GENERATIONS

My great-grandfather was born 200 years ago… two hundred, that's correct! What a year that was! Napoleon met his Waterloo and Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies—now Indonesia—blew its top in the biggest explosive eruption in recorder history. Louis XVIII was brought back as King of France, and in Prussia Otto von Bismarck was born on April 1^st. And Saartjie Baartman died on 29 December. She was famous for her very large buttocks[1] and was displayed in freak shows in Europe under the name of Hottentot Venus.[2] The modern version of a freak show is reality TV such as Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and incidentally, Kim K's buttocks, although not of Saartjie's size, are quite ample, too.

Quite a colourful list of happenings. And maybe this did contribute to my great-grandfather's extra­ordinary life. But just imagine, two hundred years. A statistically-normal age gap of four generations is around 90 years. In my case the four-generation gap is 125 years, a whole "generation" was thus added without any visible bodies to show for it.

Saartjie Baartman, the Hottentot Venus

Great-grandfather, as recounted by my grandmother, was an excellent swimmer and an outstanding horseman. His third marriage, of which I'm a descendant, was to the artistic daughter of the then famous author, Karl Gutzkow. She, a penniless painter and 35 years his junior, instantly earned the contempt of her family. You have sold your soul, they scornfully told her. But the real reason, according to my grandmother, their only child, was that the family had hoped to be included in the will of the rich uncle—his sister's son had married the older Gutzkow daughter Clara.

Anyway, it hadn't gotten as far as a will yet. Great-grandfather, Jean Doré Wunderly, but called Père by his wife and daughter, was far from dead and produced a daughter, my grandmother Dora. A very lively and strong-willed lady who likely took after her father. He had made a name for himself by diving off the Rhine bridge in Mainz; later when managing the tropical products import firm in Amsterdam he became the talk of the town when he rode his horse up the stairs of the Gentlemen's Club. He had inherited the firm in Amsterdam from an uncle and it became the source of his great wealth. Born a German, he was a pre-European as he acquired the Dutch nationality for tax and administrative reasons, and when he foresaw a decline in the tropical oils and fats prospects, he sold out and left for Paris where he became a French national.

During the French-Prussian war of 1870 he did, however, discover that he could not stand the French aggressively patriotic view of themselves and their fellow Europeans, and built himself a house in Bühlen, Switzerland. It is there that he met his to-be third wife, and where eventually my grandmother was born.

My grandmother who is the source of this information said that he was rather difficult and very strict in enforcing his wishes on those around him, but also interesting, and intellectually and physically alert. A nice epitaph, I think. 

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[1] Called steatopygiam a large accumulation of fat in and around the buttocks.

[2] Hottentot was then the name of the Khoikhoi people of southern Africa; now it is considered an offensive name. 

QUINOA, a very tasty seed...

I had read about quinoa quite some time ago. It was referred to as the Gold of the Andes for its nutritional value as it is high in protein. This seems to be confirmed by Wikipedia: Quinoa (the name is derived from the Spanish spelling of the Quecha name kinwa) originated in the Andean region of Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, where it was domesticated 3,000 to 4,000 years ago for human consumption... Quinoa seeds contain essential amino acids like lysine and acceptable quantities of calcium, phosphorus, and iron.

Interestingly, 2013 was declared the International Year of Quinoa by the United Nations General Assembly in recognition of the Andean people who have preserved it as a food for present and future generations, through knowledge and practices of living in harmony with nature.

And then I found it at the O Clinic (Jl. Prapanca Raya No.20, Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta) where I go once a month for acupuncture treatment. And while I have your attention, Dr Sisilia is a very accomplished acupuncturist and medical herbalist. Instructions on how to prepare quinoa were included, together with a few recipe suggestions.

I tried mixing quinoa with rice, which was not bad, but a bit bland. What I do, however, recommend is to mix quinoa into mashed potatoes. This is the way I made it.

