Dear Friends and Family,

The hours, then the days, and then the months have been peeled away from 2003. The clock has struck midnight and we have said goodbye to baby 2003 who has — in what seems always a shorter and shorter interval — matured and then departed. So to all of you, a mighty

Feliz Ano, Happy New Year, Bonne Annee, Ein Gutes Neues Jahr, S Novim Godom ....

Our year end came in Puebla, Mexico, from where we write to you. As local midnight approached we watched via television celebrations all over the world. Seeing fireworks going off and dancing in the streets in so many places, one after another, kind of took the edge off things for us. That is probably hypocritical, as we are not big new year celebrators anyway. But we did go out to midnight mass at one of the largest cathedrals in Mexico. That was a first for us.

USA Family and Friends

We had such a different year than the previous three or four. Rather than roaming the world far from most family and friends we spent all of 2003 either in the USA or Mexico, and in the USA were able to see so many of you. That was a great pleasure and we want to thank all of you who hosted us during the past year: the Daggetts and Vainbergs in New Jersey; the Eddys in South Carolina, the Rosenzweigs in Florida; Gerry’s brother Allen and wife Barbara who opened their home in Phoenix to us on three separate occasions (not to mention their swimming pool used when the recorded low for the day was an amazing 96 F.) and their kitchen — oh, the joys of being able to cook again! In a similar vein, we say thank you to Bob Goldsmith for hosting us in San Francisco and to his friend Linda Lyons for inviting us into her home and sharing with us her spectacular view.

Because we stayed three months in the DC area, several times we had the chance to see Gerry's relatives in the area, Dan and Sara, Liz and John in D.C., Victor and Maureen in Arlington, and Harold and Carol in Rockville. While travelling the U.S. we became acquainted and re-acquainted with both older and younger generations of Gerry’s family as we continued to try to fill in some gaps in the family tree that his cousins Esther and Eleanor had started and maintained, respectively. In Florida for the first time in 20 years we saw Aunt Esther Kazer and got to know her daughter Cookie, and Cookie’s husband Eric. Aunt Esther, 90 years old in September and with a mind as clear as a bell gave us a gift of inestimable value: information about the ship that carried her late husband, Ben, Gerry’s mother Bettie, their mother and three other siblings from Europe to Canada, en route to Chicago. Thanks to Aunt Esther, we have closed the loop, knowing not only their point of departure (Narodichi, Ukraine), and their destination (Chicago, USA), but also the route they took. Thank you again Aunt Esther! Other family members that we saw were Fred and Ginger and Mark and Denise, in Houston; Steve in Tucson, Dave and Bella in Phoenix; Howard and Jackie in Las Vegas and Aunt Zelda in Los Angeles. Special mention is needed for Aunt Frances, eldest of Gerry’s mother’s siblings who miraculously lived long enough for us to make a very long overdue visit to her in San Francisco. When we saw her she was alert and only frustrated by the limitations of her failing 97-year-old body.

After a long delay, we collected it all together and produced a Stotland Genealogy CD that contained the results of the collective efforts of so many people. In 2004 we hope to add to it, particularly by translating more of the information we got in Narodichi and by collecting biographies.

Mexico

From April to now we made three trips into Mexico, totaling 4.5 months. We have made steady and good progress with our Spanish while in Mexico. From the beginning Gerry was able to read the newspaper with understanding and now Jan has caught up, much aided by her excellent command of French. Now our reading speed has increased and we read with ease much more of the papers. As usual, Jan far exceeds Gerry on the speaking end of things and she has become our designated talk-to-the-hotel person. We have gotten through several books in Spanish; our first was a very easy to understand cowboy-western. Our latest is a Spanish translation of Jean- Jacques Servan-Schreiber's "The American Challenge" (Le Defi American; El Desafio Americano), a 1967 polemic about what Europe must do to avoid becoming an economic colony of the United States and seeing its culture submerged. It hardly seems like the issues have changed, although Europe has progressed from having about half the GDP per capita to near parity with the USA.

Without exception, every Mexican we meet is happy to talk to an American and greets us with warmth. Many of them speak English because they often have lived some time in the USA. As our Spanish has progessed we can have more depth to our conversations and still have the same experience. Just this past week, for example, while in a church we met a Mexican young adult who is studying information technology. We got to know a lot about her and life in the small village where she was born and lives.

Reading Mexican newspapers lets us see a side of Mexico that we don't encounter at all in the streets. There black is white and white is black. If an opinion writer or a news article has anything to say about the USA it is bad. That, we guess, is the definition of news and topicality: bad is news. Day after day, for a week, the papers we read covered Mexico's complaint to the International Court of Justice that the USA did not treat correctly fifty-two Mexican nationals who are on death row in the USA. Month after month we read that Mexico wants to sign a "migratory accord" with the USA in order to protect the rights of Mexican migrants. Day after day, at least one, and usually several columnists bring up some current or past USA misdeed, and often combine themes in the same column: The USA is an oil hungry, fascist, imperial state that has already gone after Afghanistan and Iraq. North Korea or Iran or Venezuela or Bolivia is next. American courts are corrupt; native American Indians are all mistreated; nobody gets good health care; half of all Mexican territory was taken by the USA and now it wants Mexico's oil and electricity industries. Our take on all this is that it is all sour grapes.

