Moore Family Blog

Yudo Matsuo's website

2005-08-28T15:23:00.000-07:00

I found Yudo Matsuo's website just now. Yudo is a close friend from when I lived in Kumamoto, Japan, for a year. We played Beatles and Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel together. I wish I could read the text on his website. It looks garbled in Firefox 1.0.6.

2005-08-26T19:08:00.000-07:00

Kweilin recording Wayan Betra playing tingklik with Wayan's younger son looking on

2005-07-25T11:14:00.000-07:00

Catherine and Li spent the weekend with Catherine's parents in Reno, Nevada.

2005-07-08T17:53:00.000-07:00

Steve, Li, Kweilin, Wan on Ikan Terbang in the Labuan Bajo port on the island of Flores, Indonesia

2005-07-08T17:52:00.000-07:00

Li, Steve, Kweilin, Wan on beach in Labuan Bajo, Flores, Indonesia

2005-07-08T17:50:00.000-07:00

Li, Wan, Kweilin, Steve on beach in Labuan Bajo, Flores, Indonesia.

2005-07-08T17:49:00.000-07:00

Wan, Kweilin, Steve, Li visiting Amandari Resort outside Ubud.

2005-07-08T17:47:00.000-07:00

Li, Wan, Steve, Kweilin in Ubud with rice paddy terraces in background.

2005-07-08T17:46:00.000-07:00

Kweilin, Li, Steve, Wan in front of handicraft shop outside Ubud, in Bali, Indonesia.

2005-07-08T17:45:00.000-07:00

Stephen, Kweilin, and Li in Kuala Lumpur, on our way to Bali.

Kuala Lumpur: Popo in hospital

2005-06-29T17:56:00.000-07:00

Popo fell this morning and fractured a vertebrate so we took her to the hospital. She was looking for money to give to us (as she generously does whenever we visit), and she lost her balance as she bent over to look in a box. One of the vertebrates in her spinal column, brittle from osteoporosis, collapsed on impact. Her back hurt too much to walk, so my dad carried her downstairs and Second Uncle drove her to the hospital. The nurses should have sent her home after taking an X-ray, but they instead admitted her for a day.

I'm sure Popo is frustrated that she's bed-ridden for a week. She can return to her daily exercise of riding a stationary bike in three weeks.

I'm returning to the States in a few days but my parents and sister are traveling in Tibet for the next month with Fifth Aunt. This morning Fifth Aunt took us to buy airplane tickets to Kathmandu, Nepal, from whence they'll depart for Lhasa.

We ate Mouse Tail Noodle and chicken rice at a hawker center for lunch. We took some extra food and pastries to the hospital for Popo.

Fifth Aunt took Kweilin and me home so that we could pack, since Kweilin is flying to Kathmandu tomorrow. We saran-wrapped the tingklik box and packed our souvenirs for me to take back to San Francisco.

We again experienced horrible KL traffic. What should have been a 15-minute drive to the hospital ended up taking an hour and a half.

We ate an excellent dinner at a hawker center near the hospital. I love eating at Malaysian and Singaporean hawker centers: the shops offer a wide selection, they prepare food quickly, and they charge little.

Auntie De Xia and her son Didi kindly brought over durian at midnight. They had just closed their hardware store and came to say goodbye before my dad and sister left. We ate the durian together.

Ubud, Kuala Lumpur: morning rice paddies; tingkliks; haircut

2005-06-28T18:02:00.000-07:00

We rode our scooters through the rice paddies at sunrise one last time. Early mornings are cool and quiet along the rice paddy road.

We stopped at the morning market in downtown on our way home. We bought milk, bananas, and cereal for breakfast.

We spent the day with the tingklik man and his family. We recorded some songs and packaged the tingkliks and I got a haircut.

The master patiently played song after song while my sister and I taped him with a digital video recorder. He changed into formal concert clothes for the recording and even called over one of his students to play with him. I'm going to learn the songs from the recordings when I return to the States.

After the recording, Wayan (first son) and the tingklik man and his wife packaged the two tingkliks that they made for us. They disassembled both tingkliks and wrapped the frame and bamboo in newspaper inside a wooden box that we later checked on the airplane.

Wayan took me to get a haircut once the tingkliks were packaged. The barber shop was extremely simple. It was a road-side stand just big enough for a wooden chair, a table, and a pair of mirrors. The barber used a scissors and an old-style razor--nothing electric. The razor scared me: it was sharp, of course, and the barber used the same one on every customer and wiped it on a rag between strokes. The barber did a great job: for 5000 rupiah (50 cents), he gave me a natural-looking haircut and a close shave.

Nyoman Sandi drove us to the Denpasar airport this evening and we flew to Kuala Lumpur. My cousin Kam Seng greeted us at my grandmother Popo's apartment and we had a late-night snack with him before sleeping.

Lovina, Bedugul, Ubud: Breakfast; tourist traps; police

2005-06-27T18:00:00.000-07:00

We had a hard time finding breakfast in Lovina this morning. The baker tried to sell us yesterday's bread at yesterday's price. The only other shop open was a convenience store where we bought cornflakes and milk. We ate the cereal with bananas and milk.

We left the hotel for Ubud after a swim. We rode our scooters up a windy road over a mountain pass.

On the way down the mountain, we stopped at a touristy overlook to view rice paddies near a lake. Vendors sold peanuts and bananas, which monkeys ate from tourists' hands. We broke out some Sultana crackers that attracted a monkey. When my dad chased it away, a vendor said, "Please leave the monkey. If you chase it away, I won't sell anything."

We stopped at a terrible tourist trap named Bedugul at the lake by the rice paddies. Motorboats pulled parasailers on a lake and vendors sold souvenirs and snacks. Everything looked tacky and commercial. We had bakso (rice noodle soup) near the trap.

As we descended the mountain, we passed bus after bus of Balinese tourists climbing to Bedugul. I later learned that many passengers were children on school trips.

Police stopped us and demanded our license and registration at a road block outside their station. The officer didn't know what to make of my California driver license but he waved me through after seeing my license and the motorcycle registration. My sister didn't show her license or registration. She drove through the road block, stopped when an officer whistled to her, then inched forward until the officers lost track of her.

We asked for directions at almost every major intersection but we still managed to take the long way home. We meant to enter Ubud from the north but we somehow drove around Ubud and entered from the south.

We napped upon arriving at Nyoman Sandi's bungalow. This bungalow feels like home since we keep returning to it on this trip.

My dad and I rode our scooters through the rice paddies at sunset. We saw a man herding a group of ducks. I didn't know that ducks are amenable to herding. I laughed when I saw them waddling nervously along the road.

I downloaded Picasa onto my laptop and spent the evening organizing this trip's photos. We viewed a slideshow of the photos and discussed the trip.

Amed, Lovina: Sunrise; mackerel; cremation; urban Lovina

2005-06-26T17:59:00.000-07:00

We watched the sunrise at 6:30 again this morning. The sun shone through the clouds on the horizon as a red orb again.

We watched the fishermen return from their sunrise expedition. Each boat revs its motor as it approaches and tries to ride a wave high onto the shore. Fishermen team up to pull the boats higher.

We bought a couple mackerel and had a hotel employee fry them. Each foot-long fish cost 2000 rupiah (20 cents) plus a tip to fry it. We had a healthy, tasty, cheap breakfast.

We left Amed for Lovina after a swim in the hotel pool. We drove for three hours along the coast. The most scenic portion had rice paddies on the right with the sea behind them and 10,000-foot Mount Agung on the left.

We ate bakso (rice noodle soup with meatballs) near a cattle market. A few locals emerged leading 4-5 cattle each along the road.

We passed a cremation statue. When a Balinese dies, the family buries the body and then digs it up and lays it in a wooden cremation statue. Usually an entire community pools resources to conduct a mass cremation. I think the ceremony we came upon was for the grandparents of a rich family because the pictures on the statue suggested that it was for one man and one woman, not a whole community.

We found Lovina much more urban than Amed. We've seen more tourists and peddlers and cars in our first hours in Lovina than we saw during our entire multi-day stay in Amed. Lovina has a mini version of Bangkok's Khao San Road: a few blocks lined with restaurants, hotels, and bars whose clientele is almost exclusively foreign.

Lovina attracts many tourists because it has a beach, it's easy to get to from Ubud, and it offers outings where clients can pet dolphins. We saw dolphins play with our boat in Flores, so we'll give the Lovina dolphins a miss.

We took a beach-front room by a swimming pool at the Bali Lovina Hotel for 250,000 rupiah (US$25) a night. Like in Amed, the pool cooled us after our hot scooter ride.

We ate lunch and dinner at a Chinese restaurant named Warung Aria next to the hotel. Avocado juice with chocolate was a sweet, tasty mix that Maurice and Jerome introduced to us back in Flores. We enjoyed cap cay (stir-fried vegetables) with chicken and fried fish ball slices.

I would have enjoyed walking along the beach more if peddlers had let me walk in peace. I learned to ignore their offers of cheap dolphin trips and beautiful pendants.

We read in our room this evening. I finished Sinclair Lewis's "Arrowsmith."

Villa Batu Tangga hotel business card

2005-06-25T03:33:00.000-07:00

Villa Batu Tangga is a three-bungalow hotel on a small cliff overlooking the sea in Amed. A Dutch man named Hans owns it and lives there. The hotel offers one big, stand-alone bungalow for US$70 a night and two adjoining, smaller bungalows for US$50 each per night. It has a fresh-water swimming pool from which one can watch both sunrise and sunset. The hotel's business card is below.

VILLA BATU TANGGA

Banyuning - Amed - Karangasem
Bali - Indonesia (80852)

Telephone: 081 338 585993
           081 338 673107
Email: "leepc12" followed by "@wxs.nl"
Email: "leef" followed by "@telkom.net"
Location: Peace and quiet on the sea shore

Amed: sunrise; morning market; accident; hotels

2005-06-25T03:23:00.000-07:00

We rose at 6:30 and watched the sunrise from the beach. The sun shone through a haze on the horizon as a big red circle. The atmosphere deflected enough of the sun's brightness that I could look straight at it.

Fishing boats lined the horizon at sunrise. Later in the morning they disappeared. I think sunrise and sunset are the best times to fish.

My mom and sister and I rode our scooters to the morning market in the neighboring town of Jemuluk. Vendors sold vegetables, meat, snacks, and fruit. With a couple exceptions, every vendor was a woman.

I discovered a tasty breakfast at the market: green beans in a sweet coconut milk (santan) soup. The green beans look and taste like soya beans. A bowl costs 1000 rupiah (10 cents).

We ate other snacks like peanuts and gooey rice discs with coconut shavings ("laklat" in Balinese). We basically ate breakfast in the market.

One thousand rupiah (10 cents) seems to be a popular price in the market. Most of our snacks cost 1000 rupiah.

I've found that I have to watched a local pay or I have to ask several vendors in order to determine something's true price. A vendor quoted me 5000 rupiah for a bunch of peanuts and I walked 20 steps and found the same peanuts for 1000.

We witnessed a minor car accident in the intersection bordering the market. A small pick-up drove into the side of a motorcycle that crossed its path. The motorcycle fell over but the rider freed himself without injury. Neither side got angry. The motorcyclist looked annoyed and the pick-up driver looked embarrassed. I think the pick-up driver had been inching through the intersection, preoccupied with avoiding the vendors who overflowed onto the street. The two drivers talked after the collision but I don't know how they sorted things out. I doubt they had any insurance information to exchange. The bike might need minor repair, so maybe the pick-up driver gave the motorcyclist some money.

On our ride home, we saw a field full of women harvesting sweet potato leaves. They sat separating roots from leaves, which someone will later boil and eat. Boiled sweet potato leaves is a staple dish at Masakan Padang restaurants.

We rode our scooters along the coast at sunset. We visited a few hotels with good views of the sea.

Amed seems quite overbuilt. We saw more hotels than we saw tourists. The hotels we visited were lucky to have even one room occupied. We're the only guests at the Sunshine Hotel.

Amed does apparently fill up during the peak tourist season: July, August, and December. Hotel prices increase by 25-50% over low season. But how can these businesses survive on just a few months per year of tourists?

My dad got to know Hans, the Dutch owner of Batu Tangga, a scenic, three-bungalow hotel with a pool overlooking the sea. Hans is a retired dentist who lives in Amed most of the year. He says that the local government has no money to build public infrastructure like roads because it has an ineffective or nonexistent tax-collection system. Local kids were walking an hour and a half to get to school for lack of a road, so Hans paid for a road and shortened their commute to 15 minutes. He's now setting up a program at a local hospital to train specialists so that locals can be treated locally instead of making the expensive journey to Denpasar, the capital.

We didn't have much for dinner. I only saw two restaurants within walking distance and we didn't want to drive these steep windy roads in the dark. We ate the tomatoes we bought this morning with salt and lime. My dad had potatoes and eggs at an adjacent restaurant and I had a banana lassi (smoothie).

Ubud, Candidasa, Tirtagangga, Amed: bakery; riding; Sunshine hotel

2005-06-24T03:20:00.000-07:00

We bought day-old scones and banana bread at the Bali Buddha bakery this morning before setting out from Ubud. The bakery sells day-old stuff at half price and it tastes great. We were happy to have the bread on the scooter ride and in Amed, a small beach town.

We spent a few hours on the scooters today, riding from Ubud to the eastern coast of Bali. Most motorists drove safely and gave us enough room but a few crazy car drivers scared us a bit. One car honked at me to get out of the passing lane as I passed a motorcycle and then he cut off my sister. On a windy road, another driver overtook all three of us in succession and barely squeezed through my dad and an oncoming car. To stay safe, we'll continue checking our mirrors constantly and letting aggressive cars pass.

Our first stop of today's trip was Candidasa. I could tell when we neared the town because I started seeing signs in English advertising tourist services like scuba-diving. Candidasa is a relatively small beach town. We slept here seven years ago but this time we just relaxed for an hour and moved on.

My mom bought sunglasses for what she thought was a great deal in Candidasa. She thought she paid 20 cents but she actually paid $2. She got confused by the zeros: 2,000 rupiah vs 20,000 rupiah.

We saw only a handful of tourists during our break in Candidasa. We saw more shops than tourists. My mom asked a shop owner, "Do you get many tourists here?" "Are you thinking of opening a business here?" he responded. "You'll go bankrupt."

Internet access in Candidasa is twice the price of internet access in Ubud: 400 rupiah (4 cents) a minute.

The road from Candidasa to Amed has beautiful vistas. Tirtagangga has the most expansive valley of rice paddy terraces that I've ever seen. The beautiful panorma flows from the hills to the sea. Another pretty view was a dam that feeds a river that feeds a lush, green valley and forest.

My mom bought some grilled fish in banana leaf for 1000 rupiah (10 cents) from a roadside stand near Amed. It tasted like it was half hot sauce, half fish. I guess they like spicy food here.

We're staying in the Sunshine hotel in Amed, a small beach town with several snorkeling and dive shops. We have two air-conditioned rooms, each at 125,000 rupiah per night, including breakfast. The hotel is right on the beach: I can hear the ocean waves crashing as I write this in my room. The fresh water swimming pool is a refreshing antidote tot he heat. Jumping in the pool was our first order of business upon arriving.

We spent a lazy afternoon reading and napping by the pool. We took a short walk at sunset to explore neighboring hotels and their gardens.

On our walk home, we came across a local man named Ketut who is building a boat. He's been working on it for two months and he's built a wooden hull. It's a 15-foot fishing boat that he'll use himself. He said that he's teaching himself how to build the boat.

Ketut carved his own tingklik, which was sitting next to his boat. I surprised him by playing the three songs I learned from the tingklik man in Ubud.

We jumped in the pool again to cool off upon returning. The water is the perfect temperature.

My dad and I had fish for dinner at the Apa Kabar restaurant nextdoor. A few other tourists had dinner there. It looks like the only place around that has any business.

Tourism seems slow in Amed right now, but I'm sure business has improved since the Kuta bombing. Balinese have told us that tourists stayed away after terrorists bombed a night club in the Bali beach town of Kuta. I don't know how these businesses in Amed and Candidasa survived that period.

Tomorrow we're going to watch the sunrise, eat breakfast, and explore the area.

Ubud: Motorcycle rental info

2005-06-23T03:17:00.000-07:00

We've been happy with the scooters we've rented in Ubud. We're riding two automatics and one manual. The manual one is 30,000 rupiah per day (US$30) and the automatic ones are 35,000 rupiah per day each. I've posted below the business card of the man who rents us the scooters.

