2014 Family News

Keith, Jessica, Carla, Alex, and Kate (photo by Dee Rietveld)

Dear Friends,

Alex and Carla on day of the wedding

   

The next day, their "Just Married"
 sign was on the back of the tandem

We have had an eventful 2014. Perhaps most significant came on August 22, when son Alex and girlfriend Carla Cevasco married in a small civil ceremony at Boston City Hall. Eschewing the pressures and consumerism of a large-scale wedding, they had no guests other than a photographer. 

We are delighted to have Carla as our daughter-in-law. We hosted an informal open house for them here in Arlington in late December, one of several low-key celebrations they are having with friends and family.


Another significant, but much less positive development, came in the fall, when Keith learned that he had a rare, often-fatal fungal infection. [Spoiler alert; he survived.] Since the previous winter, he had been suffering a chronic “runny nose”, thinking it no big thing and hoping it would go away on its own. Then, once he finally decided to do something about it, it took nearly two months for the right appointment. Tests revealed it to be mucor, a fungus that is usually invasive with a high mortality rate.  At this point, the surgeon moved quickly. Fortunately, it was not invasive—Keith joins only three other cases in the medical literature --and the surgery appeared to have removed everything.

Just to be safe, he was also started on a powerful anti-fungal medication. Unfortunately, Keith and the chemo-like drug did not get along. Not only did he have nausea (a common side effect), but after five days on treatment he received an alarming call to immediately come in to the hospital emergency room (and stop taking the medication), after lab tests revealed kidney damage. He ended up four days in the hospital on an IV, until his kidneys began a slow recovery. 

Keith loading the 100,000th bike with staff and a representative of
the recipient non-profit

Even at home, however, Keith continued to struggle with digestive discomfort from a replacement medication, unstable blood sugar from his diabetes (common when under stress), and low potassium.  He lost 10 percent of his original body weight in about six weeks.  Thankfully, he has now regained his appetite, is happily on a diet of “good fat” (nuts, avocado, some meat, etc.) and slowly regaining weight, strength, and full kidney function.  And in mid-November, although still fragile, Keith was well enough to participate in the long-planned celebration of Bikes for the World's shipment of its 100,000th bike.

Keith and Jessica in front of new French doors and bay window

While Keith was seeing medical specialists (eight different at last count), Jessica was dealing with house repair contractors – ten so far. By stroke of luck, the house work bracketed rather than coincided with the worst of Keith’s health crisis. Beginning in September, to address the rotten wood, leaky air flow, and crumbling chimney of this 78-year-old house, we added a bay window and wider French doors to the “sun room” (an enclosed back porch), replaced siding and gutters, repaired the chimney with masonry and a new liner, and ameliorated radon. We tightened the building envelope, replacing most windows, the dryer duct, and attic pull-down stairs, putting in new HVAC registers, and re-insulating and sealing our AC ducts. In early December we completed an unnecessarily long and expensive bureaucratic process to secure approval of a zoning variance, to move the HVAC compressor from the sunny back yard to the shady but narrow side yard. We still have a few more replacement windows, shutters, and back steps on order, but the house is now much more energy-efficient, aesthetically pleasing, and functional.

A happy beneficiary

Earlier, in the spring and summer, Keith had immersed himself in transformations at Bikes for the World, adding two new staff (for a total of five), managing a record influx of donations, and leasing a first-time office, just in time to keep the auditors out of our dining room (and pleasing Jessica no end). With staff, Keith is beginning finally to focus on management, strategy and longer-term planning, and less on physical labor. The office move also proved to be a good incentive for him to sort through and dispose of the piles of paper that had accumulated in his home office – a process now thankfully nearly completed.

Our August vacation delivered not only an important break from the stress of Keith’s office changes, but in retrospect provided a humorous anecdote that preceded Alex and Carla’s marriage.  It was during this holiday that the couple planned to tell us of their plans to marry. Finding the right time to make the announcement during our time together proved more difficult than expected.

