Decision Made!

Alex, Chloe and I took a trip to Victoria and Nanaimo a couple of weeks ago to look at schools. We attended some open houses and Chloe went through an application process for St. Michael's University School. The outcome of that was an enthusiastic and quick acceptance of her into their school. That meant Alex and I had to make a location decision between a better job, lower house prices, etc. in Nanaimo and a good (but not quite as good) job for Alex in Victoria, higher house prices and one of the top schools in Canada. We chose option two reasoning that we've had our turn of prioritizing our educational and career needs; the kids only get one chance for their childhood education, they are eager and it doesn't get any better than this!

This weekend was Ava's turn. We made arrangements for her to do what Chloe had done at SMUS but at a different school. SMUS suggested we let Ava try them out too (where they previously hadn't had a place in Grade 5, one came up) - guess they loved Chloe so much they wanted to meet her sister. We'd done such a good marketing job on the other school that Ava vacillated and finally decided on a day with SMUS as well.

Unlike Chloe's assessment day where we just dropped her off in the morning and picked her up in the afternoon, I spent a good portion of the day with Ava at the junior school. It began with chapel and that was wonderful. A girl from kindergarden played everyone in on the piano. That morning's service was from the Christian faith but they rotate chapel through world religions. They also have a monthly virtue (following the Family Virtues Project) and the Reverend introduced this month's virtue, understanding, through a lovely story about how he had recently developed his own understanding of those he works with. There was some singing from the children that included the school song with children singing in harmony! At the end the children were played out by a teacher playing Morning Has Broken on the piano. What a way to start one's week!

After chapel Ava and two other applicants went off to do testing. Ava thought it was great fun because they allowed her to write a story. She wrote about a snake named Bono from Ubud, Bali. During her interview the school principal expressed interest in Ava's experience at Green School (she even asked if Ava would do a power point presentation to the school in traditional Balinese dress). After two hours of art class with some really nice children Ava didn't want to leave and asked if she could stay for Japanese class as well. So by 3:00 armed with her letter of offer Ava begged me to call the other school and cancel her day with them.

Ava's really feeling good about her choice as are we. Alex and I really want to give the girls a push, but not a push for the sake of

pushing but to maximize the potential in each child. When I asked at SMUS about theorists like Sir Ken Robinson (who talks about the importance of cultivating creativity) they were all over it; some of the teachers have attended conferences with him. Staff are encouraged to go right to the top for continuing education and are sent to leading-edge institutions like Harvard.

I feel so thankful both to be able to offer this opportunity to our children (thank you, Alex!) and also thankful that our children recognize opportunity and are willing to risk taking big bites out of life. Way to go girls!

So there you have it, decision made! Let the next adventure begin...

Ice2Rice2Where?

What in the world are those Hoechsmann’s doing?

It’s been a strange three months. Maia and I returned to Yellowknife mid October after Alex, Chloe and Ava. After Bali we had a great summer around BC, travelled to Lake Tahoe, and then we spent a month in Europe (Pont du Avignon to the right).

My first impression of being home was to feel completely overwhelmed by the volume of STUFF in our lives. The amount of time taken up by stuff-management was a stunner. Not only had we been “on the road” for the previous 10.5 months where our stuff was limited by the size of the suitcase, when we were last home we were looked after by the extremely competent Lorielyn. Lorielyn was our live-in caregiver who not only looked after Maia while Alex and I worked, also gave the impression that our family doesn’t even make mess by her behind-the-scenes constant tidying. I still remember having tears in my eyes the first time I opened my sock drawer and found clean socks neatly folded in my drawer - the last time I’d touched them they were being tossed into the dirty hamper. That is a beautiful thing! So I had just simply forgotten how much work it is to manage a house, children’s activities, and the endless messes.

I also began a Master of Health Administration degree at UBC in September. In my mind I imagined dropping the girls off at school then diligently studying for my classes all punctuated with regular visits to the gym and of course lunch dates with friends.