Ingredients:

4-5 medium sized potatoes
1 cup of quinoa                                                                                                      
3-5 cloves of garlic crushed and chopped small
1/2 cup of sour cream, or, 1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon of paprika powder
salt to taste

Directions:

1   Peel and quarter the potatoes and boil till done. And at the same time...
2   Boil the quinoa for 10 to 15 minutes in 2 cups of water (plus a little bit to avoid crusting at the bottom of the pan). The quinoa should be soft when done.
3   Mash the potatoes to the desired consistency and add the garlic and the sour cream (or olive oil) and paprika powder.
4   Add the quinoa, mix well, and salt to taste.

SEPTIC SHOCK, a shocker...

The doctor in Emergency expressed his surprise that I was still alive. This was the morning after I had been admitted in the middle of the night. At that age and the state he was in, he said, they normally die within a few hours, adding that I must have a very strong heart.

When I was admitted I was extremely short of breath and barely conscious. I was given oxygen and the hospital then wanted to know how I was going to pay for further treatment. A blood test showed that my kidneys did not function properly, and they guessed that my breathing problem was caused by pneumonia. This was later confirmed by a chest x-ray.

After clearing the financial matters I was put on an intravenous drip. A proper cocktail—antibiotics, liquid to prevent dehydration, a blood thinner to prevent clotting, and one or two more. I was also put on three-full-days of slow dialysis as my urea and creatinine levels were far too high due to my kidneys not functioning properly.

Of course, only much later, did I find that out. The first night in Emergency and the happenings during the subsequent four or five days in the Intensive Care Unit were revealed to me by Y who had handled the administrative and financial interactions with the hospital administration, and made recordings of the proceedings. On the photographs she had taken I hardly recognise myself... tubes and IVs, dark almost black blood going into the dialyser and coming out bright red, oxygen tubes in the nose, and my mouth half-open desperately trying to suck in more air. Looking at the photos now, I do understand the Emergency doctor's surprise that I was still alive.

When I finally started to notice my surroundings and the fact that I was lying in a hospital bed—still in ICU—I got another shock when I saw S standing at my bedside. I looked from her to Y and tried to ask how that was possible, but my dried out mouth and crusted lips could not form the right words. Apparently, when observing my confusion, S told Y, wait till he sees who else is in the room! And yes, I was nearly stupefied when I noticed E. For years she had refused to see me and talk to me, and now, there she was.

Communication was a pain. I couldn't talk as the words came out garbled or not at all, and my attempts at writing a cohesive sentence were not much better. I wanted to ask what had happened and what  progress had been made and started drawing a squiggly line. When that was not understood I indicate that I wanted to write,
I mant (meant) a a p r
   prooogress (with the "g" on top of the third "o") Scha^rrrt
     charnt
and finally, CHART

I remembered that before going to the hospital I had diagnosed myself as suffering from dengue, and consequently wanted info on the platelet count (thrombocytes, found in large numbers in blood and involved in clotting). This is what I wrote,  platatelets ? The platelet count had fallen to 22K (should be from 150-400K per mm³) but not because of dengue fever, but because of kidney malfunction, I was told.

And using writing as the medium of communication I finally found out what I was suffering from:  septic shock caused by pneumonia and acute kidney injury. I couldn't believe it. How could I suddenly develop pneumonia, and my kidneys were doing fine—urine clear and apart from the 2cm-stone that was sitting in the bladder, there was no injury as far as I remembered.

My last attempt at communicating was:
I wamt to savoe (with the "v" superimposed on the "o") this to remember the mame  (I want to save this to remember the name).

That was mid-September of last year. I have recuperated since then though still not sufficiently to have recovered the muscle-mass I lost. Tennis is thus still off for one or two months.  

The POISONWOOD BIBLE

Barbara Kingsolver's best seller, The Poisonwood Bible, was published in 1998. It's the gripping story of the Price family. Nathan, a Baptist preacher-missionary obsessed with ramming Jesus down African throats, moved his wife and four daughters in 1959 from Georgia (US) to the Belgian Congo. He is narrow minded and obsessed, a misogynist amidst his four women, inflexible and totally closed to the intricacies and strength of the culture and spiritual life of the village of Kilanga and its inhabitants. In this day and age, after 911 and incessant bombings in the US, the Middle East, and Indonesia, to name a few places, I believe, that mentality would be classified as hardliner, although I have never heard the term being applied to a Protestant. 

