4th of July: Bangkok Style

I think I've always celebrated the 4th of July (or Independence Day), no matter where I am. Now for most of my life that meant living on a US Military base (where of course you celebrate), living in South Carolina, or Washington DC (where how can you NOT celebrate? Its the nation's capitol!)

I know I sponsored a barbecue one year in Amsterdam at the Vondelpark where I made potato salad. One memorable year, I went with my sister to Iowa where I managed to offend my cousins by writing about the pie auction. 

Last year at this time, I was in Bangkok and knew about 20 people (mostly Americans) and I invited them all over to my friend Carol's house for the 4th of July. We celebrated it, as you do overseas, on the following weekend. Last year we called it the "Ambivalent Americans and the Coalition of the Willing" and we served Oscar Myers hotdogs (or weiners as my dad called them), hamburgers, my dad's famous potato salad, and jello. We had lots of beer and wine and partied out on the front porch with Bruce Springsteen and other "American" tunes playing from my iPod. It was a rousing success as it continued on throughout the massive rain storm and all the neighbors came to play and there were kids and drinking and dancing.

This year, I know only 2 people still in Bangkok - one American. The 4th of July was a Wednesday and I met two more on Independence Day at a wine bar where we ate tapas and got to know each other. So, in order to make sure my American citizenship was not taken away from me for forgetting to show sufficient patriotism, I went to the American Chamber of Commerce Fourth of July picnic at the KIT school with 3 of my American friends in Bangkok. In some ways, this celebration was more American than any of my previous 4th of July parties! Below are some of the snapshots I took. 

There were four or five different bands that played- mostly roots rock and classic rock (including Jump! by Van Halen and It's my life by Bon Jovi) but also some great bluesy rock. The bands were inevitably filled with middle aged to straight on OLD men with young 20s looking drummers. It was hot and humid and since its rainy season here - overcast but still hot. Nothing says 4th of July like sweating your ass off sitting outside in the sun. 

One of my favorite parts was the ability to take your photos with Barack Obama and Michelle Obama which I took advantage of...

Many different corporations had bought or sponsored games and boothes. Considering how many old men were there, it was heartening to see that many of the international hospitals were sponsoring activities.

There was a chili cook off and you could purchase Singha beer or Thai wine or coca-cola. 

There was a children's section with face painting and popcorn and clowns making balloon animals. There was a bouncy castle, a bucking bronco, and a climbing wall. There was tug-of-war, egg toss, a pie eating contest, and other classic American picnic games. 

There was even Apple Pie!

Old Man sang the American Anthem and Little Girl sang the Thai anthem.

It was a great mix of Americans and Thais. Lots of bi-racial kids running around with very very old white fathers and young-ish mothers. But also some young American teens who got very drunk and ruined the pie eating contest.  Just like America! 

They played the Star Spangled Banner, our national anthem, and the US Ambassador was there. Speeches were made, we all got a bit teary during the national anthem and I marveled at just how young the marine color guard was. I thought about how happy I was that they were stationed in Bangkok and not Afghanistan but how they probably felt a bit annoyed about it and consoled themselves with the bar girls. 

So on this 4th of July as I feel a bit blue and wondering where I am going with my life, I thought about my "traditional" 4th of July growing up. Often one of the families that we were friends with would have a picnic. I grew up in a two culture household although it was British and American rather than Thai and American. But me and the other bi-cultural kids would run around in the heat, playing games, getting into fights, and sometimes swimming in a pool while the parents got drunk, cooked hotdogs, and hung out. And because I grew up in a military family, we always got out the flag and sang the national anthem. And I was taught to stand very straight and tall and put my hand over my heart. 

So when I stood there alone during the national anthem and sang, I felt like I was going back in time to all those summers in South Carolina and then in Washington DC where we celebrated our life in the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave". And I got a bit nostalgic and felt a little bit of love and pride in my country (which is an unusual occurence). For all its problems, I still love the USA.

Nostalgia

Nostalgia: a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time.

Alyson and I spent the day today in our house in Sumter, trying to make sure anything valuable is put away or brought to Columbia. It was in the 90s and it was hot and dusty. I came across some boxes of photos that I haven't seen in ages. I sat through and thumbed through them tonight and I am going to try to scan some of them electronically in the next few days and post them here. Our beautiful house in Sumter was the setting for so many of them and so many fabulous memories.

* Prom photos from 1982 (Mike), 1983 (Kenny), and 1984 (Mortie) - Mostly posed by the stairs in the living room. My hair stayed remarkably small considering it was the 80s but I have a dress copied from Princess Diana's wedding dress that my mother labored over and sewed for me. Usually she sewed in the sunroom and there was nothing she couldn't make - EXCEPT a bathing suit. We tried that several times and it never quite worked out right. I wish I had paid more attention to the sewing. I can cut out the pattern (my job) but could never thread the bobbin.

