Cambodia through our eyes

Christmas Day 2011

2011-12-25T07:23:00.000-08:00

Church in OngSit

Normajong (she has known me since I was 6! and Aiheen

I loved our Christmas Day this year because of its simplicity. Each day this week we have had presents, stockings or something special so today we had no presents left to open but rather than it being an anti- climax it was a time to remember what Christmas is really about. In the morning we met with all the Christians here in Ong Sit where my mum and dad live.

After that all the children (ours and my friend Wendy's children who also live in the same village) got together and acted out the nativity in my parents yard. This was such fun and absolutely hilarious!!

Mary and Joseph (unfortunately baby Jesus was a little blue!)

Do you think my halo looks good?

Shepherds cum kings cum inn keepers

We then had the second Christmas dinner of the week...yum!

The kids chilled out in the afternoon making a model village in the yard and then in the evening we went to a local market which comes occasionally. The treat for the day was having some money to spend at the market. The kids had so much fun choosing what to buy.

Choosing the topping for a pancake at the market....chocolate and dolly mixture!

yum!

So wishing you all a Happy Christmas.....I will post the present pictures soon!

Pictures of Christmas 2011

2011-12-25T06:48:00.000-08:00

Some pictures of our Christmas week. We started on Sunday with decorating the tree and each day opened a few presents. It was nice to see the children enjoying the gifts they had been given and appreciating them.

Jamie and Ewan having a "hooter" fight

Granny's home made mince pies!

Lucia and Grandad

Lets Take a Walk

2011-11-12T06:18:00.001-08:00

This morning we walked down to the local market and bought freshly cooked doughnuts, iced milo and delicious ripe mangoes. Andrew, Becci and Simon joined myself and the "early birds" Lucia and Jamie for a 5min stroll down the road to PC Market. I thought you might like to take the stroll with us.......

Take a right out of our front gate and walk down the bumpy road past all the rubbish (bin men have not been for ages). All the pot holes are filled in with broken bricks and tiles which make walking a little tricky but it is not far on this road until we get to a paved road.

At the end of this road turn sharp left and then the road turns sharp right and we are on a paved road seen below. At the end of this road we will need to turn left.

We walk down to the end of this road with the Wat on our right (you can see the decorative wall)

This picture is taken from the market entrance

We get to the entrance of PC Market shown by this big archway inside is a little bustling local market. I have yet to see a foreigner there (they do go but not often) I have also found prices significantly cheaper than my previous market.

Our aim was to get freshly cooked doughnuts which have been cooked over a fire like the one above. They are simple ring doughnuts with sugar but so delicious!!! We then go to a lady who sell ice coffee and milo for a large sugar rush!
We went back home and had doughnuts, mangoes and coffee some from the market and others opted for freshly ground Cambodian coffee by Three Corner Coffee. We have all decided it is a good once a month Saturday morning tradition!

Independence Day

2011-11-09T08:39:00.000-08:00

This evening I went down to the river front with some of the girls from my Bible study group to watch the fireworks that always mark Independence Day. I was going to take the children but Ewan was not well. When we arrive I was glad as it was heaving...there were people and cars and policemen everywhere. Where there are people there are food carts, balloon sellers and beggars.

All the important buildings were decked out with lights and there were very tasteful lights over the road. It reminded us all of the Christmas light being turned on.

Royal Palace Gate

We managed to cross the road which was a steady stream of traffic...all of us have been here long enough to know if you stand at the side of the road you will never get across. So we just walked out and the traffic slowly flowed around us!
On the other side there were a few less people and it was right opposite where the fireworks were being set off.
It was nice to see whole families out enjoying themselves and to hear the sound of enjoyment when the fireworks started....especially from the little boy in front of us. It is funny that the oohs and aaahs are the same in what ever language you speak.

Afterwards we went to the Blue Pumpkin for some food ...the raspberry and dark chocolate combo for ice cream was so yummy.

Busy Week!

2011-11-06T06:58:00.000-08:00

Jamie doing Ewan's betime story!

Last weekend we moved house which was quite hectic. I had a day off work and Colin took time off too. It took rather a lot of trips back and forth with the "moving" van due to all my pot plants on the roof!!! Colin said the removal men just put the pots on their shoulder and walked down four flights of stairs!
Once in our house it was the lovely task of unpacking which a week later is still slowly happening. We will get there eventually! We keep stopping and saying how amazing this house is. It is quiet, enjoyable to live in and near so many people we know. We feel so amazingly blessed.

Upstairs lounge

Lots of boxes in the dining room!!!

Playing on the veranda

This weekend was very busy we had a Soiree "Shakespeare Under the Stars" at school to raise money for the library. It was packed and really good fun.....I was face painting so I enjoyed myself!
Then this morning was really exciting because today at church three people were baptised. They are all people we have got to know over our last two years hear so is was really lovely to see them making this step in their faith. It was also funny seeing our paddling pool put to a different use! Please pray for these three people as life is not always easy and they will face many difficulties but they know the God who loves them and has their lives in his hands.

Lunch afterwards...yum!

Floods

2011-10-16T10:24:00.000-07:00

This weekend is one I hope I don't forget for a a long time. It started on Friday when we were inundated with food and clothes donated. we spent the whole day organising it into food parcels. Everyone pitched in to help.

On Saturday we got up at 5:30am to get a tuktuk to ABC Driving school to meet the coach that was going to take us to Prey Veng. When we arrived there were piles of bags of clothes, food parcels and sacks of rice being loaded onto the buses. (These had been donated by listener to a local radio station who had organised this trip) We then went down to school to collect the 387 (to be precise!) food bags we had put together.

We were struggling to fit all the food and people in! 31 people came from the HOPE community. This was students, teachers (Khmer and expat) parents, friends and family. I was overwhelmed by how many people wanted to help.
As we drove to Prey Veng all along the roadside we could see evidenced of the massive flooding.

We arrived at the meting point which was at the side of the road about 2 half hours out of Phnom Penh where a rather small looking boat was tethered. We were told that both buses loads and their passengers were going to go on this boat!

As the boat was loaded with all the food and passengers from the other bus it went further into the water so, after some discussion we managed to hire another boat to take us.This did cost more but we felt we needed to be safe especially was we didn't know what the water currents were like.
We travelled about an hour on this boat and all e could see for miles was water with the tops of trees poking through or small islands.

When we arrived at the island hundreds of people had come from the little islands to get the food. As we docked there was a burst of applause. My first reaction when I saw all those people was we don't have enough for them and a little worried that we were going to get mobbed! However it was very well organised and even on this deserted island there was a PA system!!! The local official gave a speech about the are and how it was affected. I think there were 1,000 families affected and 300 who had been badly affected were selected for the aid. Each group was then invited to give a speech. Graeme McKenzie and Chak (the student who organised this) gave a speech and said we were a Christian school and we wanted to give this as a way of expressing Gods love to them. We were sorry it was so little and we knew it would not solve their problems but we wanted them to know we cared and hoped that soon they would get their life back to normal.

Then all the chiefs got a pile of bags and calmly everything was doled out to the people whose names were on the list. We also ran an impromptu clinic with a Doctor who had come with the radio station and our school nurse. When I stopped counting there were 292 people who had taken tickets to see the doctor. We only had time to see some of them. One boat load of people travelled 4 hours only to find there was no food left. They got some clothes but it was heartbreaking to see how patiently they accepted their lot. Many people needed antibiotics but we ran out or didn't have the right ones.
One family we talked to had been living on their roof for the last month and had lost their rice fields and farm animals. they were so appreciative of the small food parcel and clothes that they got.

If you sent a donation here are some of the people you helped. This lady could not stop saying thank you.

This lady was not one of the lucky ones she will have to wait.

A very tired team arrived back at Phnom Penh sometime after 6:30. Sometimes when I do things like this I think was it worth it because we seemed to do so little to help. There were so many other people who needed help but we could not help but as I thought about it I remembered the verse in the bible which says For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink...‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters,^f you were doing it to me!’
God knows the heart and desire behind the gesture and says it is like we are doing it for him.

Urgent Help Needed!!

2011-10-10T04:47:00.000-07:00

Cambodia has experienced its worst floods for 10 years. Several provinces have been severely flooded, causing major damage to crops, property and transportation routes as well as loss of life.

Some of our Cambodian staff know people or have family who are directly affected by the floods. In Prey Veng, several isolated are now facing a huge crisis. Their roads and crops are completely submerged under water which is four or five metres high. These people are now completely stranded and they are suffering from starvation. ABC Cambodia Radio is collecting food and emergency aid to give to the flood victims.

On Friday the Cambodia Daily newspaper interviewed a group of 15 people, including children, who had been stranded on high land for three weeks in the badly affected south-eastern province of Prey Veng.

Hom Tey, a 35-year-old mother of five, said no government officials had visited.

“My family has only two kilos of rice left,” she said. “No one has offered aid to our families, no one sees our problem.”

Another villager said her five-hectare crop of rice had been destroyed.

“Next year I will have no rice to eat,” said 48-year-old Nhorn Nheam. “Normally when we harvest the rice we pay back the rent to the landowner, but I don't know how I can pay it back.”

Cambodia Daily here

One of our student at school has sent out a letter asking for help and we are making a collection of things on friday.
They urgently need:

bottled water
dry food
canned food
mosquito nets
clothing
torches

We are as a family going to buy some of the things they need and it was so lovely seing the children empty out their pocket money to buy things for the families.
Last week we as a school were learning about Micah 6:13 "What the Lord requires of you is to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly before your God."

This is love in action

If you want to help these families in huge need contact us with how much you are willing to donate and we will buy the things from the list for friday or we will make contact with agencies we know who are woking in that area and give them the supplies or finances they need to help these families back on their feet.

For more details of floods see here

A Sneaky Peak of our House to be....

2011-10-08T08:59:00.000-07:00

Patio of new house

This week the most amazing thing happened and has demonstrated to us again of how good God is in every area of our lives. We have been driving round and round searching for just the right house. We felt God had said he was going to provide us a house with a garden but none of the houses we saw with gardens were anywhere near our budget. The other ones we saw were either not suitable or didn't have gardens. I had begun to think maybe I need to pray about if I am wanting something or that God will provide.A lovely friend of ours said she had a few houses to show us one was really beautiful but probably too expensive as it was not far above our budget we decided to go and look. When I walked in I fell in love with its charm and thought this is so perfect but on discussion with the landlady she was not prepared to come down.I dragged Colin and the children along and they all liked it too.

So we prayed and thought we just need a miracle...maybe a slight change in our financial income and a change of heart from the landlady. The next day I got a message to say my friend was urgently trying to get hold of me, when I rang her she said the landlady had agreed to rent it for the price we had said and then we had a message to say someone wanted to sponsor us. (Just so you know I jumped around the classroom screaming ...the pupils had gone home) We could not believe it. Today we were further blessed and amazed, the landladies mother said she had persuaded her daughter to lower the rent just for us not anyone else because she felt God speaking to her that she should do that!!!!(She is a Christian)

Now can you agree with me that God is so amazing?! Also from nearly every window I can see green plants and my room is wooden and the dining room table looks like something from Habitat. God doesn't just do the minimum he wants to lavishly bless anyone who calls on His name not because of what we have done but just because he loves us. Sometimes it is not what we expect or could imagine.

So we move in 3 weeks! Which means some pretty swift packing!

Here are some pictures before we have moved in so not all our things:

Patio again

Patio yet again

Sitting Room

Dining Room

Lucia's Bedroom (downstairs with aircon)

Kitchen as seen when coming down the cliff-like stairs

Ewan's Bedroom

Upstairs (where Jamie is going to sleep in a room we will create)

View from Veranda into house

Decisions

2011-10-01T09:23:00.000-07:00

Decisions...decisions...we have been house hunting for several weeks now and our contract ends at the end of the month. We don't have to move but feel it would be better for all of us if we move and get settled before the end of term rather than have to move in a rush.
We have trawled around all the areas, and got our lovely friend Jun to ring up landlords (he also has been looking around) but either they were too small, too expensive (the most common reason) or not available any more.I was really hoping to get a garden/yard but these houses were all way over our budget.Today though we saw a house which is similar to the one we have now but arranged slightly differently.

