Jakarta -- For those of us not gallivanting around Kalimantan As you might guess, the one gallivanting around Kalimantan in search of orangutans is Christopher. The rest of us are here in Jakarta dealing with all the irritating little oopses that seem to occur when he is not here. This morning's oops: 5:15 am, I am in the kitchen, making the first pot of tea. The guard, Yudi, taps on the window and says, "Boom, water!" and points to the kitchen water heater, making downward arm motions. After much back and forth (Yudi's English is a bit limited and my minimal Bahasa Indonesia does not include things like "water heater"), the arrival of the day guard, Leo, and my driver, Yanto, the warehouse is called (twice, I think…) and just about the time I'm ready to get my now cool tea and go shower (behind schedule, for sure) Arianna comes in and says, "There's no water upstairs." So she goes to take a shower in my room (we all have separate water heaters.) And back she comes, "You don't have any water, either." She goes to school, Annaliese stays home, ostensibly to get ready for her AP US History exam, and I send an e-mail to the housing group, throw on some clothes and go take a shower at the fitness center at work. I am only 2 minutes late to my morning staff meeting. It's a good thing the meeting was one of the big ones, complete with scrambled eggs, bacon (beef), fruit, tea, pastries, waffles, crepe-like pancakes that were reeeaaaally good, and juice. This afternoon's oops: 1:00 pm, I get an SMS from Annaliese: "Mom, Bachtiar isn't here. Call me." Bachtiar is the other driver, usually for Christopher. When I call Annaliese, she is off with Sara, who has picked her up to take her to her AP test. Bachtiar apparently forgot/didn't understand that he was work this afternoon. Sara gives Annaliese a ride home, as well. Did we mention that the furniture store took away my shoe cabinet? One of the doors was warped. Now all my shoes are stacked around the edges of the dressing room and our bedroom. I have many shoes. And I really need a pair of hot pink shoes. And lime green. I have pale pink, and pale green, and medium pink (that now that I think about it, I don't know where they are...), but I really need bright pink or fuchsia. I have a new pair of berkenstocks, only they are called Betulas, and they are very orange. I bought them at the end of the day on a business trip to Singapore and my feet were really tired and needed something without a heel and there they were... just waiting for me to buy them. I like them. They come in bright pink, too, but the store didn't have the pink in my size. My girls have inherited my love of shoes. So far we have managed to contain Arianna's collection on the premise that her feet are still growing. (Christopher is back from Kalimantan (actually we're all back from Spring Break) and I'll just fill up this page with pictures from his trip. ) |