If that previous paragraph didn’t induce either a panic attack or laughter you either have no idea just how much work is involved in a MHA or, if laughter was your response, you clearly knew better than did I. Panic was a steady state for the autumn. I never had any time – it was almost worse than when I was working full time (back to the Lorielyn factor). There was school drop off (8:30), working until school pick up (3:15), then bagan “mom’s taxi” service from 3:15 until, some days, 8:00. There are a total of 13 different after school activities the girls are involved in. One of the things that are great about Yellowknife is that everything is within close proximity so nothing takes longer than 10 minutes to get to/from. Still, it’s a lot of moving around and when you have to drag other siblings around to do drop off and pick-ups it’s an added challenge.

Somehow I managed to limp my way to the end of the four autumn courses at UBC; by the time Christmas break arrived I was exhausted! My mom brought her energy and helped make Christmas appear.

Throughout the entire holiday period there were two pressing questions: first, would I continue to study? If I continued to study would I change programs or stay at UBC. Second, what is our family doing? The latter is a question we’re asked regularly by friends wondering if we’re digging in or skipping town. The only truthful answer has been an unsatisfying “I don’t know.”

Alex has decided that he’s ready to get back to the coast and to try a busier work environment – one that’s closer to family. We also want something different for the girls’ education and what we want isn’t available in Yellowknife. We found wonderful schools in Victoria, but the work situation is, well, sub-optimal. Even so, we went ahead and applied for school for Chloe in Victoria since she's so keen on this particular school.

I've felt stressed and nauseous thinking about giving up everything we have in Yellowknife. Aside from a community of people that we know and trust, there’s also the ski club, the swim club, Ava’s amazing guitar classes, the excellent early French Immersion school, the kids friends, our house that works wonderfully, proximity to friends, great work opportunities, Alex’s dependable job and so on. Not to mention that everything’s so close so it’s possible to take the kids to 13 extra curricular activities a week and not to be in the car hours and hours.

There are great swim clubs in Victoria, but it requires so much driving. The skiing is too far away to be a regular activity, which is especially disappointing for Chloe since she's loving it! Ava is on board with the Victoria school and we’re sure that it’s a great school, but it doesn’t have room for her in grade five, which would mean immersion school for another year. Seems straightforward since in Yellowknife you basically decide what school you want and register. Not so in Victoria. They use “catchments” and require proof that you live in the catchment before allowing enrollment. And the good ones are full. Not only the classes themselves are full, but the school buildings have no more rooms to expand programming! Imagine in a country that’s “bilingual” turning kids away and saying there’s not enough room for people who want to acquire the French language! And on another note, don’t even get me started on the price of houses in Victoria! A 1930’s bungalow with a “face lift” for how much?

Even though it's a bit hard to swallow as a package, we booked a weekend for Alex, Chloe and me to go to Victoria mid February so we can see how it feels to be there. Chloe will interview and take school admissions tests. I added one extra day for hiking and relaxing, or so I thought.

Is it a Karmic Joke?

For years as we drive up and down Vancouver Island Alex and I, and my parents before that, teased a sprawling small city that sits mid-Island. We teased it for being the “mall capital of Canada,” for it’s congested roadways, and for it’s nightmarish labyrinthian “dream communities” that sprang out of what had earlier been wilderness. So when an OBS/GYNE locuming in Yellowknife from Nanaimo told Alex about the amazing new ER being built his initial reaction was feigned interest. But for some reason he was induced to take a look and, as he was impressed by what he saw, he looked into the school system. When he came across a small International Baccalaureate school that garnered a perfect score of 10/10 from the Fraser Institute, he both fired off a note to the ER director and told me I had to look at it. I protested, really I did. But after resisting, I had to admit it is impressive. The whole package, that is. Sounds like an innovative group of ERPs and a new ER with, imagine it, a focus on having daylight for the staff instead of the usual ER which can be likened to a cavernous tomb where one doesn’t know if it’s day or night. Housing in Nanaimo also offers many options. The public French Immersion school has a great reputation and the IB school (which, funny enough, the ER Director started) sounds fantastic. There’s also the ski hill just an hour away so the girls could keep skiing, also there's a 50m pool with a good training club, and it’s equidistant between all of our parents.

