This is a continuation of the last blog about why I love village living.
The first reason that I love living in the village (the one that I mentioned last week ) is the opportunity to have animals. I love animals, and I especially love having enough space so that they can roam around freely.
The second reason is mornings. I love mornings in the village. Folks wake up early and are out getting a quick start on the day. The village kids are in their school uniforms, hair still wet from their mandi; goats and water buffalo are beginning their grazing rounds for the day; everything smells fresh and the air is still cool. As I drive the kids to school, folks from the village smile and wave; occasionally a small child will jump up and down shouting bule! bule! This is the beauty of all small towns – the closeness of the community. Everyone knows everyone and everyone has their place and role in the community.
Space for me and the kids and Su is another reason that I love village life. In Bali, we have our townhouse – shopping is easy because we’re five minutes from “downtown” Singaraja, but the walls of our house are a foot away from our neighbor’s house, and any argument that we might have is heard by all of our neighbors. Our house in the village is large, the yard is huge (57 are), and thus we have the space to do what we want and live how we want.
The fourth reason is physical labor. I spent almost twenty years doing physical labor while I was a student. I miss that, and I need exercise because of the high cholesterol and the prediabetes. I found exercise rather boring, but if I can exercise while I’m getting something done like cutting the grass or raking the cuttings or digging holes, well then I can enjoy exercising. I’ve spent the past weekend cutting over 3000 square meters of land, and that’s been a big job, but really satisfying.
More about village life later.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Life on the farm, or why I love village life
I was out getting ready to cut the grass in the back yard (a major undertaking) for the first time since I was hit by the rock while cutting the grass which led to the two operations on my ankle when I noticed that we have some new little chicks (10, and how is this for a convoluted sentence). Since our dog, May, died the animals around here have been much safer. Dave, the dog that we have now, likes to chase and bite the chickens and geese and ducks and rabbits, but he doesn’t have the killer instinct that May had. So I’m hoping that the chicks can survive until they are large enough and fast enough to avoid Dave when he’s in his playful mode. As I was examining the chicks, Su pointed out that our female duck has laid eggs. This is the first time that we are going to have baby ducks so we’re all excited to see them hatch.
We’ve decided to sell the goats. They’re just too much trouble to take care of the way that we want to. Most people around here just let them wander around the village grazing here and there. We’ve always keep ours in the back yard (moved now over to the garden across the road) which has meant that we have to get food for them everyday. We’ve also usually had a gardener to take care of this. Now that they boy we were paying to do this has gone back to Bali, I’ve decided that we need to sell the goats just to give us less to do on a daily basis. Su says she agrees, but I know from past experience just how hard it is getting here to sell something of ours. We’ll just have to see how that goes. I’m going over to the garden to check on them today.
So the title is why I love village life; the animals are one of the main reasons. Tomorrow a few more.
We’ve decided to sell the goats. They’re just too much trouble to take care of the way that we want to. Most people around here just let them wander around the village grazing here and there. We’ve always keep ours in the back yard (moved now over to the garden across the road) which has meant that we have to get food for them everyday. We’ve also usually had a gardener to take care of this. Now that they boy we were paying to do this has gone back to Bali, I’ve decided that we need to sell the goats just to give us less to do on a daily basis. Su says she agrees, but I know from past experience just how hard it is getting here to sell something of ours. We’ll just have to see how that goes. I’m going over to the garden to check on them today.
So the title is why I love village life; the animals are one of the main reasons. Tomorrow a few more.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Health, smoking, irritability, and all those other annoying things
I’m off on another (and I hope last) attempt at stopping smoking. This time the attempt is the result of a recent visit to the Bumrungrad Hospital International Center for a complete physical. The good results were that I don’t have skin cancer; the bad results were that I’m pre-diabetic, am developing a cataract in my right eye, have high cholesterol, and may develop gallstones over the next few years. So the doctor told me to stop smoking, quit drinking alcohol, go on a diet for prediabetics, and get regular exercise.
For those of us who live in isolated places with limited access to resources like doctors and bookstores, the internet is a vital resource. I’ve been doing research on everything listed above. I’ve been able to track down diets, exercises, research, tips for living with diabetes – just about everything that I need to deal with my new health situation.
