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.
There's No Place Like...
“No matter where I wander, no matter where I roam...la la la la la there is no place like home.” A few days ago I read that Starbucks is closing hundreds more stores. My mind knows that these closings are a necessary reaction to our economic situation. Still, my heart pinched at the news.
I’ve heard other Americans comment that McDonald’s Golden Arches reassured them when traveling to unfamiliar places—they can always count on the bathrooms being familiar. Bathrooms aren’t a big concern of mine—I can (and have) gone just about anywhere. But I do understand the comfort of familiarity. For me, Starbucks is a touchstone.
True, there have been times when I have scoffed at the overabundance of Starbucks—Starbucks in the Forbidden City…really???—One more example of the homogenization of the world, big biz pushing the little guy out, sheep, sheep, everyone’s a sheep... And as a Starbucks shareholder, I applauded the last batch of Starbucks closings; the world did not need that many Starbucks. It was ridiculous, Starbucks to the left of me, Starbucks to the right… But this last closing announcement has me worried.
I’m writing this from the totally alien city of Reno, Nevada, where cowboy-miners meld with grey-haired slot-a-holics. Down the road and across the big street from my mother’s assisted living apartments I found one. I stuck out early this morning, while Mom was still asleep, before breakfast and med call. I left a note, “I’m at Starbucks, downloading mail” (I had to make it sound like work.)
What happens the next time I find myself traveling alone, low on caffeine, with no way to download my e-mail? The next time I am wandering through the fog of the unfamiliar? Will there be familiar green awning and beige signs waiting for me?
No matter what language the locals may speak, we never have trouble communicating in Starbuckese: “vente latte” “half caf” “double shot…hold the foam.” All Starbuck seats are modern, upright, western. The music is always some rock-folk-jazz-indy mix with a little Ella, Frank, Counting Crows, Tony, Diana thrown in. (Dino is playing right now.) The scones and muffins are always in the counter and taste exactly the same. The rack of mugs and coffee paraphernalia are reassuringly earth-colored and the place never smells like anything but coffee—blessedly ordinary, roasted coffee, nothing more. And often, if I’m willing to pay, there is almost a way to download my e-mail. No matter where I wander, no matter where I roam, when I’m in need of caffeine and an e-mail fix, there’s no place like Starbucks.
Alas, Mom just called: “where the heck are you?”
Wheeling Around San Francisco
Let me set the scene: I’m in San Francisco the city by the bay--the hilly city by the bay—where Tony Bennett left his heart and where others, like me, left their shoe soles. I’m here with my mother for a holiday. My mom has walking and balance issues so she can’t walk far or easily. A reality I had forgotten until we took the not-so-long walk through the lobby and down the corridor to our hotel room. We did reach our room, but only after several rest stops. Afterwards, however, the idea of taking that walk again so horrified Mom that we were facing the very real possibility of spending our holiday in the hotel room. We called down to the concierge to find a wheel chair. (Yes, I know I should have thought of this earlier, but dang, I forget from visit to visit exactly how much is too much walking.) Anyway… The San Francisco winter weather is treating us just fine. While everywhere else in the country is facing record cold temps, ice storms, snow, wind, San Francisco is blissfully sunny, clear-skied and warm—about 70—glorious. Mom and I have walked everywhere—rather she rides and I push. Pushing a wheel chair has opened my eyes to some realities. For one, it is almost impossible to differentiate between crazies who are talking to invisible friends and the so called normal people talking on cell phones. What’s more: chivalry is dead, opening doors is passé, inviting a woman, or women and a wheelchair go first is a lost courtesy; and something about being in a group or on the phone (which is the same as being in a group) makes people oblivious to everyone around them: they congregate in the middle of sidewalks; block wheel ramps at curbs; reverse without making warning beeping sounds; stop suddenly—don’t you think pedestrians should use traffic hand signals?
Mom and I have a list of must dos which includes riding a cable car. As it happens, we stopped for lunch at the Buena Vista, which is across from the cable car turn around. Mom was worried about riding the cable cars, afraid they wouldn’t let her on with the wheel chair. Not only did they let her on, the cable car operator hoisted the wheelchair onto the cable car for us and led mom to a nice seat, all the while telling her to take her time, that we weren’t in a rush. At our stop, Powell Street, he said, “don’t worry about the chair, just take care of your Mom…take care of Mommy.” At the curb, a homeless guy set down his cup so he could set the wheelchair brakes, pull out the seat, and arrange Mom’s feet on the pedals. His thanks were smiles and goodbyes. I didn’t even think to tip him and he didn’t act like he expected one.
