International Letters

An infected eye prompted a call to my eye doctor in Singapore, Dr. Heng. Although Singapore was once governed by the British, and most everyone is a native English speaker, they don't speak the same English we Americans do; they don't even speak English the way the English do. Singaporean English sounds like that of a non-native speaking Asian person--it is cloaked in a heavy accent. So, communicating with people in Singapore is sometimes a challenge. It can be especially challenging when trying to convey character-sensitive information as Dr. Heng's assistant was trying to do this morning. Dr. Heng had given her the name of 2 eye medications I should suggest my doctor in Jakarta prescribe for my eye infection. Her method for insuring that I wrote the letters correctly was a twist on the familiar radio method--Alpha Bravo Tango--a uniquely International twist that worked beautifully while tickling my funny bone and highlighting our increasingly smaller world. "Can you spell those medications for me?" I asked.        "Yes," she said. "B-Burma, L-London, E-Europe, P-Philippines, H-Holland, A-Australia, G-Greece..."

I chuckled and commented on how much I liked her way of spelling. There was a long, puzzled pause. Finally, she said, "Yes, it works."        Dr. Heng's Assistant spelled out two other medications in the same way, using India for I, Thailand for T, Pakistan for P...she finished spelling the medication with " Xylophone for X."          Surely some city or country name begins with the letter X?         Alex Trebek where are you?

India in Perspective

We returned from 17 days in India Sunday afternoon travel weary, stiff and sour-smelling, with our luggage over-stuffed with treasures and our minds over-flowing with images.  Monday bright and too early Curtis motored off to work and I trudged in to face my desk and the luggage and the household details that had piled up while we were gone. More than 800 e-mails pulsed at me from the cue...blink...blink...blink...  Since then Curtis and I have been in overdrive pushing forward, working our way through the mess, allowing our recent trip to recede, as if the past weeks were nothing more than billboards beside the Expressway. In a certain room in my house, along with assorted other reading materials, I keep a book called Art & Soul: Notes on Creating by Audrey Flack. Art & Soul is a collection of snippets, observations, quotes related to art. On occasion--regardless of how busy I am--I have reason to sit in that room with minutes to ponder. This morning, during one such enforced break from my monster to-do list, I picked up Art & Soul. I turned to the following passage:

Day 5: Late Afternoon (page 141)

I walk rapidly to the East Wing of the National Gallery to see the "Sculpture of India" show. I have exactly one hour until the museum closes. I urn up the stairs, into the elevator. I want up--the tower; it goes down. Pressured for time, overworked, overstimulated, I finally enter the exhibition space and am met with calm and serene buddahas, goddesses, and bodhisattvas, bestowing grace and wisdom. For the first time in a week, the tension drains from my body and I am at peace in front of these ancient statues. What a blessing. I silently thank all of those ancient sculptors and stonecarvers for the years of loving and caring--every jewel, every bead precisely chiseled and sanded. Thank you.

Namaste.

Vote for NOT NORMAN!

Norman the goldfish is flipping and flapping with joy! NOT NORMAN, A GOLDFISH STORY has been nominated for the Oregon Reading Association’s Patricia Gallagher Picture Book Award. So, if you are in Oregon, vote for Norman!

If you know folks in Oregon—call them! Write them! Buy them a copy of NOT NORMAN!

Vote! Vote! It’s the duty of all goldfish lovers everywhere!

Go to: http://www.oregonread.org/gallagheraward09.html

Packing Light…er

Never actually having seriously considered the term “packing light”--my last return flight from the States, I checked 3 bags, 2 of which were perilously close to the 70 pound limit--I have had a very difficult day. I leave for West Papua tonight on a “Remote Destinations” trip.  Remote Destinations is the name of the travel company, owned by Leks and Linda Santosa, which is organizing and leading the trip. Remote also stands for “far away and hard to get to.” We will fly overnight from Jakarta to Timika, West Papua, arrive early tomorrow morning and transfer to a twin-engine propeller airplane. From there, our luggage will either be toted by broad-backed porters, or ferried in shallow-draft boats through swampy, steamy, buggy, formerly cannibal-infested mangrove forest--sounds exciting doesn't it?

 Purportedly, the weight restriction was set by the charter airline company. (However, I suspect the weight restrictions may also have been imposed because the porters on our last trip to Papua complained.)

