Keith and Jessica's Letter Jan - Dec 2010

December 5, 2010

Dear Friends,

Here is our bi-annual holiday letter. We can’t seem to make it annual. Last year, we actually drafted a letter, but didn’t send it because Jessica thought it too happily glib and trite in what had--for many-- become troubled times. But it’s not all that bad and we attach it in its unfinished and now dated state below. This year we do have more to complain about – Bikes for the World is scrambling for new storage space (after six years of free and very convenient space). Significant budget cuts at the World Bank are causing Jessica to cancel consultant contracts and spend time on internal administration rather than on key issues for client countries. Political turmoil and in some cases violent conflict afflict Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Bosnia & Herzegovina, where Jessica's projects are. A painful back muscle spasm over several months interrupted Jessica’s fitness regime earlier in the year. And of course, later in the year, we found the results of the November US election to be depressing. Certainly, at least some of these pale in comparison to problems that many others face.

But on the other hand, we continue to have many, many things which bring us joy. Here are a few of the highlights:

In our immediate lives……

• After numerous serious scares with Keith unexpectedly going into acute insulin shock (low blood sugar), he is now using a monitoring device to measure his blood sugar on a continuous basis, which dramatically reduces the risk of lows (fatal in the short term) and also enables him to better control the incidence of highs (which cause nerve and cardio complications in the long term). Meanwhile, Jessica’s back is now recovered, and she hopes to soon stop using her work overload as the excuse to not return to her former exercise practices.
• Keith has two new employees at Bikes for the World, one of whom is working weekends, enabling him to spend several Saturdays this fall at home with Jessica, for the first time in several years. Here is a link to the BfW webpage and the link to some other recent BfW publicity.
• Jessica’s work at the World Bank is achieving results, as reflected in a competition recognizing successes of a sustainable land management project in Tajikistan (TJ CAWMP link), in the resolution implementation problems in a farmland restructuring project in Tajikistan (thereby empowering poor family farmers) and a land and real estate registration project in the Kyrgyz Republic (where the achievements of the earlier project had been recognized in 2008, KG LRERP link) and as demonstrated in plans for continuing Bank engagement in forestry sector in Bosnia & Herzegovina (after the project-financed State Forest Inventory showed that the forest lands cover more area--over 62% , the largest in Europe--and are in much better condition than previously believed).
• Of course, one of the seminal events of the year was the February “snow-maggeddon”. Both Kate and Alex were in Arlington for an extended weekend visit when it snowed close to 2 feet. The DC area does not have sufficient equipment to clear this amount from the streets efficiently, so we were marooned for days. After some frolicking and digging out our walkways, both Alex and Kate made it back to Vermont and North Carolina before our local street was fully cleared, in time for their classes. And fortunately, we never lost our electric power.
• Jessica, Keith, Kate and Alex, together with Jessica’s sister Margy and Bethany’s son Graham all spent a week together this summer at Philbrook Farm in NH. Jessica and Keith really treasure these times together, knowing that as Kate and Alex’s lives move on, such opportunities will become more exceptional. We had some good weather for hikes, including Mt. Adams (the second highest of the Presidential Mountain Range) which even Jessica climbed, much to her amazement.

In the lives of our children …….

• Kate is busy in her second year of a master’s program in library science at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, with a focus on reference. She is living close to campus in an apartment with two other graduate students. She was even busier this summer here in the DC area when she held a total of three part-time jobs including two internships – one at the Congressional Research Service and the other at the Arlington County Library, plus her old position at the local Barnes and Noble bookstore.
• Alex graduated Magna cum laude from Middlebury in May and the following month began work as a research analyst with Industrial Economics Group, a small consulting firm in Cambridge MA. He is undertaking GIS analysis, data quality control, and other tasks on several interesting and worthwhile assignments – the damage assessment of the Gulf Oil Spill, proposed habitats for newly declared endangered species, and the consideration of whale migration routes in fisheries management. He is also enjoying weekend hikes in the White Mountains, trips back to Middlebury (and a blossoming romance with a senior there), and establishing his own apartment with a fellow Middlebury graduate.

In the lives of other family members…..

• Both Jessica’s and Keith’s 89-year old mothers continue engaged in the events of the world, their communities, and families, in spite of increasing physical limitations.
• Southwestern Virginia is becoming a Mott family hub. Jessica’s sister Bethany, and her husband David and two sons Graham and Brian have now moved to Floyd VA. After an extended job search and great troubles selling their Florida home, Bethany now has a job with a university library, and they have purchased and moved into a new home on a scenic farm with room for all their animals. Furthermore, Jessica’s brother Jeremy and his wife Judy have now moved to a new home in Roanoke VA, and after stints in a hospital, a nursing home, and assisted living, Jeremy is now well enough to live at home, although he is very disabled from Parkinson’s disease. Jeremy’s daughter Mary and her significant other Jake live in nearby Blacksburg and are building a house in Copper Hill VA.

