A little edification about Dhaka

I've been telling everyone that I'm going to start blogging again, particularly about our upcoming adventures. I thought this might be a good starting point...

For those who have not already heard, we are moving to Dhaka, Bangladesh!!! Derek has taken a position with the State Department, Foreign Service. I am giddy with excitement. Unfortunately many of my friends and family seem to be taking our excitement over moving to an overcrowded third world country as a sign of mental illness. So first, let me assure you that, while I may genuinely seem mentally ill at times, there is no correlation between going to Dhaka and my mental health. This will be a great adventure!

I've had several interesting reactions to our recent announcement, the most common of which is "where IS Bangladesh", followed closely by "WHY"?? FYI...we CHOSE Bangladesh! It was number one on our Bid List (the list of available assignments). Canada was number twelve or out twelve, so you can kind of see what direction we were wanting to take on this.

Another common response is "Really?? Bangladesh??? Well...you'll be in our prayers. (imagine a worried face when people say that). While I always appreciate being in someones prayers, I assure you, we are not moving to a Bangladeshi prison camp. This wasn't a sentence, rather a choice. We will be fine. In fact, we will be moving into the Diplomatic Enclave. This is an exclusive part of the city designated for embassies and their employees. There is 24/7 security. Lots of it. We have our very own marines.

The truth is, we will have domestic help and drivers. I know...don't hate me. You know those massive, run down barios that you see in pictures and on TV? That's not where we'll be living. Bottom line...we won't exactly be roughing it. Okay, I take that back. There isn't a Target for like 9,000 miles, but that's only my idea of roughing it and there's always Target online.

I had an interesting conversation with a telemarketer the other day. She called from a company that I had closed an account with, eager to convince me that I desperately needed to continue their services so I explained to her that we were moving. She assured me that their services were available all over the country. I informed her that we were moving to Bangladesh to which she replied "I'm sure they're available there too"!  Seeing that she wasn't really grasping just where Bangladesh might be, I finally explained to her that it was right next to India to which she replied with surprise "Oh! So NOT in America". Now, I'm not trying to be disparaging. I can give you arguments for why 2+2 doesn't necessarily have to equal four. Math isn't really my thing. By the same token, geography isn't really every ones thing. I had to ask Derek where Nebraska was when he told me we were moving here from England and I'm American!

So in the interest of edification and enlightenment, here is your geography lesson for the day. Bangladesh is a small country surrounded on three sides by India and by Nepal to the north. It is almost the exact square mileage as Iowa. While Iowa boasts a selectively exclusive population of just slightly over 3 million, Bangladesh has a vibrant and bustling population of 159,000,000 I know...that's a lot of digits for a country the size of Iowa. The city of Dhaka, where we will be living is home to around 14,000,000 inhabitants. On a transportation note, it is also home to about a zillion cars and over 400,000 rickshaws. I am also told that Elephants periodically cause traffic jams, hence the need for a personal driver. One might question what the occasional elephant might be doing in the middle of a city that large. One must simply assume that elephants do not have GPS.

The country is 90% Muslim, 9% Hindu, and 1% everything else. We fall into that everything else category. For those who are concerned about the heavy slanting towards Muslim, we are told that it is a country of more moderate Muslims, not the extremist Muslims who so commonly make the news by setting relatives on fire.

It is hot there all the time. The only variation is whether it is hot and dry or hot and wet. During the monsoon season,  which is substantial, up to 70 % of the city can be flooded. They can get up to 100 inches of rainfall during the wet season. So it'll be a little like living in Atlantis!

Dhaka sounds like an amazing city. You might be interested to know that is has been one of the premier cities for textile production for over a thousand years and some of the most gorgeous fabrics in the world can be found there.You know what all that textile stuff means? It means I can buy clothes that get sent to large America retailers for a fraction of the cost! So there!

Dhaka is also called the city of Mosques. I think you can imagine how excited I am as a photographer about that! Unfortunately you can only go inside if you are Muslim, but Hey, I'm Mormon, so I kind of get that;-)

I am told that the people are generally warm and friendly and love to have their pictures taken, so that's another huge win for me!

Anyway, I just thought I'd share a little about this amazing city and country with you! Thank you for your prayers! Those are always appreciated. I'm not stupid, there are always aspects that can be dangerous. Like drinking the water, but I get a little nervous in North Omaha too. It's all about being safe and being smart and being aware of your environment.
We are beyond excited at having this amazing opportunity to go on a long overdue second honeymoon and spend some quality Derek and Leni time while having an opportunity to learn about a whole new culture and to meet new people and make new friends, (while, of course, never forgetting our old friends), so if you ever happen to be passing through Dhaka, give us a call!:-)

And then they asked...why??