Each passenger had to submit his/her weight. (Accurate weight, I was cautioned, as each passenger will be weighed before boarding the plane.) Our luggage will also be weighed—carry ons, purses, computers, all of it—and will be loaded onto the plane according. Now, normally….often, as you can guess by the baggage I mentioned above, I don’t worry too much if my baggage is a little heavy. However…

Following is a note I received from Linda two weeks ago regarding our travel arrangements:

Hello, All.
As you know, Leks went to West Papua last Sunday to finalize all arrangements for your trip....Unfortunately he has run into a series of bad problems. First of all, the Charter which he had booked for you--the Twin Otter through Trigana--has two big problems....Trkigana actually has 2 Twin-Otters. One recently slid off the runway at Bioga in the mountains and the other they have just discovered 3 days ago needs a new engine...Which has been ordered and the plane is supposed to be ready to fly in 2 weeks...But no guarantees.

SO....Leks and Cindy have tried to contact the following companies in the last two days: Mimika Air Airfast Susi Air AMA Papua--who say they will not take tourists Merpati Avia Star

At the moment we have had no luck with any of these....BUT Leks is running around talking to airline pilots all day today and tomorrow.

Never fear: Leks found an airplane to take us to Papua. Smaller than the Twin Otter—and with weight restrictions—restrictions for which I have suddenly developed a healthy respect.

The per-person weight limit for the trip is undisclosed; the baggage weight limit is: 1 duffel bag, 15 kilos max (33 pounds) and, after we women whined loudly, an extra 5 kilos for carry-on—which sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?

Over the past few days, I have been gathering supplies for the trip. (Keeping in mind that we will only be gone 4 days.) I piled everything on the dining room table, cross-checked it with the supply list, and then began jettisoning whatever I could. Afterwards, I stuffed everything into my duffle and weighed it. Now I’m in the process of culling again. How the heck is anyone supposed to pack light when everything is so dang heavy?

• 1 lightweight hiking boot: 1.5 lbs (Yes, I will pack two--soon as I find the other one)
• Flashlight (ready to go): 3/4 pound
• Extra batteries: 1/3 pound
• Small toiletry bag (hotel sizes of everything): 2.5 pounds
• Undies, socks & 2 bras: 2.8 pounds (ditch the underwires?)
• Treat & drink bag: 7.5 pounds (that will get lighter quickly…maybe preflight)
• Walking stick: 3/4 pound
• Camera (no extra anything): 1/2 pound
• 298 page Paperback novel: 1/2 pound (It’s a YA; maybe they are heaver by nature?)
• Cosmetics bag: 1 lb, 10 oz (No I can not cull…I need every item)
• First aid kit/medication/vitamins: 2 1b, 5 oz.
• wallet: 1/3 pound
• Clothes: ...

Clothes? What clothes? There isn’t weight left for clothes…

The Cost of Expat Eating

Living in Jakarta as an expat has its challenges---but hey, that’s part of the deal, right? One of the reasons we live here? Didn’t we take overseas postings so we could experience different ways of life? And after all, Jakarta is a different country—on the other side of the world from the U.S! It makes sense that the customs, attitudes, life-styles would be different, doesn’t it? Still, that doesn’t stop us from wanting to stock our cupboards with some good, old-fashioned home-style comfort food staples, such as All Bran and Crisco and Fritos. When you ask expats what it’s like living in Jakarta, the one hardship almost all focus on is FOOD. The difficulty they have finding their favorite “home-style” food. “I had to go to three-four-six different import stores to find the ingredients I needed to make this ___________(fill in the blank with some American, you-can-find-it-at-SAM’s Club, Dutch, South American, French, or Italian specialty),” they complain. Right now Curtis and I are in the Taipei airport transit lounge waiting for our flight back to Jakarta. After 6 long weeks away, I was really looking forward to getting back home—was being the operative word. I just downloaded my e-mail. Included was a notice from Mary Ann Wiley the founder and owner of Upper Crust, our friendly, neighborhood American Comfort Food Caterer (who also serves up a tasty Mongolian BBQ). Mary Ann moved to Jakarta with her husband, Claude (an oil guy), back in the late 70’s or early 80’s, back when the only expat food available had been smuggled into the country in some expat’s suitcase, back when the only restaurants in Jakarta were in hotels, back before McDonalds, Burger King, and KFC started competing with the rolling food carts off the road. Mary Ann built an empire by catering to Americans needing a comfort food fix. And now, with imported food scarce again, she is making a come-back.