Often when we walk, we are met with smiles and pleasantries as people step aside and make way for us. Often we read the puzzlement on those same faces as they try to figure out why mom is in the wheelchair. Other wheelchair riders check us out, too. One guy put his hand out to slap five as he cruised past.
Last night we went to a show called Beach Blanket Babylon which was a delightful spoof on current affairs and great fun. It has been running continuously for over 30 years—hopefully it will run for 30 or more more. Afterwards, we walked up to a busy corner to flag down a cab. Almost immediately a cab pulled to the curb. As I stooped to set the brakes on Mom’s wheelchair, an older man with his wife and daughter jumped inside. “That’s our cab!” I called. The man’s wife looked at me. The man closed the door. The cab driver shrugged. The light changed and the cab was stuck there, waiting, while we glared at them. (Mom is a champion glarer.) I could see that the cabbie was telling the man that he had been waiting for us. I am sure Mom’s glare will stick with them—it should. Fifteen or so minutes later, I was still standing in the street with my arm up, mom sat beside me in her chair, when another couple stopped beside us. The woman walked farther out into the street and began waving. She knew we were there. She knew it was our spot. But she figured she could out jump us to the cab. She didn’t know me: I moved out in front of her. She didn’t know mom, either. As the cab pulled up, Mom pushed forward in her chair arms flapping, lunged—she was inside, sitting down, giving the woman a “cheaters never prosper” look before I even had the chair folded up.
Today, I pushed Mom up Grants Avenue to Chinatown. (Sounded like a great idea at the time.) Turns out the Arches welcoming visitors into Chinatown really are up, up, up. At one point I was pushing the wheelchair with all my might and my body was almost parallel with the ground. I was practically kissing the pavement, was definitely eyeing it. Mom sat clutching the handles of the wheelchair and making small gasping sounds.
We finally reached a summit where I tried to act cool while gulping in air. Fortunately only a few blocks farther up and on a flat stretch we found the Chinese Emporium/Bazaar Mom’s friends had suggest she visit to buy bugs encapsulated in resin and made into bracelets (don’t ask). The way back down the hill, as downhills do, looked even more steep and treacherous. I swung Mom’s chair around so she was facing uphill while I walked backwards downhill with my back against the back of the chair. Leaning back hard on the chair, I baby stepped down, all the while praying I didn’t lose my footing.
I’ve had time to consider wheelchairs during all of these ups and downs. Next go around I want the kind with handbrakes, not just the wheel lock levers. (I need more control)…and while electric chairs don’t work for Mom (there is a reason she doesn’t drive a car) I would like a remote control, shock absorbers too, and a basket.
Part way back down Chinatown hill, Mom asked to stop for postcards. So, when we spotted a 7-postcards-for-a-dollar stall I stopped. I set the brakes and turned the wheels toward the building. Just to be sure, I stayed on the downhill side and leaned forward, over Mom’s head, to pick cards so she could make her selections. Several people were heading up and down the sidewalk. Our being on the sidewalk didn’t seem to bother them. They all managed to walk around us, even though it meant moving to the curb to get around a signpost, too. We were choosing card 4 of 7 when a 60 something woman stopped in front of Mom and started complaining that she was blocking the path. “This is a sidewalk,” the woman ranted. “You need to move this chair out of the way so I can pass.” While she raved her companion silently stepped around us, and the pole, and made his way past. With hands on hips and a glare on her face the woman waited while I dug in my heels, undid the brakes, swiveled the chair around, and backed it into the shop and into several displays.
Which leads me to this evening. We took a cab back from dinner. The pedals to the wheelchair came off during transport. The cab driver helped me get them back in place and wished us good night. The cabbie had missed the entrance so we were about a half a block up the street. I tried to push the wheelchair, but it wouldn’t budge. I checked to see if the tires were flat. I checked to see if something was tangled in the wheel. I tried to hoist up the back of the chair and muscle it to the doorway. Then, out of the shadows a man stepped forward. “Hold on,” he said, and bent to see what the problem was. He chucked. “I got it.” Turns out the arm rest had come out of place some how and was interfering with the wheel. He politely asked Mom to lift her arm. Fixed the armrest, tested the wheel, explained to me what had happened and waited to see that we were ready to roll. Then asked, “Can you spare some change?” That was one tip I was especially pleased to give.
