Two weeks with 11 Aussies

If you want to see photos of when the team was here go to Village Visit. If you want to read about my experience of hosting a team of 11 Aussies for 2 weeks then keep reading.

The group was from one of my churches in Australia. Soeun and I really enjoyed their visit, and felt really encouraged to know this church is partnering with us. I've been on this sort of trip before, but I've never been the one organising it. Before I nervous, wondering what it would be like. It was exciting and exhausting to have them here. They were all very eager to learn and had many questions.

Some random things in no particular order:

*A Cambodian hired a bus for us. It was a bus for 20 people, so I told the team it would be big enough for us and our bags (11, plus a Khmer friend, plus me and driver=14 people). However the night before I was told it only had 16 seats! When the bus turned up in the morning it actually had only 12 seats!!!!

A bus for 20 people does not mean a bus with 20 seats. Even though I know that Cambodians pack more people and things into a smaller space than I'm used to, I didn't realise what was going on here until I saw the bus.

When buying a seat in an interprovince taxi ex pats usually buy 2 seats each , just so they can get what we would call a full seat.

So I guess that's an example of how different cultures/different mindsets can have misunderstandings. So if you know any people working cross culturally, this is something to pray for them.

*When we visited places the team did an Australian presentation. I really enjoyed it it! It was also fun for me to listen to the translation. From this I learnt the Khmer word for "state" (as in what Australia has instead of provinces) and Indigenous people as well as hearing 4 different translations of life guard/lifesaver (surf). I only understood 3 of them though.

*Team members kept commenting on things I've never noticed, like the way people modify their moto engines, and that cows here are skinnier than in Oz. I don't remember seeing cows up so close in Oz, and I never really look at motos.

There is a big gap between rich and poor here, many team members were seeing this for the first time. This was interesting for me to see as I guess I've gotten a bit used to it.

I learnt more about Cambodia by watching them learn about it, I guess different people see different things.


*I think I felt a bit of reverse culture shock when they left. Three Cambodians and I went to the airport to say goodbye to the team, then the four of us went out to dinner afterwards. As soon as the team left I found my 3 Khmer companions began to speak Khmer language! I could only understand a little of what they were saying, and I couldn't contribute to the conversation. This continued over dinner and I felt frustrated and left out.

At first I felt surprised that this was happening. But actually that's what my life is like most of the time, it was just a surprise because I had been part of an English speaking group for two weeks.

*Before they left one of them must have gone around our house putting clip on koalas everywhere. I keep seeing them in the strangest places all over our house.

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.

International Visit # 2 and traffic photo

An Aussie family we know who financially support the work of the college recently came to visit Cambodia. It was great to introduce them to the student they support, show them around and have some meals together. We were excited that as well as sending money to support work in Cambodia they could come and see and experience a bit.

It was also fun for me because we got to ride in tuk tuks (rather than moto taxi or bike) and we got to feed them fun/interesting Cambodian fruit.

Holiday, New term, Cold weather

Thanks for leaving comments on our posts. (Yes, you are correct Donna, my liver is fine.) I (Katherine) just had a week off language classes. The first half my sister was visiting. It was really great to catch up with her and show her around a bit. She seemed to enjoy her time here, she even had a language lesson with my mother in law as well as making herself a prahok sandwich. After she left I continued my holiday by sitting at home reading, and cooking and eating.

KS however wasn't on holidays, in fact the last 2 weeks have been extra busy trying to get marking done on time, plus he has had a cold. He has been spending lots of time in the office, finally on Sunday night just after 10pm he came home and said he was finished. So now hopefully he can have some time to get rid of his cold!

So now I've started level 2. Class is much later in the day. Last month I was really worried about this cos I ride a bike and its so hot. Last term I got a headache at least once a week and esp if I left uni a bit later. So now that I'm riding home around noon I thought it would be worse. However this week its been sooo cold! The night before last I couldn't sleep cos I was so cold. I wore socks!!! ( I don't think I've ever done that here.) Our bedside clock has a temperature thing on it. Usually it says 30 in the morning, but this week its been saying 25. (KS bought it for $1 so i don't know if it works.)