Village visit, the Year of the Rat is here and I’m a student of Khmer language and history!

Soeun recently went to stay in a village for a few days with some students (college mission). There were heaps of kids with lots of energy and it sounds like they had fun. It was hard to do studies at night, as they don’t have electricity. KS took our emergency lantern (like a big torch/flashlight); he said it was the brightest thing there.

The team thought they would get up early at 5.30 to pray, but by that time everyone else was already up!
One morning the students stole the camera and took a picture of Teacher Soeun asleep, as you can see here. You might be able to see someone having a wash in the background.

Village life is quite different to the city- as well as no power, they also don’t have toilets, and some peoples’ houses don’t have doors.

The church is new and small in this village. Actually, it’s more a handful of new believers than a church. They don’t have any leaders yet, and many of them can’t read. The team’s aim was to encourage them, and train them in leadership. As well as this they washed the kids’ hair. There were heaps of kids and apparently handfuls of lice!

Although not an official public holiday here, Chinese New Year is celebrated. Leading up to it I heard lots of firecrackers although not as many as I heard when I was in China. In China it sounded like a war zone, here there are spurts of bangs every now and then.

At the market there were special stalls set up selling lots of red and gold shining things, and all the normal products were more expensive. The day before the year of the rat began I was buying some uncooked rice and eggs from my usual seller. She asked me if I was going anywhere for Chinese New Year, and excitedly told me she was going out, in Khmer “dar layng” (literally: walk play, a walk for fun) to visit her mother. By that time some of the sellers had already shut up and gone home for the holiday.

Soeun was away that weekend on college mission, so that was a good opportunity for me to have a “language intensive in the province”, aka visit my in -laws. Because of CNY the bus was more expensive.

I stayed a few nights. Now they own 3 bikes, so I rode one to their church, and to the market and around town just for fun (dar layng). I also tagged along when they went to visit someone in hospital, and got to see the house where they used to live.

Two years ago when I first came to Cambodia KS took me to visit his mum on Chinese New Year too. In high school I studied recent Cambodian history (1970s, Lon Nol, Pol Pot), and I remember asking Soeun if it would be ok to ask his mum about her life during these horrible/strange times. As it was such an awful time for the whole country I was worried about stirring up bad memories, yet very interested to know what happened- especially to my then-potential mother in law. Soeun said she would be fine to talk about it- but I’d have to learn Khmer language first! At that stage I couldn’t imagine knowing enough Khmer language to discuss family history and war.

However, here I am two years later. I felt excited this year to discover I could understand enough Khmer to get the gist of what my mother in law was saying. She told me about how after Pol Pot time she left her baby Soeun with her parents in the village. She came to the town. It was deserted and there were many empty houses, so she started living in one and it became hers! I had heard those stories from Phnom Penh, but hadn’t thought about what might have happened outside the capital. (They sold that house years ago.)

Why were there so many empty houses?

At the beginning of Pol Pot time, everyone was driven out of the city. The Khmer Rouge were planning to make a classless society, everyone was to be a farmer. Being educated or rich was a bad thing. Between 1975 and 1979 and heaps of people died (some day 2 million). So the evacuation of towns and great amount of death meant there were many empty houses. As you can imagine that created land ownership issues, still a problem today. One of many problems as you’ll see if you click on book title in previous post below.

Holiday!

I just had an Aussie holiday in the comfort of my own home! A friend from Australia came to visit me for two weeks. It was so fun to have a holiday with her. We have lived together before so it was nice to pretend we were housemates again. It was great to have a friend to do fun things with. (KS and I haven’t had overlapping holiday time yet.) Here is a photo of Ang riding Sambo the elephant at Wat Phnom!



We ate lots of Western food (rather than rice and fish that I would normally be eating); travelled by tuk tuk (I would usually ride my bike or go by motor bike taxi) and went to places that tourist go. These included places of historical/ political/ religious significance to Cambodia. In this blog post you can see some pictures of the temples near Siem Reap. One of them is Angkor Wat, which is on the Cambodian flag.