Upper Crust e-mail, Friday, March 06, 2009: (The exchange rate is roughly 10,000 Rp to the dollar so RP 50,000 is about US $5.00)

Because of the Indonesian government's ban on imports, there are a lot of things we can't find in Jakarta now. I have access to a number of items you may be searching for.

Chocolate Chips * Rp 50,000 per 12-oz. bag Vanilla * Rp 40,000 per 100-gram bottle Imported Lay's Classic Potato Chips * Rp 70,000 per bag Desiccated Coconut *(can't get Baker's Angel Flake) Rp 50,000 per lb. Refried Beans * Rp 60,000 per can Unsweetened Baking Chocolate * Rp 50,000 per bar Cocoa Powder * Rp 50,000 per lb. Flour or Corn Tortillas * Rp 40,000 per dozen Pita Bread * Rp 40,000 per dozen Tortilla Chips, our own brand * Rp 50,000 per bag Sweet Potato Chips, our own brand * Rp 50,000 per bag Upper Crust Mayonnaise * Rp 40,000 per pint Our Own Salad Dressings * Rp 40,000 per pint Vinaigrette * Honey Mustard * Ranch

Oscar Mayer All-Beef Hot Dogs Package of 8 * Rp 70,000 Add 8 hot dog buns for a total of Rp 95,000

Oscar Mayer Bacon 1-lb. package * Rp 70,000

Texan-Made Pork Breakfast Sausage 1-lb. package * Rp 70,000 Add 6 biscuits for Rp 30,000 extra Add 1 pint Country Gravy for Rp 50,000 extra

Deli Meats * Rp 90,000 per lb. Sliced Beef, Sliced Ham, Sliced Smoked Turkey Breast, Sliced Lemon-Herb Chicken Breast Deli Cheese * Rp 90,000 for 8 slices * Cheddar or Swiss

Bread * Rp 15,000 per loaf Country White * Whole Wheat * Sunflower-Oat * Multi Grain * Cinnamon Swirl

English Muffins * Rp 40,000 per dozen ** Dinner Rolls * Rp 40,000 per dozen

Soup * Rp 50,000 per pint Tomato-Basil * Mushroom * Chicken Noodle * Minestrone

Whole Apple Pie * Rp 150,000

Big Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake, with personal message and balloons * Rp 150,000

To order, push Reply, and give your address, phone number, and time you would like delivery. If you don't receive a confirmation e-mail from me, call 765-4476. Sometimes my internet server isn't reliable, and I don't want to miss your order.

Dang! Why didn’t Mary Ann send this note before I left for the states? We could have stuffed our suitcases with food, glorious food instead of the usual clothes, books, toiletries, and vitamins. Just think of the profit I could have made selling prepackaged, processed, sodium and nitrate-filled tasty treats? I would have been rich! RICH!

Fish Spa

About a month ago, Curtis and I visited Kuala Lumpur. It was our first time there. Kuala Lumpur is a strange land—Malaysian mixed with Indian and Chinese. For tourists, two of the most popular areas of the city are the Indian section, where fabrics after fabric shop lines the streets, and China Town. China Town is famous for knock-offs. People go there to find knock-off purses, t-shirts, music, movies, perfume, Tiffany jewelry—and for entertainment. In China Town, the day market is for produce, meat, spices—more like a traditional market. The knock-off market opens at night. It is made up of fabric-sided stalls jabbed full of merchandise, much like those at a street fair or flea market. The hawkers call to us as we pass by, luring us with their “cheap purses” or “genuine leather belts.” Others stop us as we make our way through the narrow passageways enticing us with DVDs and “genuine” Rolex or Omega watches. At the intersections, vendors roast chestnuts. When they aren’t stirring their smoking woks, they peel a chestnut and break it open, offering it up for us to try.

Beyond the stalls, in the buildings lining the street are the permanent businesses—restaurants, some larger clothing and shoe stores, and massage and reflexology parlors. Narrow doorways lead upstairs too, to other businesses without signs. No telling what they sell, but an interesting mix of people, mostly expats, go in and out.

Now one thing Curtis Bennett loves is reflexology. Since living in Jakarta, he has taken to having regular reflexology schedules, along with pedicures. And rumor had it that Kuala Lumpur reflexology is a must. So, after a long, hot shuffle-push-and-weave through the night market, he pulled me back through the stalls to the reflexology parlors.