Here is my Estate Agent Description:(italics are my obsevations)

House at far right end -front not in view

This large family end of terrace town house is situated on a quite street overlooking open fields on two sides.
It has a compact (very small) enclosed covered courtyard (4.5x4.5m) at the front with large folding doors opening onto a well proportioned lounge with windows along one side and a double height ceiling. An open corridor on the left leading to the rest of the house.(4.5x 9m)

Ground Floor
Bedroom 1 (3.5x 4)complete with en suite shower and toilet. (and windows to the lounge!!)
The corridor opens onto a character dining room with two Roman type pillars and a sink with a marble surround and WC number 2! (quirky or weird esp the sink jutting out randomly)(4.5x4.5)
Stairs to upper floors

Galley kitchen with fitted tiled units (very poky)
Main kitchen, spacious and very airy! (if you like having part of the roof missing!!! and holes in the top of the walls to let air and other things in :))with fitted units and fitted hob backs onto fields. Door to outside passageway. (5mx4m)

Floor 1 this is a mezzanine level

Bedroom 2 (3x 4.5m) en suite WC/ shower and looks over banana field,. Has a small built in desk.

Den (3.5 x 4.5) open area by stairs with WC/shower. Windows overlooking fields

Bedroom 3 (4.5x 4.5) Windows overlooking fields and the lounge!

Floor 2
Kitchenette/office complete with sink! with a balcony and window overlooking fields

Open office area with WC and windows overlooking fields.

Bedroom 4 (3.5x 3.5) window, built in shelves and WC/shower wet room (ie no door!!)

Family room (4.5x 9m) large airy room with windows on two sides and small balcony at the front of the house. Double height ceiling

Floor 3 mezzanine level
Bedroom 5- (3x 4.5m) window overlooking fields

Bedroom 6- (3.5x3.5m) window overlooking fields and built in shelves

Bedroom 7 (4.5x 4.5m)WC/shower. Windows overlooking fields and family room! (can keep kids in order from above!!!)

Roof Top Patio full length roof patio complete with low walls and decorative railing. Views over fields and a few houses. has a lovely breeze and would make a nice rooftop retreat. (sure railing is safe is but!!! .Fortunately only one side and could be covered with potted plants to keep children from climbing! The rest is cement walls and there is a factory the other side of the field but not too loud)

To explain

We didn't set out to find the biggest house but the way houses are here are designed is often rather random. Houses which take up more land (small villa style with garden) are often $200 to $400 more per month than the town houses or Ptayah wen (thin houses) These thin houses are often designed to house several families which explains the extra kitchen and all the en suite bathrooms! Its not extravagance like we would think of in the west but a necessity when you have extended family all living in the same house. All the houses so far in our budget have been the thin houses which sadly do not have any gardens.
So we need to decide whether to go for this amazing house with all this space inside but no outside space or keep looking in the hope we will find something in our price range with a garden/yard.
We have all looked round the house and the children really liked it but Lucia wistfully said "I did want a beautiful garden".
So in the next few days we need to make our mind up...pray we will have wisdom to know what to do.

What do YOU think we should do... any ideas????? :)

Special Treat

2011-09-30T04:45:00.000-07:00

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....

2011-09-29T06:47:00.000-07:00

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

2011-09-27T07:49:00.000-07:00

"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

2011-09-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

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....

2011-09-25T09:47:00.000-07:00

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	"

The finished drawing

Since we got back......

2011-09-08T07:51:00.000-07:00

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.

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!

It was good to be back ...

2011-08-17T07:59:00.000-07:00

On 13th June we arrived back in England for the first time in nearly two years. We spent a wonderful 7 weeks seeing family, friends and doing lots of other fun stuff. Before our great holiday became too much of a distant memory, we remembered what where our fave things about our trip back 'home' ...

Lucia

Day out on the Severn Valley Railway
Playing on scooters (lent by a very kind friend)
Trip to the Yorvik Musem (in York)
The airplane place with Olden Day cars (Brooklands)

Ewan

Seeing my cousins (all six of them)
Severn Valley Railway & Museam
Beckonscot Model Village with Mike & Jo
Brooklands
Everything

Jamie

Day Trip to the Isle of Wight
Visit to the National Railway Musuem with Grandad
Camping
Brooklands Museum - Heritage Day
Everything

Phoebe

Visit to Farnborough Hill with Essie
Going to Camberley on the bus with just Essie
Day Trip to the Isle of Wight
Picnics & going to parks
The cows of Castle Bottom

Rachel

Going for a walk with Lizzie to find the cows
[I'm sure Rachel will add more here ... or maybe not]

Colin

Spending lots of time with family & friends
Camping - beautiful English countryside, fresh air and cooked breakfasts
Being able to do lots of things ... some silly, some 'English' ... that we can't do in Cambodia

I'm sure its obvious we really did have a great time. We'd like to say a huge thankyou to everyone who made our trip back home so wonderful :)

[Colin]

Baray Camp 2011

2011-04-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

This year the children from school years 3-6 went on their school camp to Baray Homestay. Baray Homestay is in the Kompong Cham province and was set up by Esther an amazing lady who wanted to help the people of this poor area of Cambodia in health, educaion and job opportunities. She links up with local pastors and in this way can reach into the hundreds of surrounding villages.

The theme of the School Camp is learning about serving others. The children had all been learning about rural Cambodian life and customs so it was great to be able to go and experience what life in the Cambodian countryside is like.

Years 3/4 mainly experienced the cultural things like noodle making, ox cart ride, khmer dancing and pony cart rides as they only had two days to cram everything in.
The Year 5/6 classes did all the above but they went out and did service projects each day. The school sponsors these projects, buying the materials and paying for local specialist labour where needed. The projects they did invovled either building the paving round a village well, building a rubbish burner at a school, teaching english and playing games with the school children and going out into the villages and giving bags of rice and clothes the children had donated.

It was so lovely seeing Phoebe's amazing photos of the fun they had in the Khmer schools. They were so amazed at the lack of resources. Many school have only a few books to share around and learning is by rote. Children are someties punished if they come to school with a dirty uniform and some families do not have enough money to buy a uniform for each child in the family so siblings will share a uniform. One will go in the morning and one will go in the afternoon. All across Cambodia there is a shortage of teachers so school is either in the morning or the afternoon.

Some of the stories from these home visitis were so amazing and really touched the children who went on them.
At one house they arrived and the family was so overwhellmed by the bag of rice because the previous day they had run out of rice and had no money to buy any more. They had been wondering what they were going to eat when this group of foreign children arrived with a bag of rice.
Another house Phoebe went to the little girl opened the bag of clothes and put on a sparkly dressing up top which Lucia had chosen specially to give away.

The last house Phoebe's group went to, they were all tired as it was hot and they had been visiting houses for most of the afternoon. They had one bag left and when they looked in it all it had were baby clothes. They were wondering what to do as they had not seen any babies in any of the other houses. They thought the family would be disappointed to only get baby clothes...until they went into the house and saw a young girl and in her arms was a tiny baby only about a week old!

These experiences will be building blocks for their character and futures.
Sometime people say to us (as a family) being in Cambodia mean the children are missing out on so much. Yes they do miss out on lots of things but when I think of what they have experienced in Camp Week here I know that they are richer for it. I love the way they are learning about need and poverty and how they can help. Also how God takes ordinary people like Esther, gives them a dream and uses them to reach and affect hundreds and hundreds of people.
Are they missing out...I don't think so. :)

Hangi

2011-02-06T07:55:00.000-08:00

One thing I really love about Cambodia is all the people I meet from different countries. I find out so much about their life and culture. Tonight we were invited to a Hangi by the lovely Hasseltine family. There house is right on the river front quite a way out of town. All the children had gathered in their house while the adults were across the road.
I could not go with out my facepaints! So amongst the bunnies and butterflies and tigers I got try out some cool Maori designs. It was so much fun! Katy one of the NZ teachers also joined in doing some of the arm tatoos.

Some non Maori designs just because I liked them.....

A Hangi is a Maori way of cooking. As I am not a Kiwi and would not want to misquote what a hangi is here is wikipedia.....

Hāngi (pronounced [ˈhaːŋi]) is a traditional New Zealand Māori method of cooking food using heated rocks buried in a pit oven still used for special occasions.
To "lay a hāngi" or "put down a hāngi" involves digging a pit in the ground, heating stones in the pit with a large fire, placing baskets of food on top of the stones, and covering everything with earth for several hours before uncovering (or lifting) the hāngi.
There are many variations and details that can be altered. Hāngi "experts" have developed and improved methods that often, like the stones themselves, have been handed down for generations. Another name sometimes used is umu, for instance the umu tī, used in the South Island to cook Cabbage trees (Cordyline australis).

Removing the earth

Taking off the cloth covering

Lifting the Hangi

So the meat looked like it was wrapped in foil withthe veg piled on top. The meat and veg all cook together very slowly for nearly the whole day. It was absolutely delicious. We had lamb, pork and chicken plus squash, sweet potatoes and potatoes. The meat was so tender it fell off the bone and the veg had a lovely meaty smokey flavour.

Roast Potatoes from Hangi

Phoebe with her friend

I had to take this picture of a VERY happy little girl. She had spent the whole time running around and scrabbling in the dirt. In fact she looked like she had crawled through the hangi pit!

2011-02-02T05:41:00.000-08:00

Our Sports Week is a bit different. It is a week where the school is divided into 3 teams the Red Lions, Blue Dolphins and the Green Eagles. We have a dress-up theme for the day and some team games. It is a way of encouraging group participation and community throughout the school and also a lot of fun. It ends on friday with a sports morning from 7am-12.

Super Heroes Day

Poison Ivy

Dash from the Incredibles

Frozone

Bubbles from the Powder Puff Girls

The Amazing Mrs. Incredible Jane!

Even Batman needs a cuppa

Twin Day

Unfortunately not I didnt seem to get many pictures on Twin day that came out well. Pity as there were some great costumes!

Class Day

This was where as a class you decided the theme and everyone came dressed as the theme...there were Kings and Queens, Animals, Pirates, Household Items, Professional Athletes, Medical, Sleepover, Nerds, Mad Scientists, Super Cool, Formal Dress and Khmer Formal. These were our kids classes and my class.....

My class had fun today attacking a few classes as we were pirates....

Tomorrow is the last dress up day....the theme "Your Dream Job" and has got all of us thinking what will we be?

Rose plates and Silk Parties

2011-02-01T04:49:00.000-08:00

Gorgeous rose plates!

This semester at school ths children are learning about rural Khmer life. We revameped an old play house and Mr Thueon and Mr Rit, our caretakers, covered it with the Khmer leaf roof so it looks like a field house.
I went shopping to buy some of the things you might find in a typical house.(consultation and help from Sina my classroom assitant!)
The idea is the children will experience life through role play senarioes. They will be able to practise Khmer they have learnt in class and already know. Also they will learn about the culture from our Khmer assistants.

I think my best buy was the stove and the rose patterned plates and the little stove. I am looking forwar to see how the children enjoy playing with all these things.

little charcoal stove (think we will not have the charcoal!)

Ewan and Lucia have been having great fun trying all the things out! It was fun to watch them organise all the items and set out their "house". Lucia and Phoebe were doing the cooking and Ewan was washing up!!

Grilled fish for dinner?

Why is "play" washing up more fun?

Do you want some "Bai Chaa?

Traditional dinner of rice, egg and fish is served

Last week Mark and Jenny (Mark is the art teacher) hosted a silk party where you had to come in a silk item. It was really fun to get dressed up. Anyone who know us well will know wwe love dressing up! So it was off to BKK market which is a predominantly second hand market where clothing can be bought for as little as 75c or 50p if you know where to look.
Phoebe and I had a long list of required items for the party and the assortment of costumes we needed for Sports Week at school this week. After a three hour shopping trip we managed to get all the required items and treated ourselves to having our hair straightened.
The children all went as super heroes and Colin wanted to go as a pirate...after raiding my jewelry box!

