Zanskar mission complete !

It's been almost 2 weeks already since Bram, Tim and Arno FINALLY returned home. 3 wild guys with beard, moustache and quite stinky, especially opening up the bag at home let loose some interesting smells, or should I rather say "odeurs" .. And a couple of kilos lighter! It was a long wait in Leh, 5 extra days, in cold and snowy conditions. But on wednesday Feb the 11th the sky cleared and news came they were on schedule for departure. But after an 8 hour loooong sit, things starting to look gloomy again. First flight got rerouted.. and still too much snow on the airstrip.. skies getting heavier... it started to look like their "Kingfisher Airline" would NOT send in another plane! Boys getting furious, together with the huge crowd of indians also waiting to go.. To be reassured of progress, Arno was personally escorted by the personnel out on the airstrip, and could with his own eyes verify that the clearing of the airstrip was on its way. By 300 persons each sweeping it with a broom !! LOL !!!! Well, they apparently did a good sweep job, because a flight got in and out, with the boys! Spending the afternoon in New Dehli with some decent food and cold beer, they finally boarded the last leg home with BA through London.

Out of dad's stinky bag came wonderful gifts for everyone at home: wool blankets in lovely colours, an embroided vest coated with sheep wool for Gab, a beautiful handpainted wall cloth, a really nice necklace for me with turqoises... etc. We were completely spoiled! And by watching the photos we could all get a little feeling for the awesome adventure and extraordinary surroundings they just returned from!

Everything is now back to normal, Association Tenebo has been officially registered in France with its proper bank account. I am very proud to announce...

1. Tenebo's 20 wonderful individual donors, each donating the equivalent amount of -30°c = €30 (€600), and 
2. Tenebo's school donation from de Tweemaster, with the "children for children" action, creating a fantastic €1863,
3. Tenebo's TOTAL donation amount of €2463 to the Haiti Orphanage Maison l'Arc en Ciel !!!

I will send you all a personal email with the bank details, so that you can wire the money into the Tenebo account, for further processing to Maison l'Arc en Ciel!!! I know that this donation will be so appreciated and valuable for their staff and children. Their moral at the moment is very low... the reality slowly catching up after a some very traumatic weeks and hard hard work.

THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYBODY FOR BELIEVING IN TENEBO, it means so much that you can actually make some kind of difference. Thank you Tim, for making it possible. We will pursue Tenebo, hopefully you will too.

Stay tuned.... lot's of love Jenny & Bram

Home sweet home

With Alexander,  Benjamin and Gabriella at the cinema, half through the new Disney movie (Alex watching 3D Avatar with a friend), Brigitte finally got the good news and sent me the SMS: the boys have arrived in Dehli! It was a close shot.. first flight coming into Leh, was redirected to another destination but after an 8hr long wait, there was another flight coming in and going out, and they were on it! After a tasty dinner in Dehli and plenty of coronas, they're now waiting for boarding the 6:55 am flight to London and with Bram's transfer, we'll pick him up in Lyon tomorrow ar 5:30 pm. Welcome home Dad !!

Hopeful!

No news is good news and something tells me they're on their way from Leh, weatherforecast says partly sunny through the day.. it just must happen. Fingers crossed.. Stay tuned. xx Jen

Still in Leh

Snowstorm today in Leh, as expected. No flights, as expected. Tomorrow morning there's a window for some short improvement, before next front of bad weather moves in, estimated to last through the weekend. So they keep their fingers crossed that they'll be able to fly out. They're on the priority list, and the local guys from the trek are really helpful, keeping them updated on the whole situation, making sure they get out when first opportunity present itself. Not much to do in Leh of course, since the weather is bad, you cannot go and climb a mountain either! Arno apparently spends most of the time sleeping... Tim and Bram have found their daily routines having a tea somewhere, then onto the internet café reading the blog (yeah!!), making the necessary phonecalls etc. It's freezing cold everywhere since there's no heating.. Food is apparently the same thing everyday, not very exciting I suppose. This morning Bram went out in the snowstorm for a 2hr walk up to a monestery to see a munk to say his prayers and lay down a prayer flag... maybe the weathergod (Buddha?) heard him. So stay tuned... xx Jen

Tenebo is official

I received today with the mail the official registration letter of Tenebo, under the association number W842001710 of Prefecture de Vaucluse. Cool. I'll have the bank account details in a few days. Finally registered!! I registered the following members: Bram as President, Tim as vice President, Arno as Secretaire and me as Tresorière, hopefully the boys will not disagree upon functions, had to take the necessary steps in their absence.

