Special Treat

 Just like buses all coming at once...we have not been swimming for 2 months then have two swimming outings in two days. Today we went to swim with our lovely friends the Possnets at the Cambodiana Hotel because they hotel had a promotion in September (to promote their refurbished pool) where you could swim for free if you rang up and booked. It was so nice to go and sit by the pool and look out over the river....the breeze was blowing and it was not too sunny (thank goodness as the children were a little pink from yesterday!)

Favourite game was drenching each other from the little pool

unofficial picnic!

Proper grass!!!

Back home and a yummy take away from Sumatra....Chicken Satay, Eggplant Balado, fried rice and fried noodles. A good day out and a lovely restful treat.

Escape....

Now everyone is coming back into Phnom Penh we decided to go out of the city for the day for a change of scenery and some much needed R&R. Simon and Becci came too which meant we got to all go in the van! We went to a new place that has opened called The Kingdom Resort and Spa. It is only 5km outside the city and has a great kids area and nice food. It was a perfect day with no rain!!!
Swimming, playing with he children, chilling out with Simon and Becci and eating yummy burgers with homemade chips then ice-cream.
All the kids came home looking a little red and rather glowing and very tired having had a really fun day out.

Water slides were a great hit even thought they were small

Ewan playing with Simon

Colin resting in the shade with FB

Pchum Ben

"Cambodia is celebrating the annual Buddhism’s Pchum Ben Festival which is the major Buddhist festival from September 13 to 28 to dedicate offerings to their relatives who have passed away so as to ask back blesses from their dead members.

Meaning of the Festival:

The word ‘Ben’ in Khmer means to collect; ‘Ben’ also means to cup or mould cooked rice into portions. The word ‘Phchum’ means to congregate or to meet together. Regardless how busy they may be during the fifteen days of Pchum Ben, Cambodian people try not to miss a visit to the pagoda to dedicate food and offerings to the dead, according to the Buddhist document.
According to a Cambodian monk, it is believed that some of the dead receive punishments for their sins and burn in hell – they suffer a lot and are tortured there. Hell is far from people; those souls and spirits cannot see the sun; they have no clothes to wear, no food to eat. Thus, Pchum Ben is the period when those spirits receive offerings from their living relatives and perhaps gain some relief.
Cambodians who are Buddhist go to the pagoda because they don’t want the spirits of dead members of their family to come to seek offerings at pagodas in vain. It is believed that wondering spirits will go to look in seven different pagodas and if those spirits can not find their living relatives’ offering in any of those pagodas, they will curse them, because they cannot eat food offered by other people. When the living relatives offer the food to the spirit, the spirit will bless them with happiness.
That’s the reason, from September 13, Cambodians who are Buddhists prepare foods, and offerings to visit to far or near pagodas entire the country aiming to give those offerings to monks and dedicate it to their dead relatives wishing the dead members receive the offerings.
The first day of the religious festival is called Ben 1; the 14th day is called Ben 14, and the 15th day, which is the final day, is called Pchum Ben day marking the end of the festival, the time those dead members are order to return to the hell, and will come back another Pchum Ben next year."
Extract from www.khmerbird.com

Offerings of food (Picture from here)

offering food (picture from here)

Photo from here

Please pray for the nation of Cambodia tomorrow as they celebrate the last day of the holiday of Pchum Ben. Pray that the Khmer Christians would have boldness to speak about the true light of the world.
Especially pray for a young lady in our church whose father died on Sunday as she has to go through the funeral and morning period for her father. No-one in her family is a Christian except her.

House Hunting

Signs are hung on the gate and are often difficult to see

Today was the first day of house hunting. House hunting in Cambodia is very different to back home. There are estate agents but not for the kind of house we can afford!!! There are no glossy brochures or easy websites to compare prices. House hunting involves driving round an area you would like to live in and looking out for tiny for rent signs (usually in Khmer) taped or stuck onto the gates of the houses. Or you get a lovely Khmer friend to do this for you! We have someone looking for us but thought we need to make an effort too and while the city is quiet we might as well get out and have a look.
So this afternoon we all got on our motos and armed with a printout map went in search of a house. The area we chose was on the other side of the road across the canal/river (stinky river) from the Russian Hospital down St 71 BT. The only slight problem with this area is the lack of street numbers, they are on most of the roads but not on the map. So we found a house and wrote down the st number but then had a very hard time trying to relocate it on the map! I am going back tomorrow to photograph all possible houses so we can remember where they were!
So we trailed around and saw some possible houses and wrote down the phone numbers. Now the next step is to get our Khmer friend to ring the numbers for us and find out the details ie rooms, rent and when it is available. If the rent is way too high we will not bother to look but if it is say $100 -150 above what we want to pay then we will look. Sometimes they will come down alot when you negotiate sometimes not. Also it depends on the length of the lease, how much you can pay in advance,  how desperate they are to rent, if any work needs doing etc. It will vary on every house you look at. Sometimes if you see a house you can ask the owners if they are thinking of renting. Often a family will own several houses in one street and will be willing to move out to rent their house out!