If you want to read Ang’s (aka Gelato/Dave id dah) impression of Cambodia and about all the different things we did have a look on her blog “The Adventures of Ang”. Scroll down to find what she wrote in the last 2 weeks of January (15th-27th).
And look out for her photos.

Christmas and What Next?

Recently I was in a shop and I saw a Christmas tree right next to a spirit house and here is the photo I took. Most shops and homes have spirit houses. It’s a place to give incense, food and Coke to various types of spirits- local ones, big ones, ancestors ones. Food is given to appease and/or worship them. For Christians the Christmas tree is for celebrating Jesus birth, so I thought it was interesting to see them right next to each other. In this case the tree is more to do with Western culture and commercialism, but it made me think about the Cambodian churchgoers who also go to visit Buddhist temples.
My language tutor was practising to be an angel in the college Christmas play, so before Christmas I learnt the word for angel (DAVE-id-DAH). So every Christmas play and service I went to I listened out for this word.

The most entertaining angel was the one I saw at an orphanage. The kids acted out the Christmas story to a sound track for that purpose. Whenever an angel entered the audience heard clanging Chinese music and saw a little boy jumping, spinning and kung fu kicking in the air! It was hilarious!

KS’s church celebrated Christmas on Dec 23rd. They also acted out the story, but to a song KS wrote.

Christmas Day, KS had the day off. We belatedly celebrated our wedding anniversary as well as Jesus’ birth. In the evening we went to a dinner for Cambodian church leaders.

Here are some photos from the day we went on a picnic out of town. You can see fish with lemongrass shoved down their throat, and Soeun in front of a field.

We’re glad December is over. I guess it’s always a busy time at church leading up to Christmas. This year as well as working at college has taken on role of co-leading the church. Among other things this means preaching about twice a month, so weekend are often busy anyway. Adding Christmas preparation to that mix made it even busier! It would be good if the church had more people on the preaching roster.

The Friday before Christmas I had my last language class at the university. I studied Khmer language there for nine months, this month I’m beginning a new phase of language study. Although I won’t start properly until next month, this month there are a few other things happening.

Very Cold this week!

According to yesterdays Cambodian Daily "The cold spell that is currently sweeping the country is expected to last until the weekend at least, officials said Wednesday."

"With low temperatures countrywide averaging around 18 degrees c, warnings have also been sounded that a few degrees lower could be dangerous."

At least it hasn't reached the emergency low of 12 deg which can be fatal for older people. The government said it will alert people if it gets that cold.

"...provincial authorities have warned locals to wear thick clothing and light fires to keep warm..."

Did you know...?

“If Cambodian cuisine could speak, it would be a polyglot hybrid of Vietnamese, Chinese, and Thai, with a smattering of French and a heavy Indian accent.”

(Paul Brisby, SE Globe, Dec 2007)


There are at least 10 words for ‘carry’ in Khmer language. Each word is for a different way of carrying. For example, one word is used when you carry something on your shoulder, another for when you carry something on your hip. There is a word for when you carry things that are hanging from a long stick that is resting on your shoulders, and another one for when more than one person carries something.


Only about half the primary schools in Cambodia have toilets. As well as all the other reasons I think this would contribute to less girls finishing school.

(Phnom Penh Post Dec 14, 2007)

The annual roll toll in Cambodia is going up…
“RTAVIS reported 2,140 casualties in October alone, of which 136 were fatalities. Another 616 were severely injured compared to September, during which 121 died and 537 were seriously injured out of a total reported 1,818 casualties.”