Award for best "new trend with silk for 2011)


The lovely Kate, Danielle and Carrie

Becky, Me, Danielle

Becky, Chloe, Kelly, Katy, Kate

Christmas in Phnom Penh 2010

2010-12-27T08:12:00.000-08:00

Ewan listening to some carol singers outside Sovanna

This is our first Christmas in Phnom Penh! So what is it like? What is the same what is different and what is the same? It is strange having Christmas when it is 32 degrees outside in a country where christmas is not really celebrated...there are the obligitary tacky tinsel up in some shops and a few santas but it is essentially an imported holiday.

Sovanna Shopping Centre

It is amazing what we take for granted in the UK...being able to do Tescos delivery order to avoid shopping, getting nearly all your presents in one shop, family and friends nearby, carol services and treats on special offer.
This year Christmas crept up on me as there was not the constant reminder from shop displays, adverts and music. When you don't have all the trappings around you get to choose what you want your Christmas to look like.... it was nice to be able to make Christams what we wanted it to be.

So what was Christmas to us? A time to share, give and spend time with family and remember Jesus who came to the world. It needed imagination and perseverance to do this and sometimes was frustrating. ithink when you don't have things and have to work hard to get them it makes you appreciate everything so much more. There was great excitement when we found something like a nice cheese or the cranberry sauce. Having family and friends to share it with makes it so much more fun.

Here are some of our unique Phnom Penh Christmas experiences....

Lucia waiting at moto park at Russian Market

*Searching high and low in shops to find the turkey, cranberry sauce, cheese, ham, sausages and yummy things to eat. This involved going to about five different shops all around the city not knowing if you would get something even though you saw it last week.
* Shopping with my mum in the market and seeing who can get the best deal...she is a very good bargainer!
*Trailing round the hot busy Olympic market with Colin (he was not so pleased) to find the presents...took nearly 2 hours to find a Liverpool football kit for Jamie..everywhere else had Chelsea or Arsenal.
*Taking a break from Christmas shopping at Brown at a new Cambodian run coffee shop.

Colin in Browns

*Making christmas crackers from coloured tissue from the market and cereal boxes.
*Coffee cake and coffee for Christmas breakfast...my familys Christmas tradition
*Cooking an entire Christmas dinner for 12 in an oven the size of a microwave.
*Having to call out a locksmith on Christmas day because the door handle came off the door of the bedroom my parents were staying in..my dad was trapped inside!
*Making homemade Gingerbread lattes

Santa had a Korean influence this year

Christmas morning

*Having Mike and Jo (my brother and his wife) for Christmas (the first time ever)

Mike and Jo

*The church next door having a big Christmas party next door (including loudspeakers!!) just as we were serving up Christmas dinner...fortunately they stopped and ate a little bit later
*Having a Christmas service in Khmer...no carols or candles! but great food afterwards.

Jubille Family Church

*Being given curry on Christmas day by our Christian neighbours (just after we had finished Christmas dinner!!!)
*Singing Christmas carols with family and friends with the warm tropical breeze blowing through the doors.

Boys with boys toys!

My brother did a reading at the end of Christmas day about how we as people come in packaging. Some have nice pretty ribbons and paper but others sometimes have torn paper or are damaged or broken. WE should not look at the outside but inside and see the true gift of the person inside. The person who Jesus sees and the reason why there is a Christmas to celebrate.

Words,Marshmallow Hot Chocolate and Stationary

2010-11-25T06:08:00.000-08:00

This morning I had to drag myself out of bed at 5:45...ok well the alarm went off at 5:45 and I had to be in the lobby by 6:20 to get the bus. it was tight! Me and Jane were do excited by the Special K with Strawberries (simple things make us happy) the guys were not so excited by that. We were disappointed byt the tea and couldn't understand why it wasnt turning brown ..it was some sort of yellowish colour, until we relaised we had put the chinese tea in!

The conference was inspirong. The firs tkey note speaker was talking about the media and the influence for good and bad that it has on out children. I went to workshops on teaching ESL kids one on learning the other on writing, digital portfolios (@ Fiona if you are reading this you have done a great job with the wiki ..you ticked lots of boxes so thumbs up!!) and Motivating Teachers. The most inspirational of all was a lady called Dr. Josephine Kim who talked about being culturally sensitive but it was really her testimony of how she switched between Korean and American culture and eventually went to an international school. She shared how one teacher in America turned her life around and made her feel worth something,. I had tears in my eyes. Also how the hard times in her life when she was confused as to where she belonged helped to shape her into the person who she is now,a lecturer in Harvard University.

We met with some other teachers from Cambodia and prayed as this is a national day of morning for the 339 people who died on Sunday and over 1,000 injured.

We went to find somewhere to eat at teh shopping centre and ended up at Burger King (we ate all Korean yesterday!) Then a coffee and cream puff in Dunkin Donuts. They have these cool gadgets. When you by a drink you get a balck disc like a spaceship.When your drink is ready it lights up!!
After this I went shopping....got some little goodies for my lovely family!!!

Suwon

2010-11-23T22:02:00.000-08:00

I left Phnom Penh last night, and it was warm almsot hot to go to Korea for an education conference with three other teachers from HOPE. The plane was delayed so we didnt leave until 12:30 midnight. Fortunately I was able to catch a little bit of sleep only to be woken up at about 4am for breakfast. (it was very nice) We arrived at about 7:30 am and got out of the plane and could see my breath...so lovely and cold.

We then had a but journey of about 1 1/2 hours to Suwon the town we are staying in. The youth hostel we were satying in was not on the bus route so we had to get a taxi but before we got the taxi we spotted a Dunkin Dounut and we had to stop for breakfast! There were so many yummy dounuts and as we are so starved of anything like this in Cambodia it took a little while for us to decide. It is funny how when you go to a new country you unconsciously look fo the familiar and when you find it, everything starts to slide into place.

When we took the taxi we found that the youth hostel in in the old walled city of Suwon overlooked by a hill covered in maple tree in a wonderful range of yellow, orange and red leaves. There are even leaves on the ground to swish through! (Jane one of the other teachers got very excited about this. The youth hostel is very nice and in such a great location. The rest of the city reminds me of a tired town in England...lots of tall grey buildings, but the part we are in has all the history.

All we wanted to do was check in and put our heads down but the rooms were not ready. Fortunately one teacher came a day early so we went and put all the luggage in that room and sat down for a bit (sorry Brent!)

After we had rested we went for a wander through the city centre to find out bearings (and suitable coffee shops or places to eat) There seems to be so few people about until we discovered a side street. I love the way you just see a street and have to walk down it and then discover a whole area with lots happening. By this time our stomachs were reminding us we needed feeding. So we set abotut trying to find a place to eat. There were plenty of clothes shops, household shops, the odd pizza place (which face it we could go to in Phnom Penh) and street food. Most of this seemed to be dried octopus or fried bugs which at this point of sleep depravation none of us felt up to trying. We then saw some steam and there was a display outside a shop of different steamed cakes and patties of meat. The lady at the stall was gesturing to us and we noticed inside some low tables and other people eating so we went in.

Everything was in Korean except some prices but there were pictures, so we pointed to two soups. One was a pork and vegetable dumpling soup with the most delicious dumplings. The other one was a beef soup which was also lovley. It was served with rice, and pickled vegetables..eaten with chopsticks and us seated on the floor. At $4 each it was also a good price we think!

After a wander back we found a waffle shop...waffles with syrup and chocolate sauce...mmmmmm!

And after all that I get back to find that my room is still not ready.....so have to wait ..not good until I spot a free computer and free wi-fi! So now I will see if I can have that needed head down time!

(Photos all taken from google ..my photos will come later)

My day

2010-09-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

I must be slightly crazy, but those who know me know this already. After a full day at work, leaving the house at 6:30 am I come home with the children and some of their friends at 2:30.
After sorting out a snack for the ravenous hords I turn my attention to my househelper who I am teaching to make Thai Green Curry. I discovered after being here a year that the Khmer only have one kind of curry, which although nice, does not compare to the Thai ones I grew up with. Communicating is hard as she has no English (except words from me) and I have very little Khmer. I had magaged to describe the relevant ingrediants to one of the cleaners at school woth the help of one of the teachers, then the cleaner had run my househelper with the list. This invariabley goes wrong as people dont always understand what you are trying to explain!!! I always assume that at least one thing will not be quite right.

Today it was the wrong herb and no chicken!! We finally got there and I was able to teacher her how to make it.
I have discovered that laughing and humour goes a long way to getting the message through. We were both very pleased with the result!!
After this at 5:30pm I have a language lesson for an hour! I have felt like I have made very little progress this year with language and decided this year I was going to make a determined effort!
I am now doing 2 -2 1/2 hours a week, which is not much but more than last year. I have not been able to use my friend Tevy this year as she has extra university courses to do, so I am a bit sad. One of my classes is taught by one of the teachers brother-in-law. It is a group class where the emphasis is on speaking and listening with a bit of reading and writing. The other class I am on my own and I am going to follow on with what I learnt in the first lesson.
Here is what I have to learn to read!!!!! (I did learn some last year) Consanants.....

vowels.....

and then there are subscripts too which are the symbols below the letters!!! These can change the sound of word quite a lot.
Today was fun because we played "Guess Who" in Khmer. It was a great way to learn questions and useful vocabluary such as baldness and facial hair!!!
So think of me as I try to find time to learn this beautiful but complicated language. Now I have so much sympathy for the students in my class learning English. It is not easy trying to remember everything.
I find I can remember it at the time and then it goes out of my head when I need it.

Explosive Art Lessons.....

2010-08-25T07:44:00.000-07:00

JAGS by year 7/8

One of the things I am loving about HOPE school is the opportunity to broaden my teaching expertise. I am a trained primary teacher but when I trained I did Art and Design as my main subject. This was to degree level and so any opportunity to teach art is always a delight to me.
There is something so fun about giving children unusual and unique opportunities to explore materials, ideas, artists and techniques. The new art curriculum called Interact Art is so amazing. We are looking at five modern artists and how they interpret the vehicles in the world around them through art and sculpture.

This week we were looking at an artist called Richard Goodwin who makes these amazing sculptures out of pieces of cars or motorbikes. It looks like the cars/motorbikes are exploding.
The class thought is was so awesome and I really wanted them to have a go but was struggling to come up with something practical and which didn't stretch the budget!
I had bought these Styrofoam models of cars but I only had two so I photocopied them and we stuck them onto the polystyrene trays you get food in. Then they coloured some bits in and cut out all the little shapes. Then we randomly (but planned random of course) stuck the pieces together with toothpicks.
I was not sure how it was going to work but was so excited about the way their models turned out. The class had really taken the idea on board and produced some wonderfully crazy models.....

I am excited to see how art can promote discussion and deal with ideas and issues that are in the world rather than creating pretty pictures ( which are nice) that don't really say anything. Art is about what you are passionate about and should reflect something of you in it.

I am interested to see how my other Y7/8 class interpret this artist!

Take a Deep Breath!

2010-07-12T09:05:00.000-07:00

This is the part of the journey I have been blocking out of my mind because there are so many things which could go wrong. My motto is to plan well but have a back up plan if things go badly wrong!

Our plan was to travel by train from Bangkok to Arunyapatta, cross the border to Poipet and then take a bus to Siem Reap. What is the problem you say? Well the train leaves at 5:55 am and take 6 hours and if we miss it there is not another until 1pm which means we would miss the border opening times and have to stay in Arunyapatta. or we would have to battle across Bangkok to get a bus which also takes about 5-6 hours. Then once across the border it is another 2 hours to Siem Reap. Altogrther a lot of connections I have no control over.

