(This typhoon delayed hundreds of flights in and out of Hong Kong, including Hugh and George's! Thankfully, theirs was only delayed till the evening of the same day)

An article released by our communications department:

Hong Kong issued its highest storm warning in five years on Friday, 22 August as Typhoon Nuri brought hurricane-force winds and heavy rain, shutting down most of the city as flights were delayed, schools and most offices closed, and bus and ferry services were suspended.  Residents were warned not to venture outdoors while the observatory recorded hurricane-force winds of up to 120 kilometres (75 miles) per hour and gusts of 150 kilometres per hour, and warned of very rough seas.

Around our site, high winds led to the uprooting of two trees.  Numerous tree branches littered the roads and sidewalks and many of our banners, posters and other decorations were ripped from their fastenings as winds whipped through the streets.  As is customary with storm signals at level eight and higher, we did not have community volunteers working that day. By mid-afternoon, as the winds increased and safety concerns grew, our full-time team was told to leave work and head home, keeping away from windows in case of any breakages.

By the next day, Nuri weakened into a severe tropical storm after moving away from Hong Kong towards the Chinese mainland, with the signal being lowered to eight as storm-force winds continued.  We returned to business as usual, with extra caution given to loosely hanging branches as well as the upturned trees.  Currently we are directing our attention to cleaning up and re-creating and securing banners and other signage, but mostly we are grateful for our safekeeping!

We just returned from a beautiful two weeks in Croatia, with Matt's family. We joined his sister and her husband and little toddler, who live in England, to celebrate Matt's Dad's 60th birthday. Have a look at the photos, uploaded in the 'photos' section under Croatia Holiday 2008!

Here's a recent story from our media department about an inspiring, fantastic man in Cambodia who is blind, and who benefited from one of our recent shipments. One of our staff, Marnie, visited his village on a recent trip to South East Asia, and it was she who met Samnang and told us his story.

CAMBODIAN PIG FARMER



Samnang has not always enjoyed the respect of his neighbours. For a long time, he was the village beggar, blind and sitting on the side of the road peddling loose change from passersby. Relegated to the lowest end of society because of his disability, he had settled into his poverty and believed he would never be able to overcome his circumstances.

A group we are currently shipping to specialises in the needs of people who are blind, and visits remote villages in the mountainous Siem Reap province in order to find people that may be impoverished because of blindness. On one of their visits, they met Samnang and trained him in how to raise pigs. He has learned to use his touch, smell and hearing when preparing food for his pigs, determining their health, and choosing the best piglets to buy at the market. He took to the skill so quickly, and with such proficiency that he is now the leading pig farmer in his village and highly regarded. He has been able to build himself a new house and has a renewed sense of dignity in being able to provide so well for his wife and three children.

In addition to improving the lives of blind people in Cambodia, our consignee also runs an orphanage and school, provides vocational training to the community, and offers public health services. People like Samnang are able to learn skills such as mushroom growing, planting, rice farming and animal raising, and earn income through their newfound trade. Over 200 children receive an education and housing through the orphanage and school, and more than 60 families have benefited from the health services and training our consignee provides.

CR loaded a container for this consignee in June 2008 (see pictures below). Items requested include clothing, school books and supplies, desks, furniture, and household goods. These things will be used to continue the much needed work our consignee does in Siem Reap, and will also be among our first containers shipped to Cambodia.

Goods being packed in HK:

On Saturday we finally slept in our new place - after trying to move in for a few weeks. Matt did a huge job driving back and forth between the two apartments (only 600m or so!) taking big stripey bags and suitcases full of our things. He really worked hard, and then we both stayed up making the front rooms look lovely so that at least when we walk in the house, we feel a little bit of sanity.

The rest of the house is largely full of bags and dismantled furniture, but at least we have this haven in one part, and it really is wonderful. As most of you know, we live on a property which used to be an army barracks that was abandoned for 10 years, so the buildings are quite interesting, if very old and with run down fittings (such as the built-in cabinets, etc. This new place is one of the apartments that used to be inhabited by officers and their families, so it is bigger than the one we had before, with nice high ceilings and wooden floors.

Some interesting features:

- A huge storeroom which I assume was intended to be a maid's room (most HK apartments have maid's rooms). This is very exciting for us as anyone else who lives in a small space can appreciate.

- A (small) linen cupboard. Unheard of in HK.

- An enclosed balcony where we will put Alex's little sandpit and which also houses the washing machine and washing line.

- Built in bookshelves, which is the first thing I populated when we were moving in. It makes such a difference having all our books on lovely big shelves rather than crammed into a little cabinet as they were before.

