Hearts

In Khmer to encourage someone is to lift up their heart,
and when your heart is down it means you are sad.
Its pretty similar in English, but other heart phrases are opposite.


If you have a big heart in Khmer it means you are proud,
whereas in English is to do with kindness.


Someone with a hot heart is a bad person, but in English a warm hearted person is someone you want to be around.

Do you know any "heart" phrases in other languages?

OMF
What does OMF Cambodia do ?
"Through God's grace we long to see the transformation of Cambodia through the proclamation and demonstration of the good news of Jesus Christ.
Our mission is to glorify God by modelling Christ in our daily lives, ministering through compassion, teaching and training, making disciples, establishing churches, equipping leaders and mobilizing the church for local and cross-cultural mission."

Hagar
"Hagar restores women and children who have been victims of human rights abuse to life in all its fullness. Recovery can take a long time, but Hagar is committed for the long run - until each woman and child is able to reintegrate into community again."

Sunshine Centre
Providing a supportive, caring, enriching and stimulating place for children to thrive

ICC
"International Cooperation Cambodia (ICC) is a Christian development organization comprised of seven agencies who have been involved in relief and development work since 1991. ICC's purpose is to serve the needs of the people and the nation of Cambodia in education, health, food security, social services and community development. ICC aims to train the people of Cambodia in professional and leadership skills, to strengthen local organizations and to demonstrate unity and cooperation as we work with other organizations."


World Relief
"Now in it's 14th year in Cambodia, World Relief is committed to working alongside the Church of Cambodia in building its capacity to serve the poor in the name of Jesus Christ so that the healing and transforming power of the Kingdom of God is manifested in all its fullness in Cambodia."

Chab Dai
"The vision behind Chab Dai (literally “joining hands” in Khmer) was founded in Cambodia in 2005. Chab Dai aims to bring an end to trafficking and sexual exploitation through coalition building, community prevention, advocacy and research. In addition to the office in Cambodia, the vision of Chab Dai has been expanded into the USA and Canada."

The noise started up again at 4.30am, more music and chanting and talking. Soeun said there was an announcement to say they are taking the body away soon, so I think that means the noise will stop soon.

Our bedside clock thermometer said 23 this morning! Never seen it so low so we took a photo, it rained last night too.

So noisy at Bible school today. Last night someone in the area died, we know because they chant using a load speaker when its happening. So today there is the clangy funeral music- its really loud, poor Soeun is having trouble marking. Hopefully this family isn't too rich, or it could go on for days.
Its also cold and rainy here, which is strange. Today I started a ten day PHAWS

"Maybe the mosquito thought you were a child, that's why it bit you and you got dengue fever"
That's what the teachers said the first day I was back at school after being sick. It wasn't just the people at the market and the doctor, it seems many Khmer people really think of Dengue as a kids disease, as that's what it is for Khmer people.
Anyway I got better from that, but then Soeun wasn't feeling himself for awhile, just as he started to get a bit better (he's still not totally normal) I had a night of diarrhea/vomiting and the sore tummy lasted all the next day. Once I was better from that, Soeun had a really sore tummy, unknown source, and he was meant to preach that morning at church! But we both seem healthy today, hopefully it will stay that way.

Confusing

I think I’m pretty much back to normal after having dengue fever. I just wrote about the first 7 days on my other blog (Stop looking in my ear, take my blood!). It’s about how I got sick and it was a bit confusing because I also had an ear infection so we thought that’s why I had a fever. So I didn’t have a blood test until it was nearly over. Dengue fever isn’t a big deal for Khmer adults, so my doctor, who is Khmer didn’t seemed concerned to take my blood (to check for dengue), even though I’d had heaps of dengue symptoms.

It was also a bit confusing as an expat nurse told me a particular symptom I had was NOT a dengue symptom, but others sources (other ppls experience, websites) told me it was. And that particular symptom was the first thing I had that I was pretty sure didn’t come from an ear infection. I’ve had ear infections before but its never give me red itchy arms and legs!

