Visit to Preah Vihear province

 Kimsoeun has had a cold on and off for a couple of months now. While he was visiting a family in PVH province recently they got him to steam his whole body. They boiled lemongrass, some different citrus  leaves and some other roots and herbs. He came home smelling like Cambodian curry!

 There is so much red dusty around! He came home with red clothes and the car was covered in red dust. Even things in the boot got very dusty, and even the top of the roof of the car is covered in red dirt!!! Amazing!

A big road in the province is being sealed, so perhaps less dusty and easier travel in the future?

You have butter out here!!??

So many things unexpected things!

• my own bedroom
• with a mattress and clean sheets
• brown rice
• butter
• cheese
• strawberrys
• bacon

I recently spend 2 nights in Prey Veng province. My hostesses were amused that I found so many things surprising. Later I realised I was probably surprised because I had gone with the expectations that I have when I visit a Khmer home, but I was visiting 3 non-Khmer ladies so it was quite different!

This was  my first stay in an expats home in Cambodia.  Over the last 5 years I've spent a few nights in at least 9 different provinces but I've stayed in either guest houses or Khmer family's homes.

I know what to expect when I stay at a guesthouse but I never know what to expect when going to stay with a Khmer family.  Sleeping and washing activities don't always involve bedrooms and bathrooms.
 Before we go I always ask if there is going to be a toilet......

(the food in the list above would have been bought in Phnom Penh supermarkets by the expats and taken to the province themselves- it was my first time to eat strawberrys in Cambodia I think)

Moving house

Christmas at the market?

This is where I buy my chicken. I always ask for "pure meat", I'm not really into eating bones, organs, and other white crunchy things.

 Normally around a festival in Cambodia prices of food go up. So its a good idea to buy all your fresh fruit, veggies and meat a week before Khmer new year in April , or Phchum ben in October ish. But as Christmas is not a holiday here I was surprised today when my eggs cost just over 4000 riel for 10, rather than just under. She assured me the price will go back to normal once the festival is over.....

One of the ladies I buy veggies from.

The same chicken seller

So many fish products in this country! In the bottom half of the photo you can see some different types of dried fish. At the top there is different types of fermented fish pastes.

A dessert seller and 2 customers. The seller on the left carries the pole on her shoulder/neck and roams around to find buyers.

Front to back- fruit sellers at mouth of market, mobile balloon seller, and across the road some new tall houses.

A big rubbish hole in the middle of the market

Moving house

One of the things I find stressful about moving is having to get rid of stuff. If we didn't have to change countries we could still be using our stuff for years to come. I was brought up to make things last as long as possible (my parent's car is more than 30 years old- true story!) so getting rid of things when they are still usable I find very stressful and wasteful.

Today I sold some of my baking stuff to another expat. She was excited to buy my rolling pin, measuring cups etc. So rather than feel my beloved foreign cooking things were going to waste, I was happy they were going to be used and appreciated!

Picture thanks- Filomena Scalise / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Events

 They fare-welled me at the student centre last week. I received this bilingual Christmas scarf ! And we ate one of my favourite Khmer food. Can you see the cold white noodles in the photo? You mix them with veggies and herbs like basil, then add the yellow sauce.

 We had a Christmas outreach at the centre a few weeks ago. It was a really good and exciting program. And last Sunday we had our Christmas service at church. Churches have their Christmas on any Sunday in December (or Nov or Jan).

Soeun was pleased with the way the Bible school student who only just started helping at our church organised the program for this year. As usual there was a drama, lots of songs, some dances, sermon, lots of decorations and food.

One neg thing was that a magazine was given out to everyone. When we got home Soeun read it and didn't agree with the teaching. He rang the others and found it was printed by the JWs.

Christmas is a time to decorate church and invite all the neighbours! We had Christmas last Sunday.

"Khmer noodles"

Today I went to another student Christmas outreach, as a visiting helper. An expat family is beginning a ministry to students, I think today was their first big thing.

Alarmed

Soeun recently heard that a friend's pastor has been teaching that Jesus has sin, from Romans 8:3

 ³ For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh,^[b] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.<sup>[c]

Click here to read in context.

Also recently a magzine was given out at a Christmas service  here in Phnom Penh. It siad that Jesus came into the world because he was incomplete and needed love from humans. It didn't mention our sin.</sup>

Airwaves TV show on CTN

I've started watching a show called Airwaves, I'm really into the story now but i probably won't get to watch till the end of the series.

It's in Khmer but has really good English subtitles (they are actually in real English). It's set in Phnom Penh, the main characters all work at a radio station. Here are some photos and stuff about it, and below as well.

Kimsoeun went to a province on Saturday to help with a Christmas program. He stayed overnight and now he has a red itchy spots all over him. He's since found out when people first move there they get that until their skin is used to the water. If I didn't know what it was I'd be alarmed.

I've been making "pages", stand alone pages, you can see the list in the sidebar. 

As you can see I just made a new banner/ header thing for this blog...hope its not too confusing. I was going to post the non backwards one here , but I don't think I saved it. I got the photo from Free Digital Photos .net

And here is our old header:

Around Wednesday lunch time I started to get a bit of a headache. By dinner time it was a full on headache and I took some Advil. I got to sleep and thought it would be gone in the morning.....but no, it wasn't.  In fact yesterday it seemed to get worse and I think my tummy also started feeling off.
It was really hard to do anything- talk to people, concentrate on computer work. So I was really frustrated that I didn't get much done, as well as wanting to escape the pain. I kept wanting to eat sugar and chocolate, I had a few cups of milo through out the day. I was running out of Advil so around 5pm I went out to buy some more, I also got two packets of M and Ms.

I came home and ate the chocolate. When I woke up this morning I was dreading getting up and getting started as yesterday was so horrible, I didn't feel I could face today. But once I was up I realised that my headache seems to be pretty much gone!

Another crossword clue

If you ask for sugar free chewing gum in Khmer it might sound like you are asking for some rubber.

Telling the story of a tragedy

I wasn't going to put more stampede stuff on this blog, I've been doing it on Kronicle Extra. But this one is really interesting. Its by the reporters of the the Post and what it was like for them to report on the tragedy. It gives you a sense of what it was like here in PP last week. The first 24 hours everyone was calling everyone else to see if they were ok, then feeling so sad seeing all the dead bodies.

Troops will stay reports Thailand

So the Bangkok Post seems to report something different to the Phnom Penh Post. They still say the border is opening, but not so big on troops withdrawal, as you can read here.