From my research, there is one factor that connects all of my health issues – smoking. So it seemed fairly obvious that I needed to stop smoking. As my eldest daughter put it, “if you want to see Meredith grow up, you better stop smoking.” So I’m on my seventh day now. It’s somehow easier (although it isn’t easy by any means) than before; perhaps because there is some concrete reason now to stop whereas before it was some abstract (to me anyway) threat of a future problem.
Irritability – my homeroom students (Grades 7 and 8) asked me the other day why I was so crabby. I replied that I didn’t think that I was any crabbier than usual, and they commented that it wasn’t just my usual old man crabbiness, but something special. So I let them know what was going on. Surprisingly they were surprised that I smoked, and all were glad that I was quitting. As I told them about the diagnosis of being prediabetic, they’ve been quite helpful with not offering me sweets like they often do, as well as reminding me not to eat sweets when they see me with a pack of Oreos.
The health issues are one of the main reasons that we are trying to sell the house here in Sumbawa. Once I retire, I won’t be able to access Newmont’s clinic which means that I’ll be at the mercy of the very minimal medical facilities available here. For anything major, I’ll need to go to Mataram (over on the next island) as the closest (a 7 hour car and ferry trip). It makes more sense for us to move to the house on Bali for that reason alone. There are other reasons for the sale as well, but more on that later.
For those of us who live in isolated places with limited access to resources like doctors and bookstores, the internet is a vital resource. I’ve been doing research on everything listed above. I’ve been able to track down diets, exercises, research, tips for living with diabetes – just about everything that I need to deal with my new health situation.
From my research, there is one factor that connects all of my health issues – smoking. So it seemed fairly obvious that I needed to stop smoking. As my eldest daughter put it, “if you want to see Meredith grow up, you better stop smoking.” So I’m on my seventh day now. It’s somehow easier (although it isn’t easy by any means) than before; perhaps because there is some concrete reason now to stop whereas before it was some abstract (to me anyway) threat of a future problem.
Irritability – my homeroom students (Grades 7 and 8) asked me the other day why I was so crabby. I replied that I didn’t think that I was any crabbier than usual, and they commented that it wasn’t just my usual old man crabbiness, but something special. So I let them know what was going on. Surprisingly they were surprised that I smoked, and all were glad that I was quitting. As I told them about the diagnosis of being prediabetic, they’ve been quite helpful with not offering me sweets like they often do, as well as reminding me not to eat sweets when they see me with a pack of Oreos.
The health issues are one of the main reasons that we are trying to sell the house here in Sumbawa. Once I retire, I won’t be able to access Newmont’s clinic which means that I’ll be at the mercy of the very minimal medical facilities available here. For anything major, I’ll need to go to Mataram (over on the next island) as the closest (a 7 hour car and ferry trip). It makes more sense for us to move to the house on Bali for that reason alone. There are other reasons for the sale as well, but more on that later.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Electronic Portfolios
Here's another set of notes from the EARCOS conference.
Electronic Portfolios
They are a collection of student work that includes reading, writing, listening, and speaking abilities. They can be contained on a CD, a Flash Drive, or a Network.
They also include documented reflections on student work. The work included is not necessarily the best work. It should show the learning process. Students can put the work in by themselves. They put work in that they consider significant.
(note: Student folders on the Network can be reorganized to do this)
Train the students how to do it. Start out with two documents for the first year, 3 for the second, four for the third. Remind students to put work in their portfolios as they often forget to do it.
Formatting can be in doc, pdf, jpg, powerpoint, mp3, quicktime video.
Why use them?
For placement in a class.
For academics: prior knowledge, strengths and weaknesses, continuation and transistion.
How to do it?
Provide students with format for reflection and rubric. Provide classroom instruction on the electronic component
Assessment
Collect student portfolios and assess using the rubric.
Have students do peer-review using the same rubric.
Electronic Portfolios
They are a collection of student work that includes reading, writing, listening, and speaking abilities. They can be contained on a CD, a Flash Drive, or a Network.
They also include documented reflections on student work. The work included is not necessarily the best work. It should show the learning process. Students can put the work in by themselves. They put work in that they consider significant.