On top of Camel's Hump in VT

After initially rendezvousing and lunching at a restaurant in Greenfield MA, we caravanned to our guesthouse destination north of Montpelier VT. Upon arrival, we discovered that Keith (still under stress from work?) had left his backpack at the lunch stop--with insulin supplies and passport. Rather than relax and enjoy a home-cooked meal where, we were to understand only later, the couple planned to break the news, Keith, accompanied by Kate, immediately had to drive the five-hour round trip to reclaim these critical items.  So much for day #1. The following evening, after a vigorous hike, saw us spontaneously join a friendly community supper, enjoyable but with little conversational privacy. So much for day #2. Only one evening remained together before we were to part, with Jessica and Keith to head north to a planned rail-trail excursion in Canada, and Alex, Carla, and Kate to return south. That Saturday, we enjoyed another hike, this time up Vermont’s Camel’s Hump, with glorious weather and views, only to descend and discover that the front passenger window of our vehicle had been smashed (in a very crowded weekend parking lot) and several items (fortunately of little value) stolen.

Here the story took two tracks. The first, of course, was that this represented one more interruption to sharing the news. We picked up the worst of the shattered glass, headed down the mountain, attempted to report the crime (not easy on a late Saturday afternoon in northern VT), vacuumed the remainder of the glass, and purchased some high-quality plastic sheeting and duct tape at a local hardware store.  Still emotionally on edge from the car break-in, we finally reached a local restaurant and began to relax…whereupon Alex shared the news of their marital intentions.  A welcome distraction!  

Bikes getting loaded on the shuttle

We still had a second challenge. It was Saturday night, we (i.e., Keith and Jessica) were departing the following day for the long drive northwest of Montreal. Early Monday morning, we were scheduled to park our car in an open lot, shuttle ourselves, bikes and gear to the north end of the rail-trail, and begin a four-day return by bike. Without a secure car, how could we store our excess baggage? We had to get our window fixed…

Keith along the Le Petit
Tren du Nord rail trail

how, given the location, limited availability of Prius window glass, weekend timing, and tight schedule? Fortunately, the small family firm providing the shuttle service generously offered to store our extra bags in their small office (housed in a picturesque caboose at the end of the rail trail) and arrange to have someone repair our window during our trip. As a result, we were able to enjoy an uninterrupted, worry-free, romantic excursion, biking 200 kilometers through beautiful scenery, and including gourmet breakfasts and dinners at each of our overnight stops.    

On Milford Sound

Lest we forget, we did go to New Zealand back in January, sandwiching a tour of the more rural, glacier-dotted South Island, with visits to a former colleague of Jessica’s in Christchurch and ending in the capital, Wellington, with a relaxing and enjoyable reunion with Keith’s high school exchange student “brother”, Stuart Macdonald. The combination of personal reconnections and breathtaking scenery made for a delightful three weeks. 

Along the Routeburn Track

Another view of the Routeburn Track

Highlights of our independent trip by car, bus, boat and foot included a leisurely overnight cruise on the Milford Sound (thousand-foot vertical cliffs and waterfalls!), a three-day supported (with first class lodging!) trek across the Southern Alps on the Routeburn Track, and two days at the base of Mt Cook. In general, we were fortunate with the weather, blessed with the summer’s first consecutive string of sunny days for the alpine Routeburn as well as for Mt Cook. 

Back home, when not dealing with medical and contractor appointments, Jessica continues to enjoy biking, hiking, exercise classes at a county recreation facility, and to participate in the Finance and Nominating Committees of Langley Hill Friends Meeting. In coordination with sisters Margy and Bethany, and daughter Kate, she is regularly visiting her mother Kay Mott, who turns 94 in January. Jessica also continues to read – her favorite book this year was Betty Medsger’s The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI.

We see Kate regularly despite her rich professional and social life. At work, the library has increased her supervisory responsibilities. She was a primary mover behind an extremely successful library program, Late Night Recess, where over 200 twenty- and thirty-somethings blew off steam by playing four square, tug-of-war, capture the flag, nerf and other games after hours. She has increased her participation in Young Adult Friends, and continues with her book club, seeing friends and dating.

Despite the personal distractions of this year, we remain concerned about issues such as global warming, inequality, and violence in all of their many contexts, keep trying to do our bit, and have deep appreciation and gratitude for the efforts of others.