(RTAVIS=Handicap International Belgium’s Road Traffic Accident and Victim Information System)
(The Cambodian Weekly, Dec 23 2007)

Christmas goes for 2 months in Cambodia! As Dec 25 isn’t a public holiday each church will decide which Sunday to hold their Christmas service. It could be anywhere from late November to early January. And as some services are in the morning and some in the afternoons a person who wants to visit different churches can go to many services. One year KS went to 4 churches in the same day and ended up sleeping the night at the last one.

“72% of the 1,016 Cambodians interviewed said they paid a bribe to receive a service in the previous 12 months, according to Transparency International’s 2007 Global Corruption Barometer released December 6. Only Cameroon … had a higher corruption score.”

(PPPost Dec 14, 2007)

“Inflation rises to 6.5% in Sept”
“While the complaints about gas prices soaring to 4,450 riels per litre continue, another crescendo of worries is coming from consumers about the hikes in the cost of food and other commodities.”
A food seller was interviewed and said she had to put the cost of her meals up as inflation was eroding all her profit.
(PP Post, Dec 13, 2007)

Language Progress!

Mostly, my days are filled with trying to learn more Khmer. This means I’m mostly struggling with unknown words and sounds. I’m often in environments where I’m straining to understand even just a little of what is being said.

Recently though, I had some experiences which made me step back and see the progress I’ve made this year. Let me share them with you.

One Saturday morning, around 7am I was walking along a road carrying a silver plate of grapes. As a wedding guest I was part of the fruit procession, there were two long lines of us walking towards the function hall where the wedding was being held. It was all very festive and colourful, accompanied by music and clicking cameras.

Walking in the opposite direction was another fruit procession. I looked over at them and realised I recognised many of the faces. They were from the church I went to last year; I hadn’t seen most of them all year. Afterwards I caught up with a few groups of them. “Che khmai chrarnna!” (Lit: know Khmer language a lot). They were all surprised at how much Khmer I know now. It felt much easier to communicate with them than last year.

A recent Sunday morning at Khmer church we sang a song. It was one I had tried to learn at the start of the year. I remember painstakingly trying to read each word with my tutor. They were all so hard to pronounce. All I could understand was “God” and “I”.

But at this end of the year the song is not so much of a mystery. I found, while I still didn’t understand every word, I could sing along.

Snails

KS often eats snails as a snack, pulling them out of their shells one by one and dipping then in sauce. But one day we made a snail dish, so we had to pull them all out at once.........

After buying a few kilos of snails at the market, the first thing that needed doing was what you see in this photo. Using a knife the shell of the snail is smashed on one side to make a hole.

After that they were put in a pot with some water over the fire. Here you see just after they have come out of the boiling water. You can also see the water vat. Many people in Cambodia use these to store their water in. We don’t need them in the city, as we have running water.

Some of you guessed the photo in a previous post- you were right! It was of us de- shelling snails. We used some small sticks to pull the cooked snail out of the shell. The holes made in the shells earlier made it easier.

- The de shelled snails have a shower.

- And now for the seasoning! This is actually a dish we make at home sometimes. We usually use beef rather than snails, it’s called “Char Gdar”.

On the left there is a bowl of something yellow. It’s a mixture of roots and herbs crushed together using the mortor and pestle you see in the middle. The mixture includes a yellowy-orangey root, a white root that looks a bit like ginger and lemongrass.

Lime juice, lime leaves, garlic and chilli are also used for flavour, along with salt, sugar, pepper and in this case prahok. But if you don’t have prahok you can use fish sauce. The green leaves in the top right hand corner are from a plant called “mreh-bro”. If you buy it in a bottle in Cabramatta, Sydney the label says “Holy Basil”.

Peanuts are also used to flavour this dish. But first they need crushing. This type of flat woven basket is also used for sorting rice, drying fish and probably a million other things.

Time to cook! The yellow mixture and garlic goes in first.

I think the snails were added next and the other seasonings, and finally the holy basil. Almost ready to eat.