In mid February Chloe will spend a day at both the IB school in Nanaimo and the school she chose in Victoria. She’ll also ski with the team at Mount Washington. Meanwhile Alex will meet with the ER group in Nanaimo and the Hospitalist group in Victoria and see which is a better fit. In the beginning of March when Chloe skis in Bragg Creek and then the rest of our family goes to ski in Banff, Ava and I will be going camping with my mom in Nanaimo. This is how I’m choosing to frame the situation that means for me to get Maia into the French Immersion School in Nanaimo I need to spend a weekend camping out in the school parking lot! Seriously! The school secretary tells me that people bring RVs so we’re planning to rent one and camp in the school’s parking lot until Monday morning when we can turn in Maia’s registration forms! It reminds me of those contests where people can win a car by being the last one left touching the car because one representative for the child has to stay in the "line" the entire time until Monday's school opening.

Ava will then have a day at the IB school in Nanaimo after which she’ll decide if she wants to go to IB school or to continue in immersion.So I guess at this time it’s safe to say, “I know” when asked what we’re doing. It looks like the "Hoechsmann Bus" is leaving the station (you can imagine how delighted we all were to see the bus in the photo when we were in Germany). We’ll be moving this summer to either Nanaimo or Victoria. Either is fine with me.

Yesterday I had a call from someone who heard rumors that we might move and is interested in buying our house. We had some confusion arise last summer when some kids played a joke on the neighbourhood by moving for sale signs from house to house. That led to similar inquiries...

And as for my own education, I am on a leave of absence from UBC and hope to jump back in this coming September. That way I can plod my way through the 24 courses and research project to get a turtle-paced MHA.

So that's where we're at in the beginning of 2012. Feels like another year of big change and it will be exciting to see how this year rolls out. It reminds me about the title for the last blog post quoting the sage words of Dr. Seuss - " don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." I know we'll miss the north and I'll likely wonder if leaving was the right thing to do, but the ocean's calling and it looks like we're going to answer...

"Don't cry because it's over, Smile because it happened" - Dr. Suess

Five more sleeps in Bali.

We're sad to be leaving Bali. As I look back over the past months there have been many enriching experiences, some difficult moments, and, over all, it has been among the best six months of my life. There's something so special about this little island sandwiched between the Pacific and Indian Oceans; the tremendous richness of a centuries-old culture rooted in community and service to God that, when coupled with the beauty and pleasures of the tropics is hard to beat. The relative lack of regulation and loose or ill-defined rules can be liberating or maddening (say when you get pulled over and have money extorted by police) but certainly add to the invigorating experience.

There are many things I had planned to do but did not accomplish such as blog entries that didn't get written, I meant to learn Bahasa Indonesian, and I brought a stack of books that will go back into the suitcase along with my promise to read them in the future. Every day was, in some way or another, extremely rich. Living away from “normal” made me look at everything with fresh eyes, a sense of wonder I hope to maintain after I leave. It will be interesting to see our family integrate these experiences as we readjust to being in Canada.

One of the blog topics I intended to write about relates to the symbols of Bali which are often rooted in Hinduism. I'll mention just a couple of them. Many symbols are beautiful, others are interesting and some are repulsive. For example, the swastika is a popular symbol in Bali. No kidding! It is inscribed in temples, adorns rod-iron fencing, and even dangled from our driver's rear-view-mirror instead of fuzzy dice. The Balinese have no association of the swastika and evil, they see it as lucky (according to Wikipedia the original meaning is a “lucky or auspicious object... to denote good luck.”) Although I know it wasn't always an image of hatred, the swastika still takes me aback and I feel uneasy.

Another symbol that we've seen a lot in Bali is Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music and the arts. In some ways Saraswati is the patron of our trip. We originally chose Bali specifically for the children to attend Green School. And while here the kids have done unbelievable amounts of art. Maia almost single-handedly wore out dozens of markers, we've gone through hundreds of sheets of paper, Chloe and Maia were in a performance singing and dancing in the Wizard of Oz, and the list of art projects goes on and on. As for music, it has permeated our trip. For months we slept to the sounds of the Gamelan echoing around the river valley, the kids have had music instruction at school and Ava has learned to play guitar and bass; we came to Bali with two guitars and we will leave with three.