In an additional blog page we are sharing some family photos we had taken over 2010 and 2009. We hope to hear from those whom we’ve not been in regular contact. We send our best wishes for you and the world we all share.

Warm greetings,

Keith and Jessica

Jessica and Keith's Photos 2009 and 2010

Jessica's & Keith's Letter: Jan-Dec 2009

December 1, 2009

Dear Friends:

Empty nest syndrome has finally hit! One indicator is that now that the kids have departed, we are getting serious about fixing up the house. Jessica tells me we shouldn’t talk about renovating while the economy is in the tank and so many are out of work…and she has a point. But my response is that this is simply long-deferred maintenance—it’s only been 21 years--and, besides, we are simply doing our bit in support of the Obama economic stimulus.

But with the kids away, we also appear to have the energy to deal with contractors, choices, and the actual work itself. And have places to temporarily store items needed to be moved out of the affected rooms. Little do Kate and Alex know how much their sacrosanct abodes, for sustained periods in the fall, resembled satellite Smithsonian annexes, filled with two decades’ accumulations of furniture, boxes, and miscellaneous detritus. But the rooms are now clean and the results downstairs appreciated by all: a new kitchen (with room finally to open the stove and the refrigerator at the same time!), painting walls and refinishing floors in the dining and sun rooms, new hallway carpeting, miscellaneous insulation upgrades, and installation of blinds in selected windows. It’s too bad that insulating Kate’s drafty built-in chest of drawers has taken so long—for many winters she had the thrill of putting on cold socks every morning.

Piecemeal renovating is a slippery slope, as experienced renovators well know…fix up one thing, and the room immediately adjacent looks shabby.

So, in spite of ample progress, much work remains to be done.

On that theme, back to the kids. As foreshadowed above, Kate, after three years of post-graduate exploration of professional opportunities, departed in August to pursue a degree in Library and Information Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is particularly interested in the reference and people side of library science. The University of Texas at Austin had also pursued her, giving her a most difficult decision. Her choice, influenced by both family locus and professional opportunities, has enabled her to visit home and grandmothers regularly while staying financially self-sufficient through an ambitious combination of fellowships, work, and in-state tuition through the Academic Common Market between NC and VA. It’s been a heavy workload, as she balances a full load of classes with jobs, but she has still managed to develop a vibrant social life through the library school and her housemates. We miss her greatly but are glad to have her close.

Alex is currently in his final year at Middlebury, with graduation set for May 2010. He is a Geography and Environmental Studies joint major. One class he took this fall involved a group project drafting an analysis—economic, environmental, etc. -- of the College’s innovative wood chip heating plant. Following his fall 2008 semester in Valdivia, Chile, Alex spent January 2009 traveling in Southern Patagonia—a trip that included visits to the Fitz Roy and Torres del Paine trekking circuits. Some of you may want to add him as a friend on Facebook to see his outstanding, and carefully selected, series of photos of the Patagonian Andes and Tierra del Fuego. Beginning this fall, Alex has been dedicating more and more of his time suffering graduation angst and preparing for life after college, drafting a CV highlighting his impressive GIS skills and employment with Middlebury professors, with a view toward working rather than pursuing grad school, Peace Corps, or the like.

Both kids are concerned about the economy and the uncertain job outlook, but for Kate it’s a year and a half further out.

Meanwhile, Jessica and I have too much work.

Jessica continues leading interdisciplinary teams of World Bank staff and consultants, focusing on land management issues. One project, in Tajikistan, has over five years contributed to 44,000+ families receiving small grants for agricultural and sustainable land management investments in upland areas. In a separate project in the same country, after a slow start, farmland restructuring is finally beginning to accelerate, with over 5,000 families receiving land use certificates in 2009 and thereby gaining more control over farm management. In the neighboring Kyrgyz Republic, as a result of two sequential projects, over 2.7 million properties (92% of all private properties) are now included in an efficient and transparent land and real estate registration system. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, field work on the first country-wide forest inventory since the 1960s has been completed, (more than 60% of the country's land area) and other improvements in forest management and governance systems have been made. A new project is also underway in Bosnia, under which the percentage of the country covered by protected areas and “high-conservation-value forest” has already tripled, from less than 0.6% to about 1.8% (9,200 KM2). Local political turmoil in all three of these countries, and worldwide economic problems, have made efforts this past year even more challenging than normal.