Kutak Ngurah S
Hp. 08123684450

Address:
All Stars Shop
Monkey Forest Road Ubud - Bali

Phone: (+62 361) 971272

Services:
Car (with or without driver)
Motorbike (automatic or manual, with or without driver)
Tiger (big motorbike)
Push Bike
Rafting

Ubud, Tegalalang: Paddy ride; tingklik man; Wayan, wife, and daughters

2005-06-23T03:13:00.000-07:00

My dad and I took a ride through the rice paddies near our bungalow this morning. I saw farmers transplanting tufts of rice. They were moving rice "grass" from highly concentrated paddies to more sparse ones to give the rice room to grow.

My mom cooked us lunch back at the bungalow. She bought some pork at the market (Bali is Hindu, not Muslim) and mixed it with green beans. We had tomatoes and eggs with rice, too.

I spent the afternoon talking and eating and playing music with the tingklik man.

The tingklik man was building a tingklik when I arrived. I think it's rare that he builds a tingklik these days, since most of his business is wood statues. He cut open a bamboo pipe and shaved it to the correct pitch. He didn't use an automatic tuner to tell him whether he had the right pitch. He just hit it with a mallet and compared its sound with the sound of the same pipe in the partner tingklik.

The tingklik man taught me a new song. I learned the polos (main melody) and part of the sangsih (harmony) of the tune "Made Koci" (ma-day ko-chee). He breaks the song into chapters and patiently plays each chapter until I get it.

Usually one person plays polos while a partner plays sangsih, but this afternoon the tingklik man played both by himself at the same time. He held two mallets in his right hand and varied their separation as he played. Seeing him play two melodies at once floored me.

The tingklik man learned everything about tingkliks from his father, who is now 105 years old. The father taught the son how to play and build tingkliks and he probably taught the son other stuff about carving too.

The 105-year-old grandfather was alive when Dutch colonized Indonesia. He doesn't like them. Wayan, the tingklik man's son, said "They took away everything."

The tingklik man introduced me to tahu (ta-hoo): fried tofu with bean sprouts. A street vendor came by selling it and the tingklik man offered me a bowl. It's delicious! Only 2000 rupiah (20 cents) a bowl.

85% of bakso (soup noodle) and tahu street vendors are from Java, says the tingklik man and his son. Balinese people apparently prefer not to sell bakso and tahu. I thought it was weird that the tingklik man spoke Indonesian to the vendor, so I asked him why he didn't use Balinese. "Because he's from Java," he replied.

Ranita, the tingklik man's granddaughter, loves bakso. She runs out to the road at 2 pm every day, when the bakso vendor arrives. She spent a long time savoring her bowl while I played tingklik.

Actually, Ranita enjoys eating in general. She came out three times from the house to buy stuff to eat while I was playing. She's seven or eight years old.

I'm happy I bought a pocket dictionary for Indonesian and English before I visited the tingklik man. It helped me communicate much better than I would have otherwise.

Wayan, the tingklik man's oldest son, brought his wife and children to visit our bungalow this evening. I showed them pictures from our trip and he showed me pictures of his family on his handheld PDA.

Wayan and his wife, Renas, are 28-30 years old. They have two daughters: Julia, age 2, and Ranita, age 7.

I'm surprised that Julia is a Balinese name as well as an English name. Her name is Julia because she's born in the month of "Juli" (joo-lee), Indonesian for "July".

Renas studied dance for four years, probably after high school. She hasn't danced since she married Wayan eight years ago. She still recognized the dances that I recorded at a local show.

Wayan's kids are extremely quiet and well-behaved. I'm sure Ranita and Julia were bored with the visit this evening but they never bothered their father.

It would be great for Ranita to learn to type. My mom thought of it when Wayan commented that he was impressed that I could type without looking at the keyboard. Ranita would probably enjoy learning to type with a typing program like Mavis Beacon.

I hope Ranita learns English too. She already speaks Bahasa Indonesia fluently after studying it in school for two years.

Balinese children learn Balinese at home first and only study Indonesian when they start school. Each Balinese speaks the local dialect to other locals. They only use Indonesian with Javanese folks or foreigners.

Ubud: Scooter ride to see herons; cock fighting

2005-06-22T04:11:00.000-07:00

We took a scooter ride this evening through the rice paddies and through the village where the herons (white birds) fly to nest at sunset. We saw a half-built statue that is probably intended to be cremated in a ceremony. The rice paddies were beautiful, as usual.

Groups of men squatted on the side of the road chatting and comparing roosters. Each man held the bird between his legs and stroked the rooster's neck. Every once in a while, they would hold a pair of roosters face to face and watch them ruffle their feathers. Judging from the number of these gatherings, cock fighting is popular in Bali. It looks like a man's pastime. I've never seen a woman holding a fighting rooster.

Ubud: Nyoman Sandi's mother's funeral

2005-06-22T04:09:00.000-07:00

We woke up this morning to a flurry of funeral preparation in Nyoman Sandi's compound, where we're staying. Nyoman Sandi's 80-year-old mother died yesterday and more than 200 people from the community came to prepare for the burial ceremony.

Men formed a chicken- and duck-processing assembly line along a path through the compound. One station slaughtered a chicken or duck, the next defeathered it, and the next either roasted it over burning coconut husks or mashed its meat into satay. They used all parts of the chicken and duck. I saw a couple men threading chopped lungs, tongue, and heart onto mini-satay sticks. What fine work!

A couple men wove young coconut leaves into a beautiful basket. I think they intended for the basket to hold the food.

A group of men grated coconut meat and chopped it into fine specks.

Along the road outside the compound, men prepared a bamboo bed on which they later washed and dressed the grandmother. About 100 men took over a lane of the road and sat chopping bamboo to form a platform to hold the grandmother.

Men and women worked separately. Men seemed to do the majority of the preparation. A couple women distributed tea and snacks to the men as they worked. Another handful of women rolled rice balls and wrapped them in young coconut leaves.

I never saw the food again after watching the people prepare it. I don't know where it all went. I think they offer it to the grandmother or some god and then they eat it. I hope they eat it, after working so hard to make it.

I thought that only old people would be interested in preparing for ceremonies like this, but many of the people looked around 30 years old. Balinese tradition is apparently strong even with young people.

The people helping prepare for the ceremony were all volunteers from the community, not hired help. They must have skipped work today.

The actual funeral started just before 1 pm. Three men chanted as Nyoman Sandi and his family dressed the grandmother on the bamboo platform. She started out with just a cloth draped over her pelvis. Her skin looked wet, so they must have washed her. They dressed her in a sarong, put a ring on her, and sprinkled some flowers and seeds on her face and hair. They put pieces of betelnut in her mouth and poured water over her body. Folks stuffed some 1000 rupiah bills (10 cents) in her clothes and covered her with a banana leaf. Finally they wrapped her entire body in a mat woven from coconut leaf and wrapped her again in white cloth.

The whole gathering sat and prayed for the grandmother for an hour and then they carried her off on a bamboo bed to bury her.

I'm really impressed that the whole community came together for this event on half a day's notice.

Nyoman Sandi and his family are so tired, said Nyoman. They've been hosting the entire community these past two days. Tonight they'll entertain more relatives.

Ubud: Painter Gede Nama at Batuan Artist Community

2005-06-22T04:05:00.000-07:00

We met with Gede (pronounced g'day) this afternoon. Gede Nama taught Kweilin and me Balinese painting at the Batuan Artist Community near Ubud seven years ago. We found him at the same artist community today. He showed us a few of his paintings. He took us to buy acrylic paints so that Kweilin can try out painting in her basement during the month before she starts work this fall.

Nyoman Batuan's business card is below. Nyoman founded the artist community where Gede lives and works.

Sanggar Palgunadi
The Community Of Artists
Balinese Art Studio and Gallery

I Dewa Nyoman Batuan
Founder

Address: Pengosekan Village
         Ubud, Gianyar, Bali
Mail: P.O. Box 9 Ubud 80571
Tel: 62 361 977329, 975321
Fax: 62 361 975205
E-mail: "degandum" followed by "@yahoo.com"

Ubud: Nyoman Sandi's mother passed; gamelan band contest

2005-06-21T04:08:00.000-07:00

Nyoman Sandi's mother died at noon today. Nyoman Sandi is the owner of the bungalow where we're staying. His mother was 80 years old and had been sick for 10 years, he said. The atmosphere at his compound (where we live) seemed festive. We returned from Pondok Pekak this afternoon to find scooters overflowing the garage and people ambling about in traditional hats and sarongs. We thought someone was getting married or having a child, but Nyoman's son told us that his grandmother had died. "Last week?" asked Kweilin. "No, today at noon," the son responded. We were impressed that the community could mobilize itself within hours to prepare for a funeral. Nyoman and his family have been all smiles today, so I think the funeral really is a celebration. He told my dad, "My mother has left on a long journey."

Nyoman and his friends and relatives will hold the funeral tomorrow. He said that we can attend and take pictures.

We attended a gamelan band contest at the Art Center near Denpasar this evening. The contest consisted of two dueling gamelan bands. The bands sat on opposite sides of the stage and took turns playing songs. Their supporters sat behind them and cheered loudly, even standing up and shouting sometimes. The band members were all boys whose ages probably ranged from 12 to 17. Although they were young, the players had the flair of older, professional players I've seen. The drummers, for example, flipped their left hands in the air in unison to emphasize a beat. All members of the band extended their arms at the opposite side as if to cast a spell on the opposing band.

The outdoor theater was beautiful. Dancers emerged from what looked like the front of a temple. Palm trees surrounded the

I couldn't believe the crowd that this contest attracted. Every seat in the theater was taken and people were standing in the back. The audience must have been 3000, and 99% were locals. They loved the show. They interrupted the Master of Ceremonies with cheers as she announced the names of songs or dances or people. They cheered during songs and laughed at funny skits. The audience's exuberant response to this traditional art made me think of Peking Opera in its heyday.

I was happy to see such young people performing traditional music and dance. The average age of the performers was probably 12. These young people will keep Balinese tradition alive.

We found the youngest performer of the evening in the audience. During the dress rehearsal, a three-year-old girl danced to the gamelan music next to her father in the stands. She held her elbows high and flitted her eyes and twitched her fingers. She even responded to the music, dancing with more animation when the music got louder.

Ikan Terbang, Labuan Bajo, Ubud: Wau fish; dolphins; back to Bali

2005-06-20T04:07:00.000-07:00

Maurice caught a Wau fish of 1.2 meters and 20-25 kilos this morning. The fish belongs to the Marlin family but it lacks the Marlin's nose spear. It looks like a tuna. Thazard Raye is its French name. The species's max length is 2.35 meters. This fish will feed the crew for several days. They'll eat the tender meat as sushi and they'll cook the rest. The crew is super-excited about such a large catch.

The fish started tugging on the line at sunrise and everyone sprang into action. Maurice took the fishing rod and Jerome started reeling in the idle line, so that it wouldn't get tangled with the "live" line. My family jumped out of bed into observation posts. The Indonesians got out of the way of the rods and watched too. The crew was shouting so loudly that I thought that we had lost something overboard and we were scrambling to retrieve it. Maurice followed the fish around a quarter of the boat, reeling in when the fish rested and holding steady when it fought. The fish fought fiercely at first but tired quickly. By the time Maurice brought the fish alongside the boat, it was hardly moving. The net wasn't large enough to hold the fish, so Jerome hooked it with a large meat hook (gaffe in French) and pulled it on board. Then Maurice whacked its head several times with a stick so that it wouldn't flip about on the floor.

The bait that attracted the fish was a shiny green tackle. Maurice said that sunrise is the best time to fish because the sun hits the tackle just right, so the tackle dances like a little fish.

Maurice said that it's "thanks to you" (my family) that we caught this fish. Jerome emptied the toilet into the sea just before the fish bit, and the fish was probably following the boat because of the trail of sewage. "It wanted to eat American," said Maurice. Only we (the clients) use the toilet. The crew does their toilet business directly overboard, off the side of the boat.

Maurice remarked that we humans bring fish from the sea, eat it, and return it to the sea.

We started the five-hour journey back to Labuan Bajo at 3:30 this morning. We motored at five nautical miles per hour. A nautical mile is 1482 meters, so our speed was about nine kilometers per hour. The motor has 50 horsepower.

A group of 10 dolphins swam with the boat just before we entered the Labuan Bajo port. They jumped out of the water and zipped around, criss-crossing in front of the boat. Jerome said that they're the fastest creatures in the water. They can swim at up to 60 kilometers per hour.

Maurice got another bite on his line a few hours after he caught the big Wau fish. Maurice fought with the fish for a minute but the fish broke the line. Maurice said that it felt much larger and stronger than the one he caught. A large tuna is probably swimming around right now with a tackle in its mouth.

We arrived in the Labuan Bajo port 4 hours and 45 minutes after we disembarked. We talked and took photos and sang songs for an hour in the boat after we anchored at the port. Darna and Jerome took us to shore in the dingy with our bags.

We relaxed at the Gardena restaurant with Jerome and Maurice while we waited for our flight back to Bali.

Maurice's and Jerome's business card

2005-06-20T04:04:00.000-07:00

Maurice and Jerome gave us their business card when we parted ways in Labuan Bajo. I've posted it below.

IKAN TERBANG
Sailing . Diving . Adventures
Indonesia

Jerome Cordier

Kantor: Tel + 62 411 858762
        Fax + 62 411 831003
Mobil Phone: 0813 4260 9186
             0815 2443 5752
Email: "divetastique" followed by "@yahoo.fr"
Website:  www.geocities.com/divetastique

Ikan Terbang: Maurice's travel stories; quiet bay; climbed mast; pizza

2005-06-19T04:03:00.000-07:00

We talked with Maurice a long time about his travels through Egypt and Israel. He has so many stories! And he finds a way to relate them in simple French, so that Kweilin and I can understand him. We then translate for our parents.

We've returned to the same quiet bay each night to sleep. Maurice and the Indonesians fished in the bay this evening.

I climbed the main mast on the boat at sunset. I was scared because I was climbing a really tall rope ladder. I wanted to sit in the "crow's nest" but I started back down instead.

Jerome baked a delicious pizza from scratch for dinner. He created the dough from flour, salt, and water. He let it rise in a pan for an hour. Then he baked just the dough in the oven for 5-10 minutes, until the surface toasted. He made a puree of fresh tomatoes and spread it as a base over the bread. He added chicken, tomatoes, mushrooms, and a few strips of cheese.

Dive #7: Gili Lawa Laut Light, Komodo, Indonesia

2005-06-19T04:02:00.000-07:00

Time: 51 minutes
Max depth: 28 meters
Temperature: 27 degrees Celsius
Visibility: 20 meters
Current: 1 nautical mile per hour
Slope coral
Fish, etc.: Hunchback Parrot Fish, Angel Fish, Blue-Spot Ray, Lobster, Fusiller (little blue fish), Trigger Fish, Demoiselle, Unicorn.

Jerome was laughing at Kweilin and me during our dive. Kweilin was cold so she stopped swimming and had me pull her. Jerome motioned for us to follow him, and Jay sat idly as I towed her by the hand.

We saw a lobster just before we ascended. It was hiding in a rock and only its tentacles protruded.

A large school of 50 Hunchback Parrot Fish ("Perroquet a Bosse" in French) swam by. The biggest fish in the school were one meter long.

Dive #8: Castle Rock, Komodo, Indonesia

2005-06-19T03:59:00.000-07:00

Time: 56 minutes
Max depth: 24 meters
Temperature: 27 degrees Celsius
Visibility: 15 meters
Current: light
Slope coral
Fish, etc.: Black Tip Shark, White Tip Shark, Sand Eel (Anguille de Sable in French; it's blue and yellow), Trigger Fish, Surgeon Fish, Demoiselle, Lion Fish, Box Fish.

We returned to Castle Rock for a second dive. It's the best dive we've done, even the second time.

I saw a blue-and-yellow eel eat a little fish. He protruded from his hole with his mouth agape and floated around looking for prey. He snapped up a little fish and retreated into his hole. His head looks like some fish I've seen, so maybe his victims think he's a fish.

A five-foot shark circled within 15 feet of us. It was exciting, not scary, because I've seen that type of shark before and it's shy.

Dive #9: Komodo Passage Gili Lawa Laut, Komodo, Indonesia

2005-06-19T03:58:00.000-07:00

Time: 25 minutes
Max depth: 14 meters
Temperature: 27 degrees Celsius
Visibility: 15 meters
Current: 2 nautical miles per hour
Slope coral
Fish, etc.: Parrot Hunchback Fish, Giant Sweet Lips, Grouper.