Saraswati may not be done with us yet either. Alex is registered in a Medical Informatics program at University of California at Davis and starts in a couple of weeks. The last few weeks have been overshadowed by an application I submitted to UBC for a Master of Health Administration. As I await the results of that process I am consumed with studying for the GRE and I write that test in a couple weeks. Saraswati, what do you have in store for us next?

A friend wrote a book with the title We Feel Good Out Here about a northern aboriginal girl being on the land. I feel I now better understand what it means to just feel good somewhere. In the case of our family, we feel good in Bali. We all look healthier than when we arrived (a fact I am repeatedly told by our Scottish/Dutch friend who likes to remind me how pale and jaded I seemed to him upon our arrival) and we are all re-engaged with one another and what's around us. An example of this new closeness is our kids moving from three kids in three bedrooms to three kids in one bed! Certainly just having more time is key.

As we prepare to return to Canada it leaves me to question the basics about how we live. It's not about location it's about maintaining this renewed sense of closeness in our family. Can we do that in our “normal” life? Can we resist the temptation to fill our plate to overflowing when we're in Canada? There are so many wonderful opportunities and we always want to eat big at life's buffet.

Maybe we're just consoling our sadness about leaving by thinking about returning. But given just how good we feel here, we've asked ourselves the question “why wouldn't we return?” Any answer we come up with feels hollow. The kids would accept coming back as they now know how life works here and are connected to friends. For now, we don't know if we'll be back we just know it's so so so sad to leave. A friend told me recently, “it's not enough for you to want to be in Bali – Bali also has to want you back.” And maybe that is the question that remains to be answered: will Bali want us back? For now, I'll try to stop crying because it's over and keep smiling because it happened.

And what a lot there is to smile about!

Thank you Bali!

Riah

The Stranger with the Black Cape

Somewhere out there, a mysterious stranger lurks...

I couldn't sleep well that night as I knew I had to wake early. I was planning on meeting Peter, a swiss fellow with kids at Green School, for a dive out at a small island off Bali, Nusa Penida. To get down to Sanur where the dive shop is from Sayan up near Ubud is not as simple as it seems. This was the first time i went down to the coast without a driver, on the scooter. I had the memories of being a passenger on that trip before, I had a full tank of gas - so I guess I was ready. I did have to quickly turn around a come back for my PADI registration which I left at home though!

It turned out that despite that lapse, my memory did not fail and I managed to find my way into the motorcycle morning commuter traffic heading down the mountain towards Sanur. I managed to turn the right way at all the intersections and i didn't even get pulled over by the cops (we keep hearing stories of foreigners getting pulled over and fleeced for petty cash by the police whenever someone tries to venture out of Ubud on the scooters).

I did get a little lost looking for the dive shop but eventually found it in the laid back resort town of Sanur. I thought I was late but Peter arrived about 5 minutes later so i guess I was on time. It turns out that people in Bali are generally on time and there is no "island time" phenomena where everything starts 30 minutes late.

Peter is a very friendly man who works in the pharmaceutical industry. Currently he's working on establishing relations between Swiss pharmaceutical companies in the asia-pacific region. He's also a master diver. I on the other hand had only done 7 dives up to this point.

After getting our equipment together we piled into the boat, I took a gravol and we pitched and rolled across the Lombok Strait for an hour heading to Nusa Penida. Fortunately no one got sick.

When we finally got our tanks on and got into the water I felt relieved. Wearing a wet suit in the sun with a tank on in a rocking boat is a challenge. The signal to go down was given by my diving guide and down we went. We had one guide each. the more experienced Wayan went down with Peter and I followed James, an ex-british army man who had just finished his dive master course. Within minutes we were in another world.

For any one who has not been diving in the tropics, this is certainly worth putting on your bucket list (what to do before you kick the bucket!). First there's the quiet, then the sound of the scuba Darth Vader like breathing and bubbling, then there's the feeling of flying as you rise and fall in the water - and then there's the reef with hundreds of colorful fish.

We were down for about a half hour before we saw the first big fish, a white tipped reef shark quickly scurried away after seeing us. The divers down here do not seem to be worried about larger sharks. A short time later we saw the Manta rays.