The finished product. Can you guess which dish is the snail char gdar? I love the smell and flavour of char gdar so I was looking forward to eating this dish. Although I must say I’d prefer beef to snail, but the dish as a whole is so “chngoi” (good smelling food) that I wasn’t too concerned about what meat was in there. However when I tried it it was too spicy for me! I forgot that when we make it at home I control the amount of chilli that goes in. So I filled up on the other dishes, I might tell you about them in another blog post in the future.

Happy Birthday Adele!

We are heading into cool season now, getting a bit chilly!

These days...

The other weekend we went out of town with a group from college. I don't go out of the city much, and whenever I do I see lots of things I've never seen before. Can you guess what we’re doing in this photo?

To get to where we were going we had to cross the river on a ferry. The photo below I ook when we were on it. Our moto was right at the front, I felt like we were about to drive into the river!

Our church building has been flooded the last 5 Sundays, so we have been meeting peoples houses. Last week we had to walk along a rickety narrow bridge to get there- it was a bit scary!

I’m about half way through Level 3 Khmer language classes. I’m finding I have much more writing homework than before. I used to try to hang around outside in the late afternoon for speaking practice. At that time of day people on campus are playing sport, or sitting on the grass talking, so it’s a good time for chatting. But these days writing homework is taking up my time.

As I have already got to know people a bit, spending time speaking with them is a bit more natural now anyway.

Also, I just started going to an evangelistic Bible study. So far its been exciting for me because I’m starting to understand more words, and I’m enjoying trying to talk to people after the meeting.

At the end people share prayer requests. Its quite overwhelming, many people have sick family members, and/or are out of work

WAT PHNOM

“Phnom” means “hill”. Ironically Phnom Penh is quite flat.

There is one hill which now has a “wat” (temple) built on it. Wat Phnom as it is called was apparently built in 1373 when an old lady called Penh found some Buddha statues near the river. From there a city formed around Wat Phnom of Penh.

Today its used as a temple, and is also a popular place to visit for fun.

Last year, when I first got to Cambodia I found I really missed beign able to go for a walk. The weather, traffic and roads are really good for strolling around. I lived near Wat Phnom though, so it was a nice place to walk, lots of greeness and shade as you can see from the photos.

Although, there are lots of monkeys jumping around everywhere. On the ground, in the trees etc, so it doesn't make for a very restful stroll.

Most of these photos I took around the bottom of the huge round-about like thing. But you can also walk up the hill and see the temple at the top. But I was more interested in the greeness!

There are many people sellings all kinds of things.

At the front there is a huge clock in the grass. You can kind of see it in these photos.

Water, water, still everywhere!

I’m enjoying bike riding these days as the weather is nice and cool. It makes it so much easier! The down side to rainy season though, is that my feet get so muddy everyday. Here is some advice for riding a bike in rainy season:

1. If the road is covered in water ride slowly – there might be unseen potholes lurking in the murkiness.

2.If the people on the moto next to you drive into a pothole and fall off, don’t try to watch them, keep looking out for your own potholes.

3. Don’t wear backless shoes. If you come off your bike and you end up in the water they might float away under a moving car.

4. Don’t assume that the road won’t get potholes when it rains even if it was just paved last year.

5.If you find it too stressful riding in busy traffic, in muddy water worrying about the potholes that you can’t see, anticipating that at any moment your front wheel might take a sharp downward movement, try walking your bike instead. You’ll end up with wet jeans up to your knees, but less heart palpitations.

6. Wash your feet/shoes/jeans well when you get home. You don’t know what’s in that water.

7. Avoid cows (they don’t know the traffic laws).


I read that a cow was taken into police custody recently. They said it had caused 2 fatal traffic accidents this year. Altogether 4 people died and 3 were injured. (From “South Eastern Globe”, Nov 2007 quoting “The Cambodian Daily” October 12th)

After some rain

We are lucky- our house doesn't flood. For others Wednesday morning meant they could go for a swim in the comfort of their home.

October newsletter photo