Each parlor posts a menu of the offerings with length of time and price. I trailed behind while Curtis searched for the best one. A sign reading “Fish Spa” did the trick.

Curtis loves the TV series Ugly Betty. In one of the episodes, Wilhelmina, the beautiful but devious, needs her feet to be seductively soft so she instructs her assistant, Mark, to “get the fish.” Before seeing that episode, we never imagined that a “fish spa” was possible, let alone that we could have such a treatment. We signed up for the full package—a 15 minute fish spa followed by an hour of reflexology.

The spa worker led us into a side room, instructed us to remove our shoes, scrubbed our feet, gave us sandals to wear and led us up to a raised pillow-covered island encircled by tanks filled with tiny fish, no more than finger-length long. We were instructed to sit down and put our feet in the water—but not our hands. Only our feet.

At first nothing happened. Then, as soon as the water stilled, the fish attacked. They swarmed around our feet nibbling, tickling, gobbling our skin. Now, anyone who has ever been swimming and had a fish nibble them knows that it usually, doesn’t really hurt. But it does pinch or tickle and a zillion of these little monsters gobbling at the same time is like feeling ants crawling over you.

I held my feet still and tried to endure the fish tickling. They wouldn’t be nibbling if I didn’t have dead skin on my feet,

would they?... They won’t keep nibbling after the dead stuff is gone will they?... What if they don’t stop… What if they draw blood?... Am I bleeding?

—Jerk the feet out, take breaths, get my nerve back up and plunge them in again… “Hold still, try not to notice as the fish nibble, nibbling….nibbling… too much. And I’d pull my feet out again.

Curtis loved it! And the fish loved him. He must have had loads more tasty dead flesh on his feet that I had on mine, because those fishlets were fighting each other to get at his feet.

And, after a while, I did get used to the feeling. And the idea of tiny fish nibbling off all my dead skin was appealing. I asked the spa owner how often they indulged.

Every night,” he said.

“Do you feed the fish anything else—like regular food?” I asked.

Oh yes,” he assured me. They feed them about 4:00 in the morning so they will be good and hungry when the customers come.

“Can we put our hands in?” I asked. "No, no,” he said, “Your hands are dirty. The fish will die from the oils on your hand.” He went on to explain that before, when they were newly opened, they didn’t wash the customer’s feet first. But the fish died from eating so much oil and lotion and dirty foot stuff. So they bought new fish and now they wash the feet and the fish are fine.

“Do you ever sit in the pools,” I asked. I was imagining having my body exfoliated by these fish.

Curtis poked me. He was thinking I meant without a bathing suit. No telling what the spa owner was thinking, but he said, “Never, never, no.”

These spa fish are grayish with dark heads and they look like some type of carp—their bodies are shaped the same as those plant eating fish we had had in the pond way back when….

After a few days in Kuala Lumpur, we flew to Penang where we met up with our friends, Joy, Michael and Alexander. Curtis and I didn’t tell them about the Fish Spa, but he was on the look out. Curtis checked every reflexology parlor we passed. (No telling what our friends were thinking he was after.) We finally found a Fish Spa Parlor with the tanks right in the window so passersby could watch. That fish nibble session was even better than the first because we knew what to expect, because I had learned to work through the ticklish phase, and especially because we got to watch Alexander the Most Ticklish try to endure.

 I can’t get those dead-skin nibblers out of my mind. Every time I look in the pond that is not my pond anymore, I think about those spa fish. One afternoon, when Rusnati and I were out in the backyard together, I told her about those spa fish—it just slipped out.

She asked me what the fish looked like.

She said back in Cirebon her father raised fish in a pond and when she was little, she would wade in the pond and the fish would nibble on her legs.

I said I would like to fill the pond with those little fish and have them nibble the dead skin off my legs.

She seemed to like the idea, too

Under African Skies, a note from Kate in Kenya

Kate,  my son Max's squeeze, is in Kenya right now working with a women's group as part of her senior project.  A few days ago, she sent us the following note about her experience. Her observations/experience moved me so that I asked Kate for permission to print her letter here, to share with you.  She said yes so enjoy: Msawa Ahinya Osiepna,

I write now after a very pleasant afternoon rain.  Mrs. Opondo and I have just reached home in time.  Yes, we have had another busy day.