I don't quite know when the itch started. I guess it's always been there. I loved being in the Air Force and moving around. Regardless of the trials we endured in the Philippines, it was exciting. It was different. I struggled when we came back to America because it all seemed so familiar. So mundane. After the Philippines, it was Colorado and then England and finally Nebraska. It was all good. We enjoyed every assignment.

As a child I used to love maps. I also loved reading and my favorite thing was to read books about places with exotic names. I pictured going to places like Kuala Lumpur and Kathmandu and Abu Dhabi.

How do you decide that a perfect life isn't what you are looking for? Derek retired from the Air Force on September 1, 2001. He missed stop loss by 11 days. The Air Force tried to talk him into staying in After 9/11.  If he hadn't already gotten a good job with a large company, he might have stayed in, but I doubt it. He was ready to settle down. We decided to stay in Nebraska despite my early reservations about moving there. So he got his corporate job and we found a beautiful home and we settled in. The house is 3000 sq. ft. backing a forest. The neighborhood is tidy, established and filled with beautiful trees and we have made a comfortable home there. I'm not sure how to explain. I love all of those things. Our two sons live in the area so we see grandchildren almost daily. I love being near family. My sister lives with us, so we see her everyday. Our daughters family lives in Colorado Springs. They are a day trip away and we see them a few times a year. We have enough money to get by and not struggle, but still I'm restless. I feel ungrateful for not appreciating the many blessings that I enjoy. I do appreciate them. I just want something else too.

Grandmothers are supposed to want to stay home aren't they? Stay home and knit and bake cookies and babysit grandkids. I love doing all of those things...well, not the knitting. And yet...
It just seems to me that this is a really huge planet and they're all of these people and places and cultures and experiences to be had and I want to have them.

So here we are. We do NOT leave our beautiful family behind lightly and we are already planning to budget travel money in to come home for visits, but we want this; we need this and I am eager to see what Heavenly Father might have in store for us!

A fond farewell to corn...

Every great adventure has a beginning and an end. Our Nebraska adventure began when we were living in England. Derek came home one afternoon and announced that we had orders to Omaha, Nebraska. I responded with "Where is Omaha? You know...in relation to the rest of the planet." The second question was, "Whomever you have offended, could you apologize to them and get us out of this? Because, if we are being sent to Nebraska, clearly, you have done something terribly wrong".

Derek was a little surprised that I had been quite willing to follow him half way across the world to the Philippines, but had reservations about Nebraska.

It was just that it sounded so...Midwestern. I envisioned a flat, dry, treeless dustbowl. I was not wrong about a good portion of the state, but Omaha and Bellevue were a pleasant surprise. Who knew that Omaha is the home of Arbor Day? I discovered a lush green city rampant with trees and even with culture. There are beautiful museums, jazz festivals, shakespeare festivals, A list plays...It's a good place to be.

Since arriving here, we have put three kids through high school, seen them go to college, seen them marry and then seen them have children of their own. We own a beautiful home where I can sit in the back garden and watch deer, turkeys, possum, raccoons, butterflies, hummingbirds, other beautiful birds and yes, more than a few mosquitos.

We have made amazing lifelong friends here and built a wonderful life for ourselves. In short we have loved Nebraska and it has been a grand adventure, but now it is time to go.

We have a new adventure beginning in just a few weeks. This one is called, "The Adventures of Derek and Leni".  We have raised our kids. We adore them and we adore our grandchildren, but now we are ready to make new and exciting (hopefully not TOO exciting)  memories. There are two truly exciting components to this new adventure. The first is that, while we know we are leaving Nebraska, we have no idea where we are going! The second is that it will be just the two of us and every adventure is better with Derek beside me.

So, what does all this mean?  Well...drum roll please...

Derek has accepted a position with the State Department, Foreign Service. What this means for the near future is that in two weeks we will be leaving for Washington D.C. for orientation into State Department Life, policies and procedures. Orientation will last until the end of September at which time (yes, AFTER giving up his current position and all illusions of security), we will find out what country we will be posted to. Derek will stay on in D.C. until February for additional training and I will come back to Nebraska to get our house ready to sell and see our kids and grandkids as much as humanly possible. 

For those of you who are not familiar with the Foreign Service, we could be posted to any Embassy or Consulate in the world. Unfortunately, there is a small chance that Derek could be assigned an unaccompanied posting for a year, in which case our Nebraska friends haven't seen the last of me yet, but we are making it quite clear to them that I really am willing to go just about anywhere, so hopefully we will be going together:-)

Rest assured, we will let everyone know when we find out where we are going.

To all of you who have made our lives amazing here in Nebraska, we love you and thank you. And welcome you to come visit us where ever we end up. 

You all have made Nebraska a truly grand adventure indeed!

A Fishy Affair

I hate fish! Stupid conniving, slippery little back stabbers! I provide them with a lovely home and then they turn on me!

