Seriously, Indonesia?

Come on! Since I got here, I haven't been able to see the sky! No kidding! It's a white-out. Haze in the morning. Haze in the evening. Haze at supper-time.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, I'm BEGGING YOU, INDONESIA! STOP THE BURNING!

You're killing us! They can't even send their kids to school here! A couple of days ago, the index reading was at 200. I'm not sure what that means, but it's bad.

I have a white table cloth on my table in the kitchen and it gets covered with little black pieces of soot every day. I leave the table cloth on so I can get an idea of what condition the air is in that day. BAD. We're breathing this stuff in every day for months! It HAS to be illegal.

I'm just a tourist without any influence, but I pray someone somehow will do something to stop this. The conditions for human life are very bad here. No wonder there are no other tourists around. Even the natives are taking off to get out of this.

Over the past month, I've been living inside of a cloud of smoke. On top of which, three times already I have had my temporary home smoked with DDT!

It's a good thing I don't have asthma.

Taman Permai and the Coconut King

 

 

Coconuts have received a bad rep around here these days, after the Malaysian president

took a pair of them on his "magic carpet ride" to try to discover the location of the mysterious

missing plane. Although the coconuts didn't seem to help in that case, I do believe in the

wonder of the majestic coconut palm. Is there any tree more gorgeous, fascinating and thrilling?

 

I think not.

 

 

Every morning, when I wake up, I check out my window to make sure the coconut

tree across the street is still there, still full of all its yellow fruit and still waving its

frilly, shiny leaves. To me, he has become a sort of icon or status symbol, not of

wealth, but more of health. He presides over the chicken coop and keeps watch over

the other fruit bearing tees.

 

 

 

 

To the Coconut King's right and left are mango trees. To the right, you can see

several banana trees.

 

That white thing at the bottom of the picture is not a washing machine, as you may

think, but it's a garbage bin (on the bottom) and a mail box (on the top). The bottom

part has become obsolete with the arrival of the modern garbage bin (seen to the left of the

white box). However, the mail box is still in use.

 

 

 

Here's a close up of His Majesty.

I am not a tree hugger. I don't think I've ever hugged a tree in my entire life. But, a tree like this one
deserves some respect, wouldn't you think? It's just bursting with coconuts. I've counted over 27 of them and I can only see one side of the tree! This one tree could feed a whole battalion. Or brigade. Or troop. Or whatever you call them. One hundred soldiers. Or children.

I suspect that, one of these days, someone will manage to get all those coconuts down. There will be a feast then! (I hope I'm invited!)

The Haze is Back

Don't you love it? That white veil of haze that makes you feel like you're gasping for air? It's back, thank you, Indonesia!

Hey! I thought burning palm trees was illegal? Isn't it? Or did they stop trying to enforce the law over there? When you look at an aerial view of SE Asia, it seems most of Indonesia and part of Borneo is ON FIRE. What's with that?

I have taken to wearing a surgical mask for the first time ever. It may be hilarious to see a White Westerner trucking around with her face covered up with sunglasses and a mask, but it's necessary. Besides, maybe somebody will get the message.

But not.

Health doesn't seem to be a major concern around here. I'm sitting in my kitchen, playing the guitar, when an ugly, deep, rumbling noise rudely interrupts me. I quickly put down the guitar and run to look out the front window.

As I had feared, a huge cloud of white chemicals is rolling up to my front door!

"No! No! NO!"

I clamber to pull the upper windows closed but white gas has already seeped into every crack and crevice. I get the bright idea to go and open the back door to let some of it escape but, as I do, the rumble is approaching at the front of the houses behind mine, letting go another cloud that bellows towards my house.

Then, five minutes later, the chemical bomber is dispersing more DDT in the alley directly behind my back door causing a complete white-out! Now I'm fully covered ---in DDT!

I wonder how toxic this is. Is it my imagination, or are my muscles seizing up? Well, at any rate, this must be preferable to Dengue Fever, or Malaria. Right?

Where did I put that surgical mask?

I Love Malacca, Malaysia

 

 

A shop front

 

A really big tree.

 

A clock tower in a square and guys taking pics

 

A romantically decorated rick-shaw

 

A bridge over the river

 

 

 

Two of my dear friends invited me on a trip to Malacca while I was staying in Malaysia. It was so much fun to be a tourist! We went in and out of tourist shops and looked at all kinds of touristy things! And we even took a trip on the river!

 

We call this river Stinky River haha because it is.

 

 

I have to admit that I lovingly call these "pimp wagons" ha.

 

 

Yummy!

 

The Geographer is a well-known restaurant in town.

 

Mobiles hanging on a wall in a shop

Colourful dragons

 

colours and construction

 

Arts fartsy stuff on the buildings along the river

 

I love Malacca

 

 

 

Me at the back of the boat. (I got some sun that day.)

Snow

                                 Pictures taken from the front of my son's house in Calgary


When the snow falls, it changes the atmosphere and energy of your surroundings. Even the acoustics change. It just feels so different!