Our morning started at 4:30am trying to drag ourselves and the children out of bed so we could get a taxi to the Station. We whizzed through the streets of Bangkok in the dark. The traffic was light and we arrived at the station with time to spare. After buying our tickets (£3 for all of us!) we made our way down the train looking for seats together........we walked the entire length of the train before we found any seats where we could sit together. Every set of seats had one person sitting or lying down asleep! I have no ideas when they arrive but we were the first to buy our tickets and they were all there in place.
I am so glad we got there ealry because as the train pulled out every seat was taken. This train is third class (hence price) with no air-con just open windows and ceiling fans.
As we pulled out of the station the sun was just coming up over the high rise buildings of Bangkok. We passed through rows of blocks of flats with washing hanging out on the balconies and out of the windows. Sometimes the buildings were so close you could reach out and touch them. The slum houses croweded up towards the trains with their mismatch tin roofs, patched walls and occasionally the bright red flash of a satallite dish. We could look right down onto the early morning lives as people we getting up and starting the day. Flashes of peoples lifes went by as the train gathered speed....a man washing pineapple in red liqiud (red food colouring to make it more vibrant to sell), mangey dogs picking over rubbish piles, smoke from charcoal fires, clothes fluttering in the rush of passing train, sellers with baskets of food balanced on their heads, families eating breakfast of rice soup on split bamboo platforms under the tin roof with just packed mud floor underneath, children in their uniforms walking to school, the saffron robes of the monks as they walk around recieving offerings of food and money. This is a snapshot of the "other" Bangkok far removed from the glittering, pristine shopping malls, and designer living which was where we were yesterday. One thing I found interesting was the number of "parking"lots at the edge of the slum where nice cars were parked. In Thailand what you look like and have is important and often you will see very smartly dressed people who come walking out of a slum area get in their nice car and drive to work!

The train stopped at every station and each time more people got on. We had thought about getting on the train a few stops from the main station so we didint have to get up so early....so glad we didnt because by the time it got to that station it looked like this......

Every time the train stopped there would be a big shuffle round the door where people scrabbled to get off and on and as soon as there was a small crack of space on a seat it was pounced on by someone who had been eyeing it up for the last hour. The amazing thing was people were very unfazed by it and just accepted this was how it was so as the journey went on we had to adopt this attitude and squish up and rearrange out seating. At one point there were five people sitting on the one seat opposite me!

One tired boy!

The city gradually gave way to countryside of vibrant green rice fields. The flat endless plains were a change from the mountains of Kanchanaburi. Everytime we stopped at a main station there would be a scrum of passengers and food sellers on the platform while in contrast the country stations were quiet with only a few passengers getting on and off.

Lucia as always made friends with someone on the train. This couple helped us off with our bags and took us to get a tuktuk. I was a bit worried because sometime people will be friend you and then offer to help you, only to take your bags or lead you to some scam. I was trying to keep sight of Lucia and Ewan who had run ahead in the crowd of people , keep my eyes on the two people who had the bags and try to locate Colin who had not got off the train! When we got out to the "carpark" more like a patch of dusty ground lined with tuk tuks we had to beat our way through the drivers all trying to get you onto their tuktuk. Finally we all squished onto the tuk tuk (thai ones are smaller than Cambodian ones) and off we went. after awhile we pulled off the main road onto a side road....mmmmmm a bit suspicious....and pulled up to a parking lot. This is the Cambodian Consulate (pointing at a big house) you get your visa here! No! we have visa already take us to border now!!!! Off we go finally make it to the border entrance past a group who were touting for buisness and a helpful person comes and tells us the real visa (which we alrady have) can be got at the border crossing!

As we are walking a man approachesand says he is here to meet us from our hotel....as you can imagine by this time we were getting a bit fed up of bogus people but it turned out he was genuine as we had ordered a taxi to pick us up from the Cambodian side of the border. (thank goodness) He was really helpful and showed us where to go and what to do.

The border crossing was slow as we kept getting stuck behind a big tour party...the smaller kids had lost it by then and were running up and down, hanging from rails and generally annoying each other. I know all the other passengers probably thought our kids were badly behaved but I was so tired I thought I can either get cross or I can ignore most of it and intervene if it got to out of hand...that worked. Finally after 1 and half hours of queuing and filling out 6 lots of forms each time...we made....then ran the guantlet of taxi drivers to a taxi waiting just for us! It was funny the fare for us on the bus was £8 each and a taxi was £30...do the maths,so we decided a taxi would be better and ran the hotel we were going to stayin to see if he could arrange it and he could. It saved us so much hassle the Cambodian siad as we would have had to walk a little way then haggle, explain where we wanted to go...or get a tuk tuk to the bus station. I had thought we would be tired by then and I was right.

The taxi was only a normal size car but we all squashed in (five in the back including me) and sped off the two hours to Siem Reap.

Our driver was very friendly but a bit of a hairy driver. He is a typical Cambodian driver who drives very fast up to someone and then has to overtake even if there is something coming the other way or it is a blind overtake. On time he overtook someone else overtaking and something was coming the other way. Another time he was transfering a phone number from one mobile phone to the other talking to the person on the phone....and neither was hands free. I was praying a lot!

Finally after nearly 12 hours we made it to Siem Reap and our hotel. We went straight in the pool and Colin collapsed on the bed and went to sleep!

Time to go....

2010-07-12T04:25:00.000-07:00

Our last night in Ong Sit village started with dinner at the Rees family. I grew up with Wendy and we have known each other since we were about 5 or 6. It is nice to spend time with someone who you don't have to start at the beginning with. Everytime we meet we pick up the threads of our friendship and weave a little more into the pattern. She now has a husband Richard and four gorgeous children, who love playing with our children.

When we had finished dinner the rest of the Ong Sit team came round including my parents and another family called the Betts (who have 6 children...3 are back in America) We had some gorgeous homemade ice-cream...strawberry and chocolate and peanut butter chunk flavours.

While the adults talked the children played hide and seek in the dark downstairs under the house. We had to drag them away at about 9pm, not because the kids were tired but granny (my mum) was flagging! It was a really nice end to the two weeks we have spent in the village.

We were up and out in good time Saturday morning as we had to get to Bangkok by mid afternoon. I took the opportunity for a picture with my parents as I don't know the last time I had one.
While we were on the ferry, my mum was talking to a lady selling "snacks" ....pickled fish, fish balls on sticks, sausages (hotdog style) boiled eggs and various dried seafood....none of which I really could face that early in the morning if at all. We could smell something funny but could not work out what it was. As we were walking back to where everyone else was sitting we saw the origin of the smell. Someone was sray painting the engine of the ferry! They like it to look nice and shiney!

We arrived in time to get a bus to Bangkok, unfortunatley it was not the nice one with a toilet but it was ok. We had bought the tickets as soon as we arrived in town and then gone and got something to eat. When we arrived we duelywent to the toilet before we got on only to find that although we had tickets with seat numbers that was not the "rules"...it was a free for all and everyone spreads out and does not like shifting. We were split up over the whole bus. the kids were really good about it and we soon discovered how it works....when someone gets off you quickly move seats to one closer together. By the end we had two groups of seats together. It was a fun little game! We got to Bangkok in good time and decided to go back to the Paragon Shopping Center to see if we could go and watch a movie.

View of Bangkok from the lift in Paragon

Center piece of mirroed waterfalls in front entrance of Paragon

Unfortunately when we got tho the cinema there was nothing on which was suitable to watch for our age children. So we gave the children the money we would have spent on the cinema and we went shopping.

Back to Pizza Company for dinner

Famous Bangkok traffic....at about 9 pm it was still busy.. for us it was on the Sky train and underground and back to bed as we had a very early start the next day!

Out and About

2010-07-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

One thing I love about being at my parents is the greenery.....Phnom Penh, especially where we live, is a typical city and has very few trees or green areas. I love mountains and trees, finding them restful, and just sitting and looking or taking a walk can be so relaxing. Ok- not in the middle of the day when the sun is beating down on you but evening or early morning is great. The sign above marks the road where my parents live.

These are some of the things I see around the village where I grew up. It is a lot more developed than when I was a child, with a mixture of Thai and Pow Karen (tribal group). Still many things are the same. The houses are made of wood, bamboo and tin. the Pow Karen houses are mostly riased off the ground and the Thai houses often have a ground floor. There are a lot more cars and motorbikes around than there used to be and less people seem to walk.

The village is quite quiet at the moment as most people are out planting their fields. Sometimes they get a tractor to plow and seed but the traditional method is to announce the day you are planting and other people turn up to help you. You then provide food and in return go and help each of the other people in their fields. It is a good system but sometimes you get no-one and other times loads which means you have to spend loads of time helping them!

This girl is wearing a traditional hand woven top but im not sure if it is Burmese Karen or Pow Karen design as the girls normally wear white and pink and the boys wear colours.

A strange sight....lots of foreign (falaang) children out for a walk!!!

Raining very hard!!!

I love these mountains covered in cloud!

Life in the Village....Eating Out

2010-07-07T07:18:00.000-07:00

We decided to give mum a break from cooking we would go out to the local cafe. It had been recommended to us so we thought we would give it a try. It was raining very heavily as we made our way across the village. It is at the top of a hill on the main road the other side of the village, and normally has lots of passing trade but was quiet when we got there. The eating area is open on three sides so there was a nice breeze coming through. The main building is made of a mixture of wood, breeze block and tin, the roof is made of tin and big teak leaves woven together. The tables and benches are big pieces of wood which have been smoothed out sitting on the concrete floor. The rain was dripping off the leaf roof onto the dirt ground outside, where the chickens scrtatch for any crumbs or bugs they can find. There were a couple of dogs who wandered in and out around the tables looking for food. We sat on a table at the side which had two long benches which accomodated us all.

We ordered Cowpat (fried rice), Padthai (fried noodles) and omlette and rice for the children. I was sitting next to the kitchen, so I had a great view of the food while it was being cooked. The kitchen was at the back and was open on three sides. The washing up was done in a bowl on the floor at the back of the kitchen.

So, it probably would not meet regulations in the UK but here it is considered quite good as the meat is all refrigerated and the vegetables fresh. OK, there are a few flies but that is the norm in hot countries and something you get used to. The food was hot and very tasty.
The Padthai, which I chose, is eaten with a twist of lime, peanuts, flaked chili, spiced vinegar and a sprinkle of sugar ooooh! yum!

After lunch I decided to have a Thai coffee (similar to Cambodian coffee) it is brewed for hours over a charcaol stove until it is thick and black. It is then poured into a cup and two spoons of sweetened condensed milk, sugar and cofee creamer are added. The result is an extremely black sweet thick liquid!

So all round it was a nice treat and everyone enjoyed their meal. My mum especially enjoyed it and it gave her a rest.

Kanchanaburi - Ong Sit

2010-07-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

This is one journey I love. It is going back to where I grew up as a child...to the house I lived in and people I remember. The scenery is so beautiful especially this time of year when the rains have made everything green. We were going to travel on a local "bus" which is a covered truck with bench seats either side.
You do not go to the bus station rather you walk down a narrow side alley where several of these trucks are waiting. You arrive around 11:00 am and wait until the truck is full or ready to go. We had a little trouble working out which one to get as the lady spoke very quickly but a friend of my parents was in town and was able to help us out.

We found that it was leaving at 12:30 so we wandered down the road and found a stall selling BBQ chicken sticks and sticky rice. It was delicious and sticky!!! I also got some somdow which is a spicy mango and carrot salad....it is very hot and delicious!

At about 12:15 everyone who was getting on arrived and got on and we left on time but then had to stop to get fuel. This was not just fuel for the truck but fuel in four large tanks on the back of the truck!!!

The tanks of fuel were about 250 litres each and the little ones were 20 litres. We were also travelling with 6 16 kilogramme gas tanks, 90 bottles of fizzy drinks, polystyrene boxes and various boxes of things and then about 10 people. Thankfully there was no live animals!!
As you get out of town the road begins to climb and twist around the mountain, with very sharp drops down the side.

After about two hours we came to a lake which we have to cross over on a ferry. It is a "turn up and go when full" ferry....so we arrived just after it left which ment we had to wait about half an hour. The lake is really low this time of year as there has not been very much rain. These boat houses are normally much higher up the top of the picture is where the water line is normally.

This was the truck we were on, after three hours we finally made it to my parents house. I hadnt realised how noisy it had been until I got off! I was sitting right at the front behind the cab and the engine was so loud that we could hardly speak to each other.

It was good to be back home and in one piece! This is the view of my house as you come down the road. It is all covered in trees as the rains have come. The house is surrounded by trees and bamboo and is so peaceful.

Chaingmai - Bangkok- Kanchanaburi

2010-07-01T06:23:00.000-07:00

This was another long leg of the journey from Chaingmai overnight to Bangkok. We got on the night train at Chaingmai station and this time my camera batteries were fully charged. We were followed out of the station by a heavy rain storm which you can see on this picture. Half of the horizon looks like low cloud....this is the rain falling heavily.

