You commented in another story about your wife’s response to life in BA. I’ve been wondering how I’ll find working there as a foreign woman.

I lived for 10 years in Bangladesh so I know how it is there anyway: The great majority of Bangladeshis are surprisingly cool to stricter adherence to Islamic codes of behavior. Then again there has been a great increase in the wearing of hijib especially by female students. But, then again, when you ask about that, you can get quite a discourse around the reasons and motivations behind it (perhaps not surprising as the Bengali national sport is debate and oratory).

Anyway, if in the next few weeks you see a middle aged white woman wandering around in very colorful, very original, not-quite-Indian-or-Pakistani handprinted, handmade cotton or silk shalwar-kemeez, looking somewhat disoriented, and (since I know shalwar-khemeez isn’t what’s worn in Indonesia), hopeful that I don’t look too ridiculous, that would be me!

Have you been out since that session? I bet you can’t wait to get back to the good ol OR Coast for some REAL SURF!!!

We have plenty of rocks here too you know….how is that board working out, have you upgraded yet?

It is also for practical reasons; last year I left the flag up all the time until the high winds we always get on this hill over the pond, tore it to shreds.

Hard for me to imagine that people in Banda Aceh or Zimbabwe or Baghdad grant us the high road in sponsoring freedom and dignity for everyone any longer.

But legends die hard and we cling still to the idea of our being the last best hope among the world’s nations. And, sadly, we may be.

While your neighbor was creating the public wifi cloud I was limping along in rural Vermont with a dial-up connection that, when it works, will slowly deliver email but never a video or a high resolution photo.

I go off and run an errand while I sign on to the internet.

The next day we had dinner with friends; she is a lobbyist and represents an internet service provider that specializes in rural areas and is in the process of buying Verizon, my provider who shows no interest.

So maybe one day before I die we may be as well wired in Vermont, USA as you are in Banda Aceh, Indonesia.

But I’m not holding my breath.

You leaving a gate unlatched? Unthinkable!

We should have had goats and cows in our neighborhood. The one time I remember you quickly closing our front gate was when you were out front waiting for a ride to early morning water polo practice, and a coyote – a big, bushy coyote – trotted up our street and looked you over.

Your description of losing your power and the frustrations that caused, resonated with life this summer in Vermont – our developing country. Our local power company was sold to a big company in California that was bought by a Canadian concern that sold a major portion to the Nationa Grid (whatever that is).

On our monthly bill is a line giving a number to call in case of a power outage, and telling us to explain that we are customers of Jacksonville Electric, our old company that once generated power from the dam below our house.

Two weeks ago the power went out at the beginning of a huge electrical storm. This not being unusual, I didn’t call for a couple of hours. When I did, after waiting on the line for nearly a half hour, a very pleasant woman came on (speaking American English!) who asked me my name, location, etc. When I gave it to her she said she couldn’t find me on her grid.

But she promised to tell a crew who she was sure was nearby and then would call us after they had made their repair to make sure we were back up.

I called her through the night. At 5am two guys showed up who said they had known nothing about us until just a few minutes before. We had now been without power for 12 hours and wondered how things in the fridge might be faring.

The next time we lost power, less than a week later, I called right away, but this time, instead of the nice lady I got a computer voice asking me to enter the information about who and where I was. After several minutes’ wait the computer told me the data I had entered didn’t match anything in their records and I could call back another time.

I ran over a groundhog in the big new truck on my way to tennis this morning. He ran right under my wheels. I looked in the rear view mirror and it looked as if I hadn’t killed him, just maimed him and he was struggling to drag himself into the woods. I wonder how long it may have taken him to die.

I doubt you can sleep when the power is off and you have no air conditioning.

Don’t you wonder how those people over there in those concrete houses, manage? Being an NGO in a pitifully poor place is noble and frustrating work. Learning how much you can do that is helpful and how much you need to let go, is a mystical task.

I don’t know if you remember that I used to drive over to the air strip in Triangle every week we were in Zimbabwe and meet with the immigration officer to see if my visa had come through. Every week he would grant me a week’s extension, warning me that if it didn’t come through soon, we would have to leave the country.

Two weeks before our time there was over, he greeted me enthusiastically: “Your visa has been granted!”