Pushing a wheelchair around these past couple of days has given me a lot to consider about humans and civilization and about the true meaning of civilized human being. Mom and I didn’t stop at one San Francisco cable car ride, we took two. On the last one we road all the way to the end of the line. The brakeman/ticket taker (I’m not sure what his official title is) carried Mom’s wheelchair down for me and also gave Mom a hand stepping down. When I thanked him for his help, I nodded toward the cars he had stopped so we could get mom settled in her chair again. “We’re holding up traffic, “I said. He smiled. “That’s all right,” he said. “They can wait. One day, it could be their turn.”
Book in the Oven: Dance Y'all Dance!
One of my editors and I have joked about how creating a book is sort of like making a petri-dish baby. This is especially true of books written by one person and illustrated by another. The author part of the team begins the process by providing the egg--the text for the story. The potential parents—the editor or editorial team—sifts through art samples to find the perfect artist—sperm donor—whose talent (think DNA) when blended with the story will bring it to life. A good editor is the mid-wife who supports, coaxes, wheedles, and encourages the birthing process, ever alert for potential problems. To complete the metaphor, the publishing house is the womb where the baby will be nurtured and grow, and hopefully flourish.As you might imagine, for us egg donors, er authors, the period between selling a story and learning who has been chosen illustrator can be excruciating and worrisome; so much of a picture book’s success depends on the illustrations. I’m rethinking this whole surrogate parenting book creation idea now because I just learned who has been chosen to contribute the other half of the DNA for my next picture book. Lucy Chambers and the team at Bright Sky Press has selected Terri Murphy to illustrate my Texas Two-steppin’, night at the Dance Hall picture book, Dance Y’all, Dance! When I learned the news, I immediately Googled Terri. Since we are going to be parents, it follows that I would like to find out all I can about her, doesn’t it? Clicking onto Terri Murphy’s website felt a little sneaky and cheaty, but fun at the same time, like Internet dating (not that I’ve ever tried Internet Dating…) She not only has pictures of her art posted, she also has photos of her work areas, her life, her clutter, and a blog! It was like I was peeping in her windows—very nice windows I might add, with fabulous, fun art. Dance Y’all is a bouncy story full of colorful characters and as I click-clicked around her website, I became more and more excited that Terri was the artist who is going to bring my baby to life. Still, I kept looking over my shoulder thinking someone was going to catch me spying. But then I thought, hey, who’s to say Terri Murphy hasn’t Googled me, too? She may even be reading this note…
Not So Far
I flew from Jakarta to Taipei on Wednesday and from there on to Los Angeles—the trip took around 18 hours, but less than 5: we took off at 2:20 in the afternoon of the 14th and landed at LAX at 7:15 that evening.
I am staying the night in an old place, one of the first in the area, well worn but tidy. The dirt between the shrubs had been raked. Like back home. Jakarta. Rohemon’s yard. The man who checked me in was old, brown, round faced. He spoke softly with Asian accented English. His movements were careful and slow, too slow for me. I was still revved up from the frenzied run through immigration and baggage. Watching him work through the on-screen computer check in, I fought an urge to reach over the counter and help him manage the computer mouse.
I asked if he had a room in the back, less noise. He smiled and waved vaguely, with a familiar look on his face, that look I got so often from Roheman and Aan. That look that says, “I want to please you, and I think I know what you are asking for, but I am really not sure.” I smiled and took the room key he offered. My room was in the front, facing the main road—figured.
When I talked with Curtis this morning, I told him the man reminded me of Indonesia.
The same man was at the counter when I went to check out. I asked him where he was from. He took a deep breath and smiled an I’ve-been-asked-this-before-and-it’s-a-long-story-smile. A familiar smile. One I give when someone asks where I’m from. “I am from the far, far East,” he said.
I nodded and smiled. “I live in Indonesia.”
He looked at me. “Indonesia. I am from Indonesia.”
Turns out he is not just from Indonesia, he is from my island, Java. From East Java, from a small village near Surabaya. I had never heard of his village, but Surabaya, yes. I have been there twice, spent the night, purchased coffee beans and glass beads and carved furniture from Surabaya.
“Selamat siang,” I said.
It was his turn to smile. “You live in Indonesia? Now?”
My whole body said yes.
He switched to Indonesian (a test?) “Berapa lama?” For how long?
“Sudah empat tahun” Already four years,” I answered.
We chatted a few minutes more, about Indonesia, why I was there. Mostly in English with a few Indo words here and there. His Indo seemed as rusty as mine is poor.
Other people came into the office. I said “goodbye”, he said “selamat jalan” and I left.
No matter how far we travel, it seems we are never that far away.
Selamat jalan, happy travels.