Margy, Kay, Kate, Carla, Alex, and Jessica

We have hosted Alex and Carla as well as Kay and Margy over the holidays. We hope to hear from you and would welcome the opportunity to provide hospitality should your travel plans ever include the nation’s capital.

Wishing you well for 2015,


Keith & Jessica

John and Kay Mott on
top of Mt. Washington
in late July 1944

Alex and Carla on top
of Mt. Washington
in late August 2014

  

  

  
    

 

     

2013 Family News

Dear Friends,

This has been an inward-looking, family-centered year.

Keith, Jean, Jory, and Jim

Keith lost his mother Jean in early April of complications from open heart surgery at the end of 2012.  Supporting her and then dealing with her death dominated our time and attention (and that of Keith’s sister Jory and husband Marty even more so)  -- and strengthened Keith’s bonds with his two siblings and extended family.  Jean was 91, but until her final illness had maintained a high level of energy and social engagement, chairing her continuing care community’s Activities Committee, introducing wii bowling, playing bridge, leading a painting group, reading to the blind, etc. Even in the post-surgery intensive care unit, she amazed staff by playing word games and making silly Christmas hair decorations out of hospital supplies. But during subsequent rehab, she suffered a stroke and then an infection. We feel her loss strongly, not the least because she was "much the same Jean” to the end. We miss her.  And celebrate her life.

Family gathering on the day of Jean's funeral

Family gathering with Kay
 at Thanksgiving

Jessica made regular visits to her mother, Kay, resident in the assisted living part of a continuing care community in southeastern PA.  Kay at 92 makes use of a walker and wheelchair to remain mobile, gardens (on her hands and knees), reads the New York Times editorial pages, and enjoys contributing to various causes.  However, she is increasingly frustrated with declining short-term memory.   Jessica is grateful that her sisters--especially Margy but also, in spite of a full-time job, Bethany--are also devoting significant attention to Kay.

When at home, Jessica has continued hiking, working out at the gym, and participating in several bicycling groups.   She’s also read more (including a range of books on neuroscience, as well as her old staple – fantasy/science fiction “candy”).  She has tried to stay professionally informed in natural resource management and land tenure developments, but for the time being she relishes her flexible schedule and has had no “drive” to return to the job market, or even spend much time at a computer.  She is beginning to re-engage with her Quaker meeting.

Keith returned from attending to his mother to a hectic spring collection season at Bikes for the World.  Highlights include receiving 5,000 trade-in bikes through a partnership with a national retailer.   By the end of this year, 14,000 bikes will have been shipped, and three corporate partnerships will have been formed.  With a strategic plan in place and a fourth salaried employee hired, Keith is feeling increasingly confident that the program will “take off”, but challenges remain.  A professional video on Bikes for the World produced by a Texas foundation can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6oSi-RLYJU.

Together, we found time to enjoy a broad range of music -- folk, reggae, and Broadway musicals including John McCutcheon, Bobby McFerrin, Soja, and Showboat --overcoming what was in retrospect several years of cultural drought, and lifting our spirits.

Kate and Alex at Iguacu Falls

Kate still enjoys her apartment and her work as a reference librarian. Living and working nearby, she visits regularly.  A favorite family activity is watching taped Jon Stewart programs.  In November, Kate traveled to Brazil for tourism and a friend’s wedding in Rio de Janeiro, joined by Alex for a second week visiting Iguacu Falls and the Amazon.

Alex and girlfriend Carla moved to a new, more satisfactory apartment—with a responsible landlord—last spring.  They acquired a cat during the summer.   Alex continues to enjoy the work at the Geographic Information Systems “help desk” at MIT while Carla began her third year of a PhD program in American Studies at Harvard.

Keith, Jessica, Carla and Alex
overlooking Crawford Notch

Keith, Jessica, Alex,
and Kate overlooking
Mount Washington

All of Keith and Jessica’s personal travel this year has been by land.  We drove twice to New England last summer– the first in June for Keith’s 40th Middlebury College class reunion and then over to New Hampshire for hiking, the second in August back to New Hampshire for more hiking.  The kids were able to join us for portions of the hiking.  We spent Labor Day with Quaker friends near the beach in Chincoteague VA.   After 35 years of countless airline trips, mostly long flights for the World Bank, Jessica has enjoyed a 22-month respite from airports and planes.  We will break this hiatus, however, flying to New Zealand early next year.  While we face the economy fare flights there and back with some trepidation, we look forward to enjoying the 19 days in-country.