We came up after just 20 minutes because the current was pushing strongly against us. We held on to some coral for a few minutes and observed the fish. The current was a little weaker low down on the sand. We ascended after a few minutes of hanging on because we couldn't make any progress.

When we came up, Jerome explained that the current changed since he checked it. He saw no current when he checked. But in the 10-15 minutes between his check and our dive, the tide built a strong current against us and it was strengthening. If we continued to hang on to the coral, "we would have been like a flag in the wind in a few minutes," said Jerome.

We saw a healthy number of fish in spite of the short dive. Schools of 50 fish swam through the channel.

Ikan Terbang: slept under stars; Castle Rock; jook; Jerome is cautious

2005-06-18T03:56:00.000-07:00

Last night we all moved on deck to sleep at 2 am. The wind died so it was warm enough to sleep under the stars. We laid out our cushions and sheet bags under the main mast.

This morning we rose at 6 and we started motoring at 7 toward Castle Rock for our first dive.

Castle Rock is supposed to be the best diving on our trip. No current, lots of coral, and many fish. The last set of clients on this boat dove twice at Castle Rock. Maybe we will too.

We brought several books on board but we have yet to crack a single one. We're always occupied. When we're motoring we're concentrating on looking at the horizon to stay well in spite of the rocking. Other times we're diving. When we're not diving or motoring, we're eating or talking or singing.

Maurice cooked jook for breakfast. My mom told him how to make it last night (soak the rice overnight) and he did a good job. We ate the rice porridge with salty fish.

We feel safe diving with Jerome because he's safe and doesn't take risks when we dive. He briefs us thoroughly and checks the current at each dive site before the dive.

Dive #6: Komodo Passage Gili Lawa Laut, Komodo, Indonesia

2005-06-18T03:55:00.000-07:00

Time: 56 minutes
Max depth: 15 meters
Temperature: 27 degrees Celsius
Visibility: 15 meters
Current: None
Slope coral
Fish, etc.: Parrot Fish, Lion Fish, Rock Fish, Hunchback Parrot Fish, Grouper, Sand Guppie.

We saw a rock fish, which is extremely poisonous. It stays close to a rock. Its bite paralyzes and kills in minutes.

We surfaced because it got dark, not because we ran out of air.

Dive #4: Castle Rock, Komodo, Indonesia

2005-06-18T03:51:00.000-07:00

Time: 53 minutes
Max depth: 27 meters
Temperature: 27 degrees Celsius
Visibility: 20 meters
Current: Light
Slope coral
Fish, etc.: Black Tip Shark (1.5 meters), White Tip Shark, Blue-Spot Ray, Lion Fish, Tuna, Trumpet Fish, Clam, Giant Sweet Lips Fish, Black Snapper, Giant Travelly, Blue Travelly.

We tried a new way of disembarking today. Instead of standing on the edge of the boat and jumping in, we sat down and tumbled backward. It works better because we don't have to stand with the awkward, heavy equipment.

From the surface of this dive, it looked like we were in the open ocean, but we saw the Castle Rock beneath the water as soon as we broke the surface.

We descended onto the coral surrounded by schools of fish. Immediately we saw several tuna and sharks. We rested on the rock for ten minutes, admiring the fish.

We had to be careful where we put our feet and hands because of the coral and fish. The coral breaks easily and can sting. The lion fish are well-camouflaged and their tentacles inject a painful toxin that would probably make me sick enough to not dive for a few days.

Dive #5: Crystal Rock, Komodo, Indonesia

2005-06-18T03:48:00.000-07:00

Time: 63 minutes
Max depth: 21 meters
Temperature: 28 degrees Celsius
Visibility: 20 meters
Current: None
Slope coral
Fish, etc.: Eel, Box Fish, Turtle, Napoleon Fish, Grouper, Bat Fish, Lion Fish, Demoiselle, Parrot Fish, Trigger Fish, Surgeon Fish, Unicorn, Picasso.

We saw eels peering out of holes in rocks. They always have their mouths open.

We petted a sea turtle! We spotted it as it surfaced for air. it descended to us and picked at coral with its fins and beak. It wasn't bothered when we surrounded it and even touched its neck, back, belly, and fins. Jerome says that he's seen the same turtle at Crystal Rock many times and that the turtle is used to humans.

Kweilin and I got cold toward the end of the dive, partly because it's the longest dive we've done: 63 minutes.

Kweilin and I squeeze each other's hands when we want to show each other something. I'll squeeze her hand and point out a turtle, for example, and I'll keep squeezing until she responds.

I felt like I was swimming in a huge, amazingly diverse aquarium. I saw beautiful coral and healthy schools of little fish.

Ikan Terbang: jumping fish; seasick; re-learning french; attentive crew

2005-06-17T03:43:00.000-07:00

We took off from the Labuan Bajo port early this morning for our first dive site.

My father, my sister, and I did three dives today but my mother stayed in the boat because she has yet to get her PADI license. She's been sleeping and trying to stay well while we're diving. She really wants her PADI license now that she's heard our stories about the beautiful fish and coral that we see on the dives.

We've been seeing schools of fish jumping at the surface of the water as if someone had sprinkled fish food on them. Jerome says that they could be tuna. Maybe they're feeding, but I don't know what they're feeding on.

We've also seen flying fish jump out of the water. What a sight that is. They really look like little birds zipping along the water. Unlike the fish in a feeding frenzy, the flying fish are actually going somewhere with their jumps, and the whole school is synchronized.

The crew fishes while the boat motors. They've caught three little fish so far and they ate two raw.

Two Indonesians help Maurice and Jerome on the boat. Depa is the captain, who mans the tiller, and Darna is the machinist, who refills the scuba tanks with the air compressor.

My father, mother, and sister have all felt seasick at various points today. My mom made herself vomit several times in attempts to eliminate her nausea. Lying on the hammock helped her get better. We've changed the diving itinerary so that we stay in a calm bay tonight to let us recover.

Jerome and Maurice cooked chicken curry and potatoes for lunch. Yummy.

Every water faucet on the boat is a foot pump, including the shower and toilet. To shower, for example, I hold the shower head above me and pump with my foot.

Only the clients use the shower and toilet, though. The crew pees and poops over the side of the boat and showers on deck with buckets of sea water.

Fresh water is like gold on a boat, says Jerome. The crew only uses it for cooking and drinking. They shower, wash clothes, and even wash rice in sea water.

This trip is turning out to be an immersion in French for Kweilin and me. Jerome and Maurice speak a little English, but it's often easier for us to converse in French. Jerome and Maurice are patient when we try to express ourselves in painfully slow, broken French, and they choose simple French words when they speak to us. Our French is slowly coming back!

Kweilin and I sang songs tonight for an hour. We sang Shi Wu de Yue Liang, Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, and Beatles. Jerome sang along with Imagine and Sound of Silence.

Jerome made us a fresh sirsak juice before dinner. He mixed together some sirsak and ice and sugar in a blender. It tastes kind of like passion fruit. What a treat!

Maurice showed me how to eat passion fruit this afternoon. I'd never had one before. A passion fruit is a round fruit about half the size of my fist. It has a kind of crusty, orange outside peel and a soft, white inside peel. I cut it in half and sucked out the insides, which is a bunch of crunchy seeds in a transparent goo. The taste is sweet and citrusy.

Jerome and Maurice are amazingly attentive to us. The fresh fruit juice is one example. The passion fruit is another. Maurice eagerly awaits our return from each dive and asks how we liked it. They offer us tea and coffee several times during the day. They let us eat and sleep anywhere: on deck or below. They spread a tarp over the midsection of the boat to provide shade during the day, and they remove it at night so we can see the stars.

We ate dinner with Jerome and Maurice on deck. We had sushi! Maurice cut some pieces from a fish he just caught today and we dunked it in soy sauce and wasabi. The entree was green beans and carrots and fried fish. Delicieux.

Dive #2: Tatawa Besar, Komodo, Indonesia

2005-06-17T03:38:00.000-07:00

Time: 30 minutes
Max depth: 16 meters
Temperature: 27 degrees Celsius
Visibility: 15 meters
Current: 1-2 nautical miles per hour
Slope coral
Fish, etc.: Parrot, Black Tip Shark, Sweet Lips Fish, Turtle.

A current carried us at a comfortable pace past the coral. We just oriented ourselves and drifted--we didn't have to swim. All four of us held hands and glided by the coral and fish in a line.

A turtle swam within three feet of us! I spotted him 30 feet away and watched him glide gracefully between us. He wasn't afraid.

Dive #3: North Komodo Bay, Komodo, Indonesia

2005-06-17T03:36:00.000-07:00

Time: 54 minutes
Max depth: 23 meters
Temperature: 27 degrees Celsius
Visibility: 15 meters
Current: None
Slope coral
Fish, etc.: Large Turtle (1.2 meters), Black Tip Shark, Blue-Spot Ray, Pilot Fish called "Remora" on turtle's belly.

The colors on this dive impressed us less than previous dives but we saw three relatively rare animals. A shark, a huge turtle, and a ray.

We're wearing three-millimeter wetsuits with the following weights:

Kweilin: 5 kilograms
Li: 5 kilograms
Dad: 8 kilograms

Dive #1: Sabayor Besar, Komodo, Indonesia

2005-06-17T03:35:00.000-07:00

Time: 57 minutes
Max depth: 26 meters
Temperature: 27 degrees Celsius
Visibility: 15 meters
Current: None
Slope coral
Fish, etc.: Sweet Lips Fish, Leaf Fish, Parrot Fish, Fusiller Fish, Unicorn Fish, Clown Fish, Clam, Sea Anemones.

My dad kept floating up during this dive. Jerome passed him two extra kilograms. I don't know how Jerome stayed down with only two kilograms remaining on his weight belt.

Kweilin and I held hands during the dive. I felt more secure attached to her because I knew that I would always be close to the group.

Gliding over the coral made me feel like I was flying. I controlled my buoyancy with my breath. I would glide toward a rock, breathe in, pass over the rock, breathe out, and glide on.

All four of us (Jerome, my dad, my sister, and me) joined hands for our safety stop. We waited at a depth of 5 meters for three minutes and then ascended in a ring.

Labuan Bajo, Rinca, Ikan Terbang: Komodo Dragon hike

2005-06-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

We saw many Komodo Dragons today. The Komodo Dragon is the largest lizard in the world and it only lives on the islands of Komodo, Rinca, and Flores. We took two-hour boat trip to Rinca and hiked around the island.

Jerome told us yesterday that one sees more wildlife early in the morning, so we arranged for a boat to pick us up at the hotel at 6 am. The boat cost 250,000 rupiah (US$25) for the back-and-forth journey. I think we probably would have seen the same number of animals even if we'd left later. We're still glad we left when we did because, as hot as our hike was, it probably would have been hotter if we'd started later. We got back to Labuan Bajo at 2:30 pm, so it's really a full-day trip.

We had a spacious boat all to ourselves for the journey to Rinca island. We saw a sea turtle and some dolphins on the way over.

As soon as we docked, Kweilin and I saw two pretty big dragons. Kweilin pointed to the dragons and asked a local, "Big or small?" "Small," he answered.

Indeed, we saw dragons twice as large by the resting hut where we found our guide. A handful of people live in houses near the resting hut and dragons bask in the sun around the houses, just a few feet from where people walk. These dragons were just about the only ones we saw on the two-hour hike. Maybe the locals feed the dragons to keep them where the tourists can see them.

We paid a few fees upon arriving at the resting hut. One is required to hike with a guide, so that we don't disturb the animals or get eaten by one. The guide's fee is 40,000 rupiah (US$4) and we tipped him 6,000 rupiah. We paid to carry a camera: 25,000 rupiah. And we paid what was probably a park entrance fee for the boat and ourselves (I forget the amount).

We learned on our hike that Rinca has a few hundred or maybe a thousand dragons. Henry, our guide, told us that the largest males we saw were 40-50 years old. Males outnumber females three-to-one for some reason. Males fight for the opportunity to mate in June and July but the rest of the year the dragons live in solitude. It's June now, but we didn't see any fighting or mating.

We saw dragons, water buffalo, deer, and monkeys during our hike. That might be the first time I've seen wild water buffalo. I've only seen them ploughing a field until now.

The lizards might have crawled out of the sea onto the islands (Henry said they can swim), but how did the deer and water buffalo and monkeys get there? Kweilin suggested that the islands in the archipelago were connected by land before the last Ice Age. The animals might have gotten isolated on the island when the ice melted.

We needed more water and snacks for our hike. We had emptied our water bottle and were famished by the time we returned to the resting hut.

We'll sleep on Jerome's boat tonight (Ikan Terbang), so that we can leave early tomorrow morning to start our three-day diving trip.

We ate dinner at the Gardena restaurant tonight with Jerome and Maurice (his father). We talked about Indonesian culture and some of Jerome's and Maurice's experiences in Indonesia.

Maurice built two boats several years ago in Sulawesi, one of which is Ikan Terbang, the one we'll be diving off of. Maurice only meant to build one boat but he inherited another one when a friend of his returned to France.

Maurice and Jerome love Indonesian people. Maurice and Jerome have traveled all over the world and have chosen to settle in Indonesia because they feel most comfortable with Indonesians.

Maurice and Jerome crossed from Bali to Sulawesi in a terrible storm in August 2003. They fought for their lives for three days and three nights, alone on the boat. Jerome manned the tiller while Maurice fixed the engine. Threesomes of five-meter waves punctuated relatively calm waters. Jerome guided the boat through each wave, descending at a right angle and ascending at a 45-degree angle. Two ferries sank in the same storm and many people died.

Jerome almost died during a dive in dangerous currents a couple years ago. He was diving with a couple Belgians in east Flores along a wall. They apparently got too close to the end of the wall where the current changed. A downward current suddenly plunged Jerome and his friends from a depth of 20 meters to a depth of 60 meters. Jerome discarded his weight belt and inflated his BCD to no avail. He was lucky that the current stopped or he would be dead.

One experienced diver was less lucky than Jerome and died last year. He was diving at a dangerous spot in Flores and was observing fish swimming in a current. He got too close and got sucked into the current. Tourist boats, local fishing boats, and police searched for the diver for three or four days but couldn't find him. The current might have taken him down so far that he drowned and then got eaten by sharks.

On the boat tonight, Kweilin and I sang several songs with the guitar we borrowed from the hotel we stayed at in Labuan Bajo. Jerome sang along to "Homeward Bound."

We continued talking with Jerome and Maurice and learned more about them and the boat.

Maurice is a champion fisherman. He took seventh place in the World Fishing Championship. The hard part, he said, is reeling in the fish softly and patiently. A fish only bites if you use a thin line that it can't see, so you have to reel it in slowly so that the fish doesn't break the line.

The boat is made of teak wood from Sulawesi and it is 20 meters long. Maurice and Jerome gave another length: 14 meters. I'm not sure what that measures.

Maurice was a member of the "Pompiers de Paris," which I think means "Paris Firemen." It's a military unit that fights fires as well. He did gymnastics to keep fit while he was a member of the unit.

Labuan Bajo: Signed up for 3-day dive trip

2005-06-15T03:53:00.000-07:00

Breakfast was waiting outside our room when we arose this morning. We had egg sandwiches and tea.

We went into town to talk to two French people who operate a diving boat. A local told us that the French boat was returning from a diving trip today. We found Jerome and his father, the French boat people, in a local dive shop. Jerome was waiting to take Lisa, his scuba-diving client, to the airport.

Lisa was a walking advertisement for Jerome's and his father's diving operation. Lisa and her husband have been diving all over the world and they said that Flores is the best. They went on a 10-day trip with Jerome and his father. The diving, food, and service was excellent. Lisa said it was hard to come back to the noisy land life after being at peace on the sea for 10 days.

We talked with Jerome about a three-day diving trip for my dad, my sister, and me. My mom has yet to earn a diving license. Jerome mapped out an itinerary for the three days. We'll dive three times each day. They usually charge US$100 per day per diver and US$50 for a non-diver. We arranged to pay US$1000 total for the trip.

We felt very comfortable with Jerome and his father after talking with them for an hour. They're from France and they've been working on boats and diving in Indonesia for nine years. They're based in Sulawesi but they sail to various islands in Indonesia for a few months every summer. This is the first year that they've made a base of Labuan Bajo for a month or so.

Jerome was a serious amateur cyclist from age 15 to 25 or so. He raced in Category 2 and would have been professional if sponsors had openings.

Jerome's father built two boats in Sulawesi: Ikan Terbang (Flying Fish) and Ikan Putih (White Fish). They sailed here in Ikan Terbang, and that's the boat that will take us diving. The father modeled Ikan Terbang on a fast pilot boat in the San Francisco Bay called "Schpoon."

