Recovering from last year

 We've spent most of this year, 2023, coping with the fallout and adjustments from last year. We had 2 big shocks last year, and many months we were just trying to get through each day.

So then this year we have just been catching our breath and trying to adjust.

School is hard this week as our internet isn't so stable and only one laptop is fully working.

So great being able to go for a quick morning ride, and buy breakfast on the way home.

Causeway at Angkor Wat just opened after many years.

Khmer history

Sometimes I love reading memoirs etc of Khmer history, but other times I can't stand it when I've reached "horror saturation". Recently I got interested again in these books, see links below. I'm still thinking about the last one I read in Jan 2022. The Girl Who Said Goodbye written by Heather Allen

In high school, I learnt about Pol Pot time (1975-1979 in Cambodia), a very dark time. And then at Bible college, I met someone born during that time, which I found fascinating because according to what I learnt at school people were dying during that time, not being born. He went the opposite way! Anyway, 18 years later he is still fascinating and there are still more Khmer Rouge stories for me to read.

And youtube links too...

Mainly so I can remember what I've read and watched I'm collecting it all here. There are also lots of books I've read the free download sample from Amazon, hope to read the whole book one day.

John Pilger's Year Zero. It is interesting for me to see him walking around in Phnom Penh right at that point after it had been empty for almost 4 years. It would be another decade before it really opened up to the world, so seeing the situation right at the point when the Khmer Rouge regime ended.

War Hotels:

A haven from the civil war, Cambodia’s Hotel Le Phnom 

I lived near this hotel in my first year in Cambodia. And it also comes up in reading about those bizarre days just before Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh. So I enjoyed watching a documentary focused on it and the journalist who stayed there. 

When the Clouds Fell from the Sky: A Daughter's Search for Her Father in the Killing Fields of Cambodia 

by Robert Carmichael (Author) 

I think this is the first time for me to read a story about an overseas Khmer who went back into Cambodia in the late 1970s. I'd read about it but this is a story from his family across decades, and with Duch's trial woven into the story. 

A Blessing over Ashes: The Remarkable Odyssey of My Unlikely Brother 

by Adam Fifield (Author)

So this one was not only a memoir of a survivor's time in Cambodia but it followed him all the way to his childhood in America and then adult life as he went back to visit Cambodia. (I feel like most books I've read are all based in the late 70s in Cambodia and then end when they are happily settled in the USA decades later, this one fills in the in-between bit.) 

In the Shadow of the Banyan: A Novel 

by Vaddey Ratner (Author) 

Although a novel the author was a similar age to the main character, a child living in Phnom Penh in 1975. I actually thought it was a memoir when I started reading it. It follows her family out of the city that April and through all the changes that happened next. I love her descriptions of Cambodia. Its interesting as she is Khmer herself but writing in English after growing up in America. I usually hear from Khmer ppl who live here their own descriptions of things OR I hear from expats who live here, so this is a new perspective. 

Bamboo and Barbed Wire  Margot Grant (Author)

Like the overseas Khmer of 1970s, which I had read about but didn't know of their experience, this was written about life in a camp in the 1980s. I've heard so much about the refugee/DP camps but this was the first time to read a real life story.  Memoirs and historical fiction help you feel like you actually visited and met people, more vivid that just knowing the facts. 

And there is another book in the works by Abigail Follows. 

"It’s the true story of a man who miraculously survived a genocide by calling on a God he did not know—and then met that God in a refugee camp. Great Unsearchable Things is the story of Sovath Sim, the father of a missionary friend of mine. His survival story is a beautiful testament to God’s grace in difficult times and the power of family love–both of which were outlawed during Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge. His story also gives some insight into the Buddhist mindset and response to Jesus. I hope to complete the first draft by Spring, 2024."

A chronicle post of random things I want to remember

Things keep changing!

Before the pandemic I couldn't visit the temple park before 5:30pm. During the pandemic I could buy a long term ticket so it was possible. Rather than just the 37usd per day tickets they had other options such as 6 months/12 months for 200usd.

Now they have a free pass for expats who have been here for at least 2 years.