Speaking of the world…   May we all witness one that in 2014 is more peaceful, equitable, and environmentally-sound.

With affectionate best wishes,   Keith and Jessica

2012 Family News

Dear Friends,

2012 was another year of significant changes…work transitions and succession planning for the old folks, new jobs and digs for the young.

Jessica concluded her employment at the World Bank at the end of March, nearly 34 years after she first started to work in “operations.”  Her goodbye letter to colleagues gave highlights and her retrospective on her experiences.  Other web postings of short films (Tajikistan Farmland Restructuring,  Tajikistan Sustainable Land Management,  Kyrgyz Republic Real Estate Registration) show three of the development projects she worked on in Tajikistan and Kyrgyz Republic.  In her new free time, she has enjoyed hiking, exercise at a local gym, gardening, cooking, and reading.  She has also spent more time with a range of family members (see below) and it has been a huge relief to be free of other responsibilities to make this possible.  But the lack of deadlines and pressures to be conventionally productive is not entirely positive.  While she has taken baby steps in reorganizing the current family filing system, reducing paper, and digitizing a few historic family photos, she laments that she has not tackled the six large boxes filled with more recent photos in the study, and mountains of boxes with paper files in the attic.  

Keith has deepened his commitment to making Bikes for the World a national movement.  The board of directors has expanded to incorporate a wider range of professionals, with business, fundraising, and program experience, and at year-end was engaged in a strategic planning process laying the groundwork for a more sustainable organization.  In the spring, a partnership with national retailer Dick’s Sporting Goods delivered more than 4,200 bicycles to the BfW warehouse in Lorton VA, filling it to capacity (see video link) and contributing to a record 13,500 bicycles shipped in 2012, a 50% increase over the previous year.   A redesigned web site is scheduled to be launched in early 2013, making use of the growing volume of beneficiary stories, photos, and video coming from overseas partners.

Kate is flourishing since January as a reference librarian at Arlington County Public Library.  In February, she moved to her own place but, with our house on her bicycle commuting route, we still get to see her regularly for supper and/or watching taped segments of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. 

Alex switched jobs in August, resigning from his research analyst position with an environmental consulting firm and starting as a geographic information systems (GIS) specialist within MIT's Libraries.  Also in August, he and girlfriend Carla Cevasco moved in together, to a third floor walk-up.  Both sets of parents provided physical and logistical support, moving furniture downstairs and up.  Note: it is very hot in Somerville MA in August.

Speaking of heat, we managed to avoid the infamous derecho storm, resulting power outage, and much of the intense mid-Atlantic region heat wave in early July.  We had opportunely departed only the day before, to attend a Quaker conference in Rhode Island, where we participated in the “Cycling in the Spirit” workshop (which basically consisted of daily long morning bike rides).  Following Alex’s move in August, he and Carla, together with Kate, Jessica’s sister Margy, and nephews Graham and Brian Pratt joined us at a cottage on the grounds of the Philbrook Farm Inn, our traditional base for day-hiking in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

Other transitions this year have not been so positive.  Jessica’s brother, Jeremy, died in early September in Roanoke VA.  Although he had been quite ill with Parkinson’s and other maladies, his death at this time was unexpected.   Jessica keeps thinking of the things she was planning to discuss with him.  Much of the immediate burden of supporting widow Judy fell on family living nearby--daughter Mary and partner Jake, and Jessica’s younger sister Bethany and husband David.  But Jessica was able to spend a week immediately after Jeremy’s death to help Judy deal with some of the logistical follow-up.  We attended a lovely and meaningful memorial service in late October—Jeremy had been active in peace and Quaker circles going back to the mid-1960s.

Both Jessica’s and Keith’s mothers turned 91 in 2012.  Kay Mott is now happily settled in her assisted living quarters, continuing her passion for gardening and her interest in the New York Times editorial pages.  Jessica has been glad to have more time to spend with her, helping her cope with everything from financial matters to new hearing aids.  Jean Oberg had open heart surgery the week before Christmas and is now in rehab in New York City.  All has gone well so far, and we expect her to return later in January to her own apartment in the continuing care community where she has been actively involved for the last ten years.

