Water

As I drank my bottle of water the other day, I pondered the ambiguity of the phrase that was printed on the label. “The quality drops.”

Snake House

Snake House
While we were in Kampong Som we visited this mini zoo restaurant place called “Snake House”. They have rock pythons and heaps of other snakes in glass cases, as well as some huge birds in cages and tanks of fish and other water creatures. I also saw some furry animals but I don’t know what they were.

I don’t know what’s on the menu as we didn’t eat there, but I did notice that inside the tables they keep snakes! So as you’re eating you can watch a poisonous snake at close quarters. Can you see the photo of the snake table?

It’s made into a rainforest like environment- lots of green and cool and moisture.

Beach Trip!

Beach Trips
I lived in Sydney for about five and a half years and went to the beach once or twice. I’ve lived in Phnom Penh just over a year and I’ve already had four trips to the beach- despite Phnom Penh being and inland city. About 4 hours drive from Phnom Penh is Kompong Som, also known as Sihanoukville, a beach resort type town.

Each time I’ve been it’s been with a big group of Christians on a conference or retreat. Most recently KS and I joined the fourth year students for their end of year class holiday. We drove down on Friday afternoon and back on Saturday.

I enjoyed the trip as I got to hear and try to speak Khmer language more than usual. I’ve been feeling like I spend a lot of time reading and writing and I need to be actually using it more. I know some of the fourth years from around college and other places, so it was fun to spend time with them. I was also excited because the guest house we stayed at had hot showers and cable TV (and Air con), including the Australian channel (although didn’t get time to watch anything).

The beach is lined with these restaurant shack places where you can order food and rent chairs to sit on. Most Khmer people swim in shorts and t-shirts- I think they probably find it a bit strange to see the foreign tourist wearing only “underwear” at the beach. One end of the beach has these big soft chairs and beach shacks that sell western food, but we sat down the more Khmer end.

I was the only “barang” (literally means French but also used for any white foreigner) with a big group of Khmer people singing Christians songs.

An American (who was videoing us) came to ask me if I was there teaching this group about Jesus. Most of these beach photos we took early in the morning before the sun and people came out, or late at night.

End of first term.

Well, I've almost finished my first term of Khmer language study at the uni. Next month I'll start Level 2. New book! New teacher maybe, some of the same classmates. This week we learnt that Khmer has a word for 100 grams.

Soon classes at college are finishing for this academic year, so soon most of the students will be gone. I was a bit worried what I would do about language as some of the students tutor me so I thought I'd have to find a new tutor over "summer". Also, the students are the main people I talk (try to talk) in Khmer with. But it turns out there will be some still here.

This is a random Cambodian house I saw the other day.

Big business, small business.

Rich man, Poor Man

Rainbow over college

Pepsi Petrol

Before I came to Cambodia I had heard of vanilla Coke, but the idea of Pepsi petrol is new to me. You can buy petrol at service stations in Phnom Penh, similar to ones in Australia. But if you want to buy cheaper (in price and quailty) you can buy from a street vendor llike the ones you see here. 4000 reil is about $1 US, you might be able to see in the photos how much
this petrol is going for, almost a dollar.

In the photo with the big umbrella, there is a girl sitting behind the blue drum.

Picnic photos again.....

After a storm

We're just going into rainy season now, so often in the afternoon it rains. The other day there was a storm, it was really loud and strong. A mango tree near us got struck and split open, thats what the picture is, but you have to turn your head to the left, sorry. After it rains the frogs are really really loud. This one was swimming in the drain outside the back door. Once one hopped into our house as soon as I opened the door. It was around the time I was reading Exodus so I suddenly had this image of our house full of frogs!