After six years, it appears that our pond is in need of some repairs. The water level is going down each day at an alarming rate and so we have reached out to our original landscapers to come in and do some work on it. Unfortunately, this requires the removal of the koi living in it. We had to wait as long as possible to remove the fish because it has been too cold. In case you didn't already know, you aren't supposed to disturb Koi when they are cold and in their winter stasis.

So as yesterday was finally blissfully warm, I donned the appropriate fish finding attire and ventured my way into the pond. yes, INTO the pond. I had only a smallish net, so standing on the bank was not an option. The first thing I noticed as I entered the pond was that while the ambient temperature was around 80, the water temperature most certainly was not. The chill of winter clung tenaciously to the water and bit at my thighs. It's a 2,500 gal pond so they had a lot of places to go. I was starting to feel pretty stupid for even imagining that I could possibly catch them with my little net.

In what I am now certain was a devious plan to boost my confidence, I managed to catch one fish very quickly.  I decided I might actually be able to do this after all! I should mention that undisturbed, the water is crystal clear. You can easilissue to the very bottom, however, once I got into the pond and started walking around stirring things up it got very murky, very quickly. It became more and more difficult tos see the fish, especially at the speed they were darting about at. The pond was filled with an entire winters worth of dead leaves and rotted debris that had settled innocuously to the bottom but was now swirling around my calves. I couldn't see a thing. The fish, when I could catch a glimpse, had gone into hyper-drive and were nothing but little blurs of orange. I swung wildly back and forth in an attempt to net one. In addition, I noticed that as I stirred up the water the air filled with the fetid stench of a cesspool.

I don't know at what point they decided to turn on me. I suspect they found a rocky outcropping beneath the water to hold a strategy meeting and planned the whole thing. All I know is that there were no fish visible in the clouded water and then there was a big black and orange one directly in front of me. He swam back and forth at a leisurely pace right on the surface of the water as if to say "go ahead, I'm just dying to be caught". I focused all my efforts on keeping him in sight as I slowly, so as not to disturb him too soon, moved my net towards him. I positioned myself to make the catch. I'm quite certain that what happened next was executed perfectly, according to their diabolical plan. As I went to swing the net at the black and orange demon, one of the other fish rammed straight into the back of my knee startling me so badly that I lost my balance and landed on my butt on the silty bottom of the three and a half foot deep pond. Gales of laughter filled my ears and I looked up to see Derek standing at the patio door. soaking wet and miserable I gave up and pulled myself out of the water. Now I also smelled like a cesspool. rotting leaves clung to my clothes, They had outsmarted me. For now that is. Today I'm planning on going to the store to pick up a fishing pole and some bait. Then we'll see who outsmarts who.

A rant about toilets and other things...

I am confused by the twenty-first century. I never know what to do or how to act because half the stuff out there is twentieth century stuff and the other half is twenty-first century stuff. For instance, I can't count how often I have stood with my hands under the faucet in a public restroom waiting for the water to magically spring forth (twenty-first century style), only to realize that it was a twentieth century faucet and that I must first turn a knob or pull up a handle. "How quaint", I mutter to myself self-consciously as I glance furtively around the room to make sure that no one has witnessed my faux pas.

How about doors? What's the longest you have stood in front of a door before you finally realized that you were going to have to push it open with your own hands? Manually! How barbarically twentieth century!! Has it occurred to anyone yet that we might not have such an obesity problem if we had to push on a door once in a while? Well...that and got rid of Little Debbie's. You might be interested to know that back in the 60's when Star Trek first came into being, those automated doors that the crew always went through didn't exist. They were automated by two guys standing behind sliding doors who would hopefully hear their cue to pull open the doors before Kirk and Spock barreled headlong into them and gave themselves a concussion. William Shatner once admitted to hating those doors because he always had to stride confidently towards them and just hope that someone would pull them open in time.

I submit that the more automated devices we invent to do everything for us, the quicker we will turn into those 'grays' of science fiction fame; the ones with the huge heads and huge eyes and ridiculously long computer compatible fingers, but skinny little withered bodies incapable of pushing open a door or manually flushing a toilet! I say that now is the time to rage against the storm! Rebel now before it is too late!

I would like to suggest that every time we walk through a door that opens for us automatically, we should drop and do twenty push-ups to compensate for the lack of physical exertion foisted upon us by technology.

I would also like to address the rather delicate matter of automatic flushing toilets. Firstly, when I am completely finished, I would be happy to flush the toilet manually. I really do not need it randomly flushing itself six or seven times before I am done. If I want a bidet, I will buy one. Secondly, isn't there some twenty-first century technician who could reset those automatic flushing toilets so that the water doesn't erupt from the bowl like Old Faithful while you are still sitting there? I am not three. I can decide when the toilet is in need of flushing. If you ARE three, then ask your mommy.