These huge creatures contrast with everything else down there. They look like birds flying in slow motion, with a hint of batman or the man with the dark cape in Amadeus. The slow and graceful fluttering of the rays wings is spell binding. They apparently come up out of the deep sea to Manta point for feeding and gather at cleaning stations to rid themselves of small parasite fish that attach to their large black surface. The largest one ever recorded was 22 feet from wing tip to tip. The ones we say were at least 12 feet across. At least they looked huge.

You may remember that Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin died after being stung by a Sting Ray - Manta Rays do not sting. They have a very long tail but it does not have the lethal poison of the sting ray.

As I watched the Manta Ray swim away I was struck with awe and amazed at how beautiful these animals are. As I was losing myself in my reverie, our guide looked at me at signaled that we would be beginning our assent. He also pointed at his watch which was reading 24 degrees celcius - for Indonesians that is cold water. We slowly ascended and left the black cloaked giants, looking like some gallant heroes from an Emile Bronte novel riding slow-mo into the sea below.

Moving On

We are coming to the end of our time near Ubud; next week we are moving closer to the coast to a place called Canggu for the remainder of our stay in Bali.

Ubud is considered the cultural center of Bali and is blanketed with yoga studios, art shops, and restaurants (several fall into the extreme health food category - I learned aloe and turmeric can be ingredients in fruit juices – who knew?). Canggu is quite different in several ways. When Ubud is damp and wet, Canggu is warm and dry. Ubud is inland, Canggu is near the beach. There are villas popping up around the rice paddies and foreigners like it because it's got the beach but is less populated and busy than nearby Kuta. It is also home to the Canggu Club, a colonial-style country club with great athletics facilities where we've been spending Saturdays for the past couple months.

We've rented a nice house and we look forward to spending more time at the beach, hanging out at the Canggu Club, watching surfers at Echo Beach, and ending our amazing time in Bali with a beach holiday. That said, it's also very sad to be leaving our place in the jungle. Mostly because we'll miss the people who have looked after us so generously for the past five months.

HOME:

Nyoman is a 33 year-old woman who cooks, cleans and keeps up the house. She is married and has two children. Her husband, Ketut, works down the road at the Four Seasons. Her daughter Adi is a great friend to Maia and Ava. Her son is 13 year old Wayan called "Juni" because he is born in June. She has worked in this house for 12 years and met her American employer when he was building his house and staying at a local hotel where she then worked. Smart man - he poached her and she's worked for him ever since.

Pak Wayan Nuadi is Nyoman's co-worker who also manages the house. He is the second Wayan in his family. This means that he is the fifth born because naming children in Bali goes by birth order as follows:

• First born: Wayan
• Second born: Made
• Third born: Nyoman
• Fourth born: Ketut

The government in Bali suggests that families have two children and it makes sure that there is easy and affordable access to birth control. Most families adhere to the suggestion although there is no consequence if a family decides to have more than two. But interestingly there is the side effect of there being many Wayans and Mades but a declining number of Nyomans and Ketuts.

Nuadi's own father was a musician and teacher who worked with Canadian composer Colin McFee. His son kept with the family tradition and teaches Balinese music and his daughter is a Balinese dancer. We had the honour of visiting Nuadi's home on Sunday for his son's wedding and we got a sense of his home life. Their family has a large compound with the brothers and each of their families living there as well as his mother. The home has four kitchens, two public and several other private bathrooms, four pigs, many chickens a large temple and a store facing the street. It is really more like a small village than a house. The house was decorated in such a way as would have taken many people days to prepare. It really gave us a sense of the ongoing community work that is reality for Balinese.

Another person who is part of our daily experience is a man whose name no one seems able to tell me. Pak (the meaning is "mister" or father) is the brother of the owner of Djagra's Inn. Alex thinks he must have had polio because one of his legs is lame. He is also deaf. But the amazing thing is just how productive he is. Every morning at first light he is up sweeping with his hand-made straw broom. He sweeps the walk way and temple then then sets about on the 75 meter driveway and the parking lot. It takes him hours. By afternoon he puts all the fallen leaves and jungle debris into to a burn pile and tends a small smoky fire which I'm beginning to smell now. At the end of the day he sits outside in his plastic lawn chair no doubt exhausted. We smile and say good morning every day and he loves it when he sees the girls going out for runs. The first time he said anything besides a nod and smile was a day when Ava was doing wind sprints on the driveway. He had a beaming smile, looked me in the eye, gave me a thumbs up and said "Bagus!" (good!).