- The most beautiful view of trees out every window. We are on the 2nd floor, so all we see is treetops wherever we look.

A couple of downsides:

- termites in the parquet floor! Our trusty maintenance team is on the case though.

- A leak in the ceiling, probably just because of the intense rain that is still hitting us every few days.

- Being on the 2nd floor, so a few more stairs to climb than the last place, but that is not bothering us at all so far. Sometimes it is hard when Alex is being ornery, we are in a rush, and I have five heavy bags of groceries so can't pick him up and haul him up or down the stairs.

We are also, unfortunately, sharing the place with quite a few species of crawling creature, which happens in the tropics and when you have the privilege of living amongst trees. There are a lot of tiny, tiny ants that appear from nowhere when a drink bottle or plate is left out. You never see them at other times, so I don't know where they hide, but they are very quick to find a trace of juice or a dropped rolled oat.

More creepily, we have cockroaches which I found really disturbing at first, but am slowly calming down about them. I have put baits everywhere and looked up a lot of information on how to manage them. The consensus seems to be that you will never get rid of cockroaches, but in the words of one website, 'you can control them to the point that you very rarely have to see them'. Well I don't know how I feel about that.. but one quite big blessing that has come from having insects in the house is that I have become obsessively clean (extremely unusual for me) because I don't want to give the bugs an inch.

Our organisation is about to start a big environmentally-conscious push, for staff and volunteers so I am trying to think of ways to be clean and tidy without over-using chemicals and disposable products. Fortunately, so are many others in the Western world so there is a lot of information out there.

Our camera has gone AWOL in the move so pictures of our nice new place will have to wait.

I mentioned the typhoon we had recently, which was also accompanied by enough rain to make this June the wettest month in Hong Kong since 1891. That's really quite wet.

I was just starting to develop SAD (seasonal affected disorder) with the relentless rain and dark skies, when it suddenly cleared up the day before our big film festival event for World Refugee Day on June 20th, it stayed clear for a further few days and then the rain started again. The break in the weather for this outdoor event was quite incredible (or credible, depending on your perspective), and everyone was very grateful.

However, the typhoon weakened a lot of the older trees on the site, and just in the past week, we have had several of them come dramatically crashing down. Nobody has been at risk in any way, but it is annoying and difficult for the relevant site staff to have to deal with removing the trees or organising professionals to remove them.

Our family felt touched that nature chose to single us out by putting a whopping great tree through the living room window of our new apartment. We are still moving all our things in, so Alex and I opened the door yesterday to see glass all over the floor, mixed in with smashed windowsill pot plants and soil, and the dead tree branch poking through the broken window.

Here are some pictures of the tree that fell onto our new building:

Matt returned from Japan on Monday night, and it sounds like he had a great time there, including a good half day walking around Tokyo on his own.

We missed him a lot, even though it was only a five day trip. I think this was because Alex was quite sick over that weekend, with a mysterious fever, which made him really upset and grumpy, and waking up through the night. He had a sudden recovery the morning after Matt got back, so Daddy was treated to a nice happy child and possibly didn't believe me about what a sick little rascal he had been the whole time he was away!

Alex came to me quite concerned yesterday and said, 'there's somebody in my shoe!'

He was wearing his brown crocs, and it turns out that when we took off his shoe and shook it, there was a little stick that had made its way in during our walk to the office.

We had to have a conversation about the difference between 'somebody' and 'something'. He is just starting to use some of these terms, so it's all a bit new.

Matt left yesterday afternoon with three colleagues, to help run the social responsibility part of a corporate retreat in Japan. Some of our staff went to this last year, and as it was a big success, they asked them back again this year. Matt is not normally involved in this aspect of the work, but they needed another guy to play a particular role in some of the simulation activities, and he fit the criteria.

Alex is saying many times a day, 'Daddy's gone on an aeroplane. Daddy's in Jeepy-pan.' I don't think he quite understands because he was still expecting to run around with him at lunchtime today.

This is not Matt's first time in Jeepy-pan but it's the first time longer than an overnight stopover. I'm hoping he'll get to see a bit of Tokyo, since I know he would find that city fascinating, from what I know of it.

Just now..

Alex: Mummy, we go to the playground, play on the slide?

Me: No, it's too wet, it's raining outside, see?

Alex (looking at the window): No, it's not raining. It's not raining, Mummy!

Not sure what his definition of raining is, considering this is the view:

After all that hot, dry weather, the typhoon did finally hit us last night. We heard very heavy rain and winds through the night, and into the morning, and the weather bureau was going nuts issuing warnings and alerts. The 'T8' signal was hoisted (as they say) last night, though it seems to be dying down now to just a normal heavy rain.