(note: Student folders on the Network can be reorganized to do this)
Train the students how to do it. Start out with two documents for the first year, 3 for the second, four for the third. Remind students to put work in their portfolios as they often forget to do it.
Formatting can be in doc, pdf, jpg, powerpoint, mp3, quicktime video.
Why use them?
For placement in a class.
For academics: prior knowledge, strengths and weaknesses, continuation and transistion.
How to do it?
Provide students with format for reflection and rubric. Provide classroom instruction on the electronic component
Assessment
Collect student portfolios and assess using the rubric.
Have students do peer-review using the same rubric.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Notes from EARCOS
Spotty as they are, I'm posting my notes from workshops at the EARCOS conference. The first entry is from a talk that Ian Jukes gave. Jukes was probably the key presenter. Unfortunately, I can access Jukes' blog because the company that controls our internet access has his site blocked for some reason.
Ian Jukes
From Gutenberg to Gates to Google (and beyond)
People don’t need four year degrees anymore.
People have filters and hear what they want. Many in education think that they are immune to change.
It’s hard to think how inventions will change things. The applications go beyond the original plan. The power of Gutenberg’s press came from the impact it had on the transfer of information.
Gates revolution happened in fast forward. Things are happening even much more quickly now. Change is going on at an exponential rate.
By 2012 information will double every 72 hours. We have to prepare our students to be flexible and creative.
Look up Epaper and see how that works.
Look up Google language tools
The singularity is near. (He has an image of the Borg on screen.)
See his blogs and websites at The Committed Sardine: thecommittedsardine.net or ianjukes.com
The message that Jukes gave us was one that has been going around for a while in various forms. Are teachers ready for change?
Ian Jukes
From Gutenberg to Gates to Google (and beyond)
People don’t need four year degrees anymore.
People have filters and hear what they want. Many in education think that they are immune to change.
It’s hard to think how inventions will change things. The applications go beyond the original plan. The power of Gutenberg’s press came from the impact it had on the transfer of information.
Gates revolution happened in fast forward. Things are happening even much more quickly now. Change is going on at an exponential rate.
By 2012 information will double every 72 hours. We have to prepare our students to be flexible and creative.
Look up Epaper and see how that works.
Look up Google language tools
The singularity is near. (He has an image of the Borg on screen.)
See his blogs and websites at The Committed Sardine: thecommittedsardine.net or ianjukes.com
The message that Jukes gave us was one that has been going around for a while in various forms. Are teachers ready for change?
Friday, April 13, 2007
Back from Earcos and off to work again
The two week spring break has just ended and it's back to work again. I spent almost a week of the break in Bangkok for the annual EARCOS conference. The conference was excellent as usual, especially for a technology teacher; there were so many tech oriented workshops that I really had to work to decide which ones to attend and which ones to skip.
As I'm updating this page, I'm also noticing what I wrote here in December when I came back from a tech seminar in Jakarta. The message was pretty much the same in both Bangkok and Jakarta, although the depth was better in Bangkok. As I wrote in December: Blogs, wikis, websites, podcast, IM are all tech tools that were mentioned, but I've already used all of them.
During the last term, I started having my students work on this wiki (www.wikiplaces.wetpaint.com) for students to post pictures and text about Indonesia, especially the islands that we spend time on. We're going to continue working on this project over the next term in addition to several other web-based projects which I'm still working on.
As usual, the EARCOS conference encouraged me to keep on working in the direction that I've been moving over the past decade with some upgrades in thought and direction. Ian Jukes was one of the main keynoters at the conference, and I have to say he was impressive. I've heard a lot of what he said before, but it was great to hear it again. He has a very engaging speaking style. Wish I could do that.
We are going to place more student work on our school website, but after some suggestions from colleagues in Bangkok, we will password protect the student work.
I want to do some more podcasting work this term as well as finishing up the movies that we started last term. Our major problem with making movies is that our hardware is too outdated to perform the tasks that we want it to perform. We did buy two iMacs for movie work and the students love them. We're thinking about moving to a Mac base (specifically laptops) in the near future, but we have a lot of selling to do before that large jump becomes reality.