GETTING AROUND:

Our driver is Made. He is 35, married, and has two daughters. He tells me that he won't try to have a boy because he will be able to invite the future husband of one of his daughters to live in his house to look after him and his wife when they are older. Old and new ways come together.

Made is from a low caste but his family is very enterprising. He and his father both own cars they are well regarded for tours of Bali. Made tells me that his brother is often called to take visiting VIPs out. Made is a cross between a traditional Balinese very connected to his community and traditions as well as the new world. He is tech savvy, gels his hair, has an earring, speaks good English, and his slight swagger makes me think of Bali-meets-James Dean. And while in some ways he drives us nuts, he's an excellent driver and very sweet with our kids.

OUT AND ABOUT:

Another Wayan I have spent a lot of time with is someone I refer to as "Wayan the Torture Man." He is a soft spoken, trophy-winning Balinese body builder who has been my personal trainer for the past several months. When I asked if we could take his photo he wanted to know if he should show his muscles for the picture. He has an uncanny ability to find new and original ways to remind me that the journey to fitness is never over! Just when I think we must have at least touched upon every muscle in the human body he finds one that is still weak.

I'd never seriously considered a personal trainer but after seeing a woman training on several occasions I approached her to ask how she liked it. Liz is a divorce attorney from Hawaii who told me that she continued to eat her client's troubles long after they'd moved on in their lives. She was very unhealthy and decided on an around-the-world tour. Bali was to be her first stop and ended up her last stop since, as fate would have it, she recently purchased the Ubud Fitness Center after complaining to her trainer "if I owned this gym I'd fix the air conditioners." Little did she know when she made the comment that the gym was for sale and a career change was imminent.

Liz had been working out with a trainer three times a week and had lost over 20kg and was loving it! The sessions are 90 minutes and include a warm-up, weight training, stretching/massage session and then more carido. All for $12 per session! I'm 20 sessions in and have sadly not lost any weight. And the bluntness of the Balinese around fitness is not for the faint hearted. The man who works at the front desk used to ask me "Have you lost any weight Ibu (Mrs.) Riah?" but has since given up since the answer was always no. He liked to tell me I wasn't coming often enough. One Balinese patron asked me how often I came to the gym and her unsolicited advice was that it wasn't enough. Wayan tells me, "Strong muscle, but still fat" as he grabs the wobbly bits on the back of my arms or on my abdomen in the middle of a set of crunches. It's been good fun and I will miss it all!

But for the next few weeks, Canggu with it's beaches, club, and great restaurants will be home. And I haven't seen a single turmeric juice there!

Riah

"One-hour resting"

Immediately next door to our little house on the Sayan Ridge, Banjar Baung, is a small Balinese Inn known as Djagra's. At the back of Djagra's there is a traditional Balinese family compound complete with temple, roosters, chickens, barking dogs, and the overall melee of jungle life. Jutting out onto the ridge over the river is a two story cinder block building with one room in top and one on bottom. It's not easy to find on the Internet, but what is there boasts close proximity to the Four Season's and a "verdant vista of emerald green terraced rice fields which cool your eyes and smoothes your soul." (Not a letter of typo in that quote!)

When we first moved into our little house we noticed no foreign tourists at Djagra's and asked the people who work at our house, if not foreigners, who stays at Djagra's? They gave me elusive answers such as "just for Balinese" or Nyoman would say "not so much tourists, just for one-hour resting, that sort of thing." In spite of my inquiries she wouldn't elaborate more on "one-hour resting" and I merrily carried on thinking it was some sort of stop along the way for road-weary Balinese on long-haul drives. The fact that it can't take more than five hours from one extreme side to the other therefore not necessitating nap time didn't initially cross my mind.

One morning in our first month the parking lot was particularly full making maneuvering out of the driveway difficult. Our then driver, Wayan, was unconcerned and said, "oh, not for so long. Everybody gone in an hour." And then it clicked; Djagra's is that sort of place.

