Happy Thanksgiving 2009

We hosted Thanksgiving for some friends in what has become a mini tradition. Lauren and Alona worked hard to prepare the fixings and our home. We had our neighbors, the Figovs (Sean, Sue, Joel and Erin) from upstairs; Our friends Joanna and Dan Barry; our friends Susan and David Fedo and Leah's friend Ashmita. Notice that Jane was not with us. She had an opportunity to travel to Cebu in the Philippines for a service trip. We missed her, but I am sure she is having a great time.

We ate many of the traditional foods - stuffed celery, sugared cranberries, turkey, stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, and of course pumpkin pie, apple pie and a wonderful pumpkin cake that Lauren made.

We missed all our family and friends at home and hope you all had a good Thanksgiving.

Jed and Lauren

Eating local at the Hawker Centers

One of my favorite things about living in Singapore has been eating local. Almost everyday I work, I get lunch from a "hawker center" across the street from my office. Hawker centers were created by the Singapore government after they decided they could never be a 1st world country if there were many street vendors selling food on the streets as you still see in many SE Asian countries. So, Singapore built "hawker centers" where people can rent stalls and sell food. These are great places to get really cheap, and really good food. They are graded for cleanliness by the government (notice the B grade on the stall in the pictures). They tend to specialize in a particular food and each hawker center typically has many stalls. The one near my work is known as "The Golden Shoe" and has two floors of stalls. Some of the food you can find include wanton noodle soup, chicken rice, nasi padang, briyani chicken, mee goreng, and most importantly the local coffee and tea.

In the pictures you will see my two favorite stalls and they happen to be right next to each other. One is the stall where I get my tea each day. The coffee and tea in Singapore is a bit different. First of all, it is called Kopi and Teh (both Malay words). The Teh I order is called "Teh-C Siew Dai". Teh-C is a powdered tea made with carnation evaporated milk (the "C" stands for carnation) and sugar. It is quite sweet, but very good. I order it "siew dai" which means "less sweet" so they put less sugar in it. Lauren loves the "Kopi bing" which is iced coffee. Again, it is very good. This couple that runs this stand have become good friends, although I can not always understand what they are saying. In the picture you see their two daughters because it is currently school vacation here in Singapore.

The other stand is the best wanton noodle soup stand in all of Singapore. I get this for lunch about once a week. They always have a long queue. Often I order in the morning when I get my Teh-C and they have it ready for me, so I can skip the queue. By the way, the Teh-C costs SGD .90 which is about USD .65 and the wanton noodle soup costs SGD 3.70 for take-away, which is about USD 2.70.

I often say that the two national sports of Singapore are eating and shopping. Those who know me know that I don't like shopping (I am my father's son - a cheap yankee), but the eating is great in Singapore!

Just for you, Ryan O.

Lauren and I were given some tickets to the opera here in Singapore and we could not use them, so we gave them to Alona, our Helper. Here are a couple of photos of her and Cecil, her friend. Alona is on the left. I hope this satisfies you, Young Ryan.

Good luck on T-Day.

Jed

October/November update

Hi everyone. We wanted to share some photos from a few events in October and November. Lauren has enjoyed spinning class at the American Club and recently there was a "spin marathon" to raise money for Breast Cancer awareness. The American Club team booked a two hour slot and Lauren and our friend and neighbor, Gretchen both participated for the full two hours. It was held at an outside area of Plaza Singapura, one of the many malls in Singapore. They did really well and were led by their favorite teacher, Arziz, who you can see in the picture of four of them below.

The second event was, of course, Halloween! There is a neighborhood in the north of Singapore called the Woodlands where many American families live because it is near the American School. Halloween in the Woodlands is crazy! We were invited to the Hurst's house. Leah is friends with Maddie Hurst and they live in the midst of the craziness. You can see some photos which really do not do it justice. Some houses have to be prepared with 4000 + pieces of candy.

Next, Jane and her friends from school came to our house to bake pies for the SAS food fest. At the food fest, all the various clubs at SAS run a booth to raise money for their club. The club these girls are in is a club that works with disabled adults who live in a group home. They decided to sell apple pie and spent the afternoon and evening baking about 12 pies!

Finally, the big event was the oldest boy turning 18. It is hard to believe we have an 18 year old. Our celebration was low-key with a nice dinner and, of course, cake. He also enjoyed opening his cards from family and friends. Many thanks for thinking of him.

That's it for now. Enjoy the photos below.