* Band uniform photos. I think these should be burned. Posed by the sunroom in the living room. At least I didn't wear braces like Alyson but I do see some monster zits on my face. Alyson also has piano recital photos. I played flute and piccolo - don't see any photos from symphonic band - just marching band.

* Photos of me and my friends from high school and college - rugby shirts, t shirts with sayings, dropped waist dresses, lots of teal. Playing cards, playing scrabble, playing drinking games in the den, draping ourselves across cars in the driveway, and posing in front of the front door in Sumter.

* The house after Hurricane Hugo - my favorite dogwood tree ripped up by the roots, the roof in shambles. Photos of Alyson and I playing in that tree. I remember pretending I was a gymnast in the Olympics.

* Gatherings with Grandma Sis and British relatives when they came to visit in the back yard (before its renovation into a Charleston gated garden) and on the side sunporch patio before we realized it was way too hot to ever sit there in the sun in the summer.

* Dinner with the Winsteads, the British Wives' Club, and other friends of my parents. Usually in the dining room. Often, Alyson and I were banned from the grownup parties and sent upstairs. We would try to wheedle ice cream out of our parents by sending notes down tied to the cat's collar.

* Christmas presents opened and displayed - usually done in the living room with a tree in the sunroom or living room and all of us in bathrobes in front of the fireplace in the living room.

Alyson and Dad's House in Columbia

Here's the house that Dad and Alyson are renting in Columbia. It's near Sunset Drive and Main Street in Earlwood, a nice little neighborhood. I'm staying in the office/guestroom with the crazy orange cat named George.

SICKO: the South Carolina version

On Tuesday night, the air conditioning at the hospital in Columbia where my father is currently went out for 12 hours. The temperature was over 96 degrees (36 degrees for you non Farenheit speakers)and it rose to almost 90 inside the hospital (34). I brought a fan from home and we stripped him down and kept cold wet face cloths on him and put him under the fan. The nurses told me that there used to be fans in the hospital but they were nowhere to be found nowadays.

While I was surprised that there was no back up system for the a/c dying in the middle of the brutally hot July-August months, I wasn't that perturbed until I read the news media spin where the spokesperson from the hospital said it was uncomfortable but nothing to worry about and praised the staff for bringing fans to the patients. I was in that hospital with frantic families from all over the city bringing fans in. The CVS next to the hospital was selling out. In the hospitals that I routinely visit in Africa and Asia, there are usually no air conditioning for anyone. There aren't even fans usually. But there are open windows to catch breezes. In the hermetically sealed highrises that are the modern US hospital, there's no opportunity to open the windows and cool yourself down. It was a good 20 degrees warmer in the hospital than it was when I went outside. Some patients had families take them out into the cool evening air. Since my dad was on an IV and oxygen, we weren't able to do that. To my sister's undying embarrassment (you are such a radical! she says), I decided to write a letter to the editor in the local newspaper in response to this article.

Regarding Dr. Caughman Taylor's statement about the air conditioning breakdown at Palmetto Health Richland that "It was not a safety issue; it was an inconvenience", I beg to differ. My 80 year old father was hospitalized when the air conditioning went out on Tuesday night. For the elderly, extreme heat is a serious life threatening condition. They are often the first to die when there is no air conditioning as we saw in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and in heat waves in the mid West. It was family members that brought in fans and window units for their loved ones, not the staff. Staff complained that they were unable to access or find fans that used to be plentiful and spoke about equipment malfunctioning in the emergency room due to the excessive heat. While they were also suffering from the extreme heat in the hospital, they did the best that they could to provide care. CEO Singerling said that "practice makes perfect" so I hope the Palmetto Health Richland has found those fans and are prepared to have emergency plans for seniors and others with respiratory problems in case of another unexpected air conditioning malfunction during the hottest months of the year.

Sitting on the banks of Lake Victoria

I'm sitting at Gately-on-the-Nile's computer in a lovely colonial villa overlooking Lake Victoria in Uganda. After four days in a sumptious resort on Lake Victoria in Kampala at a conference, I then took a 10 hour car ride up to the North to Kitgum, Uganda - near the border with Sudan. Coincidentally, this was the site of my last mission for Refugees International in November 2006. After a long and grueling trip back to Kampala and a "Nile Special" night out on the town, I'm reveling in the tranquility and beauty of Jinja.

It was interesting to see the difference in Northern Uganda. Gulu has exploded into a typical NGO/UN town. Crowded and expensive - now the most expensive city in Northern Uganda - a sad side effect of Jan Egeland's forceful drive to turn the world's attention to Northern Uganda's forgotten crisis. The IDP camps in Kitgum, the most vulnerable of the counties, I would argue, are not as crowded, yet still shocking to see- a blight on the beautiful landscape. People have moved out but the team spoke of a tension in the National staff that is more palpable than before. Everyone is convinced that the LRA are back in town. Just hiding in the tall green grass waiting to abduct children, kill civilians, and wreak havoc.