To alleviate her overloaded work program, Jessica "handed over" a sixth project (Kazakhstan forestry) to a new team leader early last year, reducing her portfolio to “only” five projects. Even with this welcome change, she has found she has little time and energy to spare for non-work activities.

Keith continues to manage Bikes for the World, collecting and shipping donated used bikes to support education, health, and employment programs in Africa and Central America. Following record shipments in 2008—10,300 bikes coming in through more than 80 community events and individual pick-ups and drop-offs, going out in 23 distinct overseas container-shipments and smaller location donations—production decreased by about 10 % in 2009. While the economy may have had something to do with it, 2009 may have just been a return to normalcy after an extraordinary 2008, and the program has undoubtedly hit a ceiling without making substantial structural changes, two of which are anticipated in the next couple of weeks—hiring an office manager and setting up an office away from the house, to remove some of the administrative burden from Keith’s shoulders.

Vacations took us in different directions this summer. Kate undertook a solo month in England, staying with family friends and traveling and sightseeing on her own. Remaining family members headed west, starting in the Kootenay Rockies of southeastern British Columbia. We stayed in a delightful B&B (we highly recommend the home-made granola and fresh bread), using it as a base of operations for some wonderful alpine day hikes seasoned with good weather (and preceded each day by challenging drives in our trusty 4WD rental, up windy and cliff-hugging and occasionally washed-out forest roads, to the high-altitude trailheads). For the last three days of the stay, we attended a very sociable multi-generational reunion of alumni of the Argenta Friends School, where Jessica had spent her Junior (and last) year of high school…leading Keith to constantly remind her that she is a ”high school drop-out”.

Following this first week in Canada, we headed southwest crossing the inter-montane desert and the US-Canada border arriving in the dry leeward foothills of the North Cascade Range. Although valley temperatures were in excess of 100 degrees F over the week, trailheads were at much higher elevations and the hiking temperatures tolerable, if we brought ample water.

Travel is an annual theme. Besides the above, Keith attended his 40th year high school reunion, and was honored to have Bikes for the World selected as the class’s service project. He found wrenching on bikes in the rain a great way to catch up and interact with classmates in new ways.

As a family, we spent more and more time at our 88-year-old mothers’ homes, taking advantage of north-south travel bringing Alex to and from Middlebury. Both kids visited their grandmothers independently, and Keith’s mother Jean joined us flying to Florida over Christmas.

Christmas-New Year’s combined two things one should normally not do – driving and snow. The week before Christmas, we drove 1400 miles from Arlington to Orlando FL and back, the week after we drove 1000 miles up to Middlebury and back. We hit the jackpot with snow on both journeys, escaping Arlington plowing through 20 inches of the stuff, and in Middlebury the first weekend of 2010 – where we enjoyed cross-country skiing and seeing a well-prepared community continue operating during its biggest snowstorm ever.

This may have been our last vacation/visit to FL, as Jessica’s sister Bethany’s family is preparing to relocate to the Roanoke VA area. In fact, the extended Mott family appears to be establishing a critical mass in southwestern Virginia. Over the last several years, niece Mary Mott and boyfriend Jake have been living in the Blacksburg area and attending Virginia Tech. Now Bethany has taken a marketing position with a start-up radio station in Roanoke, and husband David and the boys plan to follow after the school year ends in May. Brother Jeremy Mott is now in an assisted living community in Roanoke, suffering from Parkinson’s, and wife Judy will be moving to the area shortly.

Wishing all of you peace and prosperity in 2010,

Keith, Jessica, Kate, and Alex

Jessica's & Keith's Family Letter: Dec08/Jan09

Dear friends,

It has been two years since last we wrote. Keith jokes he frequently confuses “semi-annual” with “bi-annual”, but that’s no excuse for skipping last year. Rather, the unexpected death right after Christmas 2007 of a close friend and colleague, David Boynton, affected us greatly--so much that we didn’t have the heart to finish off our 2007 draft. David was the volunteer treasurer of Keith’s project, Bikes for the World, as well as a bedrock member of the Langley Hill Friends Meeting. He had been coming into our home almost weekly over three years, setting up and then maintaining the BfW accounts and mailing list, and wrapping the rest of our family in friendship. His absence has been huge.

Meanwhile, the two of us have been “burning the candle at both ends” in our work. That hasn’t helped letter-writing either. Yet all is not lost, as this letter attests—we enjoy the substance of our work, feel supported by family and friends, and—finally—are ourselves taking more responsibility for good health.

In the face of an inauspicious beginning to 2008, Bikes for the World has prospered, and recently shipped its 10,000^th bike of the year. Keith is blessed with a large number of talented and active volunteers who make the BfW work productive and rewarding. It is now the largest program of this type in the country.

