Did I mention we are hot and tired?

 

In town

 Our commune travel ban ended on Friday night, so yesterday I went into town to stock up on meds. Although it has been happening for months, I still feel shocked to see all the roads being dug up. Not just some roadwork and detours on a few roads, they are doing 38 all at the same time. And everyone is still going about selling and buying as best they can.

A day in the life

Thursday March 25^th

Today felt like a typical day from hot season stay-at-home last year.  Ground hog day or family tradition? The first time around it seemed like a surreal time, but here we are doing it again.

Soeun had people from the neighbourhood doing some yard work for us. It was a win-win. We got cement down, pond dug  etc, while they had paid work, during this weird time when schools are closed the main industry of the town basically vanished.

And inside our house our children are consuming paper and pens as they draw, draw, draw.  Creating a whole other magical country which looks only 2D to me but holds their attention like it is real.

Time seems to pass differently on hot days. Instead of a straight line the day kind of meanders. Or maybe it’s that we are on school holidays.

Friday March 26^th

It is the time of year we get out the wading pool. Soeun already cleaned it and looked for the holes to fix, but it seems there are too many. Blow up pools are more trouble than they are worth, I think next I want to get a huge plastic or metal basin instead.

During “nap time” (that period of time after lunch when the kids used to nap but now watch youtube) Daddy interrupted  our children and asked them to come outside with him. The first I knew of it was all the screaming and running. I thought something bad happened, but it turned out that the kids were so excited. In the process of renovating the duck pond, Daddy had created a huge shallow swimming pool. Less than 20cm of water but  a couple of meters down in the ground.

So much fun. Water guns came out.  Both the kids were sooo happy. “We don’t need to go the ICF wake park anymore, we have our own.”  

I went for the first bike ride in a week. Rode to some of the roadblock on the borders of our commune as we have a travel ban at the moment, partly just to see them and partly to find where I could meet someone from in town if I need them to buy meds for me. The barriers weren’t at all where I thought they would be so it was a bit more interesting than I thought.  Also wanted to see the market, still open, but a bit quiet and the chemist where the covid patient went was taped off with police tape.

Ejected

 “Travel ban for our commune, no one in or out. It starts in 12 mins.”

The short message from my husband on Saturday March 20 was a shock, 12 months into the pandemic and I had never heard of a commune travel ban.  I was too far away to get home in 12 minutes. How long would this ban be? Would I be separated from my family for days, weeks?

At first I wasn’t going to rush home as I knew I wouldn’t make it by that time. But then thinking about the many who ended up apart from their family for months on end last year made me decide to try. So I quickly grabbed my stuff and called a tuktuk.  

Would I be able to get back home? What would happen if I couldn’t?  (And why wasn’t tuktuk driver wearing a mask? Recently they brought in fines for not wearing masks, although where you need to wear them wasn't clear.)

I normally think of tuktuks as trundling along the road, but this ride felt like I was hurtling. The ‘eject’ button had been hit and I shot up in the air. Unexpectedly on a new trajectory, not happy about leaving where I was, hoping to get home but unsure if that would happen.

Although it was a shock, it was also not so much of a surprise.  For the last month the cases of Covid-19 in Cambodia had been steadily rising. At first it was mainly in southern provinces, but then began creeping north. On March 9 the first case in our province was discovered, and although not in our commune we had some community overlap with the patient. So we were already starting to feel like it was close.

So then, it kind of felt like the next step that a case was found in our commune, although had no idea they would suddenly close the roads. Hopefully it really does help limit transmission.

I was not the only one who had to scramble with the travel ban news. Even the people who were enforcing it could not keep to the timeline it seems. Luckily for me they were still getting organised when my tuktuk zoomed along the road. 

Phew! I made it home, where I had been hoping to land.

But what does a commune travel ban mean for us anyway, and how long will it last?

End of year reflections

 

Just joking, I have no reflections; I just wanted to say if feels like the end of the year even though it is March.

Hot, humid weather began this month, which meant we stopped having our daily Maths and English desk time that we started in late April last year. So basically we are on our long summer school holiday now.

Totally out of synch with International schools who have the long vacation around the middle of the year, and I think locals have it around September, we are taking ours in hot season.  We will start deskwork again after Khmer New year in mid April. Luxury of homeschool life, you can take breaks according to your need rather a calendar.

Another reason why it feels like the end of the year is I can’t help remember back to this month last year, with all those big changes. Australians rushed to get back to Australia, schools and churches shut, the tourist visas here stopped at some point and our airport closed. (I wrote about it in May and posted it here.)

In some ways it feels like we are doing March 2020 again this year. In terms of covid-cases things were pretty quiet until a month ago. We are now in our worst community transmission outbreak and a few people have died from it. So we have had to stop travelling even within the country, even within the town.  New laws have come in including you must wear a mask in public. I wonder how long this will go on?