I spent the night in Madi Opei, a camp about 1 hour north of Kitgum town where my organization runs a medical clinic with the ministry of health. It was so great to be back in the "bush" and sleeping in a mud tukul with bucket baths under the stars. Alyson, my sister, probably doubts our blood relationshiop when I send her emails telling her how happy I am to talk to the chickens in the morning when I walk to the outdoor shower. I love tucking myself under mosquito netting and seeing geckos run around on the walls. She belives that the Holiday Inn is roughing it. The Uganda team is funny and competent. The National Staff (I don't know why we segregate them) intensely committed and hardworking. I did what I was hired to do. Yet it wasn't the fulfilling experience that I had hoped for. I don't know why.

I guess my mind was clouded with concerns and fear for my father and sister moving in together in the midst of all of it. My father fell in April and broke his arm. His slow recovery prompted Alyson and I to decide that it would be better for him and bring us more peace of mind, if he weren't living alone anymore. Luckily, he agreed. I was able to find them a beautiful house in Columbia to move in. Unfortunately, right as Alyson was packing to move herself, she fell and broke her leg. My leave time had been mostly depleted by my five weeks in Sumter caring for my father as he recovered from surgery. It's been unbelievably frustrating and scary to be a six hour time difference away, hovering by the computer hoping for news from home.

My unexpected trip to the north of Uganda has been enlightening. I"m finally doing the work that my org supposedly wants me to do. I'm good at it. I like it. But it feels strangely unfulfilling when I long to be at home with my family. Work isn't enough anymore. At the conference, I made contact with old friends and put out the word that I'm looking for work. I think I need to be closer. I can always move back to Europe, right? I hope so. Either way, living in a city that I like is no substitute for being there for my family.

I met up with another section of my org's crew last night in Kampala. I was staying in my sections house in a suburb of Kampala all alone - six bedrooms and me! I have no telephone, I had no idea where I was, and was a bit frustrated and lonely. We went out for Thai food and then dancing at the expat hotspot. It was a faux Irish bar called Bubbles O' Malley or some such thing. Really gross. It was fun and exciting when I did it in Sierra Leone. In Uganda, the fact that I'm at LEAST 10 years older than all the silly aid workers and missionaries (?!) dancing with the beautiful young Ugandans out on the prowl made me sad. The old, desperate looking men dancing with young beautiful Ugandans disgusted me as it always does. Am I this person? I love to dance and it was fun laughing and talking with the Spanish section. I felt much more a part of the crowd than I usually do in the dire Eik and Linde where conversation is so forced and boring. Ops this, Ops that. Where is the joie de vivre for our jobs? I feel like headquarters is a refuge for grim, loveless, workaholics determined to wring some sort of meaning out a life in the field.

In the field, however, the joie de vivre is there. The laughing. The mixture of a motley group of people. But not in this bar. In Bubbles O'Malley (where the waiters wear tshirts that declare them Craic dealers), the stench of desperation sticks to the older people. For the young and hedonistic, risking it all on the battlefield and dancing it off in the capitol seems appropriate. Yet I prefer to go to bed at nine with my book most nights now. Not the party girl I used to be.

Anyway, I am enjoying the good food, the beauty of the setting, and the books I have snagged from the org's bookshelves. I can't be that different from my fellow co-workers if we all like to read the same things, can I? But for some reason, the fit is not there.

Photos from Home

George Iowa Veenker Martin, monitoring the house from the window.



Warren Street Side of the House



Front Yard


Back Yard

Farewell Sumter

I'm back from Sumter, South Carolina, my home town where I was taking care of my father as he recovered from a broken arm and a nasty infection from the hospital. He and Alyson will be moving into a new house in Columbia in the middle of June... So I said goodbye yesterday to Sumter, not quite for good as I have to return over Xmas and figure out what to do with everything that they left behind and whether or not to sell the house in this market. But goodbye to my childhood home. It's a bit sad but I am happy that I was able to return to South Carolina during spring time and catch Sumter at its best.

I moved to Sumter in 1975 and went to Washington Elementary School, Crosswell Elementary School, Bates Middle School, Council Street campus of Sumter High School, and finally the "new campus" of Sumter High School out at McCray's Mill Road. I left in August 1985 to move to Columbia but still spent every Christmas in Sumter since 1975.