The things we need to look for are security, power supply, accessibility and size, flooding potential and then the nice features like a garden!

These are not the houses we looked at just examples of what it is like to see the signs!!!

This was a funny one I saw on a website!

 

 We came back positive but very tired. The difficult part is when we hear the rent for each of the potential houses and if it is in our range. Hopefully tomorrow we will have some more on our potential list.

Pchum Ben Holiday....

At Kool Tea on St 63 Phnom Penh

After 7 weeks of the busiest start to term I've had so far, we were all ready for a rest. We decided not to go away as this holiday period, Pchum Ben, sees most of the city emptying to travel to to the countryside so the city is deserted. We decided we needed to have some good family time doing some treat things and just spending time together. Also it is often hard to spend time with each child on their own so we are going to let each child choose something they would like to do with either mum or dad.
Ewan had heard me describing this cafe called Kool Tea and he decided he wanted to go and have "bubble tea" and sketch at Kool Tea with me. We had a lovely cool (aircon!) chilled out time sketching, playing darts and drinking bubble tea (Grape flavour for Ewan and Passion fruit for me) and we also sneaked a plate of chips onto our order. Kool Tea also has carpet which is a novelty in Cambodia.
For those who have not ever had bubble tea it is a sweet cold drink made out of a mild tea, lots of milk, ice and tapioca pearls or strands hence the bubble and flavouring. It is very delicious and refreshing even though I am not a "sweet drink" person. But most importantly it was lovey just having time to chat and listen to Ewan and watch him drawing in such detail.

The funniest part was the random cushion covers... a mixture of Christmas material, silk swirls and nautical!

Grape Bubble Tea...except he didn't like the "bubbles

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The finished drawing

Since we got back......

Well I can't believe we have been back in Cambodia for 5 weeks. What have we been doing you might ask.....well here are a few things......

Starting school which for me meant organising all the children and getting them ready, planning my curriculum and lessons for the next term and my favourite setting up my classroom- this year as a cruise ship!
All quite exhausting but fun.

In June we thought the landlord was going to sell the house, so we would need to move but when we arrived back he said he wasn't selling. So we had a big shuffle round involving a 3 bedroom swap....now all the children have their own room much to Ewan and Lucia's delight. It has made bed times so much easier and allowed us to have quality time with each child, something which is often hard to achieve with lots of children.The only downside is now the landlord has said he is selling which after all that effort is a bit frustrating!!

Ewan opted for a beach theme which will have some pirates in when we can find some pirate cloth for bunting!

For the first time Lucia has a girly princess room. When all Ewan's things were removed it was amazing how much pink and purple was left!! Bed was kindly donated by Phoebe who now is at the top of the house with balcony garden.

 FLOODING!! Most of the time our road does not flood but one day it did and he kids had so much fun!

 We are not sure if it was because the road flooded but about two days later a group of men came and started laying concrete outside different peoples houses. Our road has been unpaved the whole time we have been living here and finally something was happening. Most of the time a road crew will come and prepare the road then a cement truck will come and pour the cement but instead of doing the whole road at once they did each driveway one at a time. Here is laying a road Cambodian style.....

A bamboo support is made first and hand tied with wire

                                                  

Each day a new section is laid allowing a motorbike entry and exit across driveways.

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The man n the white shorts is one of our neighbours and he decided to lend a helping hand. The whole street was out watching and giving advice to the builders!

Some of the builders had wellies but most of them were walking on the cement in their bare feet. 

A barrier to stop cars!

Lucia with her friend from down the road

So apart from....working, settling back in, a welcome back party (approx 40 people), wedding reception of a colleague, moving rooms, slightly more hectic start to term due to a number of staff being off for various reasons (one day we were 6 teachers down!), Phoebe starting high school so more homework and youth group (so friends round on Thursday before Youth) lovely girl called Suzie staying for a week, helping a number of new people settle in (incl Simon and Becci at church) well life has been uneventful!