Our train was slightly earlier leaving so we had not eaten and had great fun ordering Thai food on the train. Each compartment has a little table so we all paired off and had a nice meal. This is Ewan and Lucia having a snack later on before the guard came to make the bed.

This train was a much newer model thant the one we went up on .....much cleaner and quieter even though we were next to the doors. At about 8pm the guards start to make up the beds especially if you have children.

Even so were they going to go to sleep then....no!! it is much moer fun to play in your little bed area!

Jamie and Phoebe had top bunks so they went up and read quietly or listened to music. Not so Lucia and Ewan. they kept playing for ages.

WE arrived at about 7:30 the next morning in Bangkok and my Dad picked us up from the train station and we went to a Thai friends house where they have been staying for a few days since they flew back in from England. We had breakfast together then they took Jamie and Phoebe and travelled to Kanchanaburi in their truck. We couldnt all go as they had all their luggage so Colin myself and Ewan and Lucia took the slightly longer route.
We had to first get a local bus to the Southern Bus station and then an aircon coach type bus to Kanchanaburi which is about 2 hours northwest of Bangkok (if you look on and up to date map it is near a big lake)

We got to the bus staion and walked over to the ticket booth and found we had 5 mins till next bus so we got the ticket and rushed down with no time for getting snacks or going to the toilet. Unfortunatley we had got the wrong bus type.....the slow one with no toilet, snacks or drinks!!! It took about 3 hours, without any accidents, but we got to Kanchanaburi not lonag after my parents. We all met up at the Pizza Co. for lunch before my parents made the final leg of the journey ahead of us. We were going to spend the night in
Kanchanaburi and get the local bus up the next day.
We spent the rest of the afternoon in Tesco Lotus because it was air-con and nice and cool. The kids wew able to go in a play area which was fun for them after all the travelling.

Pedi-taxi found in Kanchanaburi

Our guest house was interesting and mainly clean. It had all these adverts outside saying it was recommended by lonely planet but it looked like it was past its best. The decor was mint green and pale purple walls with bright aqua curtains and burgandy carpet (the kind you have in hallways) and bright blue blankets on the bed. However it had a fridge, cable TV and air-con and a 7 Eleven shop (like Tesco Express) next door. The kids were happy witht the cartoons some were even in English....we had fun watching Postman Pat and Little Red Tractor! Scooby Doo was dubbed into Thai which was quite funny!

Just had to take a picture of this brand of toilet paper!!!!!

Swimming

2010-06-25T21:59:00.000-07:00

One thing which has been really lovely this summer, is seeing each child making progress in something. We thought when we went to Cambodia we would have lots of opportunities to swim, but many of the pools or hotels charge $3-5 per person which makes it a treat rather than a regular activity. Our mandate for holiday was to find a hotel or guest house with a pool for each of the stop overs we had so we could make the most of the opportunity to swim.(also it helps relieve the stress of a long bus trip!!!)
When we left England Ewan was terrified of the water and clug to me in the pool screaming if he thought he was going out of his depth.( Liz and Lisa can confirm this having seen him in action!) Over this year I have been working with him to help him gain confidence in the pool and we had got to the stage where he would attenpt to swim across the baby pool on his own.

When we came to the Juniper Tree I thought here we have a good length of time I am going to give him a crash course in swimming and try to get him to swim under water but he was just freaking out. then I remembered Jamie was the same way when we were at Dophin Bay over Christmas and Liz Teo had given him goggles and he was away.

I tried the same trick with Ewan and suddenly he realised he could swim underwater and bob underwater by himself. I still have to stay with him to help him come up for air but now he is swimming across the pool in short little bursts and is SO proud of himself. It is lovely to see him making such rapid progress and suddenly getting it.

I am also doing the same thing with Lucia and although she is a little less confindent she is making fantastic progress too. She does this cute little panic swim like she is about to sink but is so pleased with herself.
She is now jumping in and getting her face wet which is a major achievement as she didnt like to get water in her ears.

Phoebe is hoping to improve her swimming and be part of the school swim squad next year, so Iam working on her strokes. Thank you to Nessa and Andy who invested so much time into Phoebes swimming in England, she is making great progress and you would be very proud of her. She is confident with the breast stroke and is working on her front crawl. Her favourite is swimming underwater. She also likes to help Lucia.

Jamie has come on leaps and bounds since Christmas when Lizzie worked her magic on him. He is beccoming more confident in areas out of his depth and now needs to learn some of his strokes. He loves swimming underwater and jumping making dive bombs to splash everyone.
So this years goal is to find a good place in Phnom Penh we can swim. We do have a pool next to the school which is not too pricey so I think we will be visiting it a bit more often if we can!

Colin said he thinks he needs to come to my swimming school before all his children can swim better than him!
Today we are just relaxing and taking it easy...swimming, reading, blogging, playing with other kids and Colin is happy because he is sorting out a computer problem! It is nice to be able to give back to the Juniper Tree as it is not run on a profit but it is a ministry in itself providing excellent R&R for an affordable price for christian workers. The people running it are funded by their church in England and it relies on gifts to help with improvements and additions. We are feeling very blessed to be here.

Elephant Park

2010-06-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

We wanted to go on one trip out while we were here and heard of this great Elephant Park where you got to go on Elephant rides, rarft downa river and a ride on an ox cart and then a beautiful buffet lunch! Unfortunatley Ewan woke up and did not feel well and threw up so Colin stayed behind with him ( he was totally cool about it) Fortunatley there were three other people from the Juniper Tree going so there was plenty of adults. These are some of the things we did.....

This elephant was amazing with the painting she was so careful and deliberate.

This was the week old baby elephant just above my knee!

It was a very memorable day!!

Tesco Lotus

2010-06-25T09:37:00.000-07:00

On Thursday we decided we had had enough sun and needed some air-con and retail therapy so we headed off to one of two massive Tesco Lotus ( as big as Camberley)

Apart from the signs in Thai it looks like England!!! Same layout and some of the same labels are the same like F&F clothes (maybe some subtle differences) It was so lovely to shop in a clean, air-con shop where all the prices were on the products and if you were being ripped off you were innocent to the fact. Normally if I get clothes I have to brave the stifling heat of the Russian market, trawl through endless little stalls and haggle for every thing I want. This was bliss!!!
We ended by passing a Dunkin Dounuts...well we are on holiday!!!

I was able the get the kids a set of PJ's each and an outfit or T-shirt which was great.....they wanted to ttry on their new things (except Ewan!! )

Then it was lunch and a relax in the pool and Colin was able to watch the football on the big flat screen TV.

Juniper Tree

2010-06-25T09:15:00.000-07:00

The Juniper Tree is this lovely guesthouse with the rooms in these Thai style bungalows, for people who are working in Christian ministires around this part of Asia. I love it because there is a pool and gardens for the children to run around and quiet places for me to hide and read my book! It is full board with laundry done as well. So for me it is a place of real rest. There are always lots of other children for our children to play with and they have loved playing games like hide and seek or capture the flag...things they cant do in Phnom Penh as there are so few gardens.

The first day we crashed out and went in the pool and then slept so well after our sleepless night on the train!
On Wednesday the owners were taking all their staff out for a thank you meal ( something they do every year) So there was no lunch provided so we headed into town to a Mexican restaurant.

The food was so yummy and we had to keep ordering extra tortillas!

We then wandered around that part of Chaingmai to get a feel for the city. Our restaurant was along the city moat so we followed that to the ancient city gated and the children chased pigeons.

Old Gate

Starbucks and Boots

Temple Entrance

Ping River

Too much walking for some!!!

Bangkok-Chaing Mai

2010-06-25T08:40:00.000-07:00

KFC photo from this informative blog

We arrived at the station and had some food at the KFC at the main station called Hualumphong (Colin calls it the umpa lumpa station) ....the main area was packed with people sitting on the floor and on the few chairs availiable all looking up to the enormous screen showing the world cup. The Thais love their football and avidly follow all the matches. as I walked through there was a collective gasp as the goal missed.
I couldn't use my camera as the batteries were dead but have scoured the web to give you some photos of what it was like on the journey. (Thankfully I have a second chance on the way back for some of the shots so will make sure my batteries are fully charged up!!!)

Bangkok Station sourced from here

Watching the World Cup looked like this...sourced from here

Getting on the night train here

Inside the train before the bunks are made up here

The track I don't see in the night!!! here

This website has some cool pictures of the train. I love the title

"Everything is Dirty"

View in the morning here

Arriving in Chaingmai Train Station here

There is something special about the Night Train, I used to travel on it as a child with my parents, as my dad much prefered the train to the bus and I agree. There is the excitement and adrenaline of rushing through Bangkok traffic (or rather stressing because you are stuck in traffic) to get to the train on time. Then arriving with time to spare and looking in all the snack shops and buying snacks for the journey. Going throught the ticket door into the big open space of the station platforms to find the sleeper car you are in. Getting on and finding your seat settleing down with snacks, toys or a book waiting for the train to leave. Meeting your sleeper car attendant and working out when you want breakfast in the morning and what time you want your bed made up. Different people from the train staff walk up and down with drinks or fruit to sell. They all want to say hello and find out where you are from. Meeting the other passengers on the train and wondering if they will snore!!! Finally about 9pm the sleeper attendant makes up the bed and you dare to use the toilet and brush your teeth (toilets are interesting!!) pull the curtains and snuggle under the blanket and try to sleep. The beds are surprisingly comfotable but the train tends to jerk and jolt which means sleep is a bit difficult to come by.....but in the morning the views are stunning...misty mountains and if you are up early enough or on the right train deep mountain gorges. It is an experience which always brings back fond memories and one I definitely wanted all my children and Colin to experience.

What did they think....they felt the same. our attendant was so funny trying to nick their teddies and teasing them. They loved having their own bed. ewan and Lucia looked so cute curled up together in the morning.

It was definitely worth doing even thought none of us slept that well......it was a memorable experience not to be missed.

Our next stop is a great family place called the Juniper Tree.

Bangkok

2010-06-24T08:46:00.000-07:00

Although we live in a capital city, Phnom Penh feels rather provincial compared to the polished neighbouring Bangkok, with its massive malls and slick sky train.
We had planned to go to a water park as the water park in Phnom Penh looks like it should be condemned and still they let people go on it!! However after our epic journey the day before it was unannimously decided that we would lie-in, then go in the pool and then go and see a mall.....oh which to choose!!!! We decided to go to the biggest one called MBK..so after the lady at the hotel reception suggested we got a taxi so we thought we would make life a bit easier and relax in a taxi....so we hopped in ...it was about 11:30 ...half an hour later our taxi diver said...oh traffic is bad I take you to sky train...quick quick you get to MBK me in taxi slow slow!!!

So we got on the sky train and had to make one change before we got to MBK and looked out and saw Paragon Mall with IMAX and Ocean World and Pizza World...so we decided we were very hungry and would stop for lunch.....

We went to Pizza World and enjoyed this amazing view from the window....on one side the sky train went right past the window and the other side we looked over the square in front of Paragon Mall. Unfortunately because we had to catch a night train later in the day to ChaingMai we missed out on seeing Shrek 4 at the IMAX cinema in at the top of this Mall :( So we went bowling instead which was great fun. It was such a cool bowling alley!It even had a Karaoke Room! (we didnt use it!)

This is the bootom floor of the Siam Center shopping mall where Pizza World was. On every level they had these funky seats to sit on which were surprisingly comfy even though they were made of plastic. The kids loved sitting on them and I would have taken some pictures except I spotted a sign which said no photos fine 2,000b and my batteries ran out (again!)
After bowling and wandering roung the enormous toy section we spilt up and Colin went back with Jamie and Phoebe to retreive our bags from the guesthouse and I sat and watched Ewan and Lucia play in a ballpool...in the aircon...but without a coffee so it was nearly bliss.
Our next leg of the journey started at 7:35 on the sleeper train from Bangkok to Chaingmai...

