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.

Our friend’s father recently passed away after being sick for some time. Our friend and her mother are Christians, and are so thankful that their father/husband accepted Jesus just before he died.

Recently I’ve heard of a few Christians who have ended up having a Buddhist funeral. As soon as some dies, or when they are dying, the monks are called in to carry out the Buddhist rituals. Apparently it all happens automatically, with friends and neighbours playing their part. As the major religion is Buddhism, and many parts of life are very religious it seems that everyone knows the proper thing to do when someone dies. So this is how Christians end up having Buddhist funerals, even when they have lived their life as a Christian and their family knows they are not Buddhist.

In the case of our friend, if she’d wanted her father to have a Christian funeral, she and her mum would have had to confront her relatives with this strange idea. I’m guessing that wouldn’t have been an easy thing to do at any time- but especially hard if you were to do it the same hour your father/husband had passed away. So I think they just let everyone take care of everything, knowing it was only his body and that they will see him again.

Corn from our front yard!

Kimsoeun is excited today because he has just finished writing another song! I have been listening to him sing it the last few days but I can't understand that much so I can't tell you what's about- except to say its something to do with Jesus.

Nov 9

Click here to find out what is happening today in Phnom Penh:
Independence Day celebrations in Phnom Penh November 9, 2009. Cambodia celebrates its 56th anniversary of independence from France on November 9.

Graduation

Bible School Graduation was held recently. It was great to see old friends who came for the day. I also enjoyed singing. One of the songs we sang is picture below. I went over in my language sessions in the week leading up to graduation so I was able to sing all of the words!



In English we call it "Because he lives".In Khmer its called "God sent his Son". One of the words in it I learnt from an advert on TV for MSG. Ajinomoto MSG claims to "dissolve easily", that word for dissolve/ melt is what happens to fear (in the song).