Lauren and Jed

October/November update

October/November update

Mom and Leah Smoking a Cheroot - Actual Video

Mom and Leah Smoking a Cheroot

On our trip to Myanmar in October, we watched local girls hand rolling Cheroots - Myanmar cigars that many of the men there smoke. The girls can roll about 1,000 cigars each day, and get paid depending on how many they roll. There is a short clip below of a girl rolling the charoute. The girls gave us a charoute as a 'souvenir'. Mom tried it - and so did Leah! I was too wimpy, and I'm glad I didn't, because neither one of them liked it very much.

Just wanted to post these videos to share the experience with you. It was very funny to watch Leah take her puff!

xoxo

Jane

A Bit Homesick

I understand the fall days, and leaves, have been beautiful this month. I know the clocks have been turned back, making us 13 hours apart, and queuing you for the winter months ahead. Football is on the TV, and our NHS friends are playing in the stadium. Turkeys are being ordered. All this makes me a bit homesick for New England, family and friends.

It is interesting to live in a place where we don't have seasons or cooler temperatures. Days are same-same, with the sun setting and rising at the same time of day-everyday. We don't have football, and our ovens are way too small to roast a turkey.

November is one of my favorite months, and Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. Although I miss this time of year in New England, I am thankful for how well I have it in Singapore. As ex-pats we live a great lifestyle, in our borrowed home (with air conditioning!), in the heart of the city, in a tropical rain forest. Jed will buy our cooked turkey from The American Club on his way home from work, friends will join us for dinner and we will give thanks.

So as much as I am missing home at the moment, and as grateful as I am for this life I am living, I am looking forward to joining you all back home to appreciate this wonderful season next year.

With Love~
Lauren

Rewards for the Summer Yard Sale

Hi all,

Thank you for your support of Leah's and Claire's yard sale this past summer. They raised enough money for Journeys Within Our Community to send a young girl to college in Cambodia for two years. Here is an email we received from JWOC. We thought you might enjoy it. Leah and Claire hope to raise additional funds this summer so they can pay for two more years for Seky.



Dear Leah and Claire,

I hope you are well. I wanted to write and thank you again for your very kind donation towards our JWOC Scholarship Programme. I am very happy to be able to write to you and let you that we now have a scholarship student to be supported by your kind donation. We have just completed a round of applications in which we had 226 applications! We were able to invite 54 for interview and have chosen 23 new students!

I am really happy to inform you about the student you are now supporting. The student will be writing to you herself shortly so I won’t tell you too much! Her name is Seky Nguon. She is just about to start her foundation year, studying Accounting and Finance at Build Bright University. Here is a small excerpt from Seky’s application essay that highlights her desire to study to help her country:

“..I want to get education and knowledge that I can get a skill to develop myself and make my family improve and also to develop society and our country. I can also share my knowledge to my friends and my neighbors who can’t continue their studies....”

We have a system at JWOC to help support and monitor all our scholarship students. We now have a growing number of students, thanks to your kind support and assign each student an individual mentor. Andrea Ross, JWOC Founder, is the mentor for Seky. The mentors will be able to meet with the students on a more regular basis and follow their progress at university more closely. They will also be able to talk to the students about their time spent volunteering with JWOC and their future plans. Mentors will also be able to answer any specific questions or queries you have.

A further role of the mentor programme is to ensure students follow JWOC procedures. The guidelines we have for our scholarship students are there to reaffirm the original idea behind JWOC’s Scholarship Programme - to help create socially conscious future leaders for Cambodia. The main element of our programme, as you know, is that students must volunteer at JWOC in return for their scholarship. This gives the students not only valuable experience and skills, but an approach to life which recognizes the importance of giving back to their community. Our students are also expected to do their very best at university and provide JWOC with their grades regularly. They are also expected to update you regularly on their progress and are not allowed to ask you for further money. All students will be asked to copy both their mentor and myself in on all emails to you so we can ensure this. Should Seky need extra money for something she must speak to Andrea and she will discuss the situation with her and contact you if she deems it to be a fair request. This we hope promotes our original goals to have responsible and committed students but also ensures that you, having given already, are not constantly being asked for help. Often the students see their donors as their lifeline and don’t understand the boundaries needed to make a project like this successful. I hope that you will both support us and help us to achieve these goals. Please feel free to contact Andrea (andrea@journeyswithinourcommunity.org) or myself should you feel these rules have been broken or should you have any questions at all.

Thank you for your support of Seky. We look forward to watching her progress together over the coming months. Please feel free to contact us with any questions you have. Seky will be writing to you shortly and we hope you enjoy getting to know her.

Very best wishes,

Camilla

To My Family,
Love your blog; watch it from start to finish once a month. Makes me feel close to my loved ones. What a wonderful experience you have had.
xo Auntie Kathy