Happy Birthday Brynnie!

Yesterday was our “Baby’s” first birthday. (Dad Moesker’s b-day too-happy birthday Dad!) We decided to have cake and sing to her on Friday so that our pembantu’s could be there too without having to make a special trip. One of them made a beautiful black forest cake for Brynne. Which Brynne enjoyed playing with and eating a little. She also received a little red dress (see photo) from the one Ibu and a little blue jacket from the other one.
On Saturday we went swimming with a young couple from church. Their names are David and Santi and they have been dating for about 9 months. We drove with them and it took about half an hour to get there because of Saturday traffic and because of the interesting road system here which at times make you have to take ridiculously circuitous routes to get places. Anyways, we get there and realize that this is the pool we can see from the roof of our house! It looks like it would take just a few minutes to walk there. But that isn’t the case because you can’t get in from the back you have to walk around up to the road and go to the front. Anyways, the kids had a great time. Of course we were a bit like zoo animals again. Most women here don’t wear swimsuits like in North America. Some women swim fully clothed. The men just wear swimsuits like back home. After swimming David and Santi took us to Bandung Hyper Market. There, there is a large food court with many different kinds of food. There was also Karl’s Burgers where you can order a “cow burger”. As Muslims don’t eat pork, they have to call hamburgers something that sounds a little less pork like. It was a very nice evening out.
Today is the first day of Ramadan. During Ramadan muslims may only eat at certain times of the day and fast for the rest. The idea is that they are withholding something that they want. It is an exercise in self-discipline. So early this morning the special prayers rang out to announce the beginning of Ramadan. I slept through the whole thing, but I don’t think that Hugo did despite using ear plugs… Yes, it’s that loud for us…