Brian Calvert lived with John in DC while I was in India in 2005, he played a huge role at our camp-wedding in October 2006, and in 2007 he helped us fix up 509 Quintana. He left for Cambodia in February 2008, and he's still there, keeping it all together at Voice of America. He wrote this piece for The Review, John's section at the paper: Islam's Orphans. It's great. Here's an excerpt:

Before their near-eradication under the Khmer Rouge, the Chams were an obscure, nationless and relatively isolated branch of the Muslim ummah. Violently driven out of central Vietnam in 1471, they have long practised a folk version of Islam that retains an underlying indigenous belief in animism and magic. In the squalid, unstable years since the fall of the Khmer Rouge, the Chams have continued to struggle: even by Cambodian standards, their literacy rates are low, their maternal mortality rates high and their villages poor. But that could all be about to change – because suddenly, a host of people have taken a strategic interest in the Chams.

My fitness column is not nearly so interesting, but here is an excerpt from this week's, Nostalgia at my back:

I’m also nostalgic about Arabian horses, the champions of long-distance running. Arabian horses were bred by nomadic Bedouin for stamina, intelligence and beauty, and now they dominate the world of endurance racing internationally – the horse equivalent of marathons. Unlike marathons, however, endurance races have “vet checks”, where a vet can pull a horse out of the race if vital signs and recovery rates don’t measure up. Perhaps marathons should do the same – every week, several people collapse and die while running marathons. You might think it’s a boring form of exercise, but running is a dangerous sport.

We had a great Christmas at the Shainans. Kathryn made presents for everyone, and wrapped them each meticulously. It reminded me of Susanna Dakin's Christmases at Jackson street (SF) in the 50s, even though I'd never been to one. I bought a seven foot unidentified tree at the plant souq for 25 dirhams. Rose Lichter-Marck decorated it with snowflakes. We cooked all day. The cooking was so exciting that Iola stayed up for 6 hours; her previous awake record was 3. Or maybe it was the two sips of tea I drank at breakfast with my stollen?