I suppose I'm really here now.  It certainly feels that way.  I believe it has really taken this long for me to get used to the pace, the routine, the climate, and the feeling that I am really here in this remarkable part of the world.  I miss a lot of things about home.  So much of this is not easy.  And for every time my spirits are shot, or my heart broken, something happens to make it all better again.  It is that roller-coaster-like sensation of really high high's, and very low low's.  The hardest part, so far, is the sticking out so much.  I am really sick of it.  Really, really sick of it.  It's entirely awkward and generally  just very annoying.  I constantly work to accept that things are just this way, and I am so happy to have real refuge here at the Opondo's home.

Mr. and Mrs. Opondo are really, really lovely.  Their home is very lively.  They have many people moving in and out.  They have animals running all around.  They also have Charlie, the houseworker's son who is about 2, I think (but no one really knows).  He and I are officially friends since I brought out the bouncy ball yesterday.  He brings so much joy to my days.  It's true, I am really liking the food.  I have to say I'm even coming around to ugali.  In the beginning I would always grab myself a utensil when sitting for a meal, but now I'm beginning to enjoy just using my fingers as everyone else does.  Yesterday we stayed home, where I learned a few things in the kitchen.  They cook over fire with a very limited supply of pots and pans.  Thanks to all of my time cooking in the woods, I am pretty well practiced for this kind of culinary routine.  I also practiced milking the cows.  As it turns out, this is indeed much more difficult than I had always thought.  Go figure.  Armundi is the name of the other permanent resident besides Rose the houseworker.  Mrs. Opondo took him in after meeting him and becoming friendly on the streets in Nairobi and discovering that he is a total orphan.  He is currently attending day school and is in grade eight, though I believe he is older than just 18.  I have perhaps never known anyone to work as hard as Armundi.  He starts every day at 1am, when he gets up and studies until 5am.  At five he gets ready and walks about 10km to school, where he sits in class until about 6pm.  After reaching home, he immediately goes to help Rose to cook dinner.  After dinner he studies some more, bathes, and then goes to bed by 11pm.  Only two or maybe three short hours later, he is up and at it again.  I wasn't sure this kind of lifestyle was possible, but he is proving it so.  He is also one of the most jovial people I have met here, always smiling and laughing and chatting.  I like to spend time with him in the kitchen in the evenings.  He is but one example of a person working so very hard against such great odds that I have seen so far.  There have been many others just as impressive as this, if not more so.

Mrs. Opondo and I spend our days traveling to schools in the area.  NYASHEP has students in 23 schools in the area, and none are easy to get to.  We spend a lot of time waiting for buses, riding in buses, switching buses, waiting again for different buses.  It is truly exhausting.  Transportation limitations are NYASHEP's biggest challenge, it seems.  There is only so much time in a day.  We come home every evening completely worn out having done what we have managed, and yet there is still SO much more to do.

On some visits we check in with students who may or may not be having some troubles with discipline or marks.  Sometimes we just meet with administrators to introduce ourselves and the Girl's Empowerment vision.  Sometimes, we meet with already established Girl's Clubs to see what they have been up to.  We worked on one particularly delicate case just last week where a young girl named Dorcas, just 15 years old, had been expelled from her all girls boarding school on the suspicion that she had been practicing "lesbianism".  Oh the restraint it took to sit in that room while the school's disciplinary committee read out loud from the Bible, further insisting that homosexuality is an abomination.  This poor girl.  The story that they had which supposedly proved her engagement in this forbidden behavior was totally mixed up and choppy.  She was to stand in this room of mostly big men, and tell us the exact details of her history of lesbianism.  It came out she was sexually molested as a young child by a woman.  Oh I tell you.  I forget how lucky I am to live in a place that is so free.  Dorcas has been traumatized yet again.  Her friends have all abandoned her.  Her widowed mother is ashamed.  She is still so confused about what homosexuality even is, if she is indeed interested in it, and she will never find out.  All of this will just be repressed for her.  It will go deep down, and manifest itself slowly and subtly for the rest of her life in damaging ways.  And all I could do was to take a moment alone with Dorcas outside when it was all over to tell her that I really thought that she was ok.  I told her that I didn't think that she had done anything wrong.  I couldn't do any more than that.

There are other tender cases such as this.  We have a never-ending supply.  Mrs. Opondo is a very modern woman.  We are generally always on the same side of things.  Although she does not necessarily embrace homosexuality as I do, she understands the damage being done to the girl, and that is the most important thing.  She is a remarkably compassionate woman.  She really cares for people.  She practically runs a rescue home right here in her own house.  She has been this way her whole life.  It is rare that a woman be such a prominent social worker here, and for this she deserves additional respect.  She is really taking good care of me.  I have been introduced to all of the important people around.  She has amazing connections in the educational world, as that is where she worked as an inspector for most of her life.

