In Aust I often feel a bit out of it as I do things in the kitchen differently to many Aussies... but in Cambodia my kitchen and kitchen habits are completely different from our Khmer friend and family. Most of the people who are in and out of our house each week grew up in a village, so our brick house with plumbing and power is quite different.
When I asked one of my language helpers for the word "sink" and "tap" she didn't seem to have one. "Place to wash dishes" seem to be sink, and she just talked about opening the water/ turning the water on. Later I found out there is a loan word from French for tap, but I guess she had never used it as she didn't grow up with taps.
As we get ready to have a baby I'm trying to teach others to use our kitchen. Today we had someone over and we made a pasta salad for lunch. Usually when groups of Khmer people stay, they use the kitchen differently to me, and eat quite different food. Being pregnant, and not having had my typhoid shot I'm not very adventurous at this stage of life, and I guess with a baby I won't be either.
I'm trying to encourage people not to open the freezer (too much) during power cuts, and only open the fridge once and take out everything you need. Trying to keep the meat frozen and stop the milk from going off too fast, a foreign concept to the others who use our house.
We also have started washing up raw meat knives/boards etc with hot water, Soeun has been explaining to others who use our kitchen.
And after today I realise we'll need to explain the difference between the fridge and freezer and how we use them.
In the long run life may be easier if i learnt to eat preserved meat (Soeun has beef out in the sun and flies as week speak), and shellfish that I think gets cooked by sitting in the sun all day- but health is the big priority at the moment!
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