A few people here have had their flats flooded today - I'm sure they are appreciating the Asian custom of using tiles rather than carpets in homes, but it is still a great inconvenience to have to clean up all the water and rescue things that have gotten wet.

Being a T8 and Amber rainstorm warning, schools and many workplaces have been closed, to the delight of many, I'm sure. And to entertain all these bright young minds who are missing a day of school, the local English TV channel has very kindly replaced their normal morning programming of stock reports, with a Bob the Builder movie! Great! Suits me, since I am trying to pack boxes of household things, and Alex likes Bob the Builder a lot.

I am still feeling quite sick, and would love to spend a day in bed but there is the matter of my small child who thinks sleep is for the weak. He woke up quite early this morning, probably because of the sound of the storm.

I just heard that the same typhoon we're being warned about has killed a lot of people in the Philippines. Typhoon Fengshen caused a passenger ferry to overturn, which accounted for a lot of the fatalities, and then another few hundred people have been killed by drowning and landslides.

Of course we wouldn't get these consequences in Hong Kong since the infrastructure is very different. I remember a Filipino guy telling me once how bad typhoons are for their villages along the coast, since many houses are quite flimsy, and often people don't have any kind of official help near by. Every year there people are killed in typhoon related disasters.

Apparently this one was downgraded to a severe storm as it crossed the South China Sea before getting to us.

It still looks very calm out the window though.

Matt had a cold last week, now I have it, which is not much fun. I don't feel like doing anything at all let alone pack boxes. Thankfully Alex isn't showing any signs of it yet, though yesterday he did go to sleep at 3pm and didn't get up for dinner! He woke up briefly at 6 or so, enough to be really miserable and want to wander back into bed, then he slept in the bed with me while Matt took the spare bed, since I was a bit worried he might be getting sick and have some asthma in the night.

He woke up at about 1am full of beans and ready to start the day, but was very good about staying in bed and playing quietly for an hour or so before getting the message and going back to sleep.

In other news, the typhoon hasn't really eventuated where we are - not even much of a breeze. I think it is focussed on the Philippines.

From the HK Observatory:

STANDBY SIGNAL NO. 1

Tropical Cyclone Bulletin

Here is the latest Tropical Cyclone Bulletin issued by the
Hong Kong Observatory.

The Standby Signal, No. 1 is in force.

This means that a tropical cyclone now centred within about
800 kilometres of Hong Kong may affect us.

At 4 p.m., Typhoon Fengshen was estimated to be about 600
kilometres south-southeast of Hong Kong (near 17.6 degrees
north 117.1 degrees east) and is forecast to move
north-northwest at about 14 kilometres per hour approaching
the southeastern part of China.


DISPATCHED BY HONG KONG OBSERVATORY AT 15:45 HKT ON 23.06.2008

Since we've been in the slow process of moving apartments, each time Alex sees Matt lift a piece of furniture to put it somewhere else, he says, 'Daddy's Mr Incredible!'

Well, today on our official moving day, I just witnessed five 'Mr Incredibles' carry an upright piano into our new second floor apartment and it was certainly something amazing. Matt rallied a handful of our strong friends to help move the larger bits of furniture, and most of it was very manageable. The piano definitely presented the biggest challenge, and it now sounds even more honkytonk than before, but nothing a good tuning won't fix.

Thank you Mark, Peter, Josh and Api! And of course our own Mr Incredible Daddy.

I have been packing a lot of things into boxes and suitcases at home but we are still nowhere near moved out of the old place. There are just so many small things everywhere, which need to be rallied into categories somehow so that we can make sense of them. Another lovely person, Barb, came over and in her normal speedy and efficient manner, had all our crockery and dishes wrapped in newspaper and in big boxes within a very short time, so that was another big job done.

Alex is having a nap after all the excitement, then we will keep going into the evening.

Latest shipment: CHINA EARTHQUAKE

You know those red and white stripey bags that people use a lot in Hong Kong? Maybe you don’t. But this stripey tarpaulin fabric whether made up as bags or in rolls of fabric in the manufacturing districts is ubiquitous, cheap, and readily available.

When one of our staff (DJ) spoke to people on the ground helping survivors of the earthquake, he discovered that there was a desperate need for shelter since people have either lost their homes or are very scared of staying in buildings when they might collapse from aftershocks. After that conversation, he called around the suppliers of this stripey tarpaulin fabric and asked if they could send us rolls of it to be flown directly into the earthquake zone. Of course people were very happy to help, so we were delivered a huge number of rolls of fabric ready to send.

DJ accompanied the fabric and is now still in China, seeing it distributed and set up. You can see a picture of one of these new tent communities above.