We have just come back from a Women's Group meeting.  Women's Groups are like grassroots feminist clubs that are somewhat monitored by the local government.  They work usually doing small scale farming, tailoring, or even weaving in order to make a bit of cash.  They then use this cash to serve the community and particularly women and girls however they choose.  There were about 200 people, all gathered at a school.  Mrs. Opondo and I walked in and were taken right to the front panel.  I had to address the whole crowd and introduce myself (using the Luo vernacular of course).  Then the rest of the entire day's event proceeded and was conducted in Luo, meaning I got only 2% of what was being said, but was sitting in front looking very important the whole time.  It went on for four and a half hours.  Something else good did come of it for me, though.  Next week Mrs. Opondo and I have a date to visit one of the weaving groups (Mom this is most definitely because of you) and figure out more about what they do.

It is so hard, once I get started, not to tell all.  I am doing some good writing on my own, which has been a great outlet.  I am feeling very healthy, no more intestinal problems.  My running routine is almost as it was before I left, only I have to go at the crack on dawn.  I wish you all could see the looks I get when running.  People are saying to themselves, "now why would anybody go out and run so far, only to turn around and come back".  It just doesn't make much sense.  Which I suppose is true, only where I come from it is a very normal thing to do.  I get people who start to run alongside me, laughing, laughing, laughing.  I get people yelling at me to stop.  I also get every single person who is out staring at me the entire time I am in view.  Talk about self-conscious.  But I continue to do it because it is worth it for the way it makes me feel.

I'm just about two weeks in now.  Two months from today I'll be headed home.  I know there is so much more coming.  I will do my best to keep you all updated.  If I haven't already told you, I have the mobile modem up and running.  It works very well here.  The only problem is charging the computer.  I can only spend a limited amount of time each day.  But feel free to write when you can.  I love getting news!  I wanted to tell those of you for whom this place, Kenya, means so many treasured things, that I have taken you with me here.  Kenya says hello to you.  I am so happy to be getting to know it as you have.

And so now I sign off as I begin to digress.  I am safe.  I am happy.  I am really growing.  I am missing you all terribly much of the time.  I miss the comfort.  The knowing look.  The hand to hold and the ear to bounce my ups and downs off of.  Slowly I am making friends who I can begin to trust to be those people for me too.

So much love to you all, Aherou, Kate

Rise of the Pond King

My pond is no longer mine.Before, through all of its phases, trials and tribulations—mud hole to dinner bowl, salt pond to oasis and even through the attack of the diving birds and the arrival of the suspected killers-and-still-on-probation-in-my-book monster leles, the pond in our back yard was mine—I graciously shared it with Rohemon. Sure, he did all the work and tending, but I was actively involved in the process. I decided what plants would be permitted to live in it, and what type of fish to buy. I decided the pond would have rocks on the bottom and around the edges, what kind and what color—even when those rocks turned out to be salt emoting, freshwater fish suffocating coral. And because it was mine, I cared about the pond’s growth, death, and multiple incarnations even as it morphed into its current form: a holding pen for slimy, ugly, beige-brown-and-white-splotched, bewhiskered, eelish leles, I cared.

The last Sunday I fed the fish—or should I say casually tossed in a handful of feed and turned away without watching to see if anything surfaced or not—I realized that I don’t care anymore. My ownership of the pond, and with it my love of the pond, has passed. For me, it has become “the water feature in the yard” or Rohemon’s kolom ikan, “pool for fish”/folly. And my Sunday pond and fish ritual has become a joyless chore. Rohemon has taken over the pond—he is the Pond King.

The lease on our Jakarta house is up for renewal. Before we resign our lease we will re- negotiate our agreement. The property manager will try to get more money from us and we will make a list of repairs/changes we want them to make. This is the time—the only time during the term of our lease--when we can expect any remodeling, painting, or fixing from our landlord.

Rohemon may be the new Pond King, but I hold the purse. I am the Super Power in our little world. I could retake possession of the pond—force Rohemon out, turn those nasty lele into bird food (or people food), have the whole pond redesigned, replanted, repopulated. Or….I could have the whole blasted thing ripped out.