Some random news

Soeun just had friends help him install two more solar lights outside. We had one on the front gate and one on the outside toilet from when the house was built, and now we have 2 more in useful places.

Last week we a sick week for us, lots of doctors visits and it will take us awhile to recover. I'm writing a blog post I might call A Sandwich of Sick Stories in which I will mention chicken pox, an infection from a scratched chicken pox and a rabies shot.

Today I took our daughter for her second of 5 post exposure shots, and gave our son his 7th day of antibiotics. It was really hard to get out of the house this morning, I'm feeling so tired and drained from the week. Plus, our daughter was not looking fwd to the needle. Soeun took her for her first one the other day, so now she knows how painful it is. Neither of them wanted to go out. Our son wanted to play with the kids next door, Sunday morning is their only morning off school. Our girl was scared of her needle. I was tired....but eventually we made it. They gave her the needle in the waiting room, lots of screaming. Just after another kid her age had a needle. It scared her, she put her hands over her ears. Then to a khmer cafe for lunch.

Soeun went to visit a new church, perhaps its now the closest church to us, we don't know of any others in the area. Since Feb we haven't been part of a Khmer church, we said we would just to go English for at least 6 months. And now at almost 6 months this new church has popped up.

Getting over 2011 and entering New World

Getting over 2011 and entering a New World

“If only there was an overhead foot bridge”, I said to my friend as we were talking about how busy the traffic is on street 2011 in the north west of Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia. She and her young children live on one side, and the market is on the other. The market is so close but hard to get to, street 2011 cuts her off. Ten years ago it was a quiet dirt road. Five years ago it was sealed and had a lot more traffic.  Now it’s really busy. 

A recent trip back to the capital felt like I was travelling both back in time and yet forward into the future as well, even though it is only about 300 kilometres (198 miles) away from where we live now. I first came to Cambodia 12 years ago, one cycle of the Chinese animal zodiac.  Although we’ve been in Siem Reap for a few years now most of my Cambodia years to date we lived in Phnom Penh. Visiting the capital I had some reminders of those first weeks back in 2006. It was all still there, yet at the same time so many new unfamiliar things.

“Near the Grilled Chicken Market” isn’t one  of the usual survival phrases you would learn when first stepping off the plane into a new country, but for me it was.  I spent my first week in Cambodia staying in a mission centre, and that was the phrase I used to find my way back home each day. Hearing the phrase and using it again last month spookily transported me right back to January 2006.

It seemed incongruous that I was using the phrase to visit a friend who I had met only months before, she’s part of my new life in Siem Reap, but now living right “near the Grilled Chicken Market”.

Similarly the picture of the coffee plunger (French Press) on the Jars of Clay menu reminded me of the first time I went to Jars of Clay café after a hot sweaty day at the Russian Market. I got totally lost and couldn’t find anywhere cool to sit, so when I finally found Jars it was very memorable.  In those days the café was over 10km from our place in Phnom Penh Thmey (1 hour bike ride for me), so I found it so bizarre last month that I was sitting in a second branch of Jars up north right near my old house.

The whole trip was full of these incongruous long forgotten twelve year old memories mixed with strange new futuristic things such as PassApp (like Uber for tuktuks). I had been expecting a boring need-to-renew-a-passport trip but it turned out to be such a weird and wonderful experience.

In amongst all the inconsistencies there was one afternoon that tied it all together. I’m not even sure how exactly but the time I spent with three families who had  arrived in Cambodia respectively  16, 6 and 1 year/s ago was somehow helpful . 

It seems to me that the biggest changes took place 2011-12, the central years of my time in Cambodia so far.  At the end of 2010, Logos International School moved to the area and other expats I knew started moving there for the first time.  Straight after that in January 2011 we went to Australia for two years and by the time we got back Phnom Penh Thmey was almost unrecognizable.

It felt like housing estates, mostly built by the New World Group, had devoured every small wooden house, rice paddy and even a good size pond in the north west of the city.  It went from mostly open skies and dusty tracks, to hundreds and hundreds of big fancy brick houses and cement roads.  The small lake had turned into a market. Back in Christmas 2010 one person from my expat Bible study group had moved to the area, but now there were so many members living in Phnom Penh Thmey the group had actually started meeting there.

While these changes were taking place in Cambodia we were living inAustralia and the world of undiagnosed debilitating sickness. It took us by surprise; life was transformed when The Dizzy Monster began his attack.

Being out of the country while Phnom Penh Thmey  morphed from outskirts of town to the new ‘place to be’, combined with the our own huge changes we experienced while in Australia meant that we were entering a New World when we returned in 2013. It was like everything from our old life had unexpectedly and abruptly gone.

So no wonder all the changes in Phnom Penh have such a big impact on me. The year 2011 cuts my 12 years in half.  Just like street 2011 is hard to cross, getting over the year 2011 for me feels almost like leaving one world that ended in 2010, and entering a New World.

Just back....

Note down while I think of it..
We just got back from a month away overseas, it was much easier coming back this time than when we were away for 3 months in 2015. It was easier to leave the house, we didn't have to get it ready for us being away for ages , it was more like when you go away for a week or so. Almost no prep and just a few spider webs and cockroaches , and the normal rats in the cavity. when we got back.  I decided to leave the fridge on while away, now finding out our power will was only about 1/3 less then when we are there, so perhaps we need to do something about the frdige.

Also when we arrived in Aus i was still feeling like i was moving even a few days after we finished our trip. And back the other way same thing. I don't remember this feeling going on for so long. Floating brain.

So the labour was much quicker and easier than last time. And looking after the baby is quite different too, we both keep commenting on this. Sooo different.

So i was told i could push and that they could see the head. On one hand it was a relief knowing it was almost over , on the other i rememvered how hard it was last time they told me to push. For 2 hours i was trying to push but never felt any urge to so i didnt really know what i was doing. It wasnt productive. In the end they gave me oxygen and vacumed the baby out.
But this time i did feel like pushing. It was really hard and painful but a lot shorter. Suddenly we had the baby lying in me and soeun cut the cord. That was around 3:20. By 8pm i was settled in the ward for the two night stay.

Still continuing onfrom the previous....

The birth suite here is sort of a similar idea to the active labour room in chiang mai. A big room with a bathroom attched, a bed, a ball etc etc.
Some differences : here i just had two midwives and heaps of pain relief options; there i had a million nurses and a doctor and the hot shower was my only pain relief.
Anyway i lay down to be examined. Everyone was surprised including me to hear that i was fully dilated.

Following on from the last two posts...

So i was feeling stressed when labour started. about 8:15am i noticed painful contractions  starting. Not intense or regular, i just went about my day as planned which happened to be making a salsa with my brother (see photos). The toddler sat quietly watching with his play dough and other things.

Then lunch, then put the toddler to bed around 2pm. I think he noticed, he was asking "mummy sick?' And mimicing me.
By 2:45 they were around 3 min apart, they suddenly became really intense so i think by 3 we were on the way to the hospital.

I  got soeun to pack a blanket in case he was hanging around . When visiting the birth suites earlier i had talked to a midwife and chexked that soeun could go back and forth between the birth room and waiting room, cos of his chronic