Jerome's father explained what pilot boats are. When a big ship enters a bay like the one by San Francisco, the ship needs a local captain to pilot the ship into the bay. The big ship waits offshore as pilot boats race to the ship. The first pilot boat to reach the ship gets the job of guiding it in.

We visited Ikan Terbang with Jerome after sorting out the diving itinerary. He showed us the beds, the toilet and shower, the dining table, the kitchen, and the deck. We tried on wetsuits, fins, masks, and BCDs (buoyancy control devices).

We couldn't find a place to access the Internet as we walked through town. A few places pointed us to a store named Apik, but the store owner said that his Internet Service Provider wasn't working.

We rode a minivan taxi back to the New Baju Beach Hotel. It cost 5000 rupiah (50 cents U.S.) for the four of us.

Back at the hotel, we swam in the ocean, showered, and read on the beach in shade of an umbrella-like tree. The breeze on the beach feels great on a hot day.

We met a computer science professor named Pierre Bonzon from Switzerland on the beach. He's been teaching computer science at a university in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for the last year. He failed two thirds of his students in the first semester and ended up teaching a small group of nine or ten dedicated students for teh rest of the year.

We had dinner at Borobudur with Jerome and his father and got to know them better. They're anti-materialistic and they're happy to be outside of France. They love the slow, peaceful life on the sea. Jerome's father returns to France every two years and Jerome has only been back once in nine years. They love Indonesia for its people and its climate. They never took Indonesian lessons but they speak the language fluently.

We arranged for a boat to take us to the nearby island of Rinja to see the Komodo Dragons tomorrow morning. Komodo Dragons are the largest species of lizard in the world. I think they're about two meters or six feet long.

Ubud, Denpasar, Labuan Bajo: flight; swim; sunset walk; chess

2005-06-14T03:39:00.000-07:00

We flew from Denpasar to Labuan Bajo this morning. Nyoman Sandi kindly drove us from Ubud to the Denpasar airport.

We passed the Tumbawa volcano during the flight. It erupted in the 1800s and spewed so much ash into the atmosphere that the world fogged over for a few days. The volcano is inactive now but we could make out its cone and crater clearly.

Labuan Bajo is a small town on the island of Flores. Flores is an island east of Bali that we've heard has good scuba diving and snorkeling and beaches. The island is much less developed than Bali. The town looked like it has one main street with several dive shops. We have yet to find an internet cafe and a local told us that phone calls are expensive and unreliable.

We took a taxi for a dollar (10,000 rupiah) to the New Bajo Beach Hotel, where we're staying for US$12 a night. It's a short drive from the main town, so it's quiet and it has its private beach. All rooms were full last night, but tonight we have the entire hotel to ourselves.

In fact, it seems like we have almost the entire island to ourselves. The only tourists we saw were a handful who flew with us on the plane. I'm not sure whether we came at a slow time of the week or whether tourism is generally slow here.

We swam in the ocean. The water is warm and clear and the beach is sandy.

As we dried off from our swim, some hotel employees gave us coconuts from one of the hotel's trees. We drank the coconut water and then chopped the coconuts open and ate the meat.

We walked along the beach at sunset. We saw some fishing boats. One fisherman had a lantern on his boat and was repairing a net.

I looked at our room's wobbly ceiling fan more nervously after our discussion of ceiling fans during our walk. A ceiling fan fell on my parents in Mexico. My mom got out of bed just before another one fell on her bed in Malaysia. Both times the victims escaped injury. I hope our room's ceiling fan is lighter than it looks, in case it falls on us tonight.

Kweilin prompted my dad and I to exercise in our room. We did sit-ups, push-ups, dips, and squats.

My dad played chess with one of the hotel employees tonight. It looks like local evening entertainment is television, newspaper, and chess. My dad said he lost badly.

Ubud: Market; Flores tickets; hairless dog; ordered tingkliks

2005-06-13T03:33:00.000-07:00

We walked to the morning market and bought vegetables and fruits and snacks. The market is active from 7 to 10 am. It has two levels: the street level and a downstairs level. On the street are live chicken, vegetables, porridge, snacks, and souvenirs. Downstairs are meat, satay, more vegetables, spices, and slippers.

Kweilin bought a pair of slippers for 20,000 rupiah (US$2) after the vendor opened at 100,000. The vendor said, "I can't sell for 20,000. That's Balinese price."

We bought plane tickets to Flores, a nearby island, for US$66 each. We'll fly there tomorrow morning at 8:30. Flores is supposed to be less developed than Ubud. Lonely Planet says that the island has pretty snorkeling and sandy beaches. The Portuguese colonized the island so it's 85% Catholic. From Flores, we'll take a day trip to Komodo Island to see the Komodo Dragons.

We drove to the tingklik man and asked him to sell us two tingkliks that I'll take back to the Bay Area. The tingkliks are US$35 each but we'll pay more for the packaging. We asked the maker to build a wooden box that will protect the wooden tingklik frame when we check it on the airplane. I'll carry the bamboo pipes on board. The tingklik maker taught me how to assemble and disassemble the tingklik.

I played a few songs with the whole family of the tingklik man. The tingklik maker and I started playing and the rest of the family joined in: one son played a drum, another played a two-note gamelan, the grandson beat on a gong, and some friends played cymbals.

I saw a hairless dog on the way to the tingklik man. It wasn't one of those rare dogs that are born hairless. This one lost its hair because it got sick. Dogs are everywhere in Ubud and they're all mangy.

Ubud: eels; rain; dance practice; sushi; herons; rice planting; Tiga Rumah

2005-06-12T03:29:00.000-07:00

I watched Nyoman Sandi's wife roast eels on burning coconut husks this morning. She bought the eels from the rice paddy farmers, squeezed them dead, and then threw their writhing bodies onto the burning coconut husks. She grilled them twice, removing their innards between grillings. I tasted one fresh off the grill: it tasted like fish.

We experienced rain showers throughout the day. I'm sure the farmers are happy. Those rice paddies need water.

Between rain showers, we rode our scooters to Pondok Pekak, the english library, and spent a good part of the afternoon there. We checked e-mail, read books, and watched girls practice traditional Balinese dancing.

The girl dancers were between 6 and 13 years old. I recognized some dancers from the performance we saw a few nights ago. The girls danced to recorded music as their teacher corrected their arm position and posture.

The girls got a lunch break between lessons. They crowded around the teacher with money to buy the best snacks. Today's most popular snack was kutupat (rice boiled in coconut leaf) with curry sauce.

We ate lunch at a Japanese restaurant named Ryoshi's. The sushi tasted great. The set menu (miso soup, daikon, chicken skewer, and sushi) was 35,000 rupiah or US$3.50.

At sunset, we took an evening scooter ride to a nearby village to see herons fly in to nest for the night. These white birds have colonized a few trees in this village: just about every branch had a bird on it. One tree was so full that arriving birds had to fly around several times before finding a perch.

A young man asked us to pay to see the birds when we entered the village. He couldn't force us to pay though, since we were driving on a public road, so we just continued on. I bet lots of tourists think one must pay to enter.

On the way to see the herons, we stopped to watch farmers planting rice. What a back-breaking job! They stand almost knee-deep in water and mud, shuffling backward as they bend at the waist to plant tufts of rice, one tuft at a time. As we drove on, I looked at the beautiful rice terraces and realized that every tuft of rice in all those paddies was planted by a human.

We need visors on our helmets to shield us from bugs. I had to squint so much during the drive home at dusk that I could hardly see. My dad said that his glasses didn't help.

We stumbled on a beautiful house for rent on our way home. It's called Tiga Rumah. It's surrounded by rice paddies and a brook. An American who lives in an adjacent house says that it's peaceful and that the mosquitos only come out when the farmers flood the surrounding rice paddies. The house has two storeys, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a kitchen. It's super-spacious and has an unbeatable view from the second floor. Jay deems the house "awesome possum." It costs US$500 a month or $150 a week. Below is a card advertising the house.

Houses for rent in Ubud

http://tigarumah.tripod.com

2 storey house, 2-3 bedrooms, big master
bedroom with ensuite marble bathroom
(hotwater) fully furnished, open air dining
area with lotus pond, equipped kitched,
laundry room / washing machine, wide
veranda with uninterrupted view of
rice paddy; garage/carport (if required)

Bright and very peaceful

Contact: Agus
HP.: 081.753.2710
Home (0341) 569301
E-mail: "gusmo" followed by "@telkom.net"

Location: Sriwedari Str. (on one corner "Lippo Bank")
Off Ubud main road, 3 km north till end of street, near
Junjungan Village (Banjar Junjungan)

Ubud: Scooter ride through rice paddies; tingklik man's family

2005-06-11T04:13:00.000-07:00

We rode our scooters through some beautiful rice paddy fields this morning. The farmers were just starting to plough and weed the fields. The terraces filled with water are a sight. It takes a lot of farming to keep them so pretty.

We visited the Amandari resort on our ride. The Amandari is something like a Four Seasons resort. It's built on one side of a steep valley and looks out on beautiful rice paddy terraces. We took some pictures by the immaculate, overflowing outdoor pool. Ayu showed us the Valley Suite, which costs $800 a night.

We watched a woman painting a batik cloth. The batik makers outline the design in pencil on a white cloth, then they paint, and then they smudge the paint with water to create lighter shades. The woman we saw was at the smudging stage.

We bought some bakso (soup noodle), chicken sate with kutupat (a type of rice), bread, and fruits at the market in downtown Ubud. We brought the groceries back to our bungalow and had lunch.

We spent the afternoon at the tingklik man's place. He re-taught me the "polos" (melody) and "sangsih" (harmony) to two songs that I learned seven years ago. He also taught me to play a simple song on the angklung. It looks kind of like a mini-gamelan.

We might buy a couple tingkliks to take home. They cost US$35 each. We took a set home seven years ago but the bamboo changed pitch in the relatively dry SF Bay Area climate. We'll ask the tingklik man how we can protect the bamboo from a dry climate.

The tingklik man's sons, Wayan and Made, showed my dad and me the rice paddy that the family farms. They own four terraces among many. They just burned the dry remnants of the last crop of rice and they're planting a new crop that they'll harvest in six months.

We spent an hour or so on Wayan's computer, looking at photos and videos. I uploaded yesterday's photos of the family onto computer. Wayan showed us a video of his seven-year-old daughter performing a traditional Balinese dance. The tingklik maker was playing in the musical ensemble. It seems like learning to dance or play an instrument is part of growing up in Bali. The girls tend to dance while the boys tend to play instruments.

The tingklik man's business card is below:

Prawan
Wood Carver and Special Bambu Musik
Made to Order

Wayan Betra and Son
Owner

Address: Br. Bilukan, Sebatu, Tegallalang, Gianyar, Bali, Indonesia

Telp. (0361) 901137
Hp. 081 657 4606, 081 657 5567
E-mail: "prawanshop" followed by "@telkom.net"

We had masakan padang for dinner back in Ubud and then used the internet for an hour or two. Internet access in Ubud costs 200 rupiah (about five cents) a minute.

Ubud: Lazy morning; Tingklik man; Japanese dinner; police; rain

2005-06-10T04:12:00.000-07:00

Daddy and Mommy took a ride through the rice paddy fields surrounding our bungalow this morning. The green terraces look beautiful, especially in the morning sun.

Jay and I spent a lazy morning in the bungalow. Jay finished "The Da Vinci Code" and Mommy made us soup noodle from fishballs and noodles she bought in the market this morning. Daddy and I looked over pictures from our Kenya trip and this trip.

We rode our scooters to the tingklik man in the afternoon. Seven years ago the tingklik man taught Jay and me to play the tingklik, a traditional Balinese instrument that looks like a bamboo xylophone. The tingklik man's family hasn't changed much in seven years, except that the newborn grandchildren are now seven years old. The sons and wives look the same. We took lots of pictures of the family so that we can give them the pictures tomorrow on a CD.

We played a tingklik song with Made, the second son, but I think Made was more interested in playing guitar and drums. He remembered that Jay and I played "Tears in Heaven" for him seven years ago! He showed me his studio where he has a drum set, two electric guitars, a bass, and a microphone. He showed me a video of his band.

The tingklik man's family's main business now seems to be making Native American wood sculptures that they ship to Alaska. Made showed us how he carves American Indian heads topped with feathers and an eagle. The family carves about four a day and I think they get US$10 for each. The heads probably sell in Alaska for US$200.

Daddy and I ate dinner at a Japanese restaurant. We had nabeyaki udon, soba, capuccino ice cream, beer, and eda mame for US$12. That's about five times the price of two masakan padang dinners. The food was tasty. The noodles could have passed for entrees at a Japanese restaurant in the States.

On our way home, the police stopped Daddy and me and asked for our driver licenses. I was sure that they would ask for a bribe but they didn't. One officer asked my dad for his license and another asked for mine. I told the officer who approached me that my license was at Nyoman Sandi's bungalow. In the meantime, Daddy showed his license to the "boss" officer and the boss waved us both through. We'll carry our licenses tomorrow.

I'm sure the locals are loving the rain that's falling right now. Ubud has had a drought recently and it shows in the rice paddy fields. Many that we've passed are brown or light green instead of the healthy deep green. A couple locals have said that this is the first rain in two or three months.

We're paying US$20 a night for our private bungalow at Nyoman Sandi's. We get two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a kitchen in the middle of rice paddy fields.

Ubud: Nyoman Sandi; Pondok Pekak; Three Monkeys; Legong dance

2005-06-09T04:09:00.000-07:00

Nyoman Sandi's wife kindly bought us fruit and bread for breakfast. She went to the market for us because she knew that we didn't yet have scooters.

Nyoman Sandi and his family have been extremely hospitable. They've given us food a couple times already and they've told us about a festival. It seems like they genuinely want us to have a memorable stay.

We walked to the market and looked at fruits and souvenirs. Mommy found that a vendor's first price is often three times the price at which they're comfortable selling.

We walked to Pondok Pekak and visited Lori, Kai, Nyoman, Made, and the rest of the family. Lori and Made are married and Kai is their son. Lori is from Montana and she's lived in Ubud for the past 20 years. We got to know the people at Pondok Pekak when we visited seven or eight years ago. The Balinese people don't seem to age! Nyoman and Made look much the same as last time. Only Kai has grown visibly.

Nyoman is married and has a four-year-old son now. He and Made have a clothing store.

Jay and I practiced tingklik(a bamboo xylophone) at Pondok Pekak. Nyoman and Kai re-taught us a song that we learned seven years ago. Two tingkliks playing harmony sound great.

Nyoman helped us find three scooters to rent. We paid 80,000 rupiah ($8) per bike for two and a half days. Daddy tried out the bikes to make sure that the brakes and gears work. Mommy will ride with him, and Jay and I will have our own bikes.

We had masakan padang for lunch. It's kind of the Balinese equivalent of Malaysian economy rice: one covers a plate of rice with a selection of pre-made dishes like egg, beef or fish or chicken curry, and vegetables.

We visited Denise at her restaurant. Denise is a Chinese doctor who used to work with Daddy in Seattle. Denise now runs the Three Monkeys restaurant in Ubud. Her husband, an architect, designed the restaurant beautifully. It's set in lush rice paddy fields and has lots of shade.

Gas is cheap here: about $1 a gallon. We filled up our scooters on our way home.

We loved the traditional Balinese dance that we saw this evening. The Pondok Pekak put on the Legong dance and others. The dancers were children ranging in age from 7 to 13. They are talented! I thoroughly enjoyed their eye-flitting, shoulder-shaking, finger-twitching, stamping, and twirling. I loved the music, too. I especially liked it when the dancer's movements matched the music. The female dancers sometimes shook their hips in time with the clang of the gamelan. The male warrior dancer danced with increased urgency as the music got louder.

Kuala Lumpur, Denpasar, Ubud: Fly to Bali

2005-06-08T07:40:00.000-07:00

I played guitar and sang this morning in Popo's apartment. I'm happy that Kam Seng keeps a guitar in the house. Jay and I sang "Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall" and "Help" and I sang "Wild World" and a few others.

Auntie De Xia took us to eat Ipoh chicken rice for lunch. Jay said it was her best meal on the trip so far. The rice and chicken was indeed excellent. I ate some chicken liver and gizzard, too.

The chicken rice store is famous in KL, so we were curious as to how many chickens the store sells in a day. The owner was reluctant to tell Daddy, though. The owner probably thinks that the Malaysian IRS will make him pay more income tax if they find out how many chickens he really sells.