Here’s another story that has been released from our communications department, about the current situation:

The five million direct survivors of the Sichuan earthquake are terrified that aftershocks and floods will bring more damage and more lives lost. Now homeless, these people must endure exposure to the hostile elements, the threat of disease, and daily battles with the relentless rain.

"In the immediate aftermath of the quake," said our Crossroads worker in the field, "people settled in the open spaces. The problem has now become that there is little option for shelter in these areas. Groups of 20 people have been huddling in shelters made for seven." Tent cities have sprouted up in the area, with families crowding together in their makeshift homes. Despite their hardships, they appreciate the shelter of the tents and tarps as well as the relief of food and medicine they receive from aid workers in the area. Yet talks of the future, and plans to start over, cause more sorrow as a number of towns cannot be rebuilt, the cattle have died, and fields are gone.

"The people are relieved for a moment when you bring them the goods," said our Crossroads worker distributing aid. "But as I ask them about the future, many of their eyes well in despair. Whole towns have gone. Fields for crops and livelihoods wiped out. We must be committed to helping these people in the long term."

Within days of the massive earthquake on 12 May, Crossroads sent two 40 foot containers of pre-packed blankets and clothing into the disaster area, a shipment charitably funded by a large financial corporation in Hong Kong seeking to help however they could. Crossroads has also partnered with both the Red Cross and the China Foundation for Poverty Alliance to send and distribute aid in Sichuan.

DHL, the international shipping corporation, even generously donated the use of one of their planes. Crossroads packed 15 tonnes of plastic sheeting, blankets, and medical supplies which was flown this week into the quake zone. Red Cross and Crossroads volunteers met the emergency flight in Chengdu and escorted the relief items on a 12 hour journey along partially collapsed roads. The final destination was a village in Qingchuan county, in an area that had been cordoned off due to the spread of disease.

"As we delivered the aid," our Crossroads worker commented, "words of thanks kept coming from everyone, from the gas station attendants who were filling the tanks, to the ladies serving the food, the officials, and finally the people most deeply affected. On every side they were saying, 'Thank you for what you are doing to help our people and China.'"
---------------------------


Something really hit home the other night. We were hearing some feedback from coworkers who had visited India, seeing a group who received some goods from us when coastal villages were wiped out by the tsunami in 2004. They showed us pictures of some houses that are just now being built to help people who lost their homes back then. That was three and a half years ago! Communities are still only now managing to rebuild what they lost in that disaster. The earthquake in China will be similar, the effects will last for years and years and years.

Here's a name in jigsaw puzzles you might not have heard of: Melissa & Doug. I have noticed this brand of puzzles in quite a few toy shops around, and as Alex is obsessed with all kinds of puzzles at the moment (doing at least 2 or 3 a day), I looked them up.

Look at these fantastic floor puzzles!:

http://www.melissaanddoug.com/dyn_prodlist.php?k=87140

On the second page there are some really cute ones as well.

I have to admit to hiding some of Alex's puzzles that I have gotten really sick of. I have hidden his Thomas puzzles a few times, or put them on a high shelf because he likes to tip every piece of the four separate puzzles out of the box and then give up after two minutes, leaving a huge and complicated mess for me to sort out. But I don't mind some of the others he enjoys at the moment, and he surprised us by doing one of them completely on his own the other day (in his post-nap high brain activity time of day), it's a picture of bears in hot air balloons.

One quite funny thing he'll do is to ask me to do the puzzle with him, but demand 100% commitment to the activity. In his mind this means you have to have both legs crossed and touching the floor. He watches you with an eagle eye as you sit down to make sure you don't have one knee bent ready to spring up and go off to do something else without warning. "No, mummy, other leg on the floor".

The rain has been falling in sheets here over the past few days. This morning and yesterday were torrential, and over the years I have realised it's much better to join it than try to beat it - a sentiment that Alex wholeheartedly agrees with, as he prefers to walk in the rain than use an umbrella. Umbrellas are only useful for keeping your hair dry in this kind of rain (which is still a fairly useful thing to do), as trousers and lower shirts will get saturated in seconds.

On the way home on the bus from an outing today, Alex had fun spotting all the waterfalls in the hills, and down the embankments. The road to the airport was closed when it flooded and had a couple of trees fall down. Have a look at the pictures in this news article for more, they are amazing:

http://www.china.org.cn/china/2008-06/07/content_15684165.htm

Alex learnt a sad lesson today: Fish cakes have nothing to do with cake. There were many disappointed tears and cries of 'no mummy, cake for dinner!'.

I should have called them tuna patties..

Ingenious solar powered kettles in Cambodia!


