news 'n views

I haven't posted any pictures for awhile, so I thought I'd catch up a bit today. These are Ash's photos so if you have seen her flickr account you may already be a winner in the image sweepstakes! Still and all, I'll put my own commentary on a few of these so y'all will get my perspective on things.

But first, in other news, things here in Bangkok are heating up both climactically (as in the weather) and politically. We are usually ostriches with our heads in the sand as far as current events go - no TV ergo no awareness of what's going on in the world - but lately the situation here is getting harder to ignore. Plus I got a subscription to the Bangkok Post for christmas so as I un-stuff our mailbox every week I at least catch a glimpse of the headlines. I'm not sure how much you may have heard about Thailand these days but I'll give you a brief rundown and get you up to speed. I think I may have mentioned this stuff recently, but just for your further info...

The Prime Minister here is Mr. Thaksin Shinawatra. He's an incredibly rich businessman and he heads the Thai Rak Thai ('Thai Love Thailand') party. Thai Rak Thai won a sweeping majority in last year's election and are generally well-liked by their electorate. However, recently it has come to light that Thaksin has been involved in some shady deals. He owned a bazillion dollar company and tried to avoid conflict of interest by first 'selling' it to his kids, and then later having them sell it to Singaporeans (hidden somewhat as 'Thai' investors since media companies in Thailand can't be sold to foreigners) for two billion dollars and giving the proceeds to his kids. However, along the way the kids didn't pay taxes, the money seems to have been lightly laundered, and now Thaksin has been accused of being a few pie chart pieces shy of having told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

The opposition and even Thai Rak Thai supporters have called for Thaksin's resignation for the past month. In response, Thaksin has refused to step down but has instead called a national election. The problem is - at least as the oppostion sees it - that most Thai still quite like the TRT party and will vote for them. Many people don't trust Thaksin but don't like the other parties as much as they like TRT. So the oppostion has decided to boycott the election! Ai ai ai.

The good news is that as a result of all this ruckus Phet got to spend the day working from home today. Tens of thousands of protesters have been meeting at the main downtown square which is mere blocks from the UN headquarters. As a result, the normally molasses-in-January traffic has become completely solidified. So all the UN staff were told to stay at home in quarantine from the smog and disruption. Huzzah! No one is really sure what's going to happen with the protesting and such, but everyone is keeping a super-close eye on the latest developments. Today at work the secretaries had live news feeds running on their computers. So to sum up: scary for the country but nice for the Sayo-Niedzwiecki family.

But back to the mundane events in our own lives!

First of all, the first picture of spawn number two in utero from the exterior:

Here you can see me showing the fam back at home the belly via webcam. Ah, the wonders of modern technology!

In other news, we have bid a fond farewell to the Bristowe-Turners. Ash and Sloane headed off on Sunday for Hong Kong and then were to be on their way further cold-wards to Calgary. We had an absolutely marvellous time having a baby around the house. 'What?' you may ask, 'You liked having a one year old child - who is not your own - stay at your abode for 8 weeks?' The answer is, folks, we not only liked it, we loved it. And it's not because we're getting all nesty and snuggly what with the imminent arrival of number two. Nope. I've raved before and I will surely rave again: Sloane is the greatest. She is tops, tops, tops as far as we are concerned. Of course her parents are none too shabby either, but we've raved about them for years. It's Sloaner's turn to bask in the sun now!

While she was with us, Sloane learned to walk. Witness her taking her first long series of steps at a restaurant on a remote island near Phuket:

And who, praytell, was coaching her? Who was she walking to? None other than Uncle Phet! Yeah, sure, her parents and grandparents and aunties and uncles held her hand and helped her to walk around back in Canada and got her legs in fighting form. But Phet was the final frontier coach, man. And Phet has a history in this field of excellence. Back in the late 90s oh so very long ago, we took a trip up to the remote indochinese mountains at the border of Vietnam and China with our good friend Catherine. We went hiking into the hills beyond the reach of modern vehicles accompanied only by our trusty guide and two idiotic French tourists. After hiking for EIGHT HOURS (and that part really isn't hyperbole) we made it to a small village where we'd be bedding down for the night. It was just before dusk and we could see that there was a lovely rushing riving just downhill from the village so we decided to trek down for a swim. What we hadn't realized was that there was no actual road or pathway down to the river; we had to walk on rice paddy embankments the whole way there and back.

