last night we went to dinner at my friend nancy's house. nancy is a 50 something year old woman who has lived pretty much all over the world. she works for the united states justice department based out of the embassy here in bishkek. her main job is to work with local lawyers and judges to help them emulate the good processes of the democratic justice system we practice back in the states. on some level pretty basic stuff - miranda rights, due process, innocent until proven guilty (all the stuff we don't practice at guantanamo bay). but here those things are pretty cutting edge as they are not rights which were afforded people here under soviet rule. so she pretty much has one of those under the radar very important jobs that does bring about positive change.
as she has lived all around the world her apartment is not like the typical bland embassy housing. it is full of art work and rugs from every bazaar between africa and southeast asia. pretty inspiring to think about living in all those places.
i know nancy from charlie (who is now in dhaka) and she played tennis with us quite often last year. tonight was the first time that she had met jennifer and of course olive. we also met for the first time a new justice department couple new to bishkek - dan and irene. really good, funny people. we are excited to add them to our community here.
the food was amazing, the wine was flowing and the conversation was really good. but as the case pretty much everywhere we go these days - all that took a back seat to olive who joyously ruled the evening!
Olivia sounds like you were as a young child. You had to be the center of attention and if you weren't you made sure everyone else was miserable.
ReplyDeleteKen Lays sister, Sharon, was a client and friend of mine for many years. She owned a travel agency near Enron and provided travel for her brothers employees (I'm sure), although I think she was and probably still is a successful travel agent.(She was a retired school teacher). Anyway, her travels around the world gave her the opportunity to collect such amazing things. Her town home was one of the nicest I had seen and she had such a knack for displaying all of her unusual things. I often thought I should change occupations just so I could have such a wonderful collection of memories. I'm not sure how the fall of Enron affected her, but hope not in a negative way as she was such a gracious lady. I have only seen her once since then and did not have the opportunity to catch up.
Glad you guys made some new friends. Sounds like you have a good community of friends.