Children at the orphanage

An upcoming shipment: CAMBODIA

One of our staff, Marnie, visited Cambodia recently to see the little boy she has been sponsoring for some years. She took the opportunity to also visit an orphanage that will soon be getting a container from us. It was an amazing night of sharing when she showed us the pictures and told all the stories about these beautiful kids.

A third of Cambodia’s population lives on less than 50 cents US a day, with many of those lacking adequate water, shelter, education, and health care. The economy is still struggling as landmines left over from the war prevent farmers from growing rice in many parts of the country. Education is also low as the cost of a public education is often beyond reach for many. The thousands of street children seek ways out of this poverty, forced to abandon childhood for low-paying jobs in an effort to survive, and these are just some of the challenges facing the country’s people.

In Australia, if a child finds themselves abandoned or alone for any reason, there are so many safety nets (as imperfect as we sometimes might think they are) that are specifically set up to make sure they are not left to fend for themselves. In a place where there just isn’t the money for that infrastructure, orphans and neglected children have to rely on the kindness of anyone out there who cares enough to set something up to give them a chance at a better life.

Our consignee in Siem Reap, Cambodia established this orphanage because they wanted to improve the quality of life for children in the area’s villages who had no one to care for them. They provide education, hygiene, healthcare, and a home with three meals a day to the 44 children living there. Children also enjoy clean, safe living quarters with house mothers who care for them with deep, genuine affection.

Though only operating for three years, the orphanage has already begun further developments and the organisation now provides free junior high school education to the area children as well as a small boarding house for 12 high school girls.

This will be Crossroads’ first shipment to Cambodia. The goods received will be used to further improve the existing educational and housing programs for Chen and the other children. Items will also be used in various community initiatives our consignee has established, including a sewing program in which women are given free room and board and also receive education on human rights and ethics/morals over a six month term.

This creature is the bane of our lives at the moment. The rainy season has started, which means lots of puddles accumulating in flower pots, drains, bits of pipe and so on, giving the mosquitoes thousands of places to breed.

We are used to them to some extent now, and Alex is adept at slapping 'skeetoes', so for us the bites don't linger, they just come up in a welt then fade away, but some of the other kids on team (especially newbies from the UK) are really suffering with legs covered in huge bright red marks where they scratch the bites. There are also these other tiny biting insects that love to attack ankles. It's a rare day when you are not scratching some hard to reach body part.

The most annoying mosquitoes are the ones inside the house. We have a small hole high up in the bathroom window, where I'm sure they come in. They hide under Alex's bed and come out at night, and they even live in our wardrobe!! I see them come out floating and humming in an evil way when I shuffle through the clothes hanging up.

There are several ways to attempt to deal with these pernicious creatures. You quickly become a connoisseur of the different varieties of repelling equipment:


1. Spray on repellent - It gets tiresome to have the sticky stuff on your skin every day, not to mention expensive, and also Alex and I (as a pregnant person), are not supposed to use repellent containing DEET - this is the most common kind of repellent and the cheapest. To get all natural spray you have to go to a baby shop or similar. So this is not really a perfect solution.



2. Repelling patches - These are little stickers that give off a repelling scent, usually with citronella or something. Hong Kong people love these, especially when hiking or at beach bbq's, and you often see little children with one stuck to their t-shirts at the playground. I don't find them very effective when out and about, but I have put one on Alex's bedhead now and then, which helps a bit. Again, they are expensive if you want to use them all the time.



3. Electric dome - We like these a lot for night times in the bedrooms. You buy refills for the inside, and the dome heats up slightly to release the repellent. I'm still not 100% sure about the safety of them, so I haven't been using it while pregnant, but they seem to be quite effective at keeping the mosquitoes away overnight and they don't smell of anything. They don't actually kill the mosquitoes like some other devices do (that is definitely not recommended for pregnant people or babies).



4. (Everyone's favourite) The killing bat - This is by FAR the most satisfying option for ridding the world of itchiness one mosquito at a time. Several of my colleagues keep these cheap tennis racket looking things in their office to attack the indoor mosquitoes during summer. It is battery operated, and works by electrocuting the mosquito on the wire mesh stretched across the head of the racket. You have to hold down a red button (satisfying factor number 1) while swatting the mosquito and muttering under your breath (satisfying factor number 2), and then you hear a *zap* sound (of course, satisfying factor number 3) and watch the corpse fall to the floor (satisfying factor number 4).

One of our friends discovered that these devices are illegal in Australia when she tried to send some in bulk through the post! But if you feel daring, next time you're in Hong Kong, you can pick one up from the local little hardware shops for about HK$15 and take it back to amaze your friends.