The family was active in the political campaign this year.  We hosted a Democratic Party volunteer for much of the fall; Jessica supported Emily’s List candidates, Keith and Kate canvassed; Keith organized volunteers at the precinct level.  Kate also worked the polls on Election Day as a non-partisan election officer, paying the price of these efforts which contributed to an unprecedented 85% voter turnout in Arlington, working uninterruptedly from 5 am–an hour before the polls opened—until 10 pm, three hours after the polls officially closed. 

Thanks to those who have shared their news!  We look forward to hearing from others who have yet to write.  In the meantime, we wish you all the best for a healthy, prosperous, and happy new year 2013.

Keith & Jessica

Alex, Carla, Keith, Jessica, Graham and Kate
 in the White Moutains

Jeremy in the 1960s

Jessica's retirement party

Graham, Jessica, Alex, Margy, Kay, Bethany,
David, Judy, Keith, Mary, and Kate

Letter from Jessica to Colleagues on Leaving World Bank Employment

March 27, 2012 

Dear colleagues who know me (with apologies to others for cluttering your inbox),

On March 30, 2012, I leave Bank employment, 34 years after I first worked in Bank operations and 32 years since joining as a long-term staff member. I hope to see some of you either this week or, since I am remaining in the DC area, in the months to come. My Bank email (which I’ve had since the inception of email!) will cease to function after my departure.

Departing staff frequently share reminiscences – and given my years at the Bank, I have a lot of them!

I shall always treasure the people with whom I have worked – Bank staff and consultants, donor and civil society partners, government counterparts, and beneficiaries. The combinations of people from a range of professional disciplines, countries, ages, and life experiences help make Bank work special. Early on I had on-the-job mentors with extensive operational experience both inside and outside the Bank, (some which dated to colonial administrations!) who shared their insights and lessons. Subsequently, as a task team leader, I have felt like a conductor of an orchestra, with everyone contributing to the performance.

I am also grateful for the opportunities to pioneer new types of analysis and to contribute to the achievements of a range of operations (especially investment projects). Highlights include:

During my early years:

• In 1978, as a summer intern, undertaking cost benefit analysis including nutritional benefits of a Rwanda project to increase agricultural production in household plots;
• During my first Bank mission 1979, in the absence of recent census data, determining that about one third of the population of Surinam had migrated (associated with independence in 1975) by taking into account the difference between airline departures and arrivals for several years;
• As a Young Professional in 1980, inserting an affirmative action covenant in the legal agreement for the Sri Lanka Construction Industry Training Project so that women would be included in the apprenticeship program for masons and carpenters in the same proportion as their representation among unskilled construction workers; and
• In 1981, helping in the design and implementation support of a range of integrated rural development projects in Brazil. 

In the mid-1980s.

• Articulating the benefits, instigating the impact evaluation research, and then leading the implementation support for the Thailand Land Titling Project, the Bank’s first stand-alone land administration project; and
• Leading implementation support for a sustainable land management project involving hill tribe and other upland agriculture as well as forestry in northern Thailand, including collaboration with incubating methodological innovations in participatory rural development. 

From the late 1980s through 2002:

• Contributing to the development of the first set of detailed Bank guidelines in environmental assessment;
• Leading design and implementation support for four separate, pilot-phase Global Environment Facility biodiversity projects in Indonesia, India, and Bhutan. Perhaps the most intensive of these efforts was the India Ecodevelopment Project, a people and protected areas project which, inter alia, established precedents and procedures for a process-oriented (as opposed to blueprint) project design, a comprehensive social assessment, and extensive civil society dialogue with both tiger and tribal advocacy groups; and
• Leading design and implementation support for a range of participatory forest management projects in India that provided local inhabitants with resource rights and responsibilities and transformed relationships between tribal people and forestry officials. 