I mean, besides being FREEZING COLD, there's this strange new feeling introduced into every day living. And there's piles and piles of white stuff suddenly in the way, on your car, all over your back porch, under your tires and accumulating on everything.

Unlike what I have seen in the past in Ontario, the highways here in the Calgary area are thick with a deep layer of snow and where the snow has been pressed down, a thick layer of ice. This is actually something I didn't see in Ontario during the winter. The highways there were hastily cleared with ploughs that also put down a layer of gravel and that quite effectively.

Now, whether the snow was just falling too quickly to be cleared away fast enough, I don't know but I have been told that the snow ploughs don't even enter the residential neighbourhoods! How odd.

So, how does this affect driving?

In one trip to church and back, I saw half a dozen cars pulled over and several collisions. And backed up traffic.

My son said,
"You have to drive as though you have no brakes, because you actually don't. If you step on the brake, you'll slide sideways, so instead of using your brake, you just gear down."

It seemed some people were not aware that they had to keep a greater distance from the car in front of them and so, as we saw, there were rear-enders going on.

Sunday, the snow came down constantly all day long! I started thinking it would be easier to drive a snowmobile on the highway than a car. And,  four-wheel-drive would be a great help.

Notable Differences

Besides not getting my fingers and toes warm enough, there are other noticeable differences in my surroundings since returning to Canada. For one thing, Where are all the bugs?

Take the kitchen for example. There is no struggle for dominance over uninvited critters! You can leave the sugar uncovered and never see a single ant. Yes, my friends in the tropics, not one ant approaches the counter. At most, a lone fruit fly may show up if there's a really old banana sitting out. (All the fruit is generally inaccessible to them being in the fridge.)

So, now, this is a good thing. I mean, it's a great thing that I never have to scope out the bathroom for a cockroach before entering. There are none. There are not even small cockroaches, much less the stretch-limos we're used to seeing in Malaysia. And forget about seeing a cloud of termites all over your living room floor, dropping their wings like dry leaves that dissipate into every crack and cranny.

That's not happening. Not here in Calgary. No bugs!

For that matter, neither are there any snakes nor lizards scooting around. And definitely, no RATS. Believe it or not, it is said that Alberta has eliminated all rats from their province! Go figure THAT.

What we do have here are basements. These are rarely if ever seen in the tropics. In the cold North, a house must have a basement. That's to anchor the house solidly through the freezing and thawing of the ground, something that's not a problem in a consistently warm climate.

Sidewalks are also something we take for granted here. If you happen to spend time as a pedestrian, you'll appreciate the pristine condition of Albertan sidewalks. You'll also appreciate the consideration of drivers here who will immediately bring their cars to a dead stop should you even look like you might be heading out onto the road.

Something that has impressed me here is the rich blue colour of the sky. It's just a lot bluer than in other places for some reason. And the clouds are fluffier, too, it seems to me. No kidding!

And, last but not least are the autumn leaves! The trees just burgeon with red, yellow, orange and gold at this time of the year! Pretty!

Calgary Accomodations

Just as a personal reflection, I'd have to say that Calgary is "dry". I mostly notice it at the skin level. After having lived for the past two years in Malaysia where water sits on the surface of one's skin 24/7, probably one of the first things I noticed after arriving here is that my skin is not wet anymore. In fact, it's cracking up! I became a little obsessed with finding natural hand creams, face moisturizers and body lotion.

The second thing I took note of is the "cookie-cutter" housing. (Watch out cuz I think I'm going to get a little negative here and quite possibly over exaggerate by expressing my own opinions.)

Because the landscape is mostly flat with only a little gentle rolling to it, entire housing developments can be seen with the naked eye from quite a distance. And they all look the same.

Ok, to be fair, I have to specify that these are recent housing developments. You can go back as far as two decades and find that the same-looking siding was used on hundreds of attached homes as well as the same roofs, windows and doors. Talk about cookie cutter. And every home situated in the same neighbourhood has the exact same layout inside.

I prefer random.

Ha! My grandsons like to use that word "random" in ways that I never would have imagined. And, in many cases, it sounds like they're using it to describe something that was either annoying, disgusting or generally unpleasant. (What does random mean, anyway?) To these kids, things are either "random" or "cool" and it seems they can't be both. Right?

However, when it comes to housing, I prefer something unique. Let's use that word instead. You know, a home that looks like it's a bit different than all the others, in a neighbourhood with houses that are all a little unique in some shape or form. Either the front door is a different colour, or there are different shaped shutters besides the windows. Possibly an awning or front walk stands out as being (God forbid) different.

Perhaps the housing that has sprung up so quickly in Calgary attests to the "big boom" that made Alberta famous for having the strongest economy in Canada. In essence, I believe it still does have. The oil industry is still alive and well and enticing newcomers from all over the country and the world.

And, as long as there are people willing to rent or buy a house that's identical to their neighbours', these type of dwellings will continue to proliferate. And any exceptions will just be "random".