New Arrivals

On Jan's side of the family, we had to make do with emails and photos and the rare phone call. After visiting England every year for several months, we spent all of 2003 away. While we were gone Jan’s nephew Michael and his wife Joanne added Matthew to their family in August. Three out of three boys so far means that the Bates line will likely continue for another generation or two! We haven’t made the young man’s acquaintance yet, but look forward to it. At the end of the year brother Dave, who filled our place by staying in England nearly the whole year, went off for a 15-month stint in Korea. We wish him and his wife Jhap a wonderful stay in that country. Also at the end of the year, something rather amazing happened. On a whim, Jan typed into Google the name of a friend from our days in Nancy, France and came up with an email address. Very hesitantly, she sent a message to this email address and “Voila!” success. So we welcome Daniele Marin back into our lives and hope to see her before too, too long. The only other newcomers we have to mention are the new digital video camera and new laptop that we bought for ourselves as early Christmas/Hannukah/Anniversary presents in November. We had to make a special trip back to the States from Mexico to get them, but the time spent was well worth it both for the financial savings that ensued and for the opportunity it gave us to update our website, adding some about USA and Mexico travels. This year we moved it from AOL to our own domain, http://www.chandlerbates.com.

Anniversaries

2003 and especially December has been one of some important anniversaries. We set our visit to California for May so that we could attend the 40th reunion of Gerry's 1963 Caltech graduating class. In December we observed the 90th anniversary of the immigration of Gerry's mother and her family (including Aunt Francis, who made the trip as an eight-year old and who told us about it) from the Russian Empire. (Only 4 years later, in 1917, the Menshivik and then Bolshevik revolutions would take place and the Russian Empire would be replaced by the Soviet Empire.) And, the biggest anniversay of all, is ours. This December we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. As Tevye says in "Fiddler on the Roof", "Where did all the time go?" We actually met just over 31 years ago when we were both teaching in Nancy, France. Our full time lives together started 28 years ago when we moved to Iran. So shall we celebrate 25, 28, or 31?

Goodbyes

Besides saying goodbye to the year 2003 we had to say goodbye to some dear friends and relatives. In March, we were staying with our very good friends and one-time neighbors, Ron and Virginia, when Virginia’s mother finally gave up her struggle with chronic illness. At 92, she had lived with Virginia and Ron for several years and so was well-known to us. Although it was a wrenching loss for Virginia, we are happy that in such sadness there is a small ray of happiness in that at last Virginia and Ron have time to spend on one another again. Long may they enjoy it.

Then, at the end of July, came the sad news that the spirited life of our neighbor and friend Florence Ryder had come to an end. We knew her and her husband from 1979 when they so warmly welcomed us as neighbors. We are thankful that suffering from Alzheimer’s as she did, she didn’t grieve her loss even if we did. We are also thankful that her husband Harold had help and support in the last few months from Florence’s daughter Linda and her partner. Florence was never one to regret things that can’t be undone. She lived a long and active life and knowing her was a pleasure and a privilege.

In September, Aunt Frances' body gave out. Sadly only three months after we saw her, the body failed her completely and she died, the last of her generation, nearly 90 years after setting sail from the shores of Latvia to those of Canada. We were sad to lose her, but grateful also, as with our two other 90-year old friends departed, for a final release from suffering.

The Near and Far Future

We have been traveling just about four and a half years. We are not ready to give up yet, although doubters doubted we would last a year and well-wishers were amazed at our stamina. Part of the secret is that we really don't travel hotel-to-hotel all of the time. We have really enjoyed our apartments in Paris, Beijing, Hong Kong, Jerusalem, New York, and DC as well as the comforts of Darlington. We must admit that after a long run in hotels we yearn for a kitchen of our own and a library of our own again (especially here in Mexico, our USA breaks helped a lot). Jan complains now and again of sensory overload with so much that is new packed into just about every day. In spite of our open-ended schedule, we always feel rushed, perhaps because Gerry feels impelled to explore almost every site that Lonely Planet mentions. But these are small problems and with the stock market slowly emerging from its depths we think we’ll continue for another year or more.

A quick look at countries we have already visited shows that we have covered less than a third of the world. We will stop before we see it all, but there are some places left that are important to us. If there are no major suprises and travel expenses can be managed, here's what we might be doing in the next 30 months or so: Central and South America ( 6 months), South Africa (3), Indonesia (4), Australia (4), Italy (4), Germany (3), Baltic Republics (3), and Russia (3). By the time we get to the last we hope they are more generous with visas than they were in 2002, when we skipped them. In several of these places we hope to return to apartment living, including some time in Rio de Janiero, Buenos Aires, Durban (South Africa), Jakarta, Melbourne, Rome, Dresden (or a similar smaller German city), and Moscow or St Petersburg.

After that we will look for a real home. By then Gerry will be 64 or 65 and, when most people get serious about retirement, he/we will be looking for jobs. A question we have long asked ourselves (others ask it too): where would we like to retire to? We've long known that (if we could afford it) we would like at least two places: a country place and a city place. Right now DC ranks number one in our list of possible city places. Our year started there (we had an apartment across the river in Arlington) and we really loved the place. The cold didn't bother us (we would choose winter there over summer) and we loved the easy access to intellectual life. We went to many, many seminars presented by the Brookings Institution, the CATO foundation, and others. At the Library of Congress we heard a speech by Valery Giscard d'Estaing (former French president) on his committee's proposal for a European constitution. We loved the building of the LOC and we loved the facilities they provide there for doing research, in particular for Jan their collection of foreign language dictionaries.

And now, to close. For those who didn't get our wishes, And once again, for 2004

Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Happy Hanukah, and etc. Feliz Anno, Happy New Year, Bonne Annee, Ein Gutes Neues Jahr, S Novim Godom ....

Jan and Gerry