new year etc

The Bible school started back this week, new year, new students, Kimsoeun has new subjects to teach. (I wrote this last week)





Mid Autumn festival 2003, I was given so many mooncakes!

This year the students weren't welcomed back with a flooded campus like last year. Since 2008 the campus fills up with water at this time of year, but this week it's been ok.




During term time I eat dinner and breakfast with students so first week back means new routine for me even though I don't work at school. It's nice to see everyone again, and eat pork and rice for breakfast.

The Bible school campus the other week- a little wet!

This week I went to visit a Khmer friend. We ate moon cakes and fished as we sat on her neighbour's bed. Even though the water around her house is not so high this week there is still enough to go fishing!




She had bought moon cakes at the market as this week China was having their mid autumn festival.




Dried fish hanging in our kitchen



Kimsoeun has been a bit sick recently, so currently has red welts all over his back see "What colour is the wind?"

Arb

"What would a head be like without a body?"


"Oh, you mean arb."


Thats not what I meant actually, I'd never heard of arb before. But the way the Khmer girls were talking about it they seemed to assume I would know. Another expat in my Bible study group also recently learnt about this from her language helper. I think her language helper is also a Christian, and also talked about this arb as if everyone knows about it.


A women's head can come off at night and float around with dancing intestines and green glowing gallbladder.


Some links:

The krasue (or Kra-Sue) is the floating head of a vampiric female ghost in Southeast Asian mythology.

The krasue is called Pi-Kasu in Laos and Arp in Cambodia.

The krasue is the floating head of a vampiric female ghost. Intestines hang out of the ghost's neck and trail behind the head.

Some other bits and pieces about it here and here.  

Bodyless

There is a word for a head without a body in Cambodian language if I understood the girls this morning. 



We were doing a Bible study on Ephesians 1, near the end, about how Jesus is the head of the church which is his body. I think we were meant to be talking about how important that connection is, and what the relationship is between the head and the body but we ended up on a big tangent. 

They told stories from their villages about how at night heads of some people (only women I think) leave the body and roam around at night to find food. The organs like lungs and tummy go with it, and one organ lights up like a flashlight (a green organ- which one is that?). When the head is full it can go back to its body.



One of the girls in the group said a girl had to leave her village because even though she wasn't a bad person, she had this strange power. Also in the village the pigs were stolen because people were too scared to stay and guard them. And one girl was scared to go outside to the toilet at night so they had to build a toilet in the house.



They said there are lots of these kind of stories as many people were killed during Pol Pot time and didn't have a proper burial, so their souls are still here. 


I'll ask Kimsoeun about it tonight.

Cooking at a friends house

After bike riding and walking through muddy and rocky flooded streets I finally reached a friends house. Before washing my feet and going inside she got me to pick a banana flower for the salad we were going to make. It's really yummy, I'll have to explain how to make it on my food blog sometime.
She has a small back yard but grows so much food in it. Lots of veggies and fruit (a melon/marrow thingy, papaya) as well as chicken and she can sometimes catch fish as well.
One time I was there she showed me a type of plant that people use if they only have old rice to cook. You pick the long green leaf and put it in the pot when the rice is cooking. It makes the rice smell nice, even though it's old. Her mum used to use it a lot cos her dad was in the army so they received rice rations.

Next time we are planning to make a banana and sago dessert, and I'm planning to wear gumboots.

Befitting a leader?

I remember overhearing some Aussie Christians talking about church leaders and how much they should get paid. One church leader had a nice car and some people were questioning this.

Should Christian leaders get paid enough to buy this type of car, when most of the church members wouldn't be able to afford such an expensive car?

I was interested to hear an opposite observation. Here in Cambodia a Westerner who is leader of an international Christian team was riding a bike as his main form of transport. Some of his team let him know they thought this was inappropriate for a leader. The implication was he should be in a car, or at least on a moto.

Youth camp

About 8 youth became Christians a few weekends ago! It was at a church's youth camp, not our church but Kimsoeun went to play music for them. His sister went too and they both had a great time. As well as the few who became Christians there were others who were really interested to know more. Kimsoeun's sister spent the bus journey back to Phnom Penh answering some of their questions.

Photos from language exchange/cooking

I've been trying to write the recipes in English and Khmer and sticking them up on the wall.

Romans

Over the last few months Kimsoeun has been getting ready for the new school year which starts this month. In the past he has mostly taught subjects about preaching. This year he will teach the book of Romans for the first time, so he has been doing lots of prep for this! Also just found out he will be teaching a subject on evangelism.