|
kmaxindo
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Krisy
Country: Indonesia
Metro: Bandung
Gender: Female
Interests: reading (mostly novels), trying to decipher my offspring, lying on the ground looking at the sky through the leaves
Expertise: finding spelling mistakes, drinking coffee, listening
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
12/2/2005
|
|
| It's a GIRL!"Hey, have you guys seen the new pregnant beggar at the intersection?""Yeah, she's up at the 5-way crossing in the morning on our way to school. How pregnant is she, do you think?""Mmmm, looks like she's about to pop."
A month ago when the compassionate folks and activists in my family came home to tell me there was a new pregnant beggar at our intersection, I sensed we were in for it . . . whatever it was. I won't tell you all the cynicism that plagued me as we decided to stop and talk with her next time we were at the light. I hardly need to admit that my engagement in this new relationship was barely half-hearted.
Ida, it turned out, is a bright-eyed young woman whose world was unravelling. Her husband is a garbage sifter and she was a maid until she "fell pregnant". Being in poverty, she realized she couldn't just sit in her boarding house room and eat bon-bons. So she traveled 1 hour into the city each morning to join the ranks of beggars on the street corners.
One day we bought her some vitamins and stopped to talk. Another day we asked her who her midwife was, and how we could get ahold of her. The next time we stopped she had scribbled on a piece of paper the midwife's name, address, and phone number as well as her boarding house landlord's name and phone in case we wanted to verify her story. So we called the midwife and told her we'd like to pay for the baby's birth  whenever it happened.
This Wednesday Ibu Euis called to tell us that Ida gave birth to a healthy 7.5 lb baby girl. I sent payment to Ibu Euis, who had also done Ida's laundry as an extra service since Ida had no extended family helping her out. Lena and I had fun shopping for some baby start-up paraphernalia that afternoon: doll-like t-shirts and diapers, little pillows and blankets. These we sent the next day with our driver who was having the time of his life playing benevolent bearer of gifts.
This beggar is legit, people out there are kind and generous, and our family can make a difference. My cynicism has given way to bubbling anticipation of what we might do next.
For those of you who know Mari's 5'4" or so, you can imagine
how tiny Ida is to be giving birth to a 7.5 lb baby.
| | |
| Zexfots Unite!I'm intrigued by the use of my mother tongue on the many faces of the trucks here:
On our way to the tea plantation a week ago, COVERBOY drove by. First glance had me reading "LOVERBOY"; but no, this driver would like to be considered in a league with some of the finest faces GQ can offer.
Then on Friday I was sitting in the back seat, quietly considering the meeting I'd be leading in a few minutes, and "ZEXFOT" went chugging by. I should probably explain that the letters P and F are interchangeable in this language where people play "golp" with the best of the Tiger Woods wannabes. I was not aware that S and Z were also interchangeable (it's more likely Z and J), but maybe Z is just such a sexy letter that "SEXPOT" seemed enhanced by the switch.
Who puts these things on trucks? the drivers? the owners? And if they knew what they were advertising, would they be ready to show the goods? Needless to say, the upcoming meeting took a far backseat to my giggles and subsequent musings.
And now for a shot of 3 zexfots on their way to a belly piercing. . .
| | |
| All these teenagers
Today's Lena's 13th birthday - and now I've got no one left in the "child" stage. Not that Lena has been a child any time recently. She's such a great person: fun and hard-working and loves to spend the day in her pajamas. Just like me . . . the last part, that is.
| | |
| Epiphany"Personally, I was miserable before I understood these ideas, but now I am so happy I laugh all the time, even in my sleep." (from Donald Miller's Searching for God Knows What, and definitely taken out of context - which he wouldn't mind, I don't think.)
I was sitting in a restaurant this afternoon with 5 women and had this sudden epiphany of the friendship between women. Never thought I'd say it, never thought I'd comprehend - but here I am to say I need these women friends. I was in a sad frame of mind, and I wasn't entirely engaged in the conversation (do you realize how often those of us over 40 fall into topics of vitamin supplements, diet, exercise, shifting body mass, and what our husbands like about us? FRIGHTENING!) My cell phone and the encroaching tasks were distracting me. I was hot. We entertained the helpful fact that magnesium in your hair draws out the curl, but your hair can become used to it and quit curling. Magnesium also helps Ann with her condition called "tired legs" or something like that - but it's likely she ought to use it only 4-5 days a week so her body won't get "immune" to it. . . And the topic switched to dream interpretation and how Ann dreamed about a cat that was screeching through her house and running up her walls and then she picked him up around his suddenly boneless middle and chucked him out the french doors to his death on a knife and a shard of glass at which she was instantly overcome with remorse . . . and I realized there are very few places that I'm as safe and acceptable as I was right there. And Ann's dream was full of deep meaning. And I found myself smiling to realize that I belong with these friends.
| | |
| gems from the neighbors
Rabda, 3 years old: "How come your nose is so long?"
Agi, a much more knowledgeable 5: "Like Pinocchio."
-- all this in very calm observation of Eric as he talked on the porch with Rabda's dad | | |
|