His wife Orleanna is a prime victim of the husband and the situation. The four daughters—Rachel who is very blond and 15 when they arrive in the Congo, wants nothing more than to return to Georgia and become the belle of the ball. The twins Leah and Adah, one year younger than Rachel, are identical in respect of their tremendous intelligence, but physically totally different. Leah is a tomboy daring, outspoken and enterprising, while Adah, hemiplegic[1] from birth, is restricted in her movements and does not want to speak. Ruth May, the five years old late arrival, is playful and independent and the first one to establish a contact with the village children.

The villagers are not interested in the fire and brimstone sermons of Nathan Price and strongly oppose his endeavours to baptise them in the river. His sermons are translated by Anatole, the highly intelligent village teacher and only one who speaks English. The village chief Tata Ndu is against the foreign intrusion and the attempts to erode his authority. A shadowy South African bush pilot delivers their monthly rations from Leopoldville.

When in 1960 the Congo gains independence from Belgium, Nathan Price is instructed by his Mission HQ to leave the Congo and return to America. He refuses and against the wishes of his females he decides to stay. The monthly rations are terminated together with the 50 dollar stipend.

Times are dire and just to feed the family a daily problem. When suddenly Tata Ndu pays them regular visits they are very confused not having any idea what is happening. When their helper Nelson, who has been placed there by Anatole, explains to Orleanna that the village chief wants to marry Rachel—because the blonde would be entertaining for his six wives. Rachel throws a tantrum and demands to be repatriated, which only results in her having to copy the appropriate Bible texts, the ones that refer to honouring thy father...

Nathan comes up with the idea to pretend that Rachel had already been promised to Eeben Axelroot, the bush pilot.

The evening I read that I woke up in the middle of the night, not really woke up, more like a vivid dream where I had a very active role to play as director and writer of the scenario. In a country where, after independence, whites were paraded naked in the streets of Leopoldville, or just shot, resisting the wishes of a village chief was not advisable. Would Eeben be shot, Rachel be abducted, the whole family chased out of the village, or poisoned...? I couldn't come up with a satisfactory solution.

I'm not going to tell you how it all ends. Read it yourself. It was a bestseller in 1998 and selected by Oprah for her book club, and it still is good. I strongly recommend.

Jakarta, 21 August 2013

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[1] Paralysis of one side of the body

PALU, a change for the better

  - Why was I not woken up, I asked the girl in the reception.

- The telephone does not work.

- You could have sent someone to knock on my door, couldn't you! To which there was no reply. And to my question where breakfast was served she pointed vaguely to somewhere behind me.

It was the same large empty space where the evening before I had had a beer—warm, or diluted with ice, and large bottles only—and had observed a group of rather sullen looking local young men sipping their drinks. They could best be described with the German word Halbstarke, which freely translated means "partially-strong", the English term yobbo denotes too much noisy aggressiveness.

That morning the empty bottles had been removed, but the ashtrays were still full. They were the triangular type, pressed from a thin sheet of metal and originally coloured a metallic pink or blue. Heavy use and a lot of banging around had removed most of the colour, however.

I cleared the table and got my nasi goreng from the breakfast buffet together with a cup of lukewarm coffee. The fruit, runny overripe papaya, and the watery orange syrup I passed up. In all fairness, the rice was not half bad, especially after I had added some salted soya sauce with chillies.

Palu is the capital of the Indonesian province of Central Sulawesi and the hotel was an effort by the provincial government to support tourism. Located on the beach it must originally have been attractive. A swimming pool in the shape of intertwined circles had been empty for quite some time, and was now used as a garbage dump. By whom? The hotel, or its neighbours? A fishing community, drenched in poverty, living on the seafront in sheds that were poorly constructed of driftwood and woven bamboo.

But this, of course, was tens of years ago when most roads in Palu were still unpaved and electricity was provided 12 hours a day. I had come to assess the developmental progress of a number of projects to the southeast of the town, quite some distance actually. And the road was an endless string of slow kilometres. I was tired and was glad to have reached the hotel that, from a distance, looked promising. Moreover, the shower worked and the sheets were worn but looked clean.