During the last nine years, continuing to work as a task team leader for:

• A forest management technical assistance project in Bosnia and Herzegovina that, inter alia, set precedents for good governance training and procedures, and completed the first country-wide forest inventory in over forty years;
• Sequential immovable property registration projects in Kyrgyz Republic with notable accomplishments in good governance, efficiency, and client service;
• A farmland restructuring project and the land agenda of Policy Development Program Operations that have accelerated the provision of land use rights to rural families; and
• A sustainable land management project in Tajikistan that introduced livelihood-oriented participatory natural resource management approaches, rebuilt the assets of a significant portion of the country’s upland farmers, and fostered self-reliance of people who had been dependent on post-conflict humanitarian aid. 

Since the late 1970s, the Bank has gone through dramatic changes.

• Office technology has evolved from typewriters and main frame computers to laptops and videoconferences; and from no electronic contact with headquarters during missions and evenings at home to 24-hour connectivity.
• The Bank’s institutional structure and interactions have evolved from a dominance of hierarchies and European/American-centric male economists and other professionals who mostly graduated from just a few universities; to transaction-intensive matrix management, increased influence of other disciplines (including other types of social scientists) and academic backgrounds, and more cultural and gender diversity.
• Investment patterns and guidelines have also varied in influence and repute over the years, sometimes cyclically -- e.g., policy reforms and conditionality versus field level investments; private sector versus public sector; rigorous (but sometimes expensive or otherwise infeasible) impact evaluation versus other forms of analysis, monitoring, and communication that influence decisions and implementation performance; credit versus grant financing, high risk and reward versus low risk, short-term versus inter-generational time horizons, focus on the poorest versus commercially-oriented economic growth.
• The Bank’s reputation among civil society, government, and academia has also fluctuated. Some of these changes have involved trade-offs and synergies while others have been a manifestation of the ongoing tension within Bank operational work between the theoretically perfect or “first best option” and feasible “good practice” and second best solutions. 

Work/life balance at the Bank is a challenge for everyone, including me. Since my husband worked as a development professional at a foundation and traveled internationally, I tried out almost all alternatives: taking our daughter on mission 5 times before she was 3 years old; working part-time; taking leave without pay after our son was born; and then coming back to work for a few years in a non-travel position. Counteracting the Bank’s workaholic culture wasn’t easy, but it was well worthwhile in terms of family relationships.

Lately, however, I’ve lost my work/life balance. I’ve been so busy with work during the last few years that I haven’t had the time or energy to consider options for what I want to do post-Bank. Even before the Bank’s “cooling off” policy of 12 months of no Bank consultancy was announced, I decided I would take a sabbatical of about one year to devote some attention to the “life” side of the work/life balance, and to “figure out what I want to do when I grow up”. My immediate aspirations are to get physically fit, spend more time with my 91 year old mother and 90 year old mother-in-law, start to tame the mounds of paper clutter that have accumulated at home, and try out some pastimes that I haven’t done for a long time. Only then I will decide how to proceed, “as way opens”, to use a Quaker phrase, to get involved in activities that are intellectually rewarding and where I feel I can make meaningful contributions over the longer term. I’m looking forward to the exploration.

In closing, I wish the very best for all of you in the years to come, and do keep in touch!

Warm regards,

Jessica

Moberg Family Blog -- 2011 Update

January 2012

Hello friends:

Keith, Jessica, Kate, and Alex

This past year 2011—particularly during the late spring and summer months--was active and at times stressful, full of transitions, health challenges, and other pressures.

Daughter Kate obtained her Master’s in Library Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in May.  In August she took a short-term contract as a reference and instruction librarian at the George Washington University in D.C. Earlier this month, she began a new, permanent position as the College and Career Reference Librarian at the Arlington County Public Library.  Next month she plans to move into her own apartment less than a mile away from us. 

Jessica, Alex, Carla, Kate and Keith
hiking in the Presidential Mountains

Son Alex continues as a research associate at an environmental consulting firm in Cambridge MA.  He works on GIS and other analysis of topics such as the Gulf oil spill, whale migration, and endangered species.  Although he has stayed in the same general location, in late August, we helped him move from an apartment in Medford to a small shared house in Somerville, closer to girlfriend Carla, who that same month began a PhD program in American Studies at Harvard.

