Lene Fogelberg Blog

This is the week of Lebaran, the culmination of Ramadhan, when Muslims celebrate Idul Fitri together with their loved ones. Consequently Jakarta is more or less emptied of people traveling to “kampung”, their home village, however remote. Usually expats also go on vacation since many shops and res…

Elections in young democracies, as we have learned by experience, can be vulnerable. After a week of waiting for the results, today Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, was declared winner of the Indonesian presidential election. As congratulations pour in from the rest of the world, Jakarta ex…

We are back in Jakarta from Singapore, arrived late last evening. Soul and mind rejuvenated by sights like this one: the Science Museum at Marina Bay. Have you ever seen such a building? Like a giant waterlily, rising above its pond. To further enhance the effect there is an actual pond of purple…

Two and a half years ago, when I first set foot in Singapore, I fell in love. The warm ocean breeze coming from the green sea, the palm trees nodding gently to the soft music floating from speakers hidden in the flowers arrangements on the sidewalk, the skyline of the city pointing upwards like pi…

Summer is here! This is at least what my “body-clock” is telling me. Growing up in Sweden gives you a very precise sense for when to expect snow, darkness and cold or light evenings, birds chirping and warm winds from the ocean. It is in the way Swedes think and speak and plan the year. “We’ll go…

This week I have been thinking about balance concerning my writing. Slowly I am working out a new schedule for myself: writing during weekdays and blogging during weekends is the goal. Normally I’d be writing when my girls are in school, but I picked (of course) the possibly hardest weeks to try t…

Soccer is a huge sport in Indonesia. Even when traveling through the smallest village on an island you will see young boys playing soccer between goals of bamboo, shouting pretend names to each other such as Zlatan, Ronaldo, Neymar. As the boys grow up, some of them still dream of playing in the b…