Building, building, building (not my photo)

I spent a lot of time riding in the park between June 2020 and October 2022 and maybe I will again one day. But right now it feels like a whole different place. The tourists are back and local families have moved out.

First mango I've seen, it means hot season is on the way.

Another change is now we can get food delivered. Before the pandemic we couldn't really. Some local run cafes started to during the pandemic but now its even easier as at least one of the apps works for us, plus a supermarket type place. If only we had had that during red zone, or when we were stuck at home with medical stuff early 2022.

Finally took the kids to see the Christmas lights in town. Oops, its Chinese New year lights now.

Five years ago we could see the sunrise as we ate breakfast. Then we grew a shady tree, so for a few years breakfast was cool and non squinty. But this year the smell of the flowers on the tree was so bad it got its head chopped off. So now we can see the sunrise again, as well as the new shoots on the trunk.

And the wood turned out to be handy during the cold weeks of Dec and Jan. What used to keep us cool kept our neighbours warm instead.

Dear Newbie

 Dear Friend,

I’m so excited to hear you are getting ready to leave your passport country and move to my host country. It’s great to hear about all the preparation you’ve been doing over the past few years to get to this point. Now you’re at the point where you actually have to think about what to pack!

You asked what apps were good for language learning. Sounds like you are eager to get a taste of the local language even before your formal classes start. From the way you asked, it seemed like you assumed I would know. It took me a while to realise my answer:  I used cassette tapes when I was at your stage.

Read the rest over here: A Life Overseas- Dear Newbie

Loss AND rebuilding exist at the same time

This month's link up with A Chronic Voice, you can read the others over here.

Summarising 2022

Two big shocks. 

Out of the blue. 

That's my summary of last year. Within a 7-month period, we faced the possibility of 2 big losses.  Neither of them eventuated so that's good, right? Well yes, we are glad, but the stress around it and the lifestyle change resulting from both shocks is still worth noting. Gratitude doesn't cancel out the pain.

I get chopped down, but I get up again.

Jagged from being hacked, AND green from new growth.

Moving

We are not moving house, but many many local families around us have just moved over the last 2 months or are about to move. 

And over the last few years, many ex-pat families have also moved away from our town /country.

Rebuilding and expecting

After what happened last year our health habits are all different now. Our community is all different too. Some have left, but some.live closer. 

We're still working out how it fits together. So much to learn and adjust to for all of us. It is hard to know what to expecf as so many things that were normal over the last 5 to 10 years are different now.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to have a read of the other chronic illness linked blogs over here on A Chronic Voice.  

I Used to Laugh at Ghosts

 

“Aren’t you scared while your husband is away?”

“I’ll lock the door at night, and the windows have bars on them.”

“Locked doors can’t keep out ghosts.”

I don’t think I actually rolled my eyes or laughed out loud, but that was my attitude. In my early years in Cambodia, we lived next to a house full of Christian women training for ministry. When my husband was away, they worried about me. They didn’t seem to believe that I was genuinely unafraid, and I could not understand why they were afraid.

I didn’t know if I believed in ghosts or not. But what I did know was that because of Jesus, I had nothing to fear. I told them that the God of the Bible is stronger than any possible evil spirits, ghosts, or demons. He is the creator of all things, and Jesus has already conquered death. I felt satisfied that I’d given them the right reasons for why they didn’t need to fear.

I’m not the only Australian who gives off vibes of disbelief when Cambodians talk about the spirit world. My Cambodian husband Soeun also faced this attitude. When he was in Australia, he tried to explain some of his childhood to an Australian seminary student.

Read the rest over here: A Life Overseas - I Used to Laugh at Ghosts.

Dumpling Days book

 A nice way to ease back into #homeschool routine, reading out loud.

Also a fun way to learn about kids who feel a sense of #belonging in both America AND Taiwan...

and who feel they don't belong in either place.

I asked my son to find Taiwan on the map and realised the map was given to me by a lady from Taiwan. Who now lives in America and has a Cambodian child.

A German friend lent me the book, her family is also Cambodian.

Reading about Chinese food while not eating it is painful though.

#dumplingdays