We flew Air Asia to Denpasar, Bali in the afternoon. Air Asia's seating is first-come first-served, so we had to scramble when the announcers opened the gate. We were lucky: we sat together and Daddy found a seat where he could stretch his legs.

The 45-minute taxi ride from the Denpasar airport to Ubud cost 100,000 rupiah, which is about $10. Mommy walked out to the airport parking lot to bargain for that price. We probably could have gotten a similar price from the taxi drivers at the baggage claim.

We're staying in a spacious, secluded bungalow about a kilometer from the center of Ubud. The owner's name is Nyoman Sandi. He and his wife and 27-year-old son welcomed us with fruits and cake. The bungalow has a kitchen and two bedrooms, each with their own bathrooms.

Kuala Lumpur: Third Uncle, Aunt; traffic; Popo's appetite

2005-06-07T07:34:00.000-07:00

We met Auntie De Xia and Third Uncle this morning for breakfast. Auntie De Xia brought us to another great food place. We had laksa, other soup noodle, and "economy rice." Economy rice is a self-serve dish where the customer gets a plate of rice and covers it with whatever dishes he wants. This morning's restaurant had a large selection.

Auntie De Xia and Third Uncle own a hardware store and lighting store. The hardware store has knick-knacks like electrical adapters and converters and flashlights. The lighting store sells lamps and chandeliers. Auntie and Uncle work seven days a week.

Daddy and Mommy and Jay tried to sort where they'll go in July, after I leave. They'd like to travel somewhere cool (not hot), like Tibet. They asked a travel agent in the Sungei Wang Mall about tickets to Tibet. They're expensive.

Jay and I walked around the Mid Valley Megamall this afternoon. We got some ice cream, drinks, desserts, and clothes at Carrefour.

Everywhere you turn is a traffic jam in KL. The time of day doesn't matter. I've sat in a long line of slow-moving cars in every car ride I've taken in KL this trip, starting with the bus ride in from Singapore. I wonder what the city planners can do about it.

Popo has a super healthy appetite even though she's 82 years old and thin. She seems to eat whatever I offer her! After a meal of rice and beef, she ate four pieces of durian and a few pieces of asian pear.

I'm watching Shaolin Soccer as I write this. Its content and humor resembles that of Kung Fu Hustle, another movie by Stephen Chow. I laughed when Stephen Chow and his fellow Shaolin expert sang Shaolin's virtues in a rock band.

Kuala Lumpur: mouse tail noodle; SS2 night market; tsunami

2005-06-06T07:33:00.000-07:00

We ate Mouse Tail Noodle in downtown. The restaurant has been around for 58 years and is famous in KL. The noodles look like tails of little mice: an inch long, fat at one end and thin at the other. I liked the noodles and meatballs, but I've also liked almost all the food I've had so far in Singapore and Malaysia.

We took the Light Rail Transit home. The trains drive themselves automatically--no drivers.

On the way up to Popo's condominium, we walked through an afternoon market that sells fruit, meat, and snacks. We had some peanut-filled pancakes and bought some longan, rambutan, and mangostine.

We visited the weekly SS2 night market. That place is hopping on Monday nights! Stalls line the street around a square whose sides are two city blocks. The market is so crowded that it's hard to walk and one has to guard one's pockets and bags. Vendors sell vegetables, fruits, hotpot items, desserts, fish, clothes, clocks, and lots of other stuff.

The first vendor we saw sold frogs. He had a cage of 100 live frogs next to a dish of 10 skinned frogs. The skinned frogs were still twitching!

My aunt, Oongie, introduced me to some weird food at a hotpot stall. We dunked skewers of food into boiling pots and ate them with sauces. Oongie had me eat pig's ear, pig's intestines, and duck's liver and foot wrapped in intestines. The pig's ear was crunchy and the duck's sauce made it tasty.

Uncle Allan told us about his experience in the tsunami tonight when we stayed at his place. When he was tumbling underwater, he thought, "I don't want to die like this." It was hard for Oongie and him to watch the news coverage of the tsunami when they returned to KL.

Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh: Aunt Judy; food treats

2005-06-05T21:10:00.000-07:00

We visited my aunt Judy today. She's schizophrenic and she lives in a lunatic asylum near Ipoh, which is two hours from Kuala Lumpur. Oongie and Popo and my family sat with Judy for three hours. It was the longest time that we've sat with her. We sang songs and talked about our family and watched her get up and shower every hour.

We discovered that Judy loves to sing and listen to songs. Oongie sang some Chinese songs and Judy joined in. Jay and I sang some Beatles songs with her like "Let It Be" and "Can't Buy Me Love." Oongie and I started singing "Mrs. Robinson" but Judy hushed us with "Bad song, bad song."

We also found that Judy remembers some Shakespeare from 40 years ago. I started reciting "All the world's a stage," and she continued with "... and all the men and women merely players. Each man in his time plays many parts."

Judy showers about 10 times a day. She showered three times during our visit. She would suddenly walk off to the bathroom and a few minutes later we would hear her pour buckets of water over herself. She seems obsessed with cleanliness.

Oongie acted as our food guide today. She showed us a few hidden food treasures that only locals know about. In Ipoh, we ate soup noodles and peanut-covered gooey rice flour. Back in KL we ate chicken rice.

Singapore, Kuala Lumpur: bus; Popo; tsunami; SS2

2005-06-04T21:08:00.000-07:00

We took a bus this morning from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. We'll take the train next time. Traffic in KL turned what should have been a three-hour bus ride into a five-hour trip. We inched along through bumper-to-bumper traffic for a few hours and then the congestion disappeared with no evidence of why traffic was backed up in the first place. In the congested area, four lanes formed where there should have been two: cars clogged the left and right shoulders. I don't know what an ambulance or police car would have done to get through.

We arrived at my grandmother Popo's apartment and spent the evening with her, my aunt Oongie, my cousin Sook Yin, and Popo's maid Annie.

Popo suffered a mild stroke since I last saw her but she's generally healthy. She slurs her speech a bit and is more confused than before but she walks on her own and laughs and eats healthily and gets regular visitors. She gave each of us red packets.

Whenever Popo sees Mommy, Popo always says that it might be the last time they'll see each other and she asks Mommy to administer a lethal injection if she becomes a vegetable. Mommy always makes light of it.

I'm happy that I can communicate on a basic level with Popo in Mandarin. I asked her about her grandchildren. She still remembers everyone and knows whether they're married or have girlfriends or boyfriends.

Oongie told us about her tsunami experience. She and Uncle Allan were on the beach in Phuket when the wave hit. They got swept over lawn chairs, trees, and roads in the first wave. They were lucky that some Europeans pulled them from the water before the second wave hit. Oongie and Uncle Allan climbed through windows and jumped over gaps and generally scrambled to get to higher ground when they heard that a second wave was coming. Oongie thought of the people she met during the trip who might have died in the second wave: the people who rented her the lawn chairs, the Europeans who were pulling people from the water, and the people who were eating breakfast on the first floor of a hotel, oblivious to what was happening.

Oongie drove us to the SS2 hawker center to eat dinner. We had chee cheung fun, ice kacang, mango sticky rice, laksa, sugar cane juice, and soya milk.

Singapore: Jinsi's kids; Takashimaya

2005-06-03T21:07:00.000-07:00

My cousin Jinsi brought over his cute children this morning. They make believe I'm "Uncle Anakin" from Star Wars. The daughter Tansy mocked me by patting her brother's head (like I do) and calling him "Padmay."

Tansy is currently studying for an important exam--maybe the one that comes between primary and secondary school. She's 12 years old, I think. Her brothers Tian En and Tian Yi are 6 and 9.

Tian En (6) is pretty good with computers. He hopped on to the computer as soon as they arrived at the condo and started playing a web-based game.

We talked with Sui Jau for a few hours over dim sum. Sui Jau is a financial researcher. He seems to know a lot about Asian economies.

We toured the Takashimaya food court after lunch. It's an indoor food court with lots of food stalls that offer samples.

Daddy and Jay and I had ice kacang on our way home. We walked part of the way, stopped at a hawker center, and took a free shuttle home. The shuttle is meant for shoppers, but it worked for us too because Auntie Y.S.'s condo is next to Great World City mall.

Singapore: "Millionaire Nextdoor"; Szeyao

2005-06-02T21:01:00.000-07:00

Auntie Y.S. took us to eat breakfast just a few blocks from the condominium. We ate Malaysian food at a restaurant and then ordered ice kacang for dessert at a hawker center nextdoor.

I started reading "The Millionaire Nextdoor". The book is a light read that describes lessons learned from a survey of self-made millionaires. The main point so far seems to be "live below your means."

Auntie Y.S.'s condominium complex has good-quality exercise machines and a well-kept swimming pool. Daddy and Jay and I ran on the treadmill and elliptical machines and then relaxed in the pool.

Szeyao, one of my best friends from Stanford, visited me in the evening. I saw him a couple years ago just after he finished his military service. Now he's been working in the Ministry of Defense for a couple years. He writes foreign policy articles about stuff like who's who in India politics and whether Singapore should train its troops in Taiwan.

A bunch of us (Tansy, Sook Yin, Mimi, Auntie Y.S., Mommy, Jay, and I) took a walk along the canal that runs through Singapore.

Jay and I slept in the living room under the fan, again, but this time we got attacked by mosquitos. We'll sleep in our parents' air-conditioned room tomorrow night.

Singapore: Arrived from U.S.

2005-06-01T20:55:00.000-07:00

Daddy and I arrived on the same flight into Singapore and Auntie Y.S., Mommy and Jay picked us up.

Leaving the airport, we saw the longest line of taxis we've ever seen. It stretched for miles. Each driver was waiting to take passengers from the airport to the city. It's a sign that the Singapore economy isn't doing well.

Daddy and Mommy and Jay and I talked in the living room of Auntie Y.S.'s apartment for a couple hours and then slept. Daddy and I took sleeping pills. Jay and Mommy are already adjusted to the local time zone because they came from Thailand.

Jay and I slept on cushions in the living room with a fan to keep us cool. It's hot and humid in Singapore, even at night.

2005-01-13T21:29:00.000-08:00

Nairobi end

2005-01-12T21:26:00.000-08:00

Nazareth, chicken farm, tea and coffee plantation walk

2005-01-12T13:04:00.000-08:00

We had lots of guests at our house today--morning through evening. We visited a chicken farm in the afternoon and took a walk through the tea and coffee plantations surrounding the hospital before dusk.

Margaret visited us this morning with her children. She helps out around the hospital and makes $2 a day. She has five children that range in age from 8 to 21 years. We gave her $36 for her children to buy uniforms for school. We had mixed feelings about giving her the money because it's only a bandaid--she'll need money for books and next year's uniforms. We decided to give her the money because she works hard and is doing everything she can to help her children.

James, the chicken man, paid us a surprise visit. Mommy and Jay met him when they bought chicken from him at Christmas for all the nuns of the hospital. James is in his fourth year of medical school and speaks excellent English. He told us about the Kikuyu and Luo tribes in Kenya and about raising chicken.

James saved $500 and started a chicken farm before he started med school. It can be a lucrative business, but income fluctuates because he's constantly struggling to find customers. He buys chicks, feeds them for six weeks, and then slaughters them as he gets orders from customers. His farm (which is also his home) has no electricity and no refrigeration, so he can only slaughter chicken once he has a customer. Each week that he feeds the chicken beyond the six-week maturity age costs him $108.

Mommy and Jay and I visited James's chicken farm and I slaughtered and cleaned a chicken! James selected a chicken, held its wings and feet, and I cut its head off. Then I defeathered it and removed its internal organs. It was a lot of work for just $1.50 per chicken.

In the evening, we enjoyed the company of Manfred and Froukje ("frow-kyeh"), a Dutch couple of Daddy's and Mommy's age that is traveling around Africa in a Land Rover. They sleep in a tent on top of the jeep, so they can camp anywhere. Manfred is a retired architect. He and Froukje are going to a coastal Kenyan city to oversee the construction of an orphanage for a few months. Then they'll drive down to South Africa, ship their car to South America, and drive up to Alaska.

Manfred, Froukje, Daddy, Jay, and I walked through the tea and coffee plantations around Nazareth before dusk. The seas of green look pretty. I saw a coffee plant for the first time. I didn't know that the beans are red and green before they're picked.

2005-01-11T21:24:00.000-08:00

Nazareth, charity victims, cow farm, Brackenridge

2005-01-11T13:03:00.000-08:00

We stayed much of the day in the house and in the afternoon we visited a cow farm and a pretty garden.

We gave food and clothing to some needy people outside the hospital. Mommy knows all the locals, so she brought in needy people one at a time and we gave them tea and biscuits, talked with them, and sent them off with clothes.

Our first "charity victim" was an old, crazy woman who stands all day outside the hospital, singing religious songs and preaching at no one. Her daughter doesn't help her because the daughter's husband rejects the woman. She had such an appetite! She ate everything we put in front of her: sweet potato, tea, and biscuits, and she took a couple bananas in her bag. We gave her a shirt.

Next, Mommy brought in a 30-something-year-old man who hasn't worked since 1999, when he lost his right hand in a car accident. He used to drive a matatu (minivan taxi). We gave him some clothes and a little money for his daughter. His wife died of AIDS, but he and his daughter are HIV-negative, thank gosh.

We took a walk through the pediatric ward at the hospital and gave toys to a few children. I would feel so lonely if I were nine years old living in the hospital with a broken arm and no family! A nurse got jealous and asked me, "Why do you give to these children but not to my little one?" I didn't know how to respond, but Mommy said she's used to that. She just laughs off the question.

We drove to a nearby farm and saw a veterinarian tending to a cow. The cow has salmanella. When we arrived, the veterinarian had his arm (covered by a long plastic glove) down her anus. He scooped out some poop and smelled it. He went around to the front to deliver his medication. He hooked the cow's nose with pincers and tied the pincers to the ceiling to immobilize the cow. Then he pushed a bottle of iodine down the cow's throat and emptied it. The cow was gasping for breath! After he extracted his arm, the cow coughed all over his face. After the iodine, the veterinarian delivered several injections. All his motions were big and forceful--I guess you have to, with such a big animal.

We drove on to a pretty garden compound called Brackenhurst. The compound has lots of grass and flowers and trees. They were having a conference about home-schooling, so we saw lots of mothers and kids.

2005-01-10T21:22:00.000-08:00

Nazareth, Nairobi

2005-01-10T13:02:00.000-08:00

This morning we discussed the family 501c3 that we're considering founding. We discussed mission, scope, and alternative ways to fund Daddy's and Mommy's projects.

I got diarrhea from some milk Mommy bought in the village outside the hospital. I'll be on a 24-hour liquid diet.

We retrieved our last lost bag from the airport. Out of four bags that Jay and I checked, the airlines or the airport lost three of them! We eventually recovered all of them.

We had terrible traffic in Nairobi and we saw *three* fender-benders! Roundabouts are bad for traffic--we should replace them with stop-light intersections.

2005-01-09T21:21:00.000-08:00

Nakuru National Park, car collision, Lake Naivasha, Nazareth

2005-01-09T13:01:00.000-08:00

We did a game drive in Nakuru National Park this morning. We saw tons of pelicans and flamingos and some buffalo, zebra, gazelles, impala, water bucks, and a white rhino! The pelicans glide so gracefully just above the water. The adult flamingos are pink and the children are white. We saw lots of dead, dried-out flamingos on the lake shore. The white rhino was lying in the shade of an acacia tree among 20 buffalo. We heard that the park has lions and leopards but we didn't see any.

We saw two hippos wallowing along the lake shore among the flamingos. We were lucky: people rarely see hippos in this park.

The attraction for all the wildlife in this park is Lake Nakuru. It's a "soda lake." Here in Rift Valley, there's not good drainage, so rain forms shallow lakes like this one. Evaporation creates concentrated water where blue-green algae grows. I think the algae supports the fish and krill, which in turn support pelicans and flamingos.

During our drive to Nazareth, we came upon a head-on collision that must have happened just minutes before we arrived. Bystanders had extracted a man and baby and laid them on the grass outside the car. They were both bleeding but conscious. Bystanders were working to extract the driver of one of the cars. His side of the car was smashed in, crushing his legs. Daddy took his pulse and found him talking and breathing. Bystanders tied opposite ends of the car to two trucks using cables and freed the driver.

Daddy said the driver could die from a ruptured spleen, other internal bleeding, or an infection from his legs' protruding bone fractures.

We overtook cars more conservatively after witnessing the accident. The cause of the head-on collision seemed to be that an overtaking car didn't get back into its lane in time.

We took an hours' detour to see Lake Naivasha on the way to Nazareth. We strolled around the well-kept Lake Naivasha Country Club grounds for half an hour.