On another track, I did a check on the search terms used for this site and came up with some interesting stats. The overwhelming keyword was "Sumbawa" versus a year ago when the number one term was "Papua." More than half the keywords involved job searches for various schools in Asia. There were a number of keywords relating to math as well. And for the main surprise, there were six searches for my name. Hmm, I wonder who's looking for me.
On yet another track, I'm creating a new page for the Sumbawa.org site for selling our house in Sumbawa. The kids have made it clear that they want to move back to Bali once I've finished teaching here. As much as I love our house in Sekongkang, and as much as I love this village, we just won't be able to afford keeping four houses going during my retirement. So if you want to move to a lovely, somewhat remote island in Indonesia, check out the new page(www.sumbawa.org/houseforsale). We're looking at a sale date of June 2008.
As I'm updating this page, I'm also noticing what I wrote here in December when I came back from a tech seminar in Jakarta. The message was pretty much the same in both Bangkok and Jakarta, although the depth was better in Bangkok. As I wrote in December: Blogs, wikis, websites, podcast, IM are all tech tools that were mentioned, but I've already used all of them.
During the last term, I started having my students work on this wiki (www.wikiplaces.wetpaint.com) for students to post pictures and text about Indonesia, especially the islands that we spend time on. We're going to continue working on this project over the next term in addition to several other web-based projects which I'm still working on.
As usual, the EARCOS conference encouraged me to keep on working in the direction that I've been moving over the past decade with some upgrades in thought and direction. Ian Jukes was one of the main keynoters at the conference, and I have to say he was impressive. I've heard a lot of what he said before, but it was great to hear it again. He has a very engaging speaking style. Wish I could do that.
We are going to place more student work on our school website, but after some suggestions from colleagues in Bangkok, we will password protect the student work.
I want to do some more podcasting work this term as well as finishing up the movies that we started last term. Our major problem with making movies is that our hardware is too outdated to perform the tasks that we want it to perform. We did buy two iMacs for movie work and the students love them. We're thinking about moving to a Mac base (specifically laptops) in the near future, but we have a lot of selling to do before that large jump becomes reality.
On another track, I did a check on the search terms used for this site and came up with some interesting stats. The overwhelming keyword was "Sumbawa" versus a year ago when the number one term was "Papua." More than half the keywords involved job searches for various schools in Asia. There were a number of keywords relating to math as well. And for the main surprise, there were six searches for my name. Hmm, I wonder who's looking for me.
On yet another track, I'm creating a new page for the Sumbawa.org site for selling our house in Sumbawa. The kids have made it clear that they want to move back to Bali once I've finished teaching here. As much as I love our house in Sekongkang, and as much as I love this village, we just won't be able to afford keeping four houses going during my retirement. So if you want to move to a lovely, somewhat remote island in Indonesia, check out the new page(www.sumbawa.org/houseforsale). We're looking at a sale date of June 2008.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Vacation
This is the last of the blogs that I didn't have an opportunity to post while I was on vacation. Tomorrow back to the present.
Today is the first official day of vacation for spring term. This year, like most years, I’ll be spending about half of that time at the EARCOS conference in Bangkok. EARCOS is an organization for international teachers working in Asia. The conference last four days and is filled with workshops, lectures, speeches, and a few parties. It’s a venue for teachers to do some professional development, as well as catch up with old friends and colleagues. For some teachers who are planning to move to another school, it’s a time for networking. For administrators, it’s a chance to find some potential new faculty members. For me these days, I spend most of my time in the tech workshops, although occasionally I go to one of the math ones.
Last year’s conference was in Manila; the year before it was in Ho Chi Minh City. As it’s in Bangkok this year, I have made some plans besides just attending the conference since I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Bangkok over the past 17 years. I have a complete physical scheduled, as well as a visit to my dentist whom I greatly prefer over the dentists in Bali. There’s also some shopping, of course, for the family and myself. Being in Bangkok gives me a chance to visit Asia Books and stock up on books for another year. I’m also hoping to find some software for my iMac.