My pain and fever gone, but still low energy and feel sick when I eat. I went to church on Sunday but couldn't stand up for a whole song. Still can't ride my bike. And talking in khmer is exhausting on the best of days so you can imagine now.

How rude!

“ When you’re ready to go out for dinner come to our room,” I said to my mum.

My husband Kimsoeun and both our mums were on holiday together. As my mum only speaks English and my mother-in-law only speaks Cambodia it was an interesting experience for them to be sharing a guesthouse room for the week. And it meant I had to say everything twice.

“When you’re ready to go out for dinner come to our room.” I said to my mother-in-law in Cambodian.

She had a funny look on her face. I guess she didn’t understand me, so I tried again. She still had a funny look, so I tried to say the same thing in a different way. It’s so hard to learn a new language! Maybe I wasn’t pronouncing something correctly, or my words were totally out of order.

I gave up and went back to the room I was sharing with my Kimsoeun; I guess she’d figure it out.

That night as we were eating Kimsoeun explained to me that he had just explained to his mum that I didn’t mean to offend her, it’s just the way we talk in English. Huh? How had I offended her? And I didn’t even talk to her in English.

It turns out that I was being really rude when I said “our room”. I should have said “my room”. I did make a language mistake, but it wasn’t to do with my pronunciation or grammar. If I had been talking to someone younger it would have been fine. It’s not something I would have guessed at all.

I was glad that Kimsoeun was able to explain to me that I had offended her and why, other wise I would not have known. And I was also glad that he could explain to her that I wasn’t intending to be rude.

I wonder how many other times I have offended people and not been aware. If there is no friend around to explain it must be so easy to come across in the wrong way and not even know about it. It highlights how important love and humility are in cross-cultural relating.

dengue

I haven't been online much recently as I've been sick. Thankfully I'm almost better. It looks like I had dengue fever although for most of the week we thought it was a fever due to an ear infection, then an allergic reaction to the antibiotics.

I only had a blood test yesterday, 6 days after the fever started and the doctor said probably too late to show anything, my temp was already down and body aches gone. But he just rang and said that its likely I did have dengue as my platelet count was 135,000. He said normal is between 150,000 to 350,000.

Hopefully I'll get better completely and quickly, dengue recovering sometimes has complications.

Well, here is a photo of our kitchen wall, and in the corner you can see KS cooking...

The thing about snails detox that I forgot to write last time is that before he cooked the snails KS gave them chilli to eat, to clean them out.

Snails detox and exciting marking

This week Soeun has been marking an exercise where students need to observe, interpret and apply a Bible passage in prep for a sermon or Bible study (SMBCspeak: triangle). He's been excited to see that students have worked hard and learnt a lot. Its unusual for me to hear Soeun talk about marking student's work as exciting, he usually finds it really tedious.

For those of you in Oz who packed an Operation Christmas Child box, you might be interested to read this blog by a girl who lives in Phnom Penh.

Mostly wedding meals aren’t that social, at least in my experience. The music is loud. You sit at a table with the nearest ten people who you may or may not know. Recently there was a wedding held on campus that was relaxed and fun. It was nice that it was so close; not having to travel was a plus. And I spent most of the day with people that I did know, students who live on campus with us.

The Cambodian pastor from Australia who did our wedding came to do this one too, and stayed the night at our place.

We also recently went to a wedding of a couple who had been engaged for four years. They got engaged before we did!

Cooking foreign food to share

Our house stinks! Soeun has been making kimchi again as you can see from the photos. He takes a bit to share each time he eats with the students. Its Korean but it seems to be very popular with Khmer too!



I'm making a peanut sauce for lunch tomorrow, we are having people over. Its made with stuff from the market, all khmer ingredients, but its not khmer food. We'll find out if they like it tomorrow. I'm also going to make sushi rolls.


And this is some very non foreign food- smoked fish.