We arrived at Nazareth and Mommy greeted everyone as we entered the hospital grounds. She knows the guards, sisters, village vendors--all the locals.

2005-01-08T21:19:00.000-08:00

Kitale, Kerio Valley, Nakuru

2005-01-08T13:00:00.000-08:00

We took a detour through the beautiful Kerio Valley on the way to Nakuru National Park.

We stopped for a couple hours at the Lelin Campground, which has a peaceful view of the valley. Ethan (the Israeli we met in Jinja) recommended the place to us. We wanted to spend the night but it was too early to stop for the day. Instead, we sipped Fantas, read, wrote, napped, and talked for a couple hours.

During our three-hour drive through the hot, dry valley, we passed many charcoal sellers and honey sellers. Many people flagged us down for a ride but we decided that picking them up was more trouble than we wanted.

We had a hard time finding a place to stay in Nakuru because we didn't like the loud, congested downtown where all the hotels are. We eventually took a room at Midland, outside downtown.

2005-01-07T21:18:00.000-08:00

Eldoret, AMPATH HIV hospital, Kitale AIDS Programme

2005-01-07T11:58:00.000-08:00

This morning Joe took us on a tour of the HIV hospital he's building in Eldoret. The first floor will be patient care, second floor teaching medical students, third floor undecided, and basement research. Joe built it mostly with individual donor money--no government support. The cost is $1.6 million. The quality of the construction and design look good.

We drove 1-2 hours north of Kitale to visit the Kitale AIDS Programme. It's run by two Irish nuns, Mary and Teresa, and an American physician's assistant, Marj. They've built a few patient exam rooms and offices on a 100 foot by 100 foot plot of land next to a church. They started small, in 1992, with home visits. Now they have 700 clients, whom they mostly see in the clinic. They started receiving ARVs a month ago and just put their 80th client on the drugs.

The largest expense of the Kitale AIDS Programme is helping orphans and children of clients go to school. The program buys uniforms, books, and pays secondary school fees and vocational training fees for 500 orphans. The total program budget is $100k and the orphan budget is $25k.

Catherine and I donated $6300 to the program--half of that is Google's match. Mary asked me where I'd like the money to go, and I said, "Whatever you think is most urgent." Mary and Teresa both replied, "The orphans." We funded a quarter of the annual orphan budget!

I feel good about the money we donated to the Kitale AIDS Programme because it's a lean operation and I have a clear idea of where the money is going. Marj, Mary, and Teresa are simple people who have been helping people like this for many years. They genuinely care for the people they're working with.

The Kitale AIDS Programme includes an income generation component. It started 1.5 years ago and now has 100 clients. A social worker first visits the client and makes sure basic needs are met. Then they set the client up with a charcoal shop, a donut shop, or a one-acre shamba (farm). The loans are more like grants because the program coordinators don't expect their money back.

We visited an orphanage in the afternoon. It serves 100 boys and girls. We saw their bunk beds, food silos, and classrooms. All were immaculate. I quizzed a few kids on addition and subtraction and they answered correctly *in english*.

Eldoret, AMPATH microfinance, pediatric clinic, farm

2005-01-06T11:51:00.000-08:00

This morning, Daddy, Jay, and I visited the microfinance part of AMPATH, led by Peter Park. It looks better put-together than the Reach Out one we saw in Kampala, Uganda. We have more confidence in the leaders of the AMPATH program here in El Doret. They're smaller and younger but they seem to have good ideas. For example, they require all their clients to undergo a month of business training before they access a loan. They've categorized loans into beginner, intermediate, and advanced:

Beginner is someone who's never done business before. They get a small loan--maybe $50--and have an annual interest rate of 5%. That's really low. The Reach Out interest rate is 10% over six months!
Intermediate is for people who had a business and had to sell it because they came down with AIDS. These people can't get a loan elsewhere because they have nothing to prove that they have business experience. The intermediate loan has the same annual 5% interest rate but they get bigger loans, like $100.
Expert loans are for people who currently have a successful business. AMPATH doesn't charge any interest for these loans because they want successful business people to join the program to teach beginners and intermediates how to do business.

The AMPATH microfinance program is about a year old and has about 200-300 clients. The first year was a pilot program where they explored different microfinance tactics. The repayment rate was an abysmal 5% because clients used the money from the loan or from the profits to buy food to eat. They were starving! The program now includes food and training, and the repayment rate so far (post-pilot) is an amazing 92%.

Mommy visited the farming part of AMPATH this morning. AMPATH runs a model farm where it trains clients to be farmers. An ex-peace corps volunteer from England designed the farm. Three workers attend to three cows: two chop grass and a third feeds molasses to increase the cow's appetite. Since the cows don't move from their pen, this is called "zero-grazing." It's meant for farmers who don't have much land. The irrigation mechanism, an Approtech pump, requires the farmer to perform Stairmaster-like stepping for hours every day. A farmer with AIDS might not have the strength.

In the afternoon, Jay and I visited a pedatric AIDS clinic at a nearby village with Jill, a young American doctor who is halfway through her year here. Most kids were healthy and just came in for their monthly checkup. Jill poked their bellies, looked in their eyes, opened their mouths, and talked in Swahili with the parent. Jill said that she doesn't know how long children born with AIDS can expect to live because they've only had ARVs for a few years. The oldest AIDS child she's treated is 13.

The adult who brings the child to the clinic is invariably female: an aunt, a sister, or the mother. Men need to get more involved in caring for children.

2005-01-05T21:14:00.000-08:00

Kampala, Kenya border, Eldoret, AMPATH

2005-01-05T11:50:00.000-08:00

Today we returned to Kenya and are staying in Eldoret, the home of AMPATH, a successful AIDS program.

In the morning, I picked avocados from the tree outside our cottage with Mommy. She tied a coat hanger to the end of a stick. I hooked each avocado and Mommy caught it.

We stopped at the barbecue chicken roadside stand on the way to the border. The hawkers swarmed around our car again and they all recognized us. "Welcome back," they said. "You bought from me last time."

The drive to the border was again scary. We took a gamble every time we passed an oncoming truck or bus. Those big vehicles own the road. Several times a truck/bus swerved to avoid a pothole and forced us off the road.

City driving is similarly lawless. Roads have few lane markings and no stoplights. Sidewalks and medians are fair game for cars, so pedestrians had better watch out. Cars come within inches of each other but I have yet to witness a scratch.

With all the traffic jams and cutting people off and near collisions, I would expect fights, but I have yet to see any disagreements. People seem to accept the jostling as part of driving.

We had a much easier border-crossing re-entering Kenya than leaving Kenya. It turned out that Daddy's and Mommy's visas had *both* expired, but renewing them was easy ($50 each). An entrepreneurial young man helped cross again, but we didn't need him so we only paid him $2.

We arrived at the AMPATH compound in a little town called Eldoret in time for dinner. AMPATH is a 4-year-old program that takes a holistic approach to AIDS treatment. With 6,000 clients, it's the largest program we've seen. In fact, it's the largest program in the country, which is particularly amazing because it's operating in rural areas, not cities.

We had dinner with Joe and his 7 American staff at a local Chinese restaurant that has surprisingly good food.

I learned at dinner that Joe has been working abroad for many years. He started building a medical school in Afghanistan in 1970-something but got kicked out by the Russians. He worked in Pakistan for a while, waiting to return to Afghanistan. When it became clear that he couldn't return, he came to Eldoret and started working in a hospital in 1988. In his first year at the hospital, 85 people died. When he returned a few years later, 1000 people died that year in the same number of beds. The AIDS pandemic had begun. Joe started his AMPATH program in 1993 with funding from Indiana University (IU), where he was dean of the medical school. AMPATH stands for Academic Model for the Prevention and Treatment of HIV.

The IU compound, where we're staying, is quiet, clean, and spacious. There's internet downstairs and they feed us three meals a day!

2005-01-04T21:11:00.000-08:00

Jinja, Kampala, Reach Out Mbuya

Kampala, Reach Out microfinance, stone quarry workers

2005-01-04T11:48:00.000-08:00

Mommy and Jay and I spent most of the day with the Reach Out microfinance team while Daddy visited the Reach Out clinic. We talked in the microfinance office in the morning and then visited two client businesses: a charcoal store and a stone quarry. The quarry workers are among the poorest people we've met.

In the office we learned about a chicken project funded by a group loan. The clients underestimated costs and the microfinance board was discussing how to go forward. The idea behind the project is to raise chickens and sell them in the neighboring market. The chicks take six weeks to reach maturity. The clients have sold a few generations but it seems that their current batch is several weeks from maturity and the clients can't cover expenses.

We visited a client's charcoal business. She showed us a shed full of charcoal that she sells for 30 cents for two buckets. She's on her fourth loan.

In the afternoon, we visited a stone quarry partially owned by a Reach Out client. The quarry workers did physically demanding work with primitive equipment for unbelievably low wages. Men chip rocks from the ground and carry them out to where women and children smash them with mallets into pebbles to be sold for construction.

A man I spoke with makes 50 cents to a dollar a day, which is about what a packet of biscuits costs at the supermarket. He's 32 years old.

A younger man makes a quarter for every 15 trips he makes carrying a 30-pound bag of rocks from the bottom of the quarry to the top, where women and children break the rocks into pebbles. He wore flip flops with holes in the heels.

Seven-year-old children hit rocks with small hammers next to their mothers. They worked in the hot sun. The only shade was three sticks propped up together with a cloth draped over them. It was big enough to cover a baby.

Most of these poor quarry workers came from villages in northern Uganda, where there's a war. "This is the only job we can find," said one of the men.

Little kids make 15 cents a day and teenagers make 30 cents a day. They all work 12 hours a day.

Both evenings in Kampala we experienced power outages from 6 to 11. I don't know how the capital of a country can function with daily power outages. Someone told us that Uganda sells its energy to Kenya and doesn't keep enough for itself.

While Jay and I were talking in the microfinance office this morning, Mommy spoke with six female Reach Out clients and found that they have little power in their marriages. Mommy asked how many of their husbands had beaten them and all six raised their hands. "Has he ever forced you to have sex?" Mommy asked. "Whenever he comes home drunk," one responded, and others nodded.

Jinja, Kampala, Reach Out Mbuya

2005-01-03T11:44:00.000-08:00

We had breakfast in our peaceful Jinja campground overlooking the Nile, said goodbye to Ethan, and set out for Kampala.

Along the way we stopped to buy grilled chicken at a roadside stand that many people have recommended to us. Young men wielding 5-10 sticks of chicken in each hand swarmed around the car as soon as we stopped. We bought a skewer each for 75 cents each. It was the tastiest, most tender chicken we've had on this trip.

In Kampala, we visited the Reach Out Mbuya program. Daddy and Mommy visited it last March and Jay raised $6000 for the program from her HBS section. We met Dr. Margaret, the European doctor who founded the program 3.5 years ago. Annette, a 24-year-old local, led us on a tour of the place.

Reach Out takes a holistic, community-based approach to HIV/AIDS care. Annette showed Jay and me several departments: ARV pharmacy, ARV education, HIV counseling, primary and secondary school scholarships, primary/secondary school HIV education, microfinance, work training and income generation, adult literacy education, World Food Programme, and medical clinic.

An innovative aspect of the program is CATTS: Community ARV and Tuberculosis Treatment Support. A CATTS volunteer is an HIV-positive client who has gotten healthy via Reach Out and helps about 10 fellow clients get healthy. The volunteer visits each client once a week to make sure the client is taking ARVs and has enough food.

Frederick explained HIV counseling to us. People come in to get tested, usually with the suspicion that they're positive. Frederick takes them five at a time through pre-test group counseling, where they discuss ARVs and what's available at Reach Out. Then they take a blood sample and continue counseling while the tests are pending. Ten minutes later, the test results are ready. Frederick takes each client individually and reviews the group counseling before disclosing the test result. He said that the individual review is important because clients are often too anxious about their test result to absorb anything from the group counseling. If the client turns out positive, Frederick enrolls the client in Reach Out, prescribes ARVs, and assigns a CATTS volunteer.

The work training is focused on women because 79% of Reach Out clients are female. Clients attend a 1-year sewing course and graduate with a certificate and a sewing machine.

We visited Dr. Margaret's family--husband, four sons, 1 daughter--in her house at night. Noah, her husband, runs the World Food Programme in Uganda. I spoke with her oldest son (16), Benjamin, about applying to US colleges. The family has lived all over the world: Sudan, Cambodia, Thailand, Swaziland, India, and Uganda.

On the way home we evaded the Uganda Highway Patrol! We accidentally drove the wrong way down a one-way street. As they came up behind us, we accidentally cut them off. They pulled in front of us and motioned us to pull over but we turned up the road to our house instead. They turned on their siren lights so Daddy veered into an alley and turned off his lights and waited for them to pass. After 10 minutes of waiting, whispering, and looking over our shoulders, we continued home. Exciting!

2005-01-02T21:08:00.000-08:00

Jinja, Nile rafting

2005-01-02T11:39:00.000-08:00

I felt like I almost died rafting the Nile today. I came closer to death than I've ever felt. I'm glad I experienced almost dying, but I would not make that same trip again. In fact, I wouldn't have even made it the first time if I could understand what I was going to go through.

My dad asked what my sister and I would advise someone else considering rafting the Nile, and we both said "Don't do it." The thrill is not worth risking death. I doubt our advice would stop anyone, though, because it's hard to explain the feeling of drowning to someone.

My dad said that we got a taste of what the tsunami victims experienced, and I agree. It was much safer for us, of course, because we were guaranteed to come up after the rapids. The tsunami victims had no such guarantee.

The rafting trip lasted the whole day. My dad and sister and I went. My mom opted out. We hit two Class 5 rapids and a few others in the morning, had lunch on an island in the river, then hit a few small rapids and one last Class 5 in the afternoon. Our boat capsized on both Class 5 rapids in the morning, and we took an easy line through the last Class 5.

The first rapid was an exciting Class 4 called "Bujagali Falls." We had seen this set of rapids from shore, and it looked big. It was still scary in the boat, but once I was through it and we didn't capsize, I thought, "That was easy."

On the next rapid, a Class 5, our boat went vertical and everyone went overboard. I came up for air but got whisked down again, and this time I went deep into dark water. I flailed and gasped for air but only brought in water. I brought in water for maybe 10 breaths. I started thinking that I was going to die. "I can't die yet," I thought. "I've just started my career." I thought I'd get a second chance when I surfaced unconscious because the guide could do CPR on me. I kept my eyes open the whole time and struggled toward the surface when I saw sunlight. I couldn't believe I surfaced with consciousness. I took several quick breaths. Once I knew I was going to survive, my thoughts went to my sister and dad. "Where is my sister? Where is my father?" I asked the guide. "They're fine," responded Jane. A guide pulled me into the "safety boat" and I just sat exhausted and shocked for a few minutes. I had heartburn because of the lactic acid buildup from lack of oxygen. My ears hurt because I had gone so deep. I felt nauseated because of the water in my ears.

My sister and father had similar feelings of drowning, althought they didn't go as deep or stay down for as long.

The name of the Class 5 rapid where everyone went over is "Total Ganga," which is Swahili for "Total Chaos."

We stopped for lunch soon after Total Chaos and had sandwiches on an island. My mom met us there. We told her about almost drowning and said that we were happy she chose not to go on the trip.

Two types of boats came on the trip: paddle boats and safety boats (also called "oar boats"). The paddle boats carry up to 8 paddling clients and a guide, and the safety boats are for clients who don't paddle. The guide in the safety boat sits in the center with two big oars.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in the safety boat because I was too nauseated from my dunking to row. My sister and dad took it easy through the last Class 5 because, in my sister's words, "I have nothing to prove. I've experienced swimming through the rapids."

The kayak champion of Uganda, Geoffrey, works with the rafting company we went with: Adrift. We watched him surf the largest rapid of the day. He's amazing! He was a little dot in a huge standing wave of white water, and he was surfing it. He flipped 180 degrees and made surfing the deadly rapids look easy.

Another highlight was when another kayak champion pulled two paddle boats using his oar boat. We all just sat and relaxed while he pulled. Thank you, Tutu!

Drowning is a horrible way to die. I felt helpless yet frantic. Knowing how to swim was probably a disadvantage because I panicked more when my swimming (flailing) didn't bring me closer to the surface.

We learned that the brother of one of our rafting guides drowned just a couple months ago swimming Bujagali Falls with a jerry can, which is a 2 ft by 2 ft water container. He lost control of the jerry can and got pinned under some rocks. They only found his body three days later when his body bloated with water and floated to the surface.