While I’m looking forward to the conference, I’m not looking forward to the travel to get there. I really enjoy living on a remote tropical island for the most part, but getting from one place to the other is not one of the benefits of living in Sumbawa. The itinerary for this year is: 6 am leave for the airport; 7 am take off for Mataram (the next island over) and wait for a 9 am flight to Bali: 9:30 arrive in Bali and hang around Kuta and Legian until 2:30 pm when I can check in for the flight to Bangkok; 5 pm leave for Bangkok; 8 pm arrive in Bangkok; 9 pm arrive at the hotel. So the whole trip will take15 hours. But, as many people have said to me over the years, including my teacher friends back in the States, what’s wrong with that, it sounds cool that you get to go to Bangkok for a conference and have most of it paid for by the school. And really that’s just really true. The whinging just means that I’ve gotten jaded a bit being over here, and that I’m getting old and tired of traveling. Well, this kind of traveling anyway. I actually still like the long, 15 hour drive from here to Bali when we have enough time to go. I think partially because I’m doing something for a lot of the time (with the exception of the five hour ferry to Bali), and I’m with my family and the kids’ excitement gets me jazzed up for the trip.
The key to the trip over to Bangkok will be occupying myself during the wait time. While I’m waiting at the company airport here in Sumbawa, I’ll have a few smokes and read a paper on archaeology. I’ll have about 90 minutes in Mataram which I’ll spend on the computer if no one is on it (the lounge only has one). When I get to Bali, I’ll stow my suitcase and take a taxi in to Kuta where I’ll go hang out at an internet café for a while and then probably stroll over to the Matahari department store to see what they have there now as it’s been a few years since I’ve been there. If I get really ambitious, I might go to the Ace Hardware store and check out what hardware I can buy in June when I’ll be in Bali for a few weeks when the kids and I have a vacation that coincides. I’ll check in at about 2:30 and buy a book and have a few drinks while waiting for the plane.
I’m staying at my old hotel from the Pakistan days – Tai Pan. It’s close to my dentist, the Asia Books outlet that I like, and the Robinson’s department store that I also like. Plus, I’m within walking distance of two restaurants that I like. I will be across town from the conference, but I can take the skytrain and take some photos of Bangkok. I’ve managed to lose all of my Bangkok photos over the years just like I lost a lot of my ones of Pakistan and India.
As I write all of this sitting here at my new iMac in what is commonly referred to as “The Big House”, it really is clear that the 18 years of teaching overseas has been good to me: a wonderful (well mostly) wife, four great kids, a few houses, a bunch of electronic toys, animals, an eclectic collection of friends (most of whom I rarely get to see unfortunately), a chance to live in Indonesia and Pakistan, and an interesting and generally gratifying career where I’ve been able to teach a wide variety of subjects: 2nd grade, computers, math, social studies, pe, high school anthropology, as well as spending almost four years being a principal.
There have been downsides as well, but that’s for another post.
And it’s a lovely day in paradise.
Today is the first official day of vacation for spring term. This year, like most years, I’ll be spending about half of that time at the EARCOS conference in Bangkok. EARCOS is an organization for international teachers working in Asia. The conference last four days and is filled with workshops, lectures, speeches, and a few parties. It’s a venue for teachers to do some professional development, as well as catch up with old friends and colleagues. For some teachers who are planning to move to another school, it’s a time for networking. For administrators, it’s a chance to find some potential new faculty members. For me these days, I spend most of my time in the tech workshops, although occasionally I go to one of the math ones.
Last year’s conference was in Manila; the year before it was in Ho Chi Minh City. As it’s in Bangkok this year, I have made some plans besides just attending the conference since I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Bangkok over the past 17 years. I have a complete physical scheduled, as well as a visit to my dentist whom I greatly prefer over the dentists in Bali. There’s also some shopping, of course, for the family and myself. Being in Bangkok gives me a chance to visit Asia Books and stock up on books for another year. I’m also hoping to find some software for my iMac.