Notwithstanding long hours working, Keith helped organize and now serves on the board of Phoenix Bikes, an after-school program for Arlington teens. He also coordinated our neighborhood’s Democratic Party precinct work, contributing in a small way to “turning Virginia blue” at the presidential level for the first time since 1964. To relax, he squeezes in monthly sessions with a men’s bridge foursome. Significantly, at mid-year, Keith’s endocrinologist adjusted his insulin regimen to better stabilize his blood sugar levels. The reduction in his “background” insulin makes him less hungry and tempted to eat too much and therefore less likely have high blood sugars causing long-term cardiovascular damage. His blood sugar is also now less likely to plunge into a debilitating and potentially fatal insulin shock after hard labor on bikes. Family members, needless to say, are greatly relieved.

Meanwhile, Jessica now oversees seven investment projects in four countries. She is leading task teams of wonderful specialists from many disciplines and nationalities. She shares with them—and with the implementing partners in each country—a passion for addressing the challenging issues of forest and protected area management, sustainable upland agriculture, land tenure (farmland restructuring) and land and real estate registration, in Tajikistan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, and Bosnia. The World Bank board approved financing for two new projects from her teams in 2008 (the Kyrgyz 2^nd registration project and the Bosnia protected area project), and additional financing for the Bosnia forestry project in 2007.

With such a large portfolio, Jessica has had little time and energy for other activities. She has not been a sufficiently active Quaker. Politically, she has been reduced to donating money and voting. In spite of her job pressures (and to help cope with them), she has been exercising more and eating less. She has relieved stress, lost significant weight, and feels much healthier. She will never be skinny but her body is now much closer to her internal self-image. She is no longer horrified by her reflection in mirrors and photos, nor paranoid about risks of blood clots and type 2 diabetes. Now she just has to keep it up, while cutting back on work so she has time for leisure and volunteer activities….

Keith, Kate, and Alex joined Jessica on her June trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina. They hiked and toured Sarajevo while Jessica was in meetings, accompanied Jessica and her team on field visits to national parks and forest reserves. At the end, the whole family enjoyed a long weekend visiting the historic rebuilt bridge in Mostar (see photo) and the medieval walled city of Dubrovnik, on the Adriatic Coast in neighboring Croatia.

We have been blessed to have Kate at home much of the last two years--although we hardly see her at times even when she is in town, due to her irregular job hours, book club, writing group, attendance and participation in three weddings, assistance to Iraqi refugee families, etc. She spent 2007 in diverse occupations, interviewing participants in a microenterprise program in Costa Rica, working at the Folger Theatre as a production assistant on a production of The Tempest, and working as a bookseller at the local Barnes & Noble. Over much of 2008, she also worked in the corporate underwriting department at the public TV and radio station, but ultimately decided that she didn’t want to pursue that career path. For the time being, she has opted to work full time at the bookstore. She enjoys the personal interaction with customers and using her extensive literary knowledge, but regrets that the job does not provide a living wage. Over the last month, she has been applying to M.S. programs in Library Science. Earlier, in October, she visited Alex in Chile (see below) and was pleased to find her Spanish still quite fluent. In November she served as a local election officer.

Alex spent the fall semester Valdivia, Chile. He subsequently had Christmas with cousins in Argentina, and is now embarking on a month’s travel through Patagonia. You can get a sense of his experience on his blog. We miss him, but have found Skype to be a great tool for staying in touch! Middlebury continues to be an excellent fit for Alex. He majors in Environmental Studies and Geography, enjoys the mountain club, and takes advantage of a wide range of academic and extracurricular opportunities—and he looks forward to returning in February.

Regarding the wider family circle, both Jessica’s and Keith’s mothers are now in their upper eighties. Each lives in an independent apartment within a continuing care community, in PA and NY respectively. Kay, Jessica’s mom, has experienced frustrating health problems, especially regarding her balance. Jean, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to be slowing down, in her fourth year as activities committee chair for her community. We’ve also witnessed the various ups and downs in the jobs and schooling experiences of our siblings, in-laws, nephews, and niece. On Jessica’s side, the recent financial troubles make all family members miss discussions with her Dad, a retired pension fund investment manager. Even in the 1990s, he had found the weakening of bank regulations troubling.

In the wider world, we are acutely aware of issues of violent conflicts and economic fragility. We have gained some comfort and hope from the presidential and congressional elections. But the problems are huge, and addressing them will take wisdom, dedication, and grace.

We wish all of you receiving this letter, AND the country and the world, a better 2009.

Keith, Jessica, Kate, and (from the southern hemisphere) Alex