I wasn't feeling so good about the neighbours at first and began trying to figure out when and where we could move - how would I try to explain that to the girls if they noticed anything unusual? What about my dreams of wholesome family time in the jungle in Bali? I briefly became a curtain twitcher and observed the clientele wondering if the women were being somehow mistreated. But what I saw were young couples arriving on separate motorbikes hastily making their way to the room gestured to by the woman at the top of the stairs. Curtains were drawn and a while later the bikes would start up and off they'd go. There was one giddy businessman in a nice car who bounced up to our door asking excitedly "Djagra's?" and was suitably chagrined - "oh, sorry, sorry, sorry" - when we pointed next door.

Balinese family life is structured so that grown children live in the family compound until the women marry (at which time she moves to her husband's family compound) or the man brings his wife home. Courting and privacy isn't easy to come by so Djagra's Inn seems to be there to fill a need for privacy of young couples.

I have noticed that when we need to give a young Balinese a landmark for where we live if I tell them "Djagra's" I at first see surprise and then unquestionable recognition of the location.

Riah

"The worst Easter Ever"

This past weekend has had some highs and lows. But at the end of it all Chloe dubbed it the "Worst Easter Ever."

The worst part of the weekend was an old and dear friend concluded a protracted battle with breast cancer and died on Easter Sunday. She was young and leaves behind a young family who now are profoundly grieving. Extreme pain accompanied the cancer so she is relieved of that awful reality but making it all the more heart wrenching she married her long-time partner last week.

It was surreal to be in Bali and be checking Facebook to find out how she was doing. The posts, from her beloved and unbelievably devoted sister, told us about her wedding including photos of that special day. There were many congratulations and well-wishes for matrimonial happiness all tinged by the sad reality of her illness. And then, sadly, but a few days later RIP.

Chloe and Ava have been really sad about the little boy who now has no mother. It seems to have hit them as a shocking idea. Watching their eyes grow wide as that possibility works is way through their brains is interesting. I know it's making me even more thankful for what we have and I hope it will do the same for them. They very sweetly wanted to do something for the little boy whose mother passed away. On the brainstorming list was taking him to the PNE, to Jasper, and extravagant gifts. But we talked our way through those ideas and Ava consulted her "Smart Girls' Guide to Manners" book and is now thinking of writing him a letter. But really, there is nothing that will make this boy's loss better.

In light of that devastating news nothing actually compares. If you're a child with unrealized expectations of a family day or whose chickens die there are other sources of sadness.

Alex was involved in an Ultimate Frisbee tournament this past weekend and we rented a villa near the beach with another family who has two daughters who are friends of Chloe and Ava.

The guys played Ultimate for the Bali Boolay's (Gringos) against teams from Australia, Singapore and Jakarta while their families hung out doing other things.

Ava had a little crisis moment when coming home from the banquet after the Frisbee tournament. She was talking very earnestly to her friend who had a totally blank look on her face. I asked what was up and she wanted to know if the earth wasn't here and the solar system wasn't here what would be there. And if it was nothing, how would we know it was nothing because we wouldn't be there to know anything? And how could she be sure that she was herself anyway and that there actually is an earth and a solar system? She became panicked and said "this is really scaring me, Mom." Her first existentialist crisis.

On Sunday we took the girls to a family Easter "Egg-stravangaza" at a big restaurant on the beach front. The day was beautiful, the sun was shining, there was live music, great crafts for kids, hanging out with friends, body surfing and boogie boarding on the beach in front of the restaurant. But somehow the Easter Sundays where we hunt for eggs in the frozen back yard are apparently much better and both Chloe and Ava expressed their disappointment with the Easter Bunny. Sigh...

We arrived home last night to learn that three of our four Bali chickens died. Chloe was devastated and worried that she didn't care for them well enough. She has been very dedicated and done a great job making sure they're fed and kept happy. The sad thing is that they caught some sort of virus which we're told comes once a year through Bali and has no treatment. Chloe said in a very sad moment tonight, "I've never had so many things die that I care about all at once."

Guess this is life. Highs, lows and everything in between...

Riah