The young men who swim Bujagali Falls with no life vest and just a jerry can are called Bujagali Swimmers. They keep swimming the Falls for tips from spectators after the man drowned two months ago. Since the drowning, they've started attaching the jerry can to their wrists with a cord.

2005-01-01T21:03:00.000-08:00

Jinja, Bujagali Falls

2005-01-01T11:38:00.000-08:00

We stayed around Jinja today. We checked e-mail, ate an Indian lunch, saw Bujagali Falls, found a beautiful campsite overlooking the Nile, met Isreali Ethan, and arranged a rafting trip for tomorrow.

Bujagali Falls is on the Nile. It's a set of Class 4 rapids. I didn't realize that Class 4 rapids are so scary! We saw no rafts coming down the rapids because the rafting companies rest on New Year's Day. We did see crazy local men surfing the rapids on a plastic water container (2 ft by 2 ft). It was exciting to see a head dive into a huge rapid and come bobbing up on the other side. They made it look easy. After each trip, a man came by with a small basket asking for a donation. We gave 50 cents.

Tonight we're staying in a tent at a peaceful campsite overlooking the Nile. We're taking an all-day rafting trip from her tomorrow with "Adrift." We'll go through 10-12 sets of rapids, including three Class 5 rapids.

Ethan is also staying at this campsite. He's from Israel and he's been backpacking in Uganda for a few weeks. I learned that, as an Israeli, he can't travel to Sudan, Malaysia, and other muslim countries.

Ethan talked about his three-year military service. He drove a tank and he participated in village raids to root out suicide bombers.

2004-12-31T21:01:00.000-08:00

Kisumu, Uganda border, Jinja

2004-12-31T11:36:00.000-08:00

We skipped a Luo cultural museum in the morning so that we'd have plenty of time to cross the Uganda border. Good thing we skipped the museum because the border crossing ended up being an almost two-hour ordeal.

An entrepreneurial young man named Victor helped us navigate the crossing. He talked with a few officials, got some documents, and told us where to go next. We ended up paying him $7 for his labor, which included a bribe for an official who overlooked a missing document.

When an official looked at our passports to stamp us out of Kenya, he found that Daddy's visa expired! He kindly overlooked the overstay with no bribe.

We had another problem with our papers, though. We didn't have the original car log, which is a log of the ownership history of the car. The border officials want the original log book to make sure we don't leave Kenya with one car and enter with another. Victor said he bribed the official to overlook our missing log book.[

We bought Uganda visas for $30 each. Jay saw that student visas are only $20 each so she got $10 * 2 = $20 back from the visa seller.

Victor bought us a Uganda road license for the pickup for $20.

A Uganda official told us that we needed to buy car insurance for $50. Jay talked with him and he halved the fee to $25 for two-week insurance instead of $50 for one-month insurance.

In the end, we crossed the border for $145 in official fees and $7 in "border helper" fees.

Jay did most of the talking and negotiating at the border. Daddy was with her but let her speak because the male officials were likely to be kinder to a girl.

While Jay and Daddy walked around getting papers, Mommy and I guarded our bags in the car.

Mommy spoke with two boys selling bananas. One said he hadn't sold anything in two days so he hadn't eaten. He gets beaten if he eats his own bananas. Mommy gave him and his friend a few hard-boiled eggs with salt.

As we drove off from the border into Uganda, we saw menacing clouds, so we brought in the bags from the back and piled them on us in the car to keep them dry.

The drive to Jinja scared me. One pothole was so big I thought we'd get stuck or get a flat or break an axle. Everyone screamed but we came out fine. Daddy forced some oncoming traffic to the side of the road when he passed a car. An aggressive bus driver passed us a few times. I finally gave up trying to help us avoid hazards and closed my eyes.

We arrived in Jinja, a little town on Lake Victoria at the source of the Nile River. We stayed in the Hotel Triangle and got another beautiful view of the lake. We saw lots of bats flying and hanging from the trees.

Ewaso Ngiro, Narok, Kericho, Kisumu

2004-12-30T20:58:00.000-08:00

Ewaso Ngiro, Narok, Kericho, Kisumu

2004-12-30T11:25:00.000-08:00

I had a hot shower this morning! I ate a scone for breakfast. Mommy washed my clothes and I wrung them out and hanged them to dry.

We drove into Narok. Daddy visited a clinic with John, and Mommy and Jay and I went to a local market. We bought more Masai bead souvenirs: belts, bracelets, and baskets. We also bought a plastic tub, a knife, four pineapples, and sandals made of rubber tires ("giniara").

We drove many hours through Kericho to Kisumu. Kericho is a tea-plantation town like Nazareth. We stopped for gas but didn't spend the night.

We carried a couple hitchhikers for an hour. We stopped to buy roasted corn and a father asked us, "Will you please take my two children?" So we took his 14-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son. Not a lot of other countries would trust strangers with their children.

When we hit Kisumu, I jumped out and rode in the back of the pickup to guard the bags. We were moving slowly through a crowded market and were worried that someone would snatch a bag as we passed.

We stayed at the Sunset Hotel, in a top-floor room with a beautiful view of Lake Victoria. Expensive--$65--but comfortable and beautiful.

We visited Jegatha and Raj, an Indian couple that has been working in Kenya for 20 years. We know them through the nuns of Nazareth. Raj is a tax accountant and Jegatha is the principal of a private school. Raj said that the Kenyans he works with are lazy. Analogy: "If I point out a cobweb, my coworker will clean that cobweb. If I point to another, he'll clean that one. Where I stop pointing, he stops cleaning." He said that Kenya is a beautiful country with great natural resources and has the potential to be "heaven on earth."

We saw on the news at Raj's house that more than 100,000 people died in the tsunami. Unbelievable.

Jegatha told us of her visit to Lake Turkana, a remote part of northern Kenya. The people who live there are half naked and use a barter system. Some missionaries (Indian sisters and Irish priests) run a local hospital. When a local needs a big surgery, he brings a camel. A small surgery brings a goat and a lesser visit brings firewood. The missionaries are careful not to tell a patient's family that he is sick or might die because the locals think death brings bad luck. If locals think someone is dying, they'll put him out in the forest to get eaten by hyenas so that he doesn't tarnish their house with death.

2004-12-29T20:53:00.000-08:00

Masai Mara, William's Masai village, Ewaso Ngiro, Narok

2004-12-29T11:18:00.000-08:00

We went on a morning game drive from 6:30 to 9:15. We watched lions mating for most of the drive--more than an hour continuously watching. One couple mated in the road several times, surrounded by 10 safari vans.

We drove out of the Mara to William's Masai village. William is an educated Masai helping his village with health, water, and school via foreigner funding. Daddy knows William through Marty Graber, a 72-year-old who has worked for the past 20 years with the Masai. Marty asked Daddy and the CDC for funding.

William and Moses showed us around their village. Moses is also educated. For the past 14-16 years, since 24, he has represented his community/village to the Kenya government. He carries a wooden scepter to show his status.

Moses showed us where they are building a well. The well will make life much easier. Now, they walk an hour each way, over a hill, to fetch water.

Moses took us inside his boma, which is a Masai house made of cow dung and sticks. The boma had a few "windows," which were 1 foot x 1 foot holes in the cow dung. The boma was tiny. I had to turn sideways to get in, and I couldn't stand up straight inside. It was almost pitch black--no light but the fire to heat the place. The fire had no chimney. The smoke was so thick that it hurt to open my eyes or take a deep breath. Jay saw 10 one-inch-long cockroaches on the wall. Goats sleep inside at night to keep warm. I'm amazed that Moses's daughter and mother spend much of the day in the dark, small, smoky boma.

Moses's daughter has minor epilepsy. He's worried about her "fainting" once or twice a year and so asked Daddy whether it was a heart or brain problem. Daddy advised Moses to get a CT scan.

We played with the Masai children all over Moses's village. They greet you by offering you their head. You're supposed to put your hand on their head. Each child has one set of clothes that they wear always. Many clothes and shoes are coming apart. Many are barefoot.

The kids are playful and seem happy. They did a ceremonial chant and dance for us. They gathered around our cameras again and went wild looking at themselves. One of them touched my arm as if to see whether I was real.

Flies are in most kids' eyes and mouths. They spread infection. One kid had an eye infection and another had a lip infection.

The kids care for each other. An older girl shielded the infected eye of a younger girl.

Moses has one wife but will marry two or three more. He needs multiple wives to care for the children and livestock.

Traditional Masai make big holes in their ear lobes, but the educated Masai don't. William had droopy ears but had them sewn up before he went to the city for school. He said that non-Masai will tie the Masai's ear tot he bed while they're sleeping.

Moses said that water is the highest priority for the village. Then health, then school. If they build a school, which costs $4000, the government will provide teachers.

The safari van left us in William's village and we transferred our bags to a pickup that we're borrowing from Marty for the next couple weeks to go to Uganda.

We drove from William's village to Ewaso Ngiro with our bags in the back and got hit with a torrential downpour that lasted an hour. The muddy road became a river and our bags got soaked.

We arrived at the Ewaso Ngiro clinic where Masai John is caring for Masai. We hung our clothes to dry.

John said that this was the first rain in six months.

Masai sometimes tell their age in terms of droughts. "I was born during the drought of '74." Droughts kill lots of cattle. There seems to be a drought every 6-10 years.

We drove to the nearby town of Narok to have dinner with John and his family. They were celebrating their daughter Sharon's birthday. Grace is John's wife and Sharon (12), Amanda (6), and Maximillian (9) are their children. Julius is their driver.

The restaurant was insanely slow. It took hours to make barbecue chicken and french fries.

Julius and Grace took Mommy and Jay and me into town and we bought Masai-beaded bracelets, belts, and keychains.

The guest house has a hot shower, clean outhouse, and clean beds! We've been sleeping at 8-9 pm.

2004-12-28T20:06:00.000-08:00

Masai Mara

2004-12-28T11:14:00.000-08:00

We had omelettes, crepes, and toast for breakfast.

All-day game drive today: saw lions, cheetahs (!), hippos, crocodiles, zebras, impalas, monkeys, and baboons.

We saw two lion couples mating from just 20 feet away! The male and female were lying next to each other. Seems like they do that most of the day. The female got up and stretched and then signaled to the male by prostrating herself. The male mounted for just a few seconds. Then they roared, the male jumped off, and the female rolled on her back.

We saw two females near the two couples. The guide said that the two females were waiting to mate with the male. I guess they were a pride.

Before lunch we visited a muddy river and saw hippos submerged and crocodiles sunning themselves on the banks.

The gazelles and impalas are beautiful. They're so clean.

We had lunch at the same place as other vans because there was water and a toilet there. The monkeys know it's a lunch spot and are quite aggressive. Our guide had a stick or rock in hand the whole lunch.

After lunch we saw a mother cheetah and her three cubs! We stayed with them for half an hour. They climbed onto dirt mounds and gazed across the plains. They are thin!

Saw elephants from about 30 feet. Bathing in river, destroying brush.

We got to know Simon better today. Simon is the head Masai at this camp. He speaks english. He has four wives. He is 28 and his fourth and youngest wife is 15. Simon gave his father-in-law 20 cows for his youngest wife. Simon has 5+6+1 = 12 children!

Daddy offered Simon an HIV test just now. You take a cheek swab and 10 minutes later you know whether you're positive. Simon declined the HIV test and said that he'll bring his wives and get tested all together.

2004-12-27T20:03:00.000-08:00

Nazareth, Masai Mara

2004-12-27T11:08:00.000-08:00

Jay and I couldn't sleep from 3 am to when we finally got up at 6. Still jetlagged.

Drove to Masai Mara in pop-top minivan with driver, cook, and mother and son. Beautiful descent into plains ("Mara").

Dropped camera and broke it at lookout. Lesson: be careful exchanging camera; bring extra.

Ate tasty roasted corn at lookout.

Ana is single mother to son Mandela. She's 32, he's 11. She never married his father, which is common in Kenya. "Don't rely on them," she said, "because they will disappoint you."

It's hard to distinguish Kenyans. While we were having lunch in Narok, Daddy called his friend "William" and asked him to come see us. Daddy met him downstairs and brought him up to where we were having lunch. "This is William," said Daddy. Mommy introduced herself: "I'm Wan. You are William?" "No, I'm Daniel," he replied. A "Who's On First"-like exchange ensued. It turned out that this guy was a complete stranger! He had lent his cell phone to William to call Daddy, which is why Daddy thought he called William. Daniel kindly came out to meet us even though he had no idea who we were.

Kenya has 50 % unemployment. And that's just counting the people looking for work.

We stopped in a tiny village and played with the Masai children. My camera and Jay's video camera (both digital) fascinated them.

We went on an evening game drive and saw gazelles, lions, wildebeest, giraffe, and buffalo, but no leopard. We drove through terrain that you wouldn't expect a two-wheel-drive minivan to go, but the leopard eluded us.

The "Big 5" that people like to see in the Mara are: lion, giraffe, rhino, leopard, and buffalo. We have yet to see the leopard and rhino.

In the evening we sat around a fire and talked with a few young Masai males. They are the security for the camp. They patrol at night for lions.

We had spaghetti for dinner and slept in two tents--the semi-permanent kind, like in Yosemite Housekeeping Camp.

Bright, full moon at night.

Nairobi, Nazareth

2004-12-26T22:47:00.000-08:00

Toured house with Edward. He's one of 14 children. 20 years old. Came from countryside. Works with father as car mechanic, gardener. Doesn't get paid. Father, Simon, gets $50 a month. More than half of Kenya lives on less that $1 a day.

Mom bargained with vendor for mangos. They all speak english.

Drove up to Nazareth hospital. Passed billboard of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize 2004 winner who says AIDS is fabricated by whites to kill and exploit Africans.

Had lunch with Nuns at Nazareth. They're from India. Many from Madras.

Saw 30-year-old female AIDS patient in coma. Emaciated, tube up nose, teeth coated with something. Should have been on ARVs since August when she got sick. Probably could be walking around today but now has only a few weeks. Her husband died of AIDS in March.

Daddy used to make rounds in Nazareth hospital for 3 months. Got close to 17-year-old Rwandan who escaped genocide. Parents escaped to Uganda, evacuated to Belgium, France. Egide ("iggidy") escaped overland to Kenya. Got sent to Nazareth because of AIDS. Very sick. Daddy put him on ARVs and he walked out. Daddy saw him working in Nairobi and said, "I can't believe you're still alive!" He said he felt great. Two months later he died.

Mommy has built so much at the hospital! Colorful benches, shelters, swings, slide. It was visiting day today and people were sitting under the shelters.

Daddy took me on a motorbike to see countryside. Everywhere is tea. Beautiful green hills. Everyone waves and says hello.

Visited Edith. 92 years old from England. Spent whole life in Kenya. Speaks Queen's English. "It's horrible what they've done with the language in England today!"

Edith was here when the British colonized Kenya. She *was* the British!

She almost got carjacked 10 days ago on her way to Nairobi. An oncoming car stopped her and pulled out a gun. She went into reverse, they pursued. She thought she was going into a ditch so she stopped. They stopped too, but they left just enough space for her to get by. She thinks she might have hit their open door as she passed. "Good thing they didn't get off a shot," I said. "I don't think the gun was loaded," she said.

Not only can the 92-year-old woman drive--she escaped a carjacking!

Mommy cooked oyster-sauce chicken and curry for dinner.

2004-12-26T19:41:00.000-08:00

Nairobi, Nazareth

2004-12-25T19:36:00.000-08:00

Nairobi

2004-10-07T10:42:00.000-07:00

Stanford Memorial Church--Mem Chu :)

Halloween breakfast

2003-11-03T23:35:00.000-08:00

I had breakfast with some friends on Halloween morning at the Peninsula Creamery in Palo Alto: Susan, Jackie, Sarah, Ally, Brenna, Becca, and Eric.

Birthday party at a family's house in Kabul

2003-05-17T00:37:00.000-07:00

From Kweilin:

Last night we went to Sherdil's for his birthday party. It was fun because we went to an average Kabuli family's house. There were 18 people in the house, but only two of them were men-- one father and one son. The other 16 were women or children and didn't work. They had one 75-foot well that they used to get water up everyday. Just pulling up one bucket all that way left us huffing and puffing. And they have to wash themselves, wash dishes, wash clothes, and do everything else with that water! Twice a week (at random times-- they're never sure when it will be) they get city water, and even that just started a week ago. They were pretty happy about that. Also, once a week they get electricity (that also happened within the past two weeks), but otherwise they use a weak generator for their lights and other things.