I could rant on. Automatic paper towel dispensers...those air hand driers that range from an anemic puff of breeze that takes ten minutes to dry your hands to the ones that rate a 5 on the Fujita scale for tornados. I'm sorry, but I want a paper towel. I know that I should probably be more appreciative of modern technology and all those modern wonders that do everything for us, but really...I'm okay with a little manual labor. A little...manual labor. Now if they want to invent something that will do my dishes and scrub my kitchen for me, then we'll talk.

A word about a dear old friend.

I have had some recent concerns about a dear old friends state of health and well being. I was talking to some friends about it recently and it got me thinking that I should journal my thoughts and feelings about her. To begin with, I think I have misjudged her. In expressing my concerns to my friends, I told them that she was a he, but upon greater reflection, I think I must be mistaken. I think most certainly, she is a she. I could be wrong, but I feel comfortable viewing her as a she. We have been together for 23 years and she has been my confidant, therapist and healer for all that time. She was "born" in 1928 and has become quite delicate. She is my beloved piano and I think I would not have survived without her all these years.

I have almost always had one sort of piano or another. I grew up with a lovely old upright piano that was definitely a he. He bullied me through years of piano lessons as a child and led family sing-a-longs all through my childhood. There followed a few more pianos, a loaner, a rental and finally an electric keyboard. It was a lovely keyboard and it helped me to entertain my children during the most terrifying moments of their young lives but in June of 1991, I had to leave my keyboard (and everything else we owned) to flee an erupting volcano.

Upon arriving at our new base in Colorado Springs, it became clear that I was struggling to deal with the events that had unfolded. Even though we needed to replace everything we owned and money was tight, my brilliant and inspired husband decided that I needed...can I strongly emphasize NEEDED here?... a piano to play, and so we went to a music store in search of my latest musical companion. Five minutes in the new piano section convinced us that we were in the wrong place and we quickly made our way to the back of the store where they kept the 'previously loved ' pianos. As we wandered through spinets and uprights in various stages of decomposition, I spotted her; the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. A small but lovely, petite baby grand. She had lovely scroll work and tarnished brass accents and her wood was warn to a soft and gentle hue. I didn't care or even really notice that her varnish was old and crackled, or that her keys were yellowing. She drew me to her with her calm and quiet elegance. I sat to play her and her tone was like a gentle and loving grandmother. Warm, rich notes versus the brighter, harsher tones of a newer piano floated from her. Her voice, like mine, had a warm, rich alto quality. I had a very Touch Of the Masters Hand moment. The salesman told us that she was build in 1928. She was no Steinway...born on the other side of the tracks you might say, but I loved her immediately and asked how much she cost. I cringed at the figure, but Derek didn't flinch.
Like a woman expecting a baby I awaited her arrival, agonizing over exactly where I should put her, organizing the rest of the room around her needs. The day she arrived at the house all of my stress and all my woes faded away as I spent the rest of the day pouring out months of anxiety onto her accepting keys.

When I am sad, I play...and sing. When I am happy, I play...and sing. When I am angry, I play...and sing. You get the idea. Derek has learned to read the inner monologue hidden within my song choices. If I am playing when he walks through the front door (and I often am), he can read my mood based on what I am playing. Jazz means I'm feeling melancholy or maybe just quiet, anything from the eighties means he's gonna get lucky and Chopin means he'd probably better just turn around and leave while he still can. My beloved piano helps me express myself. She led me gently through PTSD after the evacuation; she has celebrated holidays with my family and let my daughters musical creativity unfold as she began writing music. She helped me to discover my sons voice and now she teaches my grandchildren about music. Several years ago, when I developed profound laryngitis and couldn't speak for almost six months, she consoled and comforted me and let me pour out my grief onto her sturdy frame as I contemplated whether I would ever be able to sing again.

Now she is getting so much older. She was badly injured when a careless mover ripped a hinge half off of her, a wound that could not be repaired, so now she mustn't sing with her top up. Her strings are wearing as are her hammers, but she still sounds beautiful and just as she has watched over and cared for me all these years, I try to take care of her. A recent paint job in the library necessitated moving her and the exertion left her so horribly out of tune that even the dog complained (even Derek was a little out of tune after moving her all by himself) it was so bad that I had to leave her alone for a while until the piano tuner could make it out. He came and he confirmed that this venerable old lady was showing her age, but he has been taking care of her for fifteen years and I trust him to continue to her going. She is tuned now and once again sings beautifully for me. I can only say that I love her dearly and appreciate the tender care and companionship she has given me over the years and I hope that we will still have many more years together.

I DID IT! I found my blog!

Yay! I got into my blog! That's what happens when you get too many e-mail addresses, so from. Now on, people will not be faced with one of my overly long facebook posts, should you so desire, you can follow the link to my blog and be inundated there!