Over the summer, we moved Jessica’s 90-year-old mother Kay, from her apartment into an assisted living arrangement, staying within her continuing care community south of Philadelphia.  This involved sorting out family heirlooms and also helping deal with Jessica’s sister Margy’s things, since Margy had been living with Kay part-time, helping her cope in spite of growing disabilities.  Kay, barely mobile even with a walker, is relieved to be in her new quarters.

Jean and all her grandchildren

Before completing the move of one mother, Keith’s mother Jean fell ill, with multiple hospitalizations from diverse causes.  Notwithstanding more than a month cumulatively in the hospital over the course of the summer, Jean attended (and even danced at) two family weddings on Keith’s side – one here in DC late June, of cousin Brooke , where we served as host for out-of-town relatives,  and the other on the Maine coast in late July, of nephew John.   By September, Jean was recovered and able to celebrate her 90^th birthday back at in her apartment.

At Glenn Falls in near Pinkham
Notch, New Hampshire

Somewhere in this mix, we dealt with a flooded basement (February), temporarily moving all furniture upstairs and general rehab including gutting of our basement (July), and then re-flooding (with sewage blockage) just an hour before we departed for the Maine wedding and summer vacation in NH.   Fortunately, by phone, we were able to arrange for trustworthy local firms to enter the house, diagnose the problem, and then “snake” the main sewer line drain to the street, enabling us to return home to working plumbing.

Thanksgiving dinner with Kay, 

Jessica's sisters Margy and 

Bethany, and Bethany's family

Our busy work lives have also continued to evolve.  Jessica faced a stressful spring at work when she had to completely redesign a project operation under huge time pressure.  In August, while in the midst of all the family moves, she had to move her office to a different World Bank building, after sorting through more than eight years of accumulated papers.   She’s also had to deal with Bank requirements to regularly rotate from one region to another.  With 32 years, she has the dubious distinction of being the longest-tenured staff person in the rural development sector of the Bank (and this does not count her summer intern positions in 1976, 1978, and 1979).  So although she will be only 58, she is taking a buyout as of March 30, 2012.  (Please note that her work email will not function after that date – please contact us directly if you want to request her new contact information.)  Leaving the Bank would enable her to regain some balance and have the time to devote to personal matters, especially Kay and Jean.   She has already handed her work on the Krygyz land and real estate registration project during a fall trip to Central Asia.   Until March 2012, however, Jessica’s work responsibilities in Tajikistan will continue to take up almost all her time.  These involve land tenure and sustainable upland management projects as well as a Rural Vulnerability and Resilience Study, and include a final trip next month.

Keith, who turned 60 this year, is also thinking about the future.  After six years under the umbrella of another non-profit organization, Bikes for the World incorporated separately and established its own board of directors (February), took over payroll (April 1), received its IRS non-profit letter (April 29), and took on all the joys and risks of an independent existence.  Despite these institutional changes and increased expenses, the organization--with three dedicated staff members and many hundreds of volunteers—continued to operate in the black, and maintain the flow of donated bicycles to programs overseas.   Although production has remained constant during the last four years, Keith believes that it is poised for expansion in 2012.

Our health is always a concern.  In early November, taking advantage of a large gap between international trips, Jessica squeezed in foot surgery to deal with chronic arthritis in her big toe, and has found the recovery process frustratingly slow.  Keith, meanwhile, is keeping better control of his blood sugar levels with a continuous glucose monitor – providing family members with peace of mind.   With an inch-long transmitter/sensor inserted above his waist, he jokingly refers to himself as “the bionic man”.

We cannot end this note without noting some of the drama in the world—some negative, such as the continued unemployment and debt burdens of people both in the U.S. and abroad, and the demagogic focus of some politicians on issues that ignore injustice, divide the nation, and actually forestall economic growth and environmental sustainability; and some positive, such as wider political participation in some Arab countries, greater public recognition of the perversity of concentrated wealth, and stronger prospects for cuts in military expenditure.  May we work toward greater justice and prosperity in 2012.

Warm wishes,

Jessica and Keith

P.S.  In case you want to see our blog from past years, here is the link.  

Moberg Family Blog

Dear Friends and Family,  

We are going to use this blog address to post our annual family letters and other periodic news, and then distribute the link via email.  

Warm regards, 

Keith, Jessica, Kate and Alex