and out of the house before dawn, to get to the tiny, open-air, company-run airport in time.  Then you prayed that they hadn't had to remove too many rows of seats to make room for cargo (which had priority over just about anyone other than major muckety-mucks).  Worst of all, you had to step onto a big freight scale to be weighed, while a bunch of little 80-pound Indonesian men gathered round to watch!  If their pencil and paper tallies said they could afford to take on that much extra weight, you were finally allowed to board the little plane.

Image from panoramio.com

Once you arrived at Polonia airport in Medan, which wasn't just a whole lot better, and if you had remembered to make arrangements in advance with Mrs. Ben, there would be an air-conditioned car and driver waiting to pick you up and spend the day driving you hither and yon.  The most important stop of the day, of course, was at Mrs. Ben's grocery store (actually, it was called Mr. Ben's, but it was obvious who ran the place) where you would purchase a few of the necessities you couldn't find back on the compound -- like hot dogs, bacon, cheese and sour cream -- and a few special treats.  My weakness was Baldedas bubblebath (the Asian equivalent of Green VitaBath), which caused me to break into a major happy dance, first time I spotted it there.  They would then pack your food into coolers with dry ice, and have them waiting at the airport for you when you got there.  You couldn't risk buying too much though, or they might not let it all on the plane!

There were a couple of furniture-makers there that we all frequented, primarily because they were willing to combine orders and ship things directly to the compound for you.  One, called Edy's, is where I had ordered the new wicker furniture for our living area, and where John had his fancy dart-board cabinet and Medan Craps sets made.

Yes, my hubby's pride and joy now resides on the floor behind a toilet, out in our garage utility room!

Lunch was usually at one of the hotels, and the last stop of the day, before finally making our way back to the airport, would be to pick up the Pizza Hut order we had called in -- a much appreciated treat for our hubbies and children, who would be very hungry by the time we came dragging in!  In between there was a frenetic blur of antique shops, shoe factories, congested streets filled with the ting-a-ling of the pedi-cabs called becaks, a thousand honking horns, choking smog, and mysterious aromas.  Oh, and we must not forget the one bright and shining star that stood out from all the rest, Azziz!  But, you will have to wait a bit to find out more about him, for he deserves a special post, all of his own.

Writing this post reminded me that we still had our beautiful Medan Craps set hidden under a piece of furniture here, and hadn't played it in years.  Since our kids and their friends are all very much into games, will be here for the holidays, and were too little to play this game back in Indonesia, I decided to pull it out, dust it off, and get it ready for their arrival.  There's just one problem.  Neither John nor I can remember how to play!  Can any of our Indo-buds help us out here?

OUR FIRST CHRISTMAS IN SUMATRA

Dearest Friends,

Following are a few scenes from that first Christmas abroad with the kids.  It turned out to be a whole lot more fun than we were expecting!

There were parties and school programs for the kids...

lots of parties for the adults, a more intimate get-together with our good friends the Reehs on Christmas day, and a humdinger of a company party for everyone.  The kids didn't have time to be homesick!

Mrs. Claus and her helpers greeted everyone as they arrived.  Lex was so jealous of the older kids and their cute elf costumes!

The ever-dapper Mr. Woodard (John's boss) took his duties as emcee and Santa liaison very seriously, checking in with Santa on his walkie-talkie periodically during the program to find out his location and weather conditions. 

At last, he arrives...

and he always had a pretty cool gift for every single kid in his bag!

SHANGHAI!

Dearest Friends,

Not long after we moved to Sumatra I was shanghaied into learning a new card game called, you guessed it, Shanghai!  I was hesitant to learn at first, fearing it would be too much like playing bridge -- the game my parents had been addicted to for years, but which always ended up making them snipe at one another.  Thanks, but no thanks.

When I realized I was missing out on all the fun by not playing, I finally conceded, and am so glad I did.  It was more fun than you could shake a stick at, and I had, indeed, been missing out on a lot!  Not only was there a regular game every Wednesday afternoon, which my friend Hanna referred to as "the moveable feast" (it rotated from house to house, and always involved some good eats), there were also Shanghai luncheons, Shanghai dinner parties, Shanghai Christmas parties, and even one very memorable Shanghai pajama party (with special guest dancer) to celebrate Miss Patti's 40th birthday.  (I never should have let my kids stumble across the photos from that one!)  Why, we even took our cards and special Shanghai coin purses along with us when we traveled, and once or twice, were caught rearranging hotel furniture in our nighties, to have enough table space in one room for us all to play a hand or two.

What made it really fun was that it was just a glorified version of gin rummy, rummy cube, or Mah Jong (saving a certain combo of books and runs before you can lay them on the table, then trying to get rid of as many of your remaining cards as you can before someone goes out) so it was fairly easy to learn; it was each woman for herself, so you didn't have to worry about ticking off your partner if you failed to read their signals; and best of all, we played for moolah!  Of course, two thousand rupiah was actually only worth about a dollar, but it seemed like a whole lot more, and it kept things interesting.

My only mistake was in teaching my family how to play when we went home on leave that first summer.  My dad became obsessed with the game, and if my sisters and I didn't play at least a couple of rounds with them each time we were together, his lower lip started to droop and he got all sad and pitiful.  As it turns out, it wasn't being partners at the bridge table that made my parents snipe at each other.  They did it even when they weren't partners!  I almost got burnt out on the game after playing with the two of them for a while, but then Dad got Leukemia and started going downhill.  No matter how weak his body got, his brain never faltered.  That was the other good thing about Shanghai.  It was challenging enough for someone like him, who could remember what cards everyone had picked up or discarded, so always knew exactly what everyone was saving. But, it was also easy enough for someone like me, who was doing good just to remember what was in my own hand, and involved just enough sheer luck to give me a good chance at winning on a regular basis.  You should have seen the way Dad's eyes would twinkle, whenever he said "Did someone mention cards?"

I'm really missing that game now.  My sisters and I still play once in a while, when we go on a little get-away together, but I really miss having a regular group to play with, and the fun excuses for a party that we always came up with.  Guess I'm just gonna have to break down and teach some of my Wimbo-buds how to play!

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.