We visited their kitchen which was TINY. There was a clay oven in the ground to cook bread, but other than that, there was just a propane tank with a metal thing that allows you to put a pot on top of it and a bunch of plastic and tin buckets and containers. I can't imagine how they cook enough food for 18 people in that kitchen!

Their rent recently was raised from 4,000 afghani to 8,000. These drastic rent increases are primarily because so many NGOs are in the area and are paying exorbitant prices for houses and everything else. "Soon," the son of the family said, "Kabul will be NGO city and everybody else will have moved out because they can't afford it." We asked if any of the women worked and they smiled shyly and (through an interpreter) said "no." When we asked if they would work if they were offered a job and if their rent went up so much that they needed more money in the family, they said "no" again. It was clear that the question itself was embarrassing and to work would be a clear sign of shame for the family. All of the women (around eight of them and the rest were children) wear burkas whenever they go out and see out of the small net for their eyes. Even if their husband didn't want them to, they said, they would wear it. ! Otherwise they might bring shame on their family if they looked at somebody the wrong way, etc. Whenever they go out (even to go shopping for groceries to cook later on), they have to by LAW ask for permission. All of them seemed quite content with the situation-- primarily because they have never seen or heard of doing things a different way. It was a really eye-opening experience to meet them, and I'm really glad we did. We asked a few of the women if they knew their husbands before they got married, and they said that the first time they laid eyes on him was at their engagement party. Luckily their husbands were all pretty good looking. I've heard of instances, though, where the bride is pretty disappointed with the fiance at the engagement party and she just needs to get used to it and be happy with him. When we asked: "Do you like your husband / fiance?" they looked away shyly and somebody explained to us that they cannot answe! r a question like that. It would be shameful to appear to like o r lust after somebody-- even your own fiance or husband. In fact, at both engagement parties and at weddings (which are big affairs if the families can afford it), both sides are supposed to look sad or afraid even if they are really happy about the match. Otherwise, to appear like they really like and want the other person would be shameful. It was definitely a different world.

Mr. M

2003-05-13T13:15:00.000-07:00

From Kweilin:

   We got home around 4:00 p.m. and talked with some interesting MSH
   people.  One of the Afghans that Daddy works closely with came to
   visit.  His name is Mr. M (I forgot his full name).  He is Muslim and
   had a really interesting story.  He is the first one in his family to
   go to university and now he has an MSH job ....  He is in
   business with his brothers who sell colorful cloth and other women's
   items in three different shops in Peshawar, Pakistan and Herat and
   Kabul, Afghanistan.  He is obviously quite well off, but when he gets
   his pay check, it goes directly into the three brothers' family fund.
   He can spend whenever he needs to (i.e. if he is paying his child's
   school bill, it will come from his account).  At the end of the year,
   they tally who gets how much of their one-third share.  If they have
   spent more during the year on differen! t purchases, they will get
   less at the end of the year when the business shares are settled.  We
   asked him whether there was any suspicion or anything of other
   brothers, and he said: "No.  Because Islam teaches that whether or not
   somebody knows, you should never take something that doesn't belong to
   you.  Allah will always see."  He is a really honest guy, because he's
   worked for the UN and other places like MSH a lot, and there have been
   rampant opportunities to take money for his own personal use.  He's
   always refused.
   He also told us that he folllows the Islamic teaching that you should
   donate 2.5% of the money that you are not using (or the jewelry or the
   cows or the wheat-- however you store your wealth) to the poor.  He
   actually records it when he pays the rent of a relative or helps a
   beggar on the street.  If he gets $100 this year for his family and he
   needs $60 to live, he will give 2.5% of the the remaining $40 to
   others as! alms.  If that same $40 (or whatever is left of it) remains
   in s avings and is not used the next year, he will also give 2.5% of
   it again-- it is an ongoing thing every year.  It was an interesting
   practice.  I think most religions teach their believer's to do good
   and give to others, but I liked the idea that it was so specific in
   Islam (what to give was written in the Quran and some scholars did the
   calculations and it came out to about 2.5% of what you're not using,
   so that is widely used now).  Of course Mommy was fascinated and
   thought it was a great idea.

Photos

2003-05-12T03:07:00.000-07:00

With much difficulty, I've uploaded some photos.

Panjshir, Afghanistan

2003-05-11T20:20:00.000-07:00

From Kweilin:

   Panjshir is supposed to be the most beautiful valley in Afghanistan
   and it definitely lived up to its reputation.  There was a gorgeous
   river and LOTS of mountains.  The entire road was completely unpaved
   and had lots of potholes and rocks.  There were so many times during
   the day that we were banging our head against the side of the car
   because the road was so bumpy.
   During the day, we stopped by the nomads' tent.  They roam across the
   valleys with their camels, donkeys, and hundreds of sheep.  They never
   shower and live under their tents.  They move every few weeks and walk
   for a month or so before they settle down again.  It was fascinating.
   I finished my entire first tape on the camcorder -- a full hour of
   taping!  I love having the camcorder because you can capture so much
   more and you can also show what you've taped to people and especially
   kids, and they love it.
   We had lunch at the same place as yesterday-- it was rice with beef
   kebabs.  Since we are women, we sat in a special section with a
   curtain pulled and only the waiters came in to see what we wanted.
   The food was really good.
   There are SO many kids along the road.  They are really very cute kids
   and so good natured.  None of them have toys are anything, yet they
   amuse themselves and take care of themselves.  Today was saw a bunch
   of girls as they were getting out of school.
   It was a really exciting day today.  Tomorrow we're going to explore
   Kabul some more with our translator Somah.

Soccer game in Kabul

2003-05-11T19:53:00.000-07:00

From Wan:

We went with a driver to the only sports game in town, a soccer match
between the English soldiers and the locals. It was at the stadium where
they killed the former Prime Minister, dragged his body behind a Nissan
pickup truck     cut off his balls and then hanged him at the goal post for
all to see. It was also at this stadium that the Talibans shot and killed a
lot of women who they accused of having a close relatiohship with men they
were not married to. thieves had their hands chopped off for stealing and
many other atrocious crimes and punishments.At this game , the locals won 1
to 0 . We were the only females in the group except for the female soldiers
from England. It was an exciting match for us to watch the Afgans screamin
and running around the stadium after the first and only goal. However all
around us at the stadium were soldiers   with submachine guns on the ready
and tanks poised to the sky ready to shoot an incoming plane. Part way thru
the game , there was a sonic boom and all the soldiers rushed out to see if
there was an attack. If there was an attack we would all be dead cos there
is so much artilery around us and there were thousands of us stuck in that
small stadium. However if we are overcautious as many Americans are, Kabul
would literally become a prison.The US embassy is barricaded like for a war.

Outside Kabul: schools, children, land mines

2003-05-11T19:43:00.000-07:00

From Kweilin:

   We had a GREAT day today.  This was our third day in Kabul and our
   first two days we stayed pretty much inside the city and went around
   to markets and to the outskirts of town.  Today, Daddy arranged
   through a friend of his (the same people he went to Bamyan with for
   that three-day trip last week) to have two day trips around Kabul.  So
   today at 9:00 a.m. we went to the north of Kabul on the road to
   Mazar-e-Sharif.  There were at least 100 rusting and decaying tanks
   all along the road, and some rusting trucks too.  A lot of the houses
   were crumbling and full of bulletholes and the vineyards had been
   burnt when the Taliban fled.  Almost all of the families outside of
   town are very poor, and there were a lot of small stalls along the
   road.  There are SO many kids here.  I think an average woman has
   around 8!  But then child mortality is pretty high too.  With the
   growing number of cars and trucks, a lot of the! kids are getting hit
   and hurt by them.
   The countryside was really beautiful.  There are huge snow-capped
   mountains and brown hills on all sides of Kabul.  And we drove along a
   beautiful river today too.  On certain parts, the bridges are bombed
   out, so you have to take a detour around.  The roads were so bad that
   we had a flat tire half way through.
   The highlight of the day was visiting a school.  The schools here are
   held in big tents (open air things held up by poles with some desks
   and a very small basic chalkboard inside).  Most of the students are
   so poor they cannot even buy a notebook to write things down in, and
   the kids sometimes don't have pencils and pens.  The school we visited
   had 1600 students and it was just two big tents!  There is a morning
   session for the younger boys and an afternoon session for the older
   boys.  There is a separate girls' school.  Each class has about 200
   people, so half the students are out in the sun at any one time
   because there isn't enough room under the tents.  And then every so
   often they have to stop teaching because a big dust storm will start
   up and nobody can see.  And there are no classes during the winter
   because there is snow and they can't be outside in an open-air tent in
   the snow.  So Mommy was g! oing to give them money to buy notebooks,
   but we decided we should just buy the notebooks and deliver them
   ourselves.  So we'll probably do that sometime over the next week.
   We'll have to go the market and buy some notebooks in bulk.
   We had a GREAT tourguide today.  She is 24 and just came back from 6
   years in Pakistan where she fled when the Taliban was in power.  She
   was lucky to get away.  She speaks pretty good English because she is
   an English teacher and she is really nice.  She just got married a
   year ago, and when she found out that we wanted to go outside of Kabul
   today, we had to stop by to ask her husband's permission.  By Aghan
   law, she can't go anywhere without her husband's permission.  She had
   an arranged marriage but is very happy with her husband.  She is going
   to join us for our day trip tomorrow too.
   I videotaped a lot of stuff today.  The kids at the school were
   great.  They were really funny and really energetic.  Just fifty feet
   behind their school are three overturned and decaying trucks.  It
   really is such a stark contrast to see this beautiful country and then
   see these tanks all over the place and bulletholes in everything.
   All along the road there are stones that mark whether the area has
   been searched for landmines or not.  They say that Russia put in
   roughly 10 million landmines and they have found and removed 4 million
   so far.  They go in with a big thresher-looking machine and then the
   landmines explode like popcorn.  Sometimes, when they hit a reall big
   landmine, the machine will be disabled, but it never blows up because
   it is so heavily protected.   They mark the area with stones that are
   painted red (that means it is NOT demined), stones that are painted
   white (that means that it IS demined-- although nothing is ever 100%),
   and stones that are painted half white and half red (that means that
   the area is partially demined).
   The day was amazing.  It was really nice to get a sense of the rest of
   the country.  It has been an incredible three days.

Poverty in Afghanistan

2003-05-11T19:29:00.000-07:00

From Wan: as I travel outside Kabul, I realize how unequal the "wealth " from donor countries have been. We see scores of young children with multiple buchets or pails in line and the water trickling out of a 4 inch pipe was hardly a trickle. It would take over half an hour to fill up a bucket. And then they carry it up the hill where they live in the mud huts .Water is a major problem here and especially in the outskirts. Education is a major problem here too . Yesterday in our drive into the hinterlands, we saw tents which acted as schools. We stopped at one just as the kids (all boys) were getting out. The teacher talked to us and told us the situation they are faces with. The school has 1600 students, divided into the morning and afternoon sessions.Each tent the size of the ones we get from Home Depot to park our cars, holds 200 kids. 50 to 60 in each class. So at any one time, half the school has to sit out in the sun on the gravel for their class. Even for those under the tent , only half have desks. The others sit on the floor too. Half the students have no notebooks or pencils.Each notebook cost 12 afganis which is about 25 cents US and of course this is beyound the reach of a lot of families whose income is less than US$30 a month.The teacher asked if we could help with notebooks, pencils and ballpens.We wanted to give cash to the teacher to buy for the students but the translator that it would be much better if we brought the notebooks to the school ourselves and distribute it out ourselves.Everywhere we went we met with such dire poverty. Kids at the age of 10 working at tire shops for 20 afganis a week, which is less than 50 cents US.we gave them money to buy icecream which cost 1 afgani each and they loved it. You feel you want to give everything you have just to relieve the poverty for a minute.

Day 2 in Kabul

2003-05-09T02:28:00.000-07:00

Another update from Kweilin in Kabul:

   Hi Li,
   This is our second day in Kabul.  The weather is warm and dry but
   quite cold in the evenings.  This morning we woke up early and stayed
   around the house until 9:30 p.m. and then we took a driver around and
   went to the market and walked for quite a while.  It was very
   interesting and there was a lot of stuff there.  The river here is one
   of the dirtiest I have ever seen and people live right by it and kids
   play in it.  There were spices, ice cream machines, kebab stalls,
   banana stalls, lots of used clothes stalls, shoe repairmen, plastic
   things from China stalls.  Everywhere we went there was a crowd of
   about 20 or so guys following us.  It got tough to move around and
   take pictures after a while, but it was fun and interesting.  At one
   point a guy pinched Oongie's butt and then was trying to slink away
   and right away a policeman caught him and hit him.  It was good to see
   that they were watching out for us.&! nbsp; It did feel oppressive
   sometimes, but most of the time it was fun.  I am on the lookout
   somewhat here, but much less than I remember in India.  Towards the
   end of our long stroll in the market, we sat on the second floor of a
   restaurant and had tea ...
   The women all wear baby blue burkas around, and they truly look like
   giant penguins in the street.  Somtimes they'll take up their burka to
   look at something that they want to buy in the market, but for the
   most part they keep it down.  We also saw a few land-mine victims with
   one leg today.  There are also a number of women blue penguins
   begging.  One was on the ground wailing and begging at the same time
   today in the market and quite a few people were giving her money.  A
   lot of the women beggars have a kid, so they are probably widows.
   After the long walk in the market, we got a ride back in the MSH van
   (it is so convenient to have a driver here-- it really makes a big
   difference).  Then mommy cooked eggs and tomotoes and we had fresh nan
   at the house.  It was really good and SO much better than the
   restaurants here which are really nothing to write home about.
   This afternoon we're meeting two people who might be arranging our
   trip to Mazar-e-Sharif later this week.  Then we'll head out to the
   soccer game and then to an MSH person's house for the BBQ later on.
   ...

   Love,
   JAY

Kweilin, Steve, Wan in Kabul

2003-05-09T01:25:00.000-07:00

My sister and mom are visiting my father in Kabul, Afghanistan. Kweilin wrote the following update.

Hi Li!
It is 9:00 p.m. here and we had a really full day. Kabul is poor and
quite dusty and everything has been bombed really badly over the past
few decades-- by Russians and Afghan rebels and then recently by
Americans.  Most of it was done by the Afghans themselves as they
fought for power.  I used the camcorder A LOT, so you'll be able to
see it.  It is really hard to believe things are in such ruins.
The people are beautiful here-- very striking.  They have dark
features and green or blue eyes.  They are honest people but they all
have pretty difficult lives.  Most women walk around in light blue
burkas.  I bought one today for $5.  They actually use mostly dollars
here although they will also accept afghans.  The burka covers
EVERYTHING.  There is a lace-like opening for my eyes, but that is a
really minimal view.  I can't even see my feet with it on!  I don't
really have to wear it, though, because most women here just wear a
scarf and long sleeves all the time, so I can get away with just
covering all my hair and neck-- everything except my face.  I think
I'll do that for a while.
Yesterday we got to Delhi at 9:00 p.m. and spent the evening at the
airport.  There was a nice Sheraton hotel lounge that we paid $15 each
to be in (including drinks and snacks!), so the night was quite
comfortable-- we slept on the couches there.  In the morning we
rechecked the boxes of Chinese food and other ingredients that mommy
brought along and then got onto the flight for Kabul.  Kids and adults
were walking around the flight and not paying attention to the "fasten
seatbelt" sign the entire time.
Flying in we saw all the mountains around Kabul-- everything is so
dry!  All day long there are small sandstorms when you have to close
your eyes and turn your back to the sand.  Apparently these are
nothing to the big ones they get later in the year.
The MSH people are very nice.  It is a small world and we've met most
of them already.  Today is Thursday and at 1:00 p.m. Daddy started his
1.5 day weekend.  So we went with a driver around town and saw a lot
of things.  There are bombed out planes and falling-apart buildings
everywhere.  We went into someone's house to see their living quarters
and I taped a bunch of kids laughing and playing.  The camcorder is
great because I can play it back for them and they get really
excited.  Tonight we went out to dinner (not so good-- quite oily)
with some other MSH people.  There are surprisingly a lot of fruits
and vegetables here-- mostly imported from Pakistan.  There is also
excellent "nan" or Afghani bread.  We can put peanut butter and kaya
and other things on it.
I think we're going to visit a traditional Afghan wedding tomorrow--
that will be fun. On Sunday we might be leaving for a three day trip
to Mazar-e-Sharif in the north (it is safe and we're getting a driver
who really knows the area).
We have email access in the house (we're all staying in the MSH
compound), but it is quite slow.  We will keep writing, though, so
definitely send us an email every so often!

Love,
JAY