After my shower I went out to have dinner. The restaurant I had been recommended served Padang-style food. It was empty when I arrived and upon my request was told that today's choice was chicken and grilled fish and steamed papaya leaves with a light yellow curry. The food, although not really Padang in taste, was good and I complimented the owner when she came and sat at my table to ask where I was from and what I was doing in Palu. She even wanted to know from what part of Holland I was. She was from North Sulawesi, and when I told her that I had been in Manado the previous month, she answered that she was from Tomohon, not Manado.

- So how come you are not serving roasted pork, I asked. I had noticed the little cross hanging from a chain around her neck.

- There is more demand for halal food, was her explanation.

Could be, but with me the only customer, it looked more like limited demand whatever the menu.

Swiss-Belhotel Silae Palu

Central Sulawesi has been taken up in the developmental surge of the past decades. Swiss-Belhotel is now the main hospitality provider in town, and with Swiss know-how they have created a very attractive place indeed. 

TERNATE – mixed opinions

I remember Ternate from my first visit in the early-80s of last century—wow, that is 30 years ago. And an enjoyable working visit it was. Sitting in my hotel room one night, working on my notes, a sudden desire for pastis came over me. I went across the street where I had seen a general merchandise store and asked for a bottle of Pernod. The owner reached behind him and wiping the bottle, placed it on the counter. Only then did I realise that my request must have been out of the ordinary, and even more astonishing was that the bottle of Pernod was available. I shook my head in wonder and asked the owner why he stocked Pernod, I wouldn't expect much demand for the stuff in Ternate...!

- Yes, he said, you are the first one to ask for it for years. I had bought a box of six bottles about two years ago when a group of French marine biologists were staying in town for more than half a year. They drank five bottles and you now take the last one. Now no more!

Remarkable! And I am not even a regular Pernod drinker. Thinking back, I could have asked for Campari, which I drink about as often as Pernod. That last bottle must have called out to me! At the end of my stay I took it home where it lasted another year.

During that same trip I did something that I now hardly dare to admit! Remember, this is the 1980s and environmental awakening was only starting. In restaurant Garuda (I think it was called) I helped to reduce the population of the local coconut crab by one. The taste is indescribable, a super lobster maybe. And the best part is that, unlike regular crabs, there is no hard work to get the tiny bits of meat out. This crab is full of easily accessible meat. I would have eaten two if there had been more, but we finished the daily, or maybe weekly, supply. Then already one had to order in advance, or be lucky, to get them.

Two coconut crabs

Coconut crabs are solitary and thus nearly impossible to breed in commercial quantities. And they have no chance to survive in areas where humans have developed a taste for them. Even in those days they must have been from islands other than Ternate, and nowadays they are most likely as rare as the dodo.

For the protection of the remaining few—wherever they may be—I here reproduce the illustration made by Georgius Everhardus Rumphius for his Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet (1705). Not one of his clearest drawings, but to put potential consumers off the coconut crab, it couldn't be better. Disgusting, isn't it!

A friend of mine recently visited Ternate. To my question whether he had been able to locate restaurant Garuda he answered with a short no, but also stated that he had been so disappointed with the hotel where he was staying that he had cut his trip short and thus had not really had time to look for the restaurant. He apparently had stayed in the best hostelry in town and had been glad to get a flight out the next day. The staff were uninterested and incapable (my friend's Indonesian is not too strong, so that might help to explain the problem), the sheets were full of kretek burn holes and quite grey, and when he flushed the toilet the contents of the septic tank floated on the bathroom floor. He managed to get another room, but it was not the de lux type he had ordered.

He vowed never to go back and would advise anybody who asked not to go there..

An unfortunate upset for the tourist promotion efforts of the island, but good news for the coconut crabs.... if there are any left.

Reference:
GE Rumphius, The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet, 1705

A free booklet...

The headline states Reduce Belly Fat—the easy way! A completely free manual on how to lose ten pounds during the first two weeks. That is, ten pounds of fat, not water. Pounds that will not come back the moment you don't pay attention. Without cravings, endless exercises and boring treadmill. Just 7 minutes a day. And I include my easy weight loss recipes for delicious meals and snacks.

And yours completely free.