While I’m looking forward to the conference, I’m not looking forward to the travel to get there. I really enjoy living on a remote tropical island for the most part, but getting from one place to the other is not one of the benefits of living in Sumbawa. The itinerary for this year is: 6 am leave for the airport; 7 am take off for Mataram (the next island over) and wait for a 9 am flight to Bali: 9:30 arrive in Bali and hang around Kuta and Legian until 2:30 pm when I can check in for the flight to Bangkok; 5 pm leave for Bangkok; 8 pm arrive in Bangkok; 9 pm arrive at the hotel. So the whole trip will take15 hours. But, as many people have said to me over the years, including my teacher friends back in the States, what’s wrong with that, it sounds cool that you get to go to Bangkok for a conference and have most of it paid for by the school. And really that’s just really true. The whinging just means that I’ve gotten jaded a bit being over here, and that I’m getting old and tired of traveling. Well, this kind of traveling anyway. I actually still like the long, 15 hour drive from here to Bali when we have enough time to go. I think partially because I’m doing something for a lot of the time (with the exception of the five hour ferry to Bali), and I’m with my family and the kids’ excitement gets me jazzed up for the trip.
The key to the trip over to Bangkok will be occupying myself during the wait time. While I’m waiting at the company airport here in Sumbawa, I’ll have a few smokes and read a paper on archaeology. I’ll have about 90 minutes in Mataram which I’ll spend on the computer if no one is on it (the lounge only has one). When I get to Bali, I’ll stow my suitcase and take a taxi in to Kuta where I’ll go hang out at an internet café for a while and then probably stroll over to the Matahari department store to see what they have there now as it’s been a few years since I’ve been there. If I get really ambitious, I might go to the Ace Hardware store and check out what hardware I can buy in June when I’ll be in Bali for a few weeks when the kids and I have a vacation that coincides. I’ll check in at about 2:30 and buy a book and have a few drinks while waiting for the plane.
I’m staying at my old hotel from the Pakistan days – Tai Pan. It’s close to my dentist, the Asia Books outlet that I like, and the Robinson’s department store that I also like. Plus, I’m within walking distance of two restaurants that I like. I will be across town from the conference, but I can take the skytrain and take some photos of Bangkok. I’ve managed to lose all of my Bangkok photos over the years just like I lost a lot of my ones of Pakistan and India.
As I write all of this sitting here at my new iMac in what is commonly referred to as “The Big House”, it really is clear that the 18 years of teaching overseas has been good to me: a wonderful (well mostly) wife, four great kids, a few houses, a bunch of electronic toys, animals, an eclectic collection of friends (most of whom I rarely get to see unfortunately), a chance to live in Indonesia and Pakistan, and an interesting and generally gratifying career where I’ve been able to teach a wide variety of subjects: 2nd grade, computers, math, social studies, pe, high school anthropology, as well as spending almost four years being a principal.
There have been downsides as well, but that’s for another post.
And it’s a lovely day in paradise.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Living in and writing about another culture
I was skimming a blog written by an American living in Vietnam who was addressing the question of how much a Westerner can know about an Asian culture. This got me thinking about my own blog and websites. I wonder just how authoritive I end up sounding. After almost 18 years of living overseas – all but four of them in Indonesia – I should know something about this culture, but something always pops up that reminds me how much I really don’t know.
So something new popped up a few days ago. When I returned home from school, my eldest daughter was waiting with two pieces of news. She gave me the bad news first: our dog had killed one of our rabbits while playing with him. He apparently decided that it was like his stuffed rabbit, and he decided to throw it around for a while. We buried the rabbit out in the back next to our two dogs who are no longer with us – one poisoned, the other hit by a car.
The second piece of news was “happy” as Mercedes informed me. She said that we had adopted a baby. Imagine my surprise.
Sure enough, there was a little fellow in the kitchen being played with by my children. He’s a cute little guy. I have a hard time remembering his name, but he’s cheerful and receptive. It’s been a while since I’ve had a baby around, and it was kind of nice to hold one again, although being as we were only “temporary” parents, I was as worried about breaking him as I am when I borrow someone’s car or motorbike.
So what is the new cultural knowledge? I’m still processing this because I just found out that one of my kids was in the same situation once. According to my wife and children and some Indonesian colleagues, this is a common practice on a number of islands – just one of those things that I’ve missed while I’ve been obsessed with a career and keeping bread on the table.
The child that I “adopted” was given to us by a village family because the baby boy looked a lot like his father. This can cause conflicts between the two as the child grows up (I’m not sure what the theory is behind this- I’ll do some checking later), so the family gives the child to another family to temporarily adopt (the time frame seems to be fairly flexible according to the people that I’ve talked to). Eventually after the time period is finished, the adopting parents take the child to the natural parents and offer to let them adopt their (the adopting parents) baby. The natural parents adopt the child and everything is ok.
