New furniture

Julia has been wanting to get some quality Indonesian made furniture even before we arrived in Jakarta. The other day, one of friends in the apartment complex was selling a nice teak piece that Julia really liked so we bought it and had our cleaning guy bring it over to our place. It is solid "old teak" and is quite heavy. We are quite pleased with the quality and style of it as well.

Now we'll have to figure out how to get and any other pieces we acquire back to the USA. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Doss

Thoughts on food storage and preparedness

I was raised in a LDS home that valued self-reliance and preparedness.  I have many childhood memories working with my parents and siblings in the family garden raising our own food.  Now as an adult, I would like to teach these values and skill sets to my own children and also be as prepared as we reasonable can be. 

Back when we lived stateside, we had a small (mostly defunct) garden in raised beds and a couple months worth of food and water.  It was a good start, but we never did reach the ideal goal of a year supply due to a variety of reasons, the main one being that we frequently moved with my job. 

Now that we live overseas, it is even more challenging.  As I talk with other expats, I have come to realize that we all feel a bit vulnerable knowing that we don't have our family network nearby to rely on in an emergency.  Luckily, we have made many friends here in Jakarta and are actively involved in the Mormon church here which makes a great network for us.  The catch is that few expats stay around for much more than 2-3 years, so the network is always changing.  Also, I have not found a place to buy supplies for long-term food storage in Jakarta.  Even so, I think it is prudent to have a plan for preparing for possible emergencies.

We currently have a couple weeks worth of food, water, and butane for a small, portable cooking burner.  We also have the other basics like 72 hour kit, flashlights, batteries, hand tools, 5 gallon gas can, a small tent, etc.  I think a reasonable goal is to work up to having a 3 month supply of food.  We can always eat it down before we leave.  We are also planning to increase the number of edible potted plants on our balconies.  We also considering staging long-term food storage (shelf life >25 years) at family members' houses back in Texas so that they can use it if needed, and we can also pick it up when we return.

Any more than 3 months of food is likely just going to be given away when we leave and never used under any reasonable scenario.  It would allow us to ride out the most likely emergency situations like significant storms, flooding, earthquake, volcanic eruption, power/water outages, and even short-term civil unrest.  If things get worse than this, the company should evacuate us to a safe place.  Also, if I was laid off, the company policy is to pay for my family and myself to get back to our home location and we would then get our stored food storage.

If we encounter an end of the world situation, well then, all bets are off.  Obviously, we would not be able to count on hopping on a plane or boat to get back home.  And traveling from Indonesia back to Texas without modern transportation is a bit beyond my current skill set.  In reality, I am not sure I'd want to be one of the "lucky" ones to survive the initial crisis.  As has been popularized by so many recent movies and other media about the end of the world, it wouldn't be a fun time anyway. 

Although, finding a deserted island to live on does have some appeal (I thoughly enjoyed reason Robinson Crusoe).  After all, Indonesia has ~18,000 islands and only 1/3 are populated...

Indonesian wedding reception

Last night, we attended a wedding reception for one of my co-workers.  The event was held at a large hall purpose built for holding gatherings like this one.  There were literally hundreds of guests in attendance and abundant food located a different locations around the venue.  We stayed for about an hour until it started to get too hot and the kids started getting too tired.  It was nice to be invited and socialize a bit with some of my co-workers.

The couple are from west Sumatra near Padang and are wearing traditional dress.  I didn't take the picture below, but one of my other co-workers did.

Camping

Joseph and I went camping last night on a father and sons' campout with friends from church.  We went to the same place as last year, but got a different campsite.  The road to the campsite was significantly rougher to get to the new site.  My friend's mini-van had trouble climbing the loose rock trail, but the Kijang climbed like a champ.  We had a great time and headed back to Jakarta mid-morning.