My good friend Johny B. Good, who used to be called Chubby and now is a sought after fashion model, has come up with this unique method after many years of trying and spending countless dollars of his own money on research. It is rally fabulous and it works. You must have seen him in Calvin Klein knickers...

Now why would he want to give his programme away, you will ask. Right? Well, it's my doing. He owed me one and I convinced him that by making this public he would not only do me a favour, but all the others who want to shed pounds, too.

You see, I have recently noticed that my weight is increasing and my waist expanding. So, before I'm called Tubby or Fatso, I decided to do something about it. And therefore, this programme: Reduce Belly Fat—the easy way!

Right, so now you know why my mate Johny parted with his programme for free. That leaves the question, why would I let you have the programme and my mouth-watering recipes for free?

We'll come to that shortly, but first I want to give you some important information on the digestive system and how and why fat accumulates around the waist (for men) and around the derrière—the nates if you don't speak French—and thighs for the opposite sex...

... and on and on it goes ...

Usually this type of presentation does not have a fast forward button, and to find out what the real purpose and cost is one has to suffer through, or never know.

Just pressing 'delete' is not the answer either as the sender will not find out, and probably there are enough 'yes, sign me up' responses to make this a viable endeavour.

And what will the search engines make of this blog... a free booklet...? Must be a spelling mistake. 

How little we know...

Yesterday was my father's birthday. Had he lived he would have been 106, worthy of a mention in a local newspaper and a visit by the mayor—the Queen, or under current conditions the King, no longer sends birthday wishes to those over one hundred years of age.

Thinking about my father I suddenly realized how little I know about him. I lived in his house for some 20 years and saw him occasionally thereafter, but about the years before my birth and after I left the house I know virtually nothing. He studied economics in Rotterdam but dropped out... when and why I don't know. I have a photograph of him sitting on a horse, posture of a cavalry officer—he dreamt of becoming one, I was told but never was enlisted. His horse riding days were cut short by his father for reasons unknown to me and he never managed to learn how to drive though the family was wealthy and possessed several cars. With a friend he had started an insurance brokerage firm. I met him in his office sometimes when he took me for lunch. And when it became obvious that I was interested in girls he told me that there were girls to bed and girls to wed. The last time I saw him he was in a rehab-centre sitting on his bed in light blue adult nappies, trying to put his trousers on. He didn't know me anymore, asking my mother whom I accompanied on the visit: Who is the gentleman with you?

His father I might have met ten or twelve times in my whole life, and his older sister less than that, I called her "Madam" when meeting her for, what I thought, was the first time when I was 12 or so. Grandmother had died long before I was born; even my mom had never met her. She had a colonial background, I was told, probably a bit mixed in lineage, but that was not talked about as it was considered a blemish in their societal stratum.

My mother, on the other hand, had kept diaries since she was 12 and had kept them all. When living in her beloved Dordogne she re-read them and worked them into 110 typewritten pages of her life, that is, her life till she was pregnant with her first child, my sister. We found this document among her papers when she died at the ripe old age of 98. I took it with me and translated it from the original German into English to make it more accessible to my five children who do not have enough German to be able to appreciate it.

When I think about my mother I always wish I could have read it earlier, when she was still alive. It is a window on her past and a clear indication that as an adolescent she had been lost and lonely, misunderstood and forced into a role she did not want. She was sent off to keep her grandmother company. The grandmother who still lived in the 19^th century and who did not allow her granddaughter to follow a secondary education that would have given access to university. Instead she was groomed in social skills for an early marriage.

During the last decades of her life she often mentioned to me that she had not been a good mother; my vehement denial she would gratefully accept, but it did not convince her. With the hindsight provided by the diaries, I can see that most of all she had craved to be loved... If only I had known, how much more could I have shown her that I did love her and that she was a great mother?

Knowing-not knowing is of course not single directional. The question can also be asked: how much did my parents know about me, or my sister? I was a difficult adolescent, for sure. I hid from their view, did not express myself, except in opposition. And I stayed that way long after puberty.

This unprovoked rambling is partly the result of realising that a long time ago my father had passed away, and that I had never really known him. But it is also caused by some questions about my previous blog where I mix up periods and people and a bit of fantasy; is that true, how come we never knew, was the gist of the reactions.