Gradually, all my high school friends left - not really surprising since Sumter is a military town. My neighbors, the little old spinster and widow ladies on Warren Court who kept an eye on me and taught me how to eat divinity, Mary Jane candies, and narced on me to my mother when I kicked a kickball into their azalea beds, have all died off or gone off to nursing homes. New people moved in and I got to know them as adults but my job kept me traveling and I never got home as often as I should. I also liked to keep to myself when I was home - recovering from Washington DC. My friend Mike and I used to try to meet for a Christmas Eve drink to try to rock some fun out of the town and relive our crazy summer whee he was constantly grounded and I was the good girl who drove all those crazy boys around while listening to Dire Straits singing "Money for Nothing".

The town has not done well in the 30 plus years that I've lived there - the businesses have all been hollowed out of the downtown area where we live and new "Generica" restaurants line the highway to the military base interspersed with "pre fabricated housing" and car dealerships. The downtown attempts to revitalize itself but the only decent lunch counter closed down while I was home. The library is lovely - a new beautiful building with plenty of internet terminals for the youth and adults of Sumter. The beautiful old houses are stil there - some lovingly cared for, others falling apart genteely. The crime is still there. Prostitutes walk down the street in front of my father's house and con artists have no problems walking up to our open window and asking for money.

Still, its sad to go. I know all the back roads and all the places where I ripped around town - first on my bicycle and then in my little Ford Escort. My father has good friends in Sumter that he will miss. We will try to bring him back as often as possible to stay in touch with them. And my childhood home is being dismantled. But the memories are all there and my father and sister will be safe and happy in their new home. And that's what a home is really about - not the physical building, after all.

Fresh eyes on the US

I'm currently home in South Carolina looking after my father who is recovering from surgery for a broken arm. I've been here about two weeks and I'm seeing things in a whole new light after living almost a year in Europe. It's not that I didn't know these things before, they are just so in your face now. Maybe I was isolated in Washington DC living in Dupont Circle surrounded by upper middle class people. But here in Sumter, South Carolina - its quite frightening.

Insanely sensational tv news: CNN, Fox News, and every tv media outlet has seized on comments that Barack Obama made about working class voters being bitter about the economy and seizing on illegal immigration, religion, and guns. But people are bitter! That's why they are voting for someone who is not politics as usual! Duh! Suddenly, Hillary Clinton - she of a Wesleyan college and Yale Law School education is proclaiming how she loves guns and shooting them, as well as doing shots of whiskey. Ridiculous! I can't believe how she panders so shamelessly. I will vote for her if she gets the nomination but this whole primary battle has shown her to be as morally shifty and willing to lie as her husband was. 8 years of Clinton was good for economy but it certainly set the tone for the crazy partisan politics that we have to deal with now.

Guns and Religion: I was in the Wal-mart looking for a little exercise bicycle wheel for my fathers physical therapy when I noticed that I could just as easily buy a rifle for about $150 (or 100 Euros). The guy behind the counter selling them was about 18 years old and wished me a "blessed day" when I left. One of my fellow shoppers was wearing a t-shirt that said "You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead, hands" and another one had a "What would Jesus do?" t-shirt on and both were shopping for ammo (which is on the shelf next to the tennis balls).

Gloom and Despair: I have to read the shallowest gossipy magazines in the world to recover from the gloom and despair of the nightly news. The world is ending. There is a 99% chance that there will be a MAJOR earthquake in California in the next 30 years. Or as they put it on the news (It could be tomorrow!!!). Salmon population has declined so much that ther are only 30,000 left. A 27 year old football player was found dead from crack cocaine in my hometown. Women college basketball players are caught selling marijuana and thrown out of college. MOre riots in Pakistan. More people killed in Somalia. Over 4000 US soldiers killed in Iraq. A story in the SC newspaper about a US army doctor going undercover in an Afghanistan hospital to help out while wearing a gun strapped to him to defend himself, probably making more and more hospital workers in Afghanistan legitimate targets of insurgents now.

Obesity and ill health: My father is almost 81 years old and is generally in pretty good health for his age. He's skinny - too skinny- so I'm cooking him anything that he wants to eat to help him recover. So lots of bacon, cream, eggs, and sugar. I live near the poor part of town in Sumter and the nearest grocery store is a Piggly Wiggly where one can buy any kind of pork product in the world (except pate - here its called hash). The amounts of processed foods, fried foods, sugary sodas, and transfat desserts is frightening. The most expensive thing I bought at the store when I went the other day was fresh basil (which I was surprised to find) and an avocado (which you couldn't find until Mexicans moved into town). I could probably buy my weight in twinkies and pork fat for less than I spent on some tomatos. The children here are hugely fat, the adults are fatter, everyone drives big gas guzzling cars which they will sit in and weight for a parking space next to the entrance of the grocery store rather than walk a few feet. I've seen one person riding a bicycle since I got here. Only the wealthy can afford to go to gyms, eat organic food, or be thin in the South. The biggest growth industries in Sumter, South Carolina are drug stores and the hospital. The cancer and diabestes rate is outrageous.

And the list goes on and on....