I find this practice immensely fascinating and plan on looking more it, but my baby “son” was here today and he kept everyone busy.
Besides mentioning some new cultural practice that I was unaware of, the main point here is that no matter how long a foreigner lives in another culture, they will always be a foreigner, and there will always be things to learn.
So something new popped up a few days ago. When I returned home from school, my eldest daughter was waiting with two pieces of news. She gave me the bad news first: our dog had killed one of our rabbits while playing with him. He apparently decided that it was like his stuffed rabbit, and he decided to throw it around for a while. We buried the rabbit out in the back next to our two dogs who are no longer with us – one poisoned, the other hit by a car.
The second piece of news was “happy” as Mercedes informed me. She said that we had adopted a baby. Imagine my surprise.
Sure enough, there was a little fellow in the kitchen being played with by my children. He’s a cute little guy. I have a hard time remembering his name, but he’s cheerful and receptive. It’s been a while since I’ve had a baby around, and it was kind of nice to hold one again, although being as we were only “temporary” parents, I was as worried about breaking him as I am when I borrow someone’s car or motorbike.
So what is the new cultural knowledge? I’m still processing this because I just found out that one of my kids was in the same situation once. According to my wife and children and some Indonesian colleagues, this is a common practice on a number of islands – just one of those things that I’ve missed while I’ve been obsessed with a career and keeping bread on the table.
The child that I “adopted” was given to us by a village family because the baby boy looked a lot like his father. This can cause conflicts between the two as the child grows up (I’m not sure what the theory is behind this- I’ll do some checking later), so the family gives the child to another family to temporarily adopt (the time frame seems to be fairly flexible according to the people that I’ve talked to). Eventually after the time period is finished, the adopting parents take the child to the natural parents and offer to let them adopt their (the adopting parents) baby. The natural parents adopt the child and everything is ok.
I find this practice immensely fascinating and plan on looking more it, but my baby “son” was here today and he kept everyone busy.
Besides mentioning some new cultural practice that I was unaware of, the main point here is that no matter how long a foreigner lives in another culture, they will always be a foreigner, and there will always be things to learn.
Monday, April 09, 2007
World Water Day
World Water Day was March 25. As those of you who regularly drop by here know, the water issue is near and dear to my daily life. (I’m posting this on April 9th because I’m on vacation and don’t have a phone at home.)
Water here in Southwest Sumbawa is an issue because we routinely have problems with access to water. Our village pump regularly breaks, and thus we don’t have running water until it’s fixed. Digging wells helps some of the villagers, but in our case, our land is situated where the water table is so low that digging a well has proven extremely difficult, and the workers that we hired for our two attempts quit after getting down 25 meters and finding no water.
At one point two years ago, we went five weeks without running water. Because the mining company that’s located next to our village has a tap outside their gates where the local community can access clean water, everyone in the village was able to have water for bathing and doing laundry and dishes, as well as for sanitation. We did have to drive the 15 minutes to the tap and fill up all of our containers and get them home everyday. If we hadn’t had the mine’s facility available to us, I’m not sure what we would have done. It was during that time, that I really first started thinking about the water crisis for a large part of the world population.
I read a statistic the other day that an estimated 1.5 million children a year die from diarrhea which is associated with a lack of water for drinking and sanitation.
Here’s an excerpt from a Salon.com article on water:
Here is a description by Caryn Boddie, an American writer who traveled to Kaikungu, Kenya to assess water-treatment issues and found that local women regularly walked 11 hours to fetch water for their families: "...during the dry season, the women have had to wake up at 2 A.M. on many mornings, leave their husbands and children still sleeping in bed, and go off to fetch water in the dark. They have walked to the Watumba River or have gone to buy from others who have wells. After they access the water, they carry it home, not returning home until 1 P.M. When the women complete the journey, they are too tired to do anything else in their homes or on their shambas (farms). Sometimes, they have walked to get water and back without any breakfast or lunch."