Cambodian lessons at uni

Here is a picture of my "lokrou"(address for male teacher). He is standing in front of the whiteboard, the day I took the photo we were learning about the "killing stick". Its a squiggle that goes above a letter in Khmer writing. Khmer has lots of words from India (Pali/Sanscrit). These words are really long compared to Khmer words. So this "killing stick" gets rid of the last sound, so the word becomes shorter. (But you still write all the sounds, you just don't say the last sound. Actually the final sound in a Khmer word is not said very strongly, so this killing stick sort of knocks off two sounds in one go.)

Also , recently we learnt the word for "towel". I was interested to find out that the inside of a cows tummy has the same texture as a towel. So the word for towel in Khmer includes the word for cows tummy!

From market to home

Yesterday I went to the market and bought some beef ($4 per kg), flour, veggies and fruit. I loaded up my bike. I put heaps of stuff in the basket, and tied some to the back seat, I also had some hanging off the handle bars. I didn't have my backpack cos I was going on my way home from class, so I had my shoulder bag of books. Anyway, I finally got all our food on somehow- and then my bike fell over! My stuff went everywhere, lucky I didn't buy eggs yesterday! Someone helped me pick it up, and I managed to get home after that.

How many people do you reckon are in this truck?

Happy Birthday

Happy 10th Birthday Jen (for tomorrow). Here is a gecko picture for you. Everyday we see these guys running around on our walls.

Picnic food prep

The day before the school picnic all the small groups were getting their lunch ready. Two students came to borrow a knife from me so they could cut a branch off the banana tree. I think they used it to wrap up some food. Another student borrowed the knife later on to cut some lemon grass. KS's group spent the afternoon picking "drawcoon" from around the grass on campus, then the next morning they cooked it in our kitchen.

"Prahok" is a paste made from rotton fish that stinks!!!! But it is a favourite food of many Khmer people. You can see here KS has some and he is mixing in some garlic, chilli and other seasonings. When he finished he put it in our lunch boxes to carry to the picnic the next day. Our group was very popular, students from other groups kept coming to our picnic table/bed thing and asking for some.

Beautiful

This week the college went to a bush picnic spot in some hills about 2 hours drive out of the city. It was very quiet and I think I saw more trees in that one day than I usually see in a month! In this post you can see pictures of the beautiful trees, beautiful picnic spot and of the beautiful husband. He doesn't normally wear flowers in his hair, but they were selling these head things. Some of the girls bought them to wear, and someone gave me one and some how it ended up on his head. We have some pictures of the students too, hopefully we'll be able to show you soon. We are just waiting to ask their permission.

Cambodian picnic spots usually have this raised wooden platform covered with a woven mat, where in Oz we would have a table and benches. You take off your shoes and sit on the platform under the shade of the thatched roof.

Soccer/football

A visiting team came to play. I "watched" from the "grandstands". In the middle of the game it started pouring with rain, but they kept playing. Luckliy the lightening and thunder only started after they finished.

Lizard

This guy was sitting outside our house, and he kept sitting still while I took his photo. In the background you might be able to see our house. At our wedding we got a huge card that said "Just Married" on it. How long do you think we can have a just married sign in the window next to our front door?

At Church

In a typical service the sunday school come in and sing and dance for us! Also a Psalm is read out, with everyone joining in every second verse.

We meet in an L shaped room on top of a house. The speaker stands in the corner so they can see everyone. The young people sit on one sit and the older people sit on the other, so we can't see each other. KS preaches at least once a week, you can see him here preaching from 1 Thess. He also helps with music. In the hymn book we use there are 2 sections, one is Khmer songs , the others are translated from English.

Before the serivce there is a Bible class and afterwards the young people have a study.

See those blue chairs? They are everywhere in Cambodia. As soon as the service is over they get packed up. I'm used to it now, but when I first discovered this (last year, at the Khmer chuch I went to then) I didn't know what was happening. Not understanding anything I didn't realise the service was over, and in Oz when the service is over I usually sit in my seat and talk to the people around me. So I wasn't expecting to have to jump up so quickly!

They'll be a bit about the church in our June newsletter.