For updates on the progress at L'Arc en Ciel after the earth quake, please also look under http://www.wereldkinderen.nl/ , this big dutch organisation for adoptions processes, has this orphanage on their list of support. On their news feed you'll find regular postings.

Where's the good weather??

Bad weather persist in Leh, no flights can navigate in and out between the mountains under these conditions. And it is not improving.. There's a small window opening for wednesday, but real improvement is only expected for friday. So many people waiting now for a flight out, same as trekkers etc waiting in Dehli to go in. Not much to do in Leh to kill time... electricity is only on between 18-23 at night and the internet/phone shop they call from runs on a generator and line is constantly cut off. One mess trying to change the Dehli-Lon connection with British Airways with phones hardly working and BA only accepting the changes from the travelling passenger/credit card holder... If I could do it from here it would be a lot easier, but not a chance. I understand all the security reasons but this is unreasonable... having booking ref's, credit card numbers etc and looking at the circumstances you'd say there'd be some cooperation. But no. Bah. Stay tuned. xx Jen

Children for children

Trying to recover from the bad news that Bram will not be home tomorrow and that we will have to wait and find out when he'll be back... I do have something to share with you, something that made me very proud and so happy! Here's Hellas story of the official result from the "children for children" action at the school de Tweemaster in Naarden, Holland, incl photos of the reception of the cheque to the orphanage Maison l'Arc en Ciel:

A magic total of €1863,- has been collected by all the children!!!! This morning in the school yard, a super cermony and reception was organised for me by the director Chris Heersink and all the students and teachers of de Tweemaster. Chris thanked the children for their creative work and donations to this specific project and with a big and loud applaud, I was happy to receive the cheque, accompanied by my daughters Famke and Merel. (The local newspaper "de Naarder Koerier" had already placed an article in their paper earlier in the week and were therefore not present!)

Anyhow, there I was standing, very proud but also very emotional by all this enthusiasm from these children. A small gesture turns into a big gesture... The donation will be transferred into my account and as soon as I have the amount I will wire it into the Tenebo Association account. It would be wonderful if la Maison l'Arc en Ciel could send a small note to our school, addressed to the children, so that they can see where their ideas and creative donations went! Understanding that communication is still difficult, hopefully this is not asking too much? Love, Hella

Oh Hella... this is so great!! With the rest of the donations from family and friends, I'm so proud to announce that we will be able to send at least a total amount of €2200 to Haiti's rainbowhouse and their children... Who could ever had imagined this!! Not me at least. I'm putting the last puzzlepieces together, awaiting the official paperwork and registration number of our association Tenebo. With that piece of paper I can open its bank account and wire the money to Maison l'Arc en Ciel. Hopefully the paperwork is done by the end of this coming week (I hold my breath cause we all know how french burocracy works, or if you don't I can tell you AAAALLL about it!!!)

Enjoy the photos, they speak their own language. When Bram is back, I'll be pleased to announce the coldest temperature measured and reveal the EXACT amount of our donation. So stay tuned... lot's of love from Jenny

Murphy

Well here comes the bad news, after all the good ones it was bound to happen: They should have flewn out of Leh yesterday, but because of few passengers they cancelled the flight (the only one). Ok.. not too bad (you'd think!), they have a margin, they fly out of Dehli tomorrow morning. But then the weather changed for the worse, so the only flight today was cancelled too. So they'll not make the 6:55 am flight to London tomorrow. And weather forecast not looking great, question is when they will fly... Leh is a military airport and if they give a no fly, then no flights come in and out. That is S-T. Tricky flight route in the mountains, so I understand of course.. but the cancellation yesterday causes a whole chain reaction now. I cannot help the guys either with contacting British Airways for their London flight, only the credit card holder for the reservations (ie Tim) can make any changes to their reservations. So I've just passed on all the phone numbes and reservation references to Bram, after finally finding a valid phone number to BA on a sunday. Tim has to take it from here. They've changed hotels in Leh, for something more comfortable, so they'll hold out. Hopefully BA will make the necessary changes without extra charges.... there's at least plenty of room on the tuesday and wednesday flight. What a mess... Stay tuned.

