Midnight. Malaysia. Mc Donald's

Midnight. Malaysia. Mc Donald's. I was eating a chicken burger with 2 strangers. Not where any of us expected to be. Budget airlines are like computers, great when they work, but when they don't its time to rewrite the slogan. "Now everyone can fly" becomes
"Now everyone can wait in line (to check in) at the right time and place under the right sign not realizing that they closed earlier but the sign wasn't changed, so by the time the 3 of us realised everyone else was going to a different destination it was too late to board"

Kimsoeun this month...

Kimsoeun has finished his end of year marking. After that he got all his hair cut off and joined the 3rd years on their end of year trip to Rabbit island. Lots of games including a watermelon eating contest.(See photo)

Yesterday he went across the driveway to get his laptop from the office, but he came home with 3 fish instead. The driveway was flooded so he picked up three fish and left them in a bucket outside our house. We put a metal grill thing on top, but the still got away. We don't know how they managed to jump out- we looked for them but they were no where to be found.



At 5pm yesterday he got a call from church. There was no one else to preach so it was his turn again! Only one evening to prepare. He ended up using a talk he did recently when the Bible school graduates got together.

Next thing for him- prepare class for next semester. He is teaching Romans for the first time.

Novel comes to life

I'm reading a fiction book at the moment about the first female president of the USA (J Archer, The prodigal daughter). I was thinking about countries that have female leaders, and wondering if/when the USA and Aust. would have one. I was reading it yesterday then went online. A headline flicked passed my eyes about a female PM in Australia. I thought maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me, how could we have a new PM, did I miss something? Later that night BBC told me there had been a Ruddless coup.

Snack seller on wheels

They built the houses too close to the poles. So now they are moving the poles.

"Why is her nose so pointy?"
"Because she eats lots of bread."

I overheard my friend and her curious 3 year old son talking about me. Us white people are known as having pointy nose and eating bread (as opposed to rice) so I'm not surprised to hear them linked but it is still funny. I'm not sure whether she was joking or not. Maybe her son will grow up believing white people have pointy noses because they eat bread?

I've learnt a lot so far from this friend "L", just by hanging out with her. We work together and half a year ago we started praying together once a week too.

This week as I was leaving her place I commented on the nice view of the sunset and palm trees I could see from her front door. She laughed. The sunset to her is sad, not beautiful. The end of the day, like the end of someone's life.

Our toilet detached itself

Our toilet detached itself from the floor. A little alarming. A guy came and glued it back on. What a relief!

Christmas Holidays

The end of the academic year is here. The Bible school students have exams at the moment so some of them are on campus this weekend to study rather than going to do their usual church work in various provinces.

Some of them made themselves dinner at our house as you can see in these photos. They brought the bbq thing inside and cooked meat and veg to dip in sauces and eat at they cook each piece. They are also watching some big sport thing on TV.

I finished my English groups with a revision day. For the girls at Bible school I made cake, and for the group at church we cooked pancakes together.
The primary school I help at doesn't follow the usual academic year here, but they are having their mid year exams now.

We had coffee with a family from South Africa recently. I was interested to learn about something that one of them misses from home.

Often, as an expat here you bump into someone from your country. It can be fun to say "hi, what part of Australia are you from? Wow, we are both Aussies in Cambodia"

These white South Africans get excited when they see a black person here. Someone from home! "Hi! Where are you from?" they ask.

But the black Africans don't recognize them as someone from home, probably assuming they are from the USA, France, etc etc.. So they just answer "Africa".

The girl we met told us she heard someone speaking zulu and got excited so she waved furiously at him as his tuk tuk went past. But he just looked blankly at her.

The skin colour is more beautiful on the other side of the fence

“Teacher, your face is white.”
In my first few months of China I felt kind of offended to hear this. Was she saying I looked sick? Or like a ghost?





Later I realized it was meant as a compliment. White skin is beautiful.
The shops are full of whitening products. Whitening soaps, whitening creams. Girls try to make their skin white.


Here in Cambodia it’s the same, sometimes its hard to find product that aren’t whitening ones. I recently bought some soap, when I got home I realized it advertises itself as whitening soap.

One of my friends went to have some kind of milk bath whitening treatment at a spa before she got married, so her skin would hopefully be whiter.
I try telling my Khmer friends that some people in the world try to tan themselves, and buy tanning products and treatments. I think that’s a bit strange to them as dark skin is associated with poor people who have to work outside all day. Something to be looked down upon, not to aspire too.

I took these photos of lightening cream and lightening face wash, as well as the body bleaching ones at one of the many small shops that line the streets. Do you wish your skin was more white? Let me know, I'll help you find some products to get rid of your tan.

Someone died today so I got to sit next to Kimsoeun in church! Usually he is playing the guitar but today we sang a cappella as someone had just died in the house across the road. The whole front of the house was open so we could see the body on the floor covered in a white sheet. They said it was an old sick person. The noisy chanting and stuff had started and people were busy doing all the things they do as soon as someone dies.

The photo above is of the house where the body is. Can you see the white funeral flag and the loud speaker. You always know when someone in your neighbourhood has died.

People made jokes about Thailand when they saw us today. We didn't realise when we left home but as soon as people at church saw us they commented. Can you see why?

I took the camera to church today to take photos to take back to oz, but it is hard to take nice photos in church. It is kind of dark and the walls are glazed white tiles. The darkness means you need a flash, but then the flash makes a bright spot on the white shiny wall. But I did get some photos of people.

For some reason I always feel so tired after church. I sleep for 2-3 hours and then it takes me ages to wake up. Church doesn't even go that long, but maybe from the heat and trying to understand Khmer.

Helping English teachers

Once a week I spend the morning at a primary school. I'm there to help the teachers with their English. Before class starts they read the Bible. We go around the circle and read a few verses each. I try to listen and read the chapter ahead of time, otherwise it takes me forever to read (actually even if i read it beforehand it still takes me ages). This week I thought we were doing Luke 23, so thats what I prepared for, but it turned out to be Luke 22. oops!


The first thing I see when I get to school is lots of little helmets and shoes (and some big ones).

I help some Christian English teachers. They are Khmer, but need to teach maths and English to Khmer kindergarten children.

So although I don't actually teach the kids i do get to practice my upside reading skills as I imagine a primary school teacher would have to do.


On Saturday about 10 of us had lunch at one teachers house. We made a duck dish with a particular mix of herbs and spices called groeung (I'll explain it on my food blog one day).



It was yummy! And lots of fun. I've been getting to know this group over the last year and a half, and started praying weekly with one of them. They are all around my age and can speak English (as well as Khmer of course) so they are easy and fun to hang out with.