It's not just a matter of sheer neglect that has kept so many families without safe water, but also the fact that many water projects -- spearheaded by governments and non-profit groups -- don't work for the communities they are supposed to serve. (Sometimes wells are drilled but not outfitted with pumps, or wells which would require residents to pay for water are drilled close to a natural (and free) water spring and end up endangering it.) Women continue to travel to ensure their families' supplies, and water engineering has become an explicit feminist issue.
With retirement looming on the near horizon, I’m looking at ways that I can get involved in the movement to develop solutions for the water problem both in Indonesia and in other developing countries.
Water here in Southwest Sumbawa is an issue because we routinely have problems with access to water. Our village pump regularly breaks, and thus we don’t have running water until it’s fixed. Digging wells helps some of the villagers, but in our case, our land is situated where the water table is so low that digging a well has proven extremely difficult, and the workers that we hired for our two attempts quit after getting down 25 meters and finding no water.
At one point two years ago, we went five weeks without running water. Because the mining company that’s located next to our village has a tap outside their gates where the local community can access clean water, everyone in the village was able to have water for bathing and doing laundry and dishes, as well as for sanitation. We did have to drive the 15 minutes to the tap and fill up all of our containers and get them home everyday. If we hadn’t had the mine’s facility available to us, I’m not sure what we would have done. It was during that time, that I really first started thinking about the water crisis for a large part of the world population.
I read a statistic the other day that an estimated 1.5 million children a year die from diarrhea which is associated with a lack of water for drinking and sanitation.
Here’s an excerpt from a Salon.com article on water:
Here is a description by Caryn Boddie, an American writer who traveled to Kaikungu, Kenya to assess water-treatment issues and found that local women regularly walked 11 hours to fetch water for their families: "...during the dry season, the women have had to wake up at 2 A.M. on many mornings, leave their husbands and children still sleeping in bed, and go off to fetch water in the dark. They have walked to the Watumba River or have gone to buy from others who have wells. After they access the water, they carry it home, not returning home until 1 P.M. When the women complete the journey, they are too tired to do anything else in their homes or on their shambas (farms). Sometimes, they have walked to get water and back without any breakfast or lunch."
It's not just a matter of sheer neglect that has kept so many families without safe water, but also the fact that many water projects -- spearheaded by governments and non-profit groups -- don't work for the communities they are supposed to serve. (Sometimes wells are drilled but not outfitted with pumps, or wells which would require residents to pay for water are drilled close to a natural (and free) water spring and end up endangering it.) Women continue to travel to ensure their families' supplies, and water engineering has become an explicit feminist issue.
With retirement looming on the near horizon, I’m looking at ways that I can get involved in the movement to develop solutions for the water problem both in Indonesia and in other developing countries.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Road Trips
I'm in the middle of a week road trip to Bangkok, and am sitting at a broadband computer in the Emporium on Sukhumvit. What an incredible experience to be able to ask for a website and then receive it almost instantly.
I just finished a three day EARCOS conference and will post my notes on the workshops for those who are interested. (I have to write them up anyway for work.)Friday I went and had a laser tooth cleaning done at my dentist in Bangkok. It's been hard for me to see much of a difference, but when I showed up at the conference the day after, my colleagues noticed. So that has been nice. Unfortunately I have four cavities which need to be filled Monday night. Monday during the day, I have my first complete physical in many years; I want to see how the old body is doing, and the visit will give me a chance to get my ankle checked since it still isn't right.
Time to get out and eat and finish up the days work. I'm planning on spending a quiet evening in the hotel tonight eating, reading, writing and watching tv.
I just finished a three day EARCOS conference and will post my notes on the workshops for those who are interested. (I have to write them up anyway for work.)Friday I went and had a laser tooth cleaning done at my dentist in Bangkok. It's been hard for me to see much of a difference, but when I showed up at the conference the day after, my colleagues noticed. So that has been nice. Unfortunately I have four cavities which need to be filled Monday night. Monday during the day, I have my first complete physical in many years; I want to see how the old body is doing, and the visit will give me a chance to get my ankle checked since it still isn't right.
Time to get out and eat and finish up the days work. I'm planning on spending a quiet evening in the hotel tonight eating, reading, writing and watching tv.
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