Trat -Bangkok

2010-06-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

A long endless 5 and a half hours later we arrive in Bangkok. We still needed to get to our guest house and by this time it was 5:30 and we had been travelling since 8:30 with no proper food breaks.
Bangkok traffic is notirious and the simplest thing would have been to get a taxi but it would have taken forever. Our only option was the Sky Train much to the childrens delight!
I was really impressed with the Sky Train it was clean quick and not too expensive although for us it added up as there was no childs fare.Lots of people use it and it was very busy. It was fun seeing Bankok from so high up but it made the shops below like some sort of underworld...very dark and gloomy.

Bangkok traffic under the Sky Train

Next we went on the MRT which is the underground system, again very clean and efficient with very helpful staff and this time a childs fare....hurrah!!

Then it was only a 10 minute walk to our guest house....mmmmmm or so we had been told. after wandering round for nearly half an hour we gave in and got a taxi. He refused to out on the meter only after we had all got in and then proceeded to charge us four times what it should have been! GRRRR! W finally arrived at the KT guesthous and collapsed in a heap. It was a very tired and very grumpy family that crawled into the restaurant until we had some food in us and then we returned to normal. the only thing that made us laugh was Lucia who kept saying "Where is Katy I want to see Katy" (Katy is her pre-school teacher) No amount of persuading could make her realise it was KT and not Katy! She was just too tired!

The best news was that breakfast was served anytime!!! Woohoo! Lie in time!

Koh Kong-Trat

2010-06-23T08:50:00.000-07:00

We woke up had a leisurely breakfast and got a tuk tuk to the boarder of Thailand about 20 minutes from the guest house. On the way we saw these ominous clouds hanging over the sea...hoping we would make before the rain came down.

Arri our tuk tuk driver from Koh Kong

We crossed the border with no delays apart from us having to fill out 12 forms...6 for the Cambodian side and 6 for the Thai side....sigh when the children are old enough to fill out their own forms......:)
We got on a nice smart mini bus (thailand is much more efficiant) but should have taken heed from the sign.....

....about 15 mins up the road we turn off into a small town? or village? and were told everyone out! You get in this mini bus! Oh great the tatty one with bad suspension....an hour and a half trip on a bumpy road and they had put a whole massive bag of dried shrimps in the bag which over time filled tha van with their fishy smell.

Arrived at Trat bus station with 15mins to spare before the next bus so quickly grabbed a couple of pot noodles from the shop (hot water provided with fork too) and huddled round eating as fast as we could before they wanted us to get on the bus.
The bus was....CLEAN!!! (Cambodian buses you don't even want your shoes to touch the floor sometimes) Much to the kids delight they served us with chocolate wafer bars and coke! (great a sugar rush is all we need)

Koh Kong

2010-06-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

We went to a great restaurant on the riverside which served the most delicious food. The sun was going down and the boats were gently bobbing on the sea. Unfortunately my camera decided that at this precise moment the batteries were going to run out doh!! However it was delightful.

The roads are such a contrast to Phnom Penh.There is hardly any traffic!

The children have enjoyed putting their travel memories into a diary (part of their summer homework too!)

We woke up to rain in the morning which brought back fond camping memories except this time we were warm and dry!

Phnom Penh - Koh Kong

2010-06-23T07:47:00.000-07:00

The first leg of our summer trip started on Friday the 18th at 6:45 am with a trip in a tuk tuk to the bus station. We then took the 6 hour bus journey to Koh Kong which is on the coastal boarder with Thailand. We have been to this part of Cambodia twice before and love its mountains and laid back feel. When you have been living in a busy, crowded noisy city to go to somewhere which is spacious, green and lush is food for the soul!

We love to stay at a small guest house called Oasis whichis run by this great guy called Jason. The children love coming here as it is a bit like a home from home. There is a pool, lovely open eating area with a massive TV, pool table, two dogs called Honey and Murphy and again the lovely views of the Cardamon Mountain range from the pool! This time of year the place is so green as they get quite a lot of rain.
The first morning we woke up to the sound of rain on our chalet roof and laughed as it reminded us of British summer holidays but there the similarity ended....the sun came out and it was hot!

Lucia with her friend from Pre-School who was there at the same time

Jumping in the gorgeous blue pool

Relaxing with a book and a cup of tea (book number 4 now)

Jamie making us laugh with his goggle look!

One thing we are so looking forward to is seeing different places and spending time together as a family....having some good family time. This last semster (Jan-Jun) has been long and especially in the last few months has been very busy. It has also been very hot up to 42 degrees in the day the hottest "summer" in Cambodia (even the locals were complaining of the heat) We as a family have had various niggly illnesses and extra work loads leaving us very tired. We need a break from the city and Cambodia to get refreshed and ready for another year..............

Our solution is a road trip covering about 60 hours of travelling over 3 and half weeks!!! Don't worry we have planned in lots of rest time. We could have flown to Thailand in an hour but we did it this way so we could see lots of different places on a low budget. So next stop Trat.....

Books...

2010-06-15T22:31:00.000-07:00

I love reading, as it relaxes me after a stressful day. I especially like reading stories about historical events or interesting countries. This book Pomegranate Soup by Marsha Meheran is delightful, reminding me of my dear Iranian friends in England. After each chapter there is a recipe for a delicious Persian dish......I just wanted to get up and make it then and there. The only thing stopping me was I did not have all the ingredients.

Spilled Water is a sad book about a little Chinese girl, but beautifully written. Phoebe and I have enjoyed reading it.
"Lu Si-Yan is an 11-year-old farm girl in China. Her family is very poor, and when her father dies, her rich uncle must take care of them. He sells her as a servant to a wealthy city family who wants her to marry their mentally-handicapped son when she is old enough. However, when the grandmother finds out that this is what her daughter-in-law has in store for Lu Si-Yan, she gives her money and helps her escape.

The Note is a story about a failing columnist who is throw a life line. She is self contained and needs no-one but started to unravel as she takes on a new challenge.

Identity by Charlotte Scanlon- Gambol
This is a great book which I am re-reading which is about who you are and what God want for your life. very exciting and easy to read too!

What books are you reading? Any good ones as I am always on the look out for new titles.

Journals....

2010-06-15T00:18:00.000-07:00

The children have got a special project to do over the summer...keep a journal of what they do and think about! The first job was to go and buy a notebook and somethings to help us do these journals...so off to PBC the shop in Phnom Penh with the best selection of cute note books.

The kids had a great time rushing around the shop at full pelt trying to choose from the vast array of gorgeous notebooks. There were ones with doodling inside (Korean), spiral bound, plastic covers, shiny, bumpy , smooth, glittery, trendy.......
Then the next job was to get pencils, colouring pencils, glue, scissors, tape, pens, erasers, pencil sharpeners and of course sweets!!!
They were all really happy and spent the rest of the afternoon doing pages in their journals...aaaaah bliss.

Lucia's first page was ..." I wish I could go to my house in England"

Ewan's first page "I wish I could go to space on holiday"

Jamie ....."I am excited about going on holiday to Chaingmai"

Phoebe's was a doodly title page.....

Mine........ well mine is not started yet but I have ideas.. I am going to include a book list of all the books I have read. I am on book number three already!

After we had finished we bought some presents and asked them to be gift wrapped. The boys toy for a boy and the girls toy for a girl....simple??? Aaaahhh!! Not quite! 20 minutes later I finally get my gifts wrapped after counting no less than 17 staff members on one floor (not a large shop). the boys present was all in pink and the girls a kind of acceptable pink and green!!!

What I saw from the car mirror

What am I doing with this?

2010-06-09T08:27:00.000-07:00

and these

Can you guess????

Bikes, Burns, Bruises and Blessings

2010-06-08T06:56:00.000-07:00

Today has been one of those days...one where things don't really go to plan. We have all been asked to move our motorbikes to somewhere off the pavement. So we had to park right at the far end of the school down a really steep slope. As I was going down the slope and trying to work out where to park my bike cut out, so I stopped to re-start it and Phoebe was just about to get off the back when there was a piercing scream. One of the other teachers came shooting down the ramp and nearly crashed into us. He managed to squeeze between us and the parked bikes without hitting us. If Phoebe had got off she would have been seriously injured. His brakes had failed. There are so few hills...that it is easy to miss if you brakes are not quite working.

After the staff meeting Phoebe came up and said her leg hurt...she had burnt it whilst getting off the bike on someone elses bike. Normally the bikes are not parked that close together but her leg must have touched one of the exhuast pipes. So we put her under running water but it didnt look good. It was red and had a large white center which looked like it was blistering. Some of the teachers bandaged it so it wouldnt get bumped. We have now put some aloe vera on it to take out the pain.

On the way home I had to go up the steep slope and as I came up the top there was a van parked in the way and I turned out onto the road slowly (fortunately) and a motorbike was coming up the wrong way (quite normal) and I nearly had a head on crash....just swerved to miss them.

At home Lucia managed to dislodge the sink, which is supposed to be in the process of being repaired, and it landed on top of her and bruised her leg.

So today it has been a day of disasters ...black tuesday...but when I thought about it I realised that God's protecting had was on us. Phoebe could have been seriously injured. When we took the bandage off there is no blister only a faint red mark, which hurts but it seems ok. I did not crash and Lucia only got a bruise. Sometimes we look at all the bad things and forget that God is good and looks after us, protects us in ways we cannot imagine. Judging from the traffic soemtimes I think he is working overtime with us here!

The other day Jamie was begging...please can we have a dog! His friend was giving away these gorgeous puppies. I had to be very strong as they were gorgeous and fluffy...but we have no garden and no time to look after a dog. He just did the puppy dog eyes at me!

My week May 16-22

2010-05-23T06:59:00.000-07:00

Many of you ask what do I get up to in a week so I thought I would share this week with you so you can understand my life here better. You will find that it is much the same as yours but just in a different context.This week started with Jamie's birthday.

Sunday
8:45 off to church (had to get up early to make a cake as it was Jamie's birthday) I'm not on kids church this week but need to make sure that Danet and Chendra are OK and have everything they need. Colin is on older youth. Had a good time of worship and spending time with our Khmer friends. Kids had fun learning drums with Phally! Had a nice lazy afternoon with the family. To and collect some photos from the photo shop. Colin went out at 7 to watch the Grand Prix. I put the kids to bed in record time and for the first time since we have been here do some scrapping!

Monday
Up early and at work for the 7am staff meeting! Started the school day with whole school assembly where Lucias class were taking it. She was very cute! Had a full day of teaching. Monday it is double lunch duty 12:00-12:20 on the dinner queue...making sure the high school kids let the little ones go first. Very slow and hot today. Second duty have to deal with a High School incident which involves interviewing several kids, liaising with the High School Principal and signing the detention book. There was a power cut so lost all light and air con and fans in my classroom! Outside it was over 40 degrees.
After school went to Phoebes swimming class end of term party with Ewan and Lucia till about 5pm. It was so lovely cooling off in the pool....wish we could do this more often! Home to have yummy Sweet and Sour cooked by my lovely house helper Sambaht. After the kids were in bed did some school work and then after talking with Colin and looking on the news about the situation in Bangkok, realised we needed to discuss our summer holiday plans.

There is civil unrest in Bangkok with demonstrations and a little violence. We are planning to travel overland via buses and trains to the north of Thailand to Chaingmai and then down to the North West of Bangkok to Kanchanaburi to visit my parents who live there. did some Internet checks and found that there was some special offers on Airasia which would mean we can go into the Bangkok via the airport not in the actual city. Also the way we had planned to travel meant we could only get 15 day visas and we need at least 24 days. the 30 day visa will cost us $30 each or if we fly it is free. Means Colin will have to go in early. Don't sleep well bc I'm thinking of what we can do and it is hot!

