toilet update

Well, it turns out my mother in law won't be getting a toilet anytime soon. It cost more than she thought, and its hard to build at this time of year anyway. Its rainy season, so the ground is too full of water to dig and install pipes or whatever. It will be rainy until around November.

Imagine not having a toilet

A common type of toilet, often manual flush

My mother in law is having a toilet built out the back of her house. She moved to her new house in a village about 4 months ago and hasn’t had a toilet all this time. I couldn’t imagine living in a house with a toilet, but for many people that’s the norm. We visited that village a few years ago, we didn't stay with a family there as we didn't know anyone with toilet. When Kimsoeun visits by himself, he doesn't mind staying there, but when I went we stayed in a guest house in a near by town.

Although she's past the Cambodian life expectancy age, she gets her water by pulling it out of a well in a bucket, and they don't have electricity either. 

Can I study the Bible?

Last week I had my last Friday small group of semester, and today I had my last Thursdays ones. On Friday we had about 7 people in the group, but both my groups only had one student each today, both from China, and (unusually) both Christians.

After one of them, a girl I had never met before came over to me. She was studying at a nearby table and I guess she had heard us talking about 1 Thess. She asked me if I knew where she could study the Bible from the beginning.

It turns out she is also from China, and happens to have the same (Chinese) name as the girl in my small group today.

small groups ending, exams looming

This week most of us finish up our small groups for this semester. I just dug out a photo of my first ever AFES small group that I was part of when I was in first year. I’ve moved 12 times since then, and I still have the photo!

general update

I had a really encouraging and fun weekend at a work conference, was feeling heaps less anxious- but then once I got back to where we live I was reminded of the things I'm finding hard. But generally things are heaps better than before. Soeun has been able to adjust some things to make it all more doable. I've found people to talk to.

Anyway, some fun things, been reading books and watching DVDs from the library. Such as Jeffery Archer's Cat O'Nine tales and Executive Stress. Also we walked around and looked at lights the other nights, part of Vivid Sydney.

uncomfortable everywhere post script

"An American having the average income of the bottom US decile is better-off than 2/3 of world population." (Milanovic 2002, p. 50)


I'm not really a stats person, but there's ones to go with my previous post. You'll notice it took me a week before I decided to post it, and that I filed it under re entry and rich poor perspectives.

uncomfortable everywhere- unformed thoughts from today (written on monday)

I feel uncomfortable in Cambodia because I'm so rich.

And I feel uncomfortable here in Aust as I'm not sure how to cope when I'm relating to other rich people who don't seem to notice they are rich. I even feel a bit bad writing that sentence as it could come across as arrogant. I guess I've had particular experiences that they haven't so its logical that I will have a different perspective.

Australia doesn't feel like home, yet I know I'll always be an outsider in Cambodia. So maybe I'm always going to feel uncomfortable where ever I am, perhaps one aspect of this is to do with being rich.

I find it uncomfortable being so rich. In Cambodia I'm so so rich. This morning in staff training we were talking about the uneven distribution of wealth in the world, and how we are in the top minority, we're the rich people of the world.

I've heard people say that missionaries feel rich when they are in their adopted country, but then feel like poor people of the society when they return to Australia, as Aussies are so rich. In someways we do feel that, as our living space in Cambodia was much bigger (teachers accommodation, our own kitchen, spare bedroom etc whereas here we live in student dorm type place, not allowed to have ppl stay over, share a kitchen).

But at the moment I'm not feeling poor at all- even though my support level is only at 40% I'm actually feeling really rich. I think maybe it's due to things like

-being able to go to the doctor and have blood tests without paying a months wages, and worrying why am I spending so much on this when my family and friends who I interact with each day could never afford such a luxury - I think I've mentioned on this blog before- I LOVE MEDICARE!!!

-free drinking water out of the tap!!

- nice public toilets, private, with toilet paper and a tap to wash your hands- even soap and towel/dryers

-libraries, being able to borrow books and dvds for free (its hard for me to things to read for fun in Cambodia) i really want to read stuff so i find myself buying books from a second hand books shop, but i only ever read them once, and when i move have to get rid of them anyway, so it feels like a waste of money

-rich generous Christian friends who help us, eg giving us clothes, doonas, rice cooker etc etc

- my "normal" food isn't expensive foreign food, milk, breakfast food like corn flakes are considered basics by many here, if i were to eat them at my mum in laws place she may wonder why i was spending so much money on food!

homeless

We own no furniture, white goods etc, but have about 14 bags

Aussie Bible College food

Recently updated

In the side bar you can see a box called "Pages", I've recently updated the prayer requests and ways to support us.

Church weekend away

The water was so clear Soeun captured this fish (on camera).

Our church spent the weekend together by the water! We went for the Saturday. It was great to have time with people from church as we are excited about getting to know people and getting involved. It was also frustrating for me, as many things are these days. I feel like I've had an arm chopped off. I'm used to being able to do things like get to know people but these days I don't have that capacity (scroll down my other re entry blog posts if you want to know more).

The other simile that came to mind was that it was like being at an all-you-an-eat buffet but with a tummy bug, so not being able to enjoy the food. I've since found out that another church was at a nearby conference centre, and heaps of them are still recovering from the weekend as they have been vomiting!