Now, rice paddy embankments don't look so hard to navigate. About thirteen lithe young villagers ran dancing circles around us we made our way slowly and treacherously down to the river. But for big non-rice growers like us, the paddies were really hard to manage. The embankments were very narrow, mossy, mooshy, and of course if you fell off them you'd fall into a few feet of water and mud and on top of some hardscrabble (but limber!) rice farmer's crop. On our return from the river, all of our muscles were cramping up from the eight hour hike. It became almost paralyzingly impossible to put one foot in front of the other and to just keep going and get back to our host's house. Catherine had just about reached the leave-me-behind-and-I'll-die-here-alone-in-peace when Phet went into Walk Coach action. Calmly, he counselled her: "The ground is always beneath your feet." And with that she made it safely back.

But let me return to the topic of Sloane. In addition to learning to walk while she was here she also learned how to hold up her own (unlidded, unstrawed) cup, how to screw bolts onto nuts (thanks for lending her construction toys, Ji), how to eat sticky rice like a Lao baby (ravenously), how to say "cookie" and "ball" (although 'cookie' never actually referred to an actual cookie), how to throw an NBA-size basketball (you can guess who taught her that), how to avoid baby nooses made by my son, and how to 'wai' (put her hands in a prayer-position to say hello) like a proper Thai baby. I think that she cried within my hearing for a maximum total of 13.5 minutes over the entire visit. Most of the time she tweedled around happily, entertaining herself by chewing on our flip flops and collecting up the Bangkok dust on her newly-walking feet.

While Ji was a little uninterested in Sloane at first - save for preparing the baby trap just for her - he became a baby keener just like us in no time. While Sloane was in India, she had her cheeks pinched by well-wishers so often and so hard that she came back with BRUISES on her cheeks. In response, Ji developed a series of cheek-pinching-prevention inventions. My favourite was the electricfied stroller (patent pending) which featured a button that Sloane or Ashley could press and which would then immediately electrocute the person who had been trying to pinch Sloane's cheeks. So, y'know, he hasn't had much practice being a big brother but it looks like he'll come around.

Phet and I were also thrilled to be held in high esteem by Sloane. Whenever we got home, she'd come racing teeterously out and would throw her arms open to be picked up and would grace us with huge monster grins of welcome. But we were most mushy-hearted when she would occasionally lean her head on our shoulders when we were holding her. Awww...what a lurvely baby. And here she is ready to chew up Uncle Phet and spit him out in a single swoop:

To return the love, Uncle Phet picked up some goodies for Sloane. He and Ji went to the outrageously expensive shopping mall - NO knockoffs there - and bought Nikes for Sloane, Ji, and Kit's daughter Crista. Ji and Crista got white 'n Carolina blue sneaks, but check out Sloane's baby pink matching set of baby boots and snowboarding hat. I think she's got a cell phone tucked behind her ear - Phet probably picked her up one of those too, knowing him.

Our son is alot more rambunctious and four hundred gazillion times more yappy than Sloane, but Ash and Turner took great care of him and he enjoyed having his 'Auntie' and 'Uncle' around. While I was unable to move or converse on the trip to Phuket, Ash took charge and made life a hoot for Ji by doing things like taking us to the Dino Grill for dinner. Here's Ji at this particular eatery, going bananas on Ash's watch:

To end off our photographic retrospective for the day, here's Ji basking in the wide open eye of Ash's fish eye lens. For this picture and so many other things, THANKS for coming Bristowe Turners! See you in the summer!

[Bangkok-14-March-2006]