Long time no see !!

It's been a couple of busy days, but it's also been a couple of days with no much news from the Zanskar front. Best news were Bram's phone call last sunday on my birthday - yeeeahhh... we got 2 whole minutes, the only minutes I've spoken to him in the last 14 days. Time really flies !!! He was really happy and reconfirmed what Tim already has told us: It's just so amazingly beautiful and fantastic, the people soooo friendly, but Oh so poor, so poor... the guys accompanying them are just great fun, they enjoy every minute. On sunday when he called, they had started their journey back to Leh and when I asked if the trek was very physically demaning, Bram answered no, he didn't think so, but that today (Sunday) was a little rough, but the reason for that was drinking something saturday night celebrating their arrival in Zanskar. Wonder what they brew alcohol from there???? hahaha...

On monday Brigitte had some quick (what's new..) news from Tim, that they were actually making good progress on their return trip due to new snow, which give them good grip on the ice and that they probably would arrive a day early, ie is today, in Leh. And since they gained an extra day, they were organising a trip with a jeep up on the highest mountain pass in the world, reachable by 4 wheel drive - on 5400m. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khardung_La Wow !!! So that's scheduled for tomorrow then. But since then I haven't had news since then... hopefully everything is still on schedule.

My birthday bash was one great party - we were 20p having a typical big french late sunday lunch, with aperitif and 4 course dinner with wines and coffee and cake! One of the guests is actually sommelier for work (you know the guy/girl responsable for the wines in the restaurant..), so the cheaper wine we initially had bought for the dinner, was put back into storage and instead out came a couple of good bottles from our wine cave ;-) A real dinner with a professional "dégustation du vin". We had good laughs, as we were trying to smell and taste, licorice, cherries, horse sweat and mushrooms.... Not sure I agree all the time, but it was fun!!! I was spoiled with flowers and gifts, I don't think I've had such a wonderful birhday in many years, so we'll do it again next year (me and my riding instructor celebrating our common birthdays on the 31st jan!).

I've also spoken to Hella, who's initiated the "children for children" donor project at her kids school in Holland. It's apparently been very succesful as parents and children joined efforts. I haven't got all the details yet, but the children have been so creative. One girl played her flute in front of the local supermarket, raising a lot of money. Isn't that just wonderful. You kind of get very depressed reading the news in the world, but when I hear about all these small "miracles", then I'm reassured that 99,99999% procent of all the people in the world are really good. Tenebo.... together we're strong, right!! Anyhow, the official figure from the school donation will be announced this week on friday, with an official cermony where Hella is invited... together with the press!!!! Wow !! That is awesome, Maison l'Arc en Ciel will be covered in the Naarden media. That's the way to go... Good luck Hella, you'll be just fine, make them take a great pic of you and the kiddos !!

Besides this I had a smaller heart attack opening the mail today. The electricity bill. They check your meter in January every year adjusting your monthly instalment up or down, depending on your last 12 months of consumption. Guess what.... besides having already paid our yearly bill of approx 1750 euros, our consumption had increased so much in 2009, that we should pay another 6700 euros to cover for it !!!!!!!! WHAT THE HECK!!!!!!!!!! Something's VERY wrong here... it is impossible. They claim we used  our almost yearly consumption of 12000 KwH, in only 22 days. And those particular days occurred on the 22 days/year we're charged 10*normal fee. On those days we switch OFF as much electricity we can, run NO machines etc. We normally only consume 600 KwH during those days. So I got on the phone and got one really cocky guy first, telling me that this could be a delicate problem to solve, how would I prove that I didn't use that much electricity. Great mentality - assume the client is wrong. Wonderful problemsolving set of mind. So I hung up. And got a nice lady on the phone, understanding that there must be some kind of mistake and that I should have a really good night of sleep, not worry and send an engineer over to look into the matter. So I'm going to do just that, sleep and not worry. Cause I don't have 6700 euros!!! Thats SOOO much money, they'll have to drag me into court, over my dead body, or over my dead france, cause it'll be bye bye, if this takes an ugly turn. French burocracy is absoluty horrifying, so stay tuned... Me against one of the richest enterprises in France - the EDF...

Nighty night dear friends and family, lot's of love,
Jenny