We were hanging out on this jetty thing, and Soeun was changing his SIM from his local one to the one he uses to call overseas. He dropped the overseas one and it fell through the cracks and into the water. It had about 8$ on it so he went into the icy water after it. He rescued it and it still works!

A day off the treadmill and a helpful question

Excited to see this sign- in Cambodia usually you are not allowed on the grass.

These photos are from last Saturday. We went for a walk in the city/botanic gardens. I think it was our first nice day since we got here!!!     Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us. I feel like people keep suggesting we should have a holiday, but Soeun doesn't have time or energy for that this semester, but we did have this one day holiday. 

               "What do you most miss about Cambodia?" I was asked recently by a returned missionary. After thinking about this and talking to Soeun about it, I feel a lot less stressed, in some ways. I realised I've lost something I really really like, so of course I'm sad etc.

Walking on the grass!!

To answer the question: Rewind 4 years, back to when we first got married, a few months before I started this blog. We moved into a duplex house in Phnom Penh. I was SO SO happy to know I'd be living with the same person in the same house for four years, in the country that I plan to live.

The years between when I finished school/left my parents home and when I got married I lived in many different places in 3 different countries. I was always living some where for 6 months- 18 months, just to do something and be on my way to something else.  Felt really unsettled and homeless. And its very emotionally exhausting living with different people all the time.

But when we got married I felt like I could really settle down and invest emotionally. We plan to live in Cambodia long term, so as well as having a "permanent housemate" I had a country to live in and learn about, knowing that the hard work of learning now would be worth it in the long term. Before that I had always felt like I was waiting until I move to whatever country I would be living in, it was hard to feel at home anywhere.

So great having green space in middle of city!

So now that we have packed up our house, and left Cambodia for a few years, the happiness of feeling at home and settled is gone. Mostly Australia is a place we come to do some things, once we get our list ticked off we can go back and set up home again. At the moment I feel as if we are living out of a bag, rather than unpacked and living here. For example last week Soeun bought some preaching books. They were on special, and they will be a good resource for him in the future. But I felt anxious when I saw them. I don't want to start accumulating things here. We just got rid off all our stuff back in Cambodia, it was hard and it took ages to chuck stuff/sell stuff/give stuff away and try to find places to store his books etc. I know if a few years time we'll have to do that all again here. I'm so sick of having to move countries, the less stuff we have the better is my feeling at the moment. I think later on, the memory of getting rid of stuff will fade and I'll be more willing to get stuff.

So right now I'm really missing the feeling of being at home. As well as trying to adjust to this new environment: new space to live in, new people to relate to, and new ways of relating and a billion other different new things both visible and invisible.  Mean while Soeun is also trying to cope with being overseas and being sick, having some big responsibilities back home, new study, sickness. So both of us going through all these things together has been quite hard. Hopefully one day it won't be this hard.

And a lot of the time I feel like we shouldn't feel this stressed. I've been here for more than 3 months now, I should feel normal by now. So then I start feeling even more anxious because I'm worried about why I feel anxious.....Last week Soeun and I talked to a couple about all our stresses. It was great having some one to listen to us and pray for us. One helpful thing for me was being told we are going through a stressful period, so of course we feel stressed.

Often in casual conversation with the many people I see each week, I feel like people think we should be settled now (maybe that's my own expectation, not sure anyone has actually said/thought that). I guess it's hard/inappropriate to acknowledge/explain in small talk that we are going through something really big. If our house had burnt down, it would be as easier thing for people to understand. (I'm really glad our house hasn't burnt down- that would be horrible!)

Just to prove we're in Australia!

ps easter surprise

i forgot to write that another surprise at Easter was the car trip there. The guy who drove us had a little computer thing on his dash board that talk to him and had a map to show him where to go. We hadn't really seen these before, expect on an advert on TV where the computer is telling a guy to drive into the water. So we thought it was kind of funny and weird but judging by the way everyone else in the car responded to it, i guess its one of those things that has come in over the last 5 years that others a used to, but its new for us. Whenever we have those kind of moments, it makes me wonder what other things I missed.

Surprises at Easter

I spent the Easter long weekend on a conference with students and my colleagues.

Cold misty Aussie jungle!

Last 5 years i have been missing hot cross buns so it was nice to eat some this easter!

I was surprised to find a chocolate egg on my bed on Easter sunday. I guess i had forgotten about the whole easter egg thing.

Another surprise was hearing the uni students talking about where they come from. So far this year I have been getting to know international students, so they all come from different countries. It seems like many of the uni students here grew up in Sydney, so when they talk about where they come from they name a suburb in Sydney. There was one particular discussion that was long and detailed about what different parts of Sydney are like.  I found I was really surprised, I guess cos I don't come from Sydney so I think of it as all one place- all one thing, different to other towns in Aust, and towns in other countries. 

more settling in

Recently I've had the opportunity to do more settling in, including:
- join a library
-start putting things on bedroom/study wall
- visit parents and brother
- get some winter clothes
-bought beans for the bean bag someone gave us (have yet to put them in)
-have re entry debrief with returned missionary

I've been here for about 3 months, I feel kind of settled at work, I've been enjoying getting to know the students and other staff. College/home and church is taking a bit longer, and I thought I would feel more settled by now, but I don't.