Today March 22nd- last year and this year

The day we heard the schools would closed down for the first time, 

the day the Australian government urged international travellers to fly home asap,

the last time we went to church- March last year was very memorable. 

And this is what I post on Facebook this day last year:

Weird newsfeed today, what a surreal Sunday.

Basically my Aussie Facebook friends who are posting today fall into 3 groups. All of them are in situations they have never been in before.

1. Those doing online church. I saw many photos of laptops and mention of how fun it was to wear PJs to church!

2. Those heeding the warning from Aus government to get back to Aus asap before it closes.

(Facing flight cancellations, new travel requirments like health certs/ x-rays and fears of getting sick along the way, the stress of quick goodbyes. Most hope to return in X amount of months but one traumatically had to pack up her whole life in a week. Those who are leaving have specific health/financial issues for leaving).

3. Those staying put in their host country.

(Feeling safer in isolation than travelling, but knowing they are away from good medical care. Yesterday a few of us set up a Fb group for those of us staying here, so comforting to connect with others here.)

Meanwhile, here we are at home with the handprints we made yesterday in the new cement near our front door.

And here we are in March 2021. A month into the biggest community transmission. Until 4 weeks ago there had only been around 400 Covid 19 cases in Cambodia. But just since Feb 20 it has gone up to 1753, and the first 4 deaths.  The first case in our province had some community overlap with us, so that felt like it was getting quite close. Then the day before yesterday a case from our commune was discovered so we suddenly had a travel ban on our area! I'm not sure how long for or what it will mean for us. So far its just meant Soeun had to cancel some meetings and I had to rush home before getting shut out!
Latest numbers in this article Cambodia's Covid tally- March 22 2021- Khmer times

Angkor Wat photos

 6:45am sunshine on 12th century floor

12th March 2021

13th March

Third and final new year of 2019

So I'm  a little late with this. Two years late in fact. 

The year 2019 started with the international new year, as I mentioned here NEW!, then we had the Chinese New Year as I described here FIRSTS, then in April the Khmer New Year. 

I did mention a bit here HOT but I still had these other things I wanted to remember. And that two years has passed I still want to record them here along with the perspective from now.

At the time I didn't get around to posting the photos and writing about it but I remember that I wanted to  remember that we said goodbye to the N family, that we had our last play at Rosy before it closed and that the children were creating things faster than I could take photos of them.

A soccer party, a snake and some sickness after KNY, as well as hot weather and grumpiness and a lady burning her protection belt were among the notable events I listed in my notes. And we got to know the neighbours more during that holiday time. Well, Soeun and his mum did I guess. But I'll stick with the main three things here.

Goodbye poolside party March 2019

Playgroup morphing 

Since our children finished at preschool we had been meeting a couple other families for playdates. I already knew of two mums, or "moms" who had children the same age as our second child. As soon as we said goodbye to part time preschool, I contacted them and we started meeting weekly at each others houses or a playroom in town.  A few other families joined our trio. But in March 2019 one of these families left Cambodia.  Perhaps the first big goodbye for our children.

And then March 2020 the other left! Our youngest said now she had no friends, those 2 had been her weekly age mates since she finished preschool. COVID shut down happened just after that, so there was no chance for her to get to know others. An ever changing remnant of the group exists, but between children starting school, COVID, and others leaving the days of the regular originals are over. Almost all the places we used to meet are closed as well.

Goodbye Rosy

Pregnant and with energetic toddler, moving to SR was exhausting. Rosy restaurant and guesthouse had food my child and then children liked plus a playroom. And a nice riverside view. WIth the chance of running into friends. So it was sad to visit for the last time in March 2019, before they closed down forever! I think they had been around for maybe 14 years, so it was a big deal for many.

A year later the whole town shut down! March 2020 in a tourist town, terrifying. Some businesses are still limping along despite that there is not tourist visa at the moment. And despite massive roadworks.  Getting anywhere is an adventure.

Making things

Costumes, chicken house, puppets. That is what I wrote in the notes for this post. I can't remember the details but I remember being amazed at all the children's creations and felt like I wanted to record them.

I think the chicken house was outside made of old bricks, and the puppets might have been toilet rolls. From Sept 2019 to now I have been taking photos of their creations and posting them in monthly FB albums.

Two years on, sooo many more creations and drawing. I gave up recording each one as there are just too many. Like yesterday, a stretcher for the war wounded toilet roll was constructed out of an old mask.

I had more photos ready, and I would have written things differently at the time so its not the post I planned. But happy to record these events here, I'm sure another two years we will will have forgotton some details.

Like never before

Angkor like never before. We have the temple park to ourselves. No international tourists for about a year now!

Detour like never before. 38 roads are being upgraded ALL AT THE SAME TIME. This was preceded by a red line which cut down fences, awning and even buildings and trees.