Ice

Red-orange esky/iceboxes/chilly bins seem to be everywhere in Cambodia. I often see people buying and selling these huge blocks of ice to use with them. They are so common that when some Aussie travellers who were here in July for only 2 weeks seemed to have forgotton that that there are other ways to keep drinks cold. They gave us their left over milk and said “Do you have one of those red eskys you can put this in?” I told her no we don’t, but we do have a fridge. This conversation took place in our kitchen, right next to the fridge!

Phnom Penh streets

Our news

This year we started going to a new church. Soeun has already begun helping with music and preaching. Its nice to go somewhere together and fairly close to our home. I'm pleasantly surprised at the amount of Khmer I can understand. Although maybe I shouldn't be surprised as the main thing I've been doing is studying the language! And there is still so much I don't understand. I've been writing about it under the topic of church on our other blog if you want to know more.

I have started helping some Khmer people teach English. Khmer teachers, Khmer kids, but all in English- they are amazing! My role is to help the teachers with their English and with class activities. My only training and experience in English language teaching is with adults, so I'm finding it challenging to think of learning activities for kids. Five year olds are quite different to adults! I'm blogging about it on the other blog under Bilingual school.

So I have been getting to know lots of new people which is both exciting and exhausting. It has been hard as I have had a cold on and off all for about a month. I keep thinking I'm better but then I get sick again. Very frustrating!

Second semester at the Bible school is beginning this week, so the students are back after a week holiday and Soeun is back teaching again. He was marking papers most of last week- one of his least favourite parts of the job. 

This semester Teacher Soeun is teaching two subjects: Intro to Preaching and Observation (as in observing the Bible)

Oh, and the project evaluation is underway!

Cambodian Pancake

Fun for you

To my regular readers/fellow bloggers here is some fun for you on Kronicle Extra.

Most deadly part 2

Thankfully the danger is mostly over now. But the loss is huge!

If you want to donate money try the Salvation Army or Red Cross

BBC and CNN- both have eye witness accounts, maps, videos, photos and other stories

Fireupdates has a map, twitter updates, photos and more.

Google fire updates

has a map and links to news updates

Most deadly ever

An unusually bad drought, unusually high temperatures and some wind. Even without the suspected arsonists it is a bad situation.

An sms I got from a friend in Victoria, Australia:

" 46 C (114.8F) in the shade. Really dry and windy." (Saturday)

As we've listened to Radio Australia over the last few days we were shocked to hear the death toll on Saturday from the fires was in the 40s, on Sunday in the 80s. Monday morning it was 108, by the time we went to bed it was 171. Its now at least 181 with people still missing.

That's more than double the death toll than what we used to call "the worst bush fires" when around 70 died.

I can't imagine what it would be like to be one of the survivors from one to the two townships that were destroyed.  Marysville and a community near Kingslake lost so much. Their family, their house, their neighbour and neighbours houses. Here is one families escape story: Terror Run

 Kinglake resident Christopher Hardy says he is devastated.

"Everybody's gone. Everybody's gone. They're all dead in their houses there, everybody's dead."

(from ABC news)

Its also been flooding in northern Australia, one family was effected by both! Dad stuck in floods, mum caught up in fires.

The Age is Melbourne's newspaper, and there is also lots of videos, photos, maps etc else where on the web. You can also find ways to help such as donating to the Red Cross.

Interact with Khmer kids online!(in English)

Rachael, an expat living here in Phnom Penh went to visit a garbage dump where people live and work, have a look at her photos here. Now she is helping kids of the dump families to learn how to use computers. 

As part of that they have a blog called A New Life.

If you would like to read what Khmer kids write about themselves, have a look! And they'd love it if you left a message too.

She is helping A New Day in Cambodia, and here is her blog post about how she got started.

Sorry, thats a lot of links. If you just look at one make it the kid's blog. If you want to find the link to it in the future I put it on Kronicle Extra, in the sidebar under "Cambodian Links".