Tuesday:
6:30 Colin goes in to work to see what he can do about flights. I get all the children up and ready for school. Normally on Tuesday I go in later as I have till 10:00 for planning time. Today I brief Sambaht in my best Khmer and Khmer/English dictionary about what I need from the market and what to cook today. I wish I could speak more Khmer (note to self need to do two Khmer lessons a week next year)
Tuktuk arrives to take me and the children to school. Sron is our tuk tuk driver. I think he has about six kids and we could drive the car to school but by using Sron we can provide him with a weekly wage to help support him. Finish my planning and do some report writing. I only have 2 classes to teach today as all my planning time falls today nice but means the rest of my week is busy. Realise that although Airasia has special offers they still work out too much with the
At lunch meet with three friends Dianne, Angela and Morag to pray. It is a really nice time as we get to sit in an air con room and catch up with each others weeks.
After lunch work on the class page for the yearbook. After school have a sectional staff meeting to discuss the new curriculum for next year. As the meeting ends hear thunder and look out to see dark clouds....better go quickly...oh no Colin has taken the helmet home! Quickly charge round school to try to find a spare helmet. Find a skanky blue one but it will do. Get on my moto just as the rain starts to spot! Rain coat or not?? Will leave it off this time and chance it! The wind is really strong so as I am driving it is gusting sand and bits of leaves and small branches across the road. Everyone seems in a hurry! The rain seems to be holding off only a few fat drops. Race down my road and get to the house before the rain!
After dinner and the kids are in bed we listen to a podcast from the Beacon.

Wednesday

After school go to a staff development meeting....need to rush home and relieve Colin so he can come to a parents evening at 4pm about the new Curriculum the school is going to be doing! It is called Interact and it is awesome! Children's friends go home and we have dinner....Ewan's friends mum has brought a massive plate of sushi (she cooks amazing sushi) After dinner I thought it would be nice to give some sushi to Steve and Midge Smith our church leader, so of I go to deliver the sushi. On my way past I see all my neighbours sitting outside and think actually it would be a great way of getting to know my neighbours. So when I got back we loaded up some more sushi and went round with the children and introduced ourselves to the neighbours. We have talked before but they don't speak English and we don't speak much Khmer. Lucia was a little super star and charmed everyone. Kids are great ice breakers. We sat with them for a while and then went back and got the kids in bed.
I worked until about 10 o'clock on planning for the next year.

Thursday
So tired again (maybe I need to go to bed earlier!!!) couldn't get up and just made it to the staff meeting. My Khmer classroom assistant Tevy was taking devotions and we all read a psalm together and sang. She was encouraging us to spent time with God each day reading God word, worshipping God and praying. Great way to start the working day.
Had a busy day with my class practising assembly., maths and writing stories! Got a message a lunch time saying I needed to provide the back page for the weekly newsletter by lunch time. Oooops Forgot!! Mad rush in the next hour to pull something together.....my on going deadlines this week are reports due next week; class assembly on Monday; staff devotions on Monday; Interact planning prep for Friday; class page for school year book due Friday and now the back page due today!!! ARRRRGH! had to cancel my language lesson this week and do the yearbook page and some reports. Go home and have delicious spaghetti bolognasie cooked by Sambaht...why have we never asked her to do this before???? Did some more planning after dinner til about 10 again!

Tevy

Friday
Got to school on time but sooo tired! Had a mad morning as during my first lesson one of the children spotted a cockroach (not unusual) so several of the boy s in my class are experts at catching them....the secret is not to squish them as they release eggs so you remove and destroy else where. In the hunt we had to move one of the drawer units and this revealed a massive ants nest which had lodged there after the flooding....this needed lots of spraying so had to remove all the children out of the classroom and it also revealed more cockroaches. Another 8 and lots of babies!! Well it meant I had to sort all my drawers!!! After the classroom had defumed we went back in.
Friday before lunch asked Tevy my wonderful classroom assistant to cover my class for one lesson so I was able to have an extra planning session with the other Primary staff. She is amazing and I have been working with her all year to train her to do more teaching/group work with the children. She has become so much more confident and has a natural ability with children. So spent the rest of the afternoon getting really excited about the new curriculum and planning how we are going to implement it.
Home and for the second time since we have been here we got a babysitter and went out.....Colin with the guys and me with the girls......actually it was supposed to be Colin's night out but as two of our kids had a sleepover I managed to share a babysitter with someone else and go out too!! We all met up after the meals to go and listen to a live band...unfortunately that night the "live band" was a video from the UK! So we went somewhere else. It was nice to just get out for a change.

Saturday
Really looking forward to a lie in......mmmmm not amused with the student next door who thought it would be nice to sit and strum his guitar for over an hour starting at 5:45!!!!!!! Then at 7:30 it was the synthesiser arrrggg! All day Saturday it seemed like there was on music practise or bored student trying to play something. Not very restful. Fortunately at 5 we met up with two other families for a meal and had a synthesiser free meal :)

Time to Rest....

2010-05-07T06:32:00.000-07:00

So what do you do when the Art Walk and Open Day are over???? Answer: Go out with a friend and take some time out in an air-con coffee shop! I know you think that is all I do but I don't really! Thanks April for introducing me to it...you knew I would love the ambiance! :)
There is a new shop in town called Gloria Jeans and it is a bit like Starbucks. Arty, good coffee and air-con which at this time of year saves you from wilting at the end of the day.

(Photos taken from Gloria's Jeans Facebook site)

While we are still enthused or interested about art here is a piece of art work I found really interesting. It is made out of decommissioned guns by students of the Peace Art Project in Cambodia. I found the article on this blog or this one.

I would love to find out more about Cambodian artists and maybe use their work as inspiration for the children I teach.

Art Walk Part 2

2010-05-06T06:43:00.000-07:00

Art Walk

2010-05-05T08:54:00.000-07:00

Hope International School is having its first Art Walk which is a celebration of the achievements and God given talents of the studenta at our school. It is from Pr-school to Year 10 work which is being exhibited....here is a sneaky peak.

The grand opening is tomorrow and if you are in Phnom Penh then some and visit on the Open Day on Friday!

When the lights go out.....

2010-05-03T09:18:00.000-07:00

.......the art begins! We had a power cut today. A faulty trip switch which cannot be replaced until tomorrow. Fortunately Cambodian houses have trip switches for different floors so upstairs and most of the bedroom were not affected. (a good house design) It means that if we run a series of extension cords to the kitchen we can keep our fridge running.

When I came down after putting the kids to bed the candles had burnt right down and made these awesome designs! I do also have art on the brain as I am helping to organise the first Art exhibition at Hope School. It is called an Art Walk and will show off all the work from Pre-School to Year10.

Colin is also hoping to go live this week with the new school website which he has been working on and it looks great. The school have already got two more projects for him to do which is so amazing.

We both love being part of a school which so values each child and wants to give them the best. I will give you some sneak peaks of the art walk before it opens officially on Thursday.

Sunshine Centre

2010-04-21T06:38:00.000-07:00

Today I had the priviledge of working with some lovely young people at the Sunshine Centre. It has been set up for children from disadvantaged backgrounds in the part of Phnom Penh where I live. The children here would often spend their days roaming the streets looking for rubbish to sell. Many of their families would earn under $2 a day, which is not enough to feed them let alone consider an education. The Sunshine Centre provides a place where they can go for food, education and some health care. However the whole family is important and regularly visitied by staff to try to help them with their children.

I was working with the older children helping them to design artwork for Christmas cards which are going to be printed for fund raising. It was so much fun just seeing them work with the ideas I had come up with and put their own twist on it.

Most of these children have had very little opportunity to do anything creative except when they are at the Sunshine Centre. Most of the art work they have done is copying with a pencil or coloured pencils. We were working with collage and paints which was a new experience for them and they just did not want to stop!

It was really hard to come up with a design idea which they could make their own, have Khmer elements and appeal to the overseas market! The difficulty is, there is no traditional Khmer symbols for Christmas all have been borrowed from the west and very rarely have any Christain content. So trying to explain why we needed a crown or present was quite hard!
Hopefully I have come up with something which will work with a Khmer twist...all will be revealed and I will let you know when they will be on sale if you would like to buy any!

By the way these were pictures from my first session ...not today. We have made a few changes to the origonal designs!! So sorry no sneaky peaks until next week!

On the second day of Khmer New Year we saw....

2010-04-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

Lots of families out at the mall...and yes there were shops open!
I followed a tuk tuk to Sovanna Shopping Mall from near our house. It was full ( about 10 people in it) They went into the mall and had stopped at the bottom of the escalator unsure of what to do. It was so lovely seeing the delight on the children's faces as they jumped on and were carried up the escalator, then calling down to the older ladies to get on too! I think they must have been visiting Phnom Penh from the province.

One friend here commented on how many Khmer had stayed in Phnom Penh this year compared to last year. There is a shift in families who no longer are based in the provinces but are now all living in Phnom Penh. Lots of our neighbours are away but there were a few which have stayed the whole time at their house.

I have noticed these little hanging spirit shelves outside peoples houses, some of them look new as if they have just been put there. Not sure if they are special to Khmer New Year or not...anyone know?

On the first day of Khmer New Year we saw......

2010-04-14T09:18:00.000-07:00

Flags up at the Temple

A deserted market on the tourist side....

...but plenty of action on the food side outside the market..well everyone has to eat!

Abandoned idol shelves outside the temple wall

(not sure if it had anything to do with Khmer New Year but a few looked like they had been there recently)

Houses decorated and shrines outside the house or just in the doorways

Khmer New Year

2010-04-13T08:42:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the biggest Khmer holiday. It is a festive time which involves time spent with families. Most people leave Phnom Penh to visit family in the "homeland" as they call their home province. It is estimated that about a million people leave Phnom Penh ( Phnom Penh is about 1.5 million according to some statisitics could be more!) so it is very quiet almost like a ghost town/city. Most businesses shut down and all the markets are closed which will be interesting. I went down to the market today to see what was going on. there were lots more stalls set up along the road and the food section was busy. There were lots of these banana decorations. I think they are for taking to the temple and spirit shelves in your house. Lots of people were carrying bunches of flowers which I think are also used for the same purpose.

Lady making banana decorations..these are everywhere.

Extra stalls of bananas were on every corner today too!

Russian Market (Psaar Toul Tom Pong) in the food section was so busy!

My favourite stall where I get veg from.

Yummy desserts I like to get from the market...honestly they do taste nice!

(The one I like is the pink one right at the back!)

Here is an explaination I found to help you understand a bit of what Khmer New Year is about:
"Khmer New Year is the greatest traditional festival and national holiday. Khmer New Year begins on April 13th or 14th, depending on the ancient horoscope, “MohaSangkran”. The majority of the Khmer populations are farmers. Farmers reap and harvest their crops from the rice fields all year long, except during April. In April, there is no rain and it is very hot. Therefore, the farmers rest from working in the rice fields and celebrate the New Year.
The first day of New Year is called “Moha Sangkran,” meaning “welcoming their new angels.” This year is the year of the Rooster (Mon), and Moha Sangkran of the New Year will begin on April 13th. The leader of Angels is named KimiteaTevi. Khmer people clean and decorate their homes and prepare fruits and drinks to welcome their New Angels. Elderly people like to meditate or pray the Dharma because they believe that any angel who comes to their homes will stay with them and take care of their family for that whole year. In the morning, Khmer people go to the temple to offer food to the monks and to receive blessing.
The second day of New Year is called “Wanabot,” meaning “to offer gifts to the parents, grandparents and elders.” In the evening, people go to the temple to build a mountain of sand to remember those ancestors who have passed and have the monks give them a blessing of happiness and peace. The third day is called “Leung Sakk;” that means “the year starts to be counted up from this day.” In the morning, Khmer people go to the temple to perform the ceremony of the mountain of sand to get blessed. The last ceremony is called “Pithi Srang Preah”, meaning to give a special cleansing to Buddha statues, the monks, elders, parents or grandparents to apologize for any mistake they have done and to gratify them. Khmer New Year is not just a great traditional festival. It is also a generation passing on traditions." ( http://ihdcsf.org/2009/05/cambodian-new-year-festival-2010/)

It is a Buddhist festival and involves going to the temple. This is really hard for the Khmer Christians as they want to spend it with their extended family but often come under pressure to join in all the ceremonies.Pray that they will know what is the right thing to do.

When the last sale is done count up the money...look at the rubbish left behind!

Sweet Relief!

2010-03-25T06:55:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday there was a special Saturday opening of a cake shop and training centre called Bloom run by one of the parents at school. She has trained some Khmer ladies to an international level in hospitality, cake making and decorating. Me and Phoebe decided it was time for a mother and daughter treat...where else but a cake shop.
Bloom is like no other cake shop cafe, the cakes are a work of art!!!! But that is not all, Ruth who runs it, is not just doing this to create a buisness but to help young women who have been rescued by International Justice Mission from a life of slavery in brothels, to rebuild their lives,to give them confidence and a trade and a livelyhood. Her aim is to train them up and make it a Khmer run buisness. Read about it here it is an amazing story...she even met Princess Norodom of Cambodia this week who wanted to take her cupcakes to the King of Cambodia!
It is so nice to know that as a teacher in HOPE school, I am allowing parents the time to invest in people here in Cambodia, to make a difference in peoples lives who would never hear about Jesus and the value he puts on them as people. By being our supporteds and partners you are helping maany, many projects like this impact people here in Cambodia. Thank you so much for all your support!

Which cake shall we have? (Phoebe with her friends Zoe and Karla)

After cake we NEED to swap and check our sticker collection.....dont you love the decor??? This is a me shop!! And did I say.... the coffee is the BEST in Phnom Penh... I had a *flat white* coffee with steamed milk no froth...mmmmm....with three of my lovely friends...introducing....

Camera shy April..(Zoe's mum)

Not so camera shy Katy (Karla's mum and Lucia's fantastic pre-school teacher)

The gorgeous Kate (Jamie's wonderful teacher....she is awesome)

What I didn't tell you was preceeding this fantastic little coffee morning was quite a bit of stress for myself and Kate. I had worked out my route and planned it ou t so I could pick up my camera lens. This took me to a very busy part of town one which I avoid. On my way down I wwent down a street following other traffic when suddenly a policeman steps in front of me and takes the keys out of my bike! Apparently it was a one way street....not sure where the sign was but I didnt see it. Anyway I was told my bike had to go to the police station for 2 days or I had to pay a ten dollar fine. One thing I was sure of me and the moto were not parting company... I also had Phoebe and her friend on the back! After awhile he said I had to go somewhere ans pay a fine $10 so I said in Khmer it was too much....so he said $5....still too much I said.....no then you have to go to police station.....by this time I am getting a little worried so I phoned a friend who talked to the police man and said just pay the $5 and get out quickly! The trouble was I only had a $10 bill and some change. If you give them the $10 you never see the change so I went up and said I'm sorry I can only give you $3 which was all my change. Just to put it in context the charge is actually $1.25 for a traffic offence. Kate on the other hand was much quicker off the mark when she was pulled over and said here is a $1 go and buy yourself a coke!
By the time we got to Bloom we were in desparate need of a coffee and cake to restore our stress levels! :)

Ewan

2010-03-04T07:36:00.000-08:00

New Hairstyle....

2010-03-02T06:00:00.000-08:00

Ok so I can't remember the last time I had a fringe....it looked much nicer in the salon but I walked out and realised I was on my moto so had to stick a helmet on it and drive through PP. Doh!! Now the humidity is playing havack with it! Still they did cut it well and I will get used to it.

We decided to go out and have some family time today so we went to relax at a place which is great for little kids. It is called Le Jardin and is a small garden restaurant with sandpit and wooden playhouse. It is all shady which is nice and around the garden are large daybeds covered in cushions which is lovely for the adults to relax in.

Phoebe was enjoying relaxing but couldn't decide if she wanted to join in with the others or read her book.

The other nice thing about this place is their ice-cream. We had black chocolate, afterdinner mint, white chocolate and caramel...yum just what you want on a hot day. The only slight problem today was the property next door was renovating and drilling very loudly! :( So relaxing it was not! But the kids enjoyed themsleves and we had nice ice-cream.

The most interesting part of the afternoon was observing a different group of people....ex-pats who do lunch (the ones with small kids) They come ( think around the school run there is a school down the road) and meet other people they knew often bringing their nanny to look after the children while they chatted. Very interesting! It struck me that some people who come to Camboodia spend all their time trying to survive...the heat, noise and culture by retreatuing into what is familiar. What is harder but I think more rewarding in the long term is if you adapt....chose parts of the culture and way of life you can blend in with. This is what we are trying to do not to just survive but adapt and enjoy the interesting and different things we encounter on our journey and pray that as a family and individuals we are richer for it.

Little details from our life.....

2010-03-01T07:27:00.000-08:00

I thought on this post I would show some of the things we do in our everyday life. Just the little details of our life which to us have become normal and everyday but which some of you might find interesting. This is Phoebe in our local supermarket. This one is called Lucky Supermarket and is part of a chain of supermarkets in Phnom Penh. It is great bc you can get most things here including western and fresh food. (market is cheaper for fresh food) What is nice is it is air-conditioned, bright and clean, and has fixed prices! So if we are not in the mood for the hot, smelly, noisy market its off to Lucky!

When mum is not looking a favourite game is to play on my moto! The children are always begging to get a lift to school and as I am becoming more confident it is easier. This week I drove all the way through the centre of town to the river front to get my haircut, navgating some very BIG roundabouts and duel carrigeways and lots of Lexus 4x4 cars!!! Colin is practising on quiet roads first!!

Ewan and Lucia being the most mischeivious pair love this game of creating a slide on the roof!! It involves lots of buckets of water been thrown on the roof and then run and slide!!! Great fun on a hot day. We are fortunate to have a shady roof space which does not get much hot midday sun.

Phoebe with one of her friends on "twin day".....she is enjoying having sleepovers and swapping stickers (the lastest girly thing at school)

Ewan with one of his friends on his swing on the roof garden (Grandad made it for him for Christmas and he loves it) It is nice having a bit space the children can invite friends round and we don't really notice they are there!

When life gets too much......

2010-02-28T07:38:00.000-08:00

Sometimes when I have had a long week at school or feeling tired or homesick......to keep going I have to take some time out. Usually what I need is peace and quiet, no obligations or people to talk to. I am one of those funny people who likes to go to coffee shops on my own and sit by myself. I might read the paper or just sit and watch the world go by.
So if you come up to me or I ignore you it is nothing personal.....I have just zoned out and probably didn't see you! :)
I have a few favourites in Phnom Penh and some I want to try. Java Cafe is one, but it is quite far away so I have not ventured there yet on my moto but one day I will. Yejj because they now recognise me (oops! been too many times) and I can sit at the front and people watch which is fun.

Then Jars of Clay because they have amazing mango cheesecake which I have been trying to get a piece of for about 2 months. Everytime I went in they had sold out it was so popular but finally I got a piece and it was worth the wait!!! :)
Or if I am feeling like I don't want to go anywhere ther is a hamock on my roof which catches a lovley breeze....so I sit there with my book and chill out.
I read in a book once.... that God has put within each woman the desire for beauty...this does not mean girly gushy beauty but something deeper. Sometimes we need that time out and time to stop and appreciate the world around us to be refreshed and revived. I know that ultimately God is the one who does this for me but He has also given me lots of other things which help keep my life in balance.
So what ever it is that God has given you which is your beauty...music, sport, reading, nature,walking the dog, coffeeshops!! Take time this week to enjoy and thank God for this provision in your life!

2010-02-27T08:37:00.000-08:00

Last week we were asked by one of our neighbours if we minded if another neighbour used the front paved area of our house for their wedding. This is quite a normal occurance in Cambodia, often a wedding marquee will go right across a street and if you need to go down you drive through or go another way!! So we said yes, not sure what would have happened if we said no!!!! We were informed the wedding would be on Friday and Saturday and our hearts sank!. We had been looking forward to a quiet weekend as we had had camp week at school and were quite tired. Cambodian weddings are not quiet and involve a lot of loud music blasted over loudspeakers!
On Tuesday of campweek we arrived home to find the marquee going up....this sent me into a state of mild panic!!! This is a view from our roof garden looking down onto the street.

So I got a Khmer friend from school to translate for me and went off to find the neighbours. This was really good as I have only seen them from a distance and not reaaly had much chance to speak to them. (i have little Khmer and they have little english not a good starting point for chatting!!!) I was a little embarrased as my hands were blue from tie-dying that day!!!
It turned out they had family coming and wanted to make use of the space before the wedding. Fortunately the most noisy part of the wedding was to take place on Thursday and Friday morning (we had a sleepover at the school that night which was well timed) The main party and dancing was to be held somewhere else.
On Thursday we arrived back from school to see the rest of the marquee up and the first part of the wedding in progress. It was very weird to march straight through the wedding proceedings with my motorbike....but perfectly normal!!!

The gold and silver bananas always signify a wedding it is something to do with prosperity in married life.

wedding car not that much different from UK!

Our front door is at the back between the two left pillars! To get ther we have to walk through everyone eating! We drew lots of attention (so embarassing!)

View from our front door as they were setting the eating area up.

The kitchen area was to the left of our front door and shielded by our row of plants.....very convienent! I noticed all the cooks and servers were men not sure if this is normal....will have to ask someone. Health and safety...mmmmmm

This is the view into the bride's house. All Cambodian weddings take place at the bride's house. I was very interested and wanted to take photos. I explained I lived next door and everyone was quite happy for me to take photos. The only person I did not manage to get a photo of was the bride. At the beginning she was not in the ceremony and was having her make-up done. As I was taking photos a young man proceeded to tell me all the diferent parts of the ceremony which was fascinating.

This part of the ceremony involved a man who was like a compare/ceremony leader who would direct the proceedings and a group of musicians and singers.....this bit was quite loud over loudspeakers so everyone in the neighbourhood can hear!! It went on for several hours and then the priests came and took part chanting...also loud! I did get a look at the bride but she was too far away for photos.

The young man was telling me the food was offerings to wish the married couple blessings in their married life. I think it is offered to the ancesters. The main part of the ceremony would take place on friday morning (which we would miss as we were at the school sleepover) All the guests come to the house and receive a bowl of fruit which had been prepared by the brides family the day before (I saw this in the house next door to the weddding) They would then go and line up out side the house, sometimes stretching round the block, and present the fruit to the bride as a token of their good wishes to the couple. Our house helper saw this and said there were many people. The guests were then served "boubou" which is a rice soup that is a traditional breakfast dish. After this there was another part of the ceremony. We arrived back at about 12 noon and people were sitting down to eat. Someone did mention we could eat if we wanted to but I thought the end of camp week my children were exhausted it might be pushing my luck!

I was pleased that I made the effort to go and take photos and chat with my neighbours as I met quite a few of them. I found out that there are at least four houses where they are related in this street but it was quite complicated. I think they were all related to the bride. The bride and groom will most likely live at the house they got married in with her parents or they will llive with his parents.

This is one of my neighbours who has the most gorgeous children. She can't speak english but was happy to listen to my broken khmer. Her daughter was so cute and I even got a cuddle! Now I know where she lives and feel more at ease to go and initiate conversation.

So today it was all quiet as the wedding was over, the marquee dismantled and we enjoyed a quiet relaxing day! It made me realise how much I want to speak khmer and how frustrating it is not being able to hold even a simple conversation but thankful that I have learnt some and this is apprecited by my new neighbours.
So although the wedding was a bit noisy I am grateful as it was a great opportunity to make friends.
The most embarassing moment of the whole time was when I had wheeled my moto outside the front entrance to the wedding and then it wouldn't start! Pretty soon there was a little cluster of wedding guests trying to get it started. It wouldn't start due to a flat battery and Colin had to wheel it back throught the wedding!!!

Big Picture

2010-02-24T06:53:00.000-08:00

Camp Week at School

2010-02-21T23:16:00.000-08:00

This week the whole school goes on camp. The High School has already gone and the rest of the school will follow later in the week.
I am staying at school to help with the Pre-School to Year3 Camp which is held at school. We started the day with an assembly.....about how awesome is God. Their favourite songs are...Jesus You're My Superhero , Let Your Light Shine ,Then we did a BIG PICTURE. We painted four pictures on 8 foot by 4 foot boards. It was crazy!! Gloss paint everywhere and kids everywhere but we nearly finished! I have a bit of finishing off to do. It was fun to do things with different children.

Going To Angkor Wat.....

2010-02-10T07:53:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow we are going for a long weekend to Angkor Wat. We are really excited as we have been wanting to go to different places around Cambodia while we are here and had not visited the most famous place in this country. It would be like visiting England and not going to London.
So we face a 6 hour bus journey in the midday sun!! But our guest house was specially chosen for its pool so we have that to look forward to. we are looking forward to seeing some amazing sites like trees growing out of buildings and stairs which would give you virtego!