another "between 2 worlds" moment

A plastic cup is used to scoop water out of a round ice box. This same cup is used for all the customers who buy  "Khmer noodles" from the lady on the street near where we lived. The hygiene habits are quite different so I usually just drink from my water bottle. 

my chicken seller

entry to the market i bought all our meat, veg etc from

 In Cambodia I'm often the one freaking out about food safety and those kind of things. Everyone else is happily eating and drinking and acting like everything is normal while all  I'm seeing are all the dangerous things.

When I'm with Aussies its usually a totally different thing. For example after I took some Aussie friends to the market where I used to buy meat and veg etc, they started giving me tips of cleaning meat, such as suggesting I should use lemon juice or something. I realised they weren't used to seeing meat out in the open air with flies buzzing around. 

 I was also brought up to keep meat in the fridge, but in China I had to buy it at the market, so I must have got used to it. After years of shopping, cooking and eating this way there doesn't seem to be any reason to change the habit.

The other day at work one of my co workers asked me a strange question, I didn't get it at first. It was on a day that I packed my lunch and dinner, as I don't go home until after dinner time. I think the question was something about how could I pack my dinner in the morning and eat it in the evening, wouldn't it go off by then?

The weather here is heaps cooler than in Cambodia, so it didn't even cross my mind that food would go off. When I stay with my Cambodian family I eat lots of food thats never been in the fridge.

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Comforting Continuity

Walking the flooded streets of Phnom Penh c2008. 

I've been wearing these blue thongs/ flip flops recently and feeling happy. I bought them back in 2008 and wore them pretty much every day from then until I left Cambodia about a year ago.  Its nice to have something that is the same, so many other things are different.

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o-day!

The other day I was at uni and I met a girl from China who has been in Australia for 4 days! She has come to study here, she hasn't really met anyone yet and is just finding her way around. I'm looking fwd to tomorrow, I'm hoping to meet some other new people!

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This blog is interesting , its by an American who just got back to the states after some time in Cambodia. Some highlights from her blog:

"... My boyfriend and I are experiencing a curious kind of post-third-world life culture shock...

“This place is so big and no one is living in it,” observed my boyfriend, as we walked down the echoing corriders of Arden Fair Mall on a Tuesday.

I thought of the Borei Keila people I’d been reporting on for the past month, who are battling intensely over tiny apartments and tiny patches of land.  You could fit all of them rather comfortably by most Khmer housing standards into around 1/4 of this suburban California shopping center.

I wonder how recent Southeast Asian immigrants respond to this kind of unused space upon arriving in the USA – Sacramento hosts a very large immigrant population, after all, a number of people must have had the same thought as me about the uses and misuses of space.

It would be remiss to write this without mentioning that people are much bigger here. Upwards and outwards. 

Restaurants are another curious experience, with every server speaking fluent English .....

The poor eat poorly in the USA, but at least they eat. I think of this as the Poor Are Fat countries, standing in direct relief to the Poor Starve to Death Under a Sweltering Pitiless Sun On A Regular Basis countries.

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this time last year

 With all the start of year things happening its hard not to keep thinking about this time last year. Last January I was planning to go to Brisbane but the floods put a stop to that. It was fun to be on holidays there this January and see that Brisbane river was NOT flooding (although it was a rainy week in the so called Sunshine State).

First staff meeting of the year, last year I was new and had no idea what was going on, and Soeun hadn't come from Cambodia yet. This year I get to enjoy meeting the new staff, catching up with the old, not feeling too confused, and enjoy having my husband in the same country. MUCH easier !!!! relief!

On the way to first staff event last year I crossed the road in auto pilot, it wasn't til I was in the middle of the road I realised I was crossing the Cambodia way but I wasn't in Cambodia as I wrote about here.

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still a novelty after 12 months

A common conversation among expats in Phnom Penh was how we missed being able to walk around town and go to parks. Between lack of footpaths (or space on footpaths) and the weather, walking isn't a pleasant past time or even a practical way of getting around. And parks, well, Phnom Penh doesn't really have them, and its mostly too hot anyway. (Land is for developing and making money- so many places in Australian cities are "wasted space".)

So being able to walk around on footpaths and go to parks has felt like such a novelty over the last 12 months. It was something that I was looking forward to as we packed up to come here (to aust from khmer), and its one of the few things that met my expectations.

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need a raft

In Phnom Penh after it rains it can be a bit wet, as you can see in this video.

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a happy holiday for my husband

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i'm reading this book

the monkey and fish story on page 27 is interesting! its about a monkey serving a fish and feeling happy he is a servant.. but the fish has a very different perspective

"Missionaries could more effectively minster if they did not think they were so superior to us."

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Moroccan Cafe

 It was the because of the Campos coffee sign that I went to this cafe, it turned out to be more interesting that I thought. Ben's Alibi

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Some South Bank holiday photos

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New year, new view: natural light!! airflow!! yay!

Our view 2012

Our view 2011

 Soeun and I have just moved to a different room on campus, and we are feeling much more positive about this year than last. Our health seems to be much better here so far, Soeun's dizziness seems much better. He is able to go in cars, and go to church and be in places where there are lots of people moving about. And I feel so much happier being able to see trees and sky and sunshine and rain out the window. In our last place we didn't even know if it was raining.

You can see from the photos that our new/current room has more natural light and airflow than our 2011 place. 

Ironic that in our last place we didn't have a bathroom window but ppl could see in, and in this place we do have a window in bathroom but ppl can't see in. Now we have privacy and air and light!!!

Its quite clever how they make the most of the space, building lots of student accommodation in a small space. 

You can see from we had frosted glass and wooden slates  out our window. This meant we and the college family near by had some privacy. Even with these 2 things we could see in their backyard and back door- which means they could see us in the bathroom and the room we got dressed in!

Our 2011 view with the frosted glass up so we can see out

Despite the fact that we now live on a busy road, about 5 m from our window there are cars whizzing past, I feel like its quieter here. In our old place the sounds from other rooms in the building seemed really echoey and loud. Four others lived with us and the sound from light switches and doors etc, as well as foot steps and water.  

After growing up in a house full of babies and toddlers on a national highway (trucks go past at every hour of day and night), 

and living with about 60 others in an inner city suburb (car alarms),

and in Cambodia with its weddings and funerals with music so loud the tiled floors vibrate, 

I would have thought that living back from the road in a quite suburb with only 5 other adults in the house  wouldn't have been such a big deal. But I actually found the type of noise more irritating than anywhere else I've lived.

That combined with the fact that Soeun seemed to get sick when he was living there and better when he was away, means that I'm feeling really happy to be in our new place.

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new year

So the cool thing about being in Aust is the calendar new year is in synch with the academic new year, so everything is new at the same time. In Khmer land we have international calendar  new year, then Chinese new year, then Khmer new year (April), then later on academic new year, which is significant if you live on a school campus and are married to a teacher.

This new year is a new work year for me, new study year for Soeun, we'll live in a new place and have a whole lot of new neighbours.

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Family Holiday Cooking Fun Photos part 3

sister making sushi rolls

Not pictured - lots of potatoes, mangos and Christmas cake, Christmas pudding

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Family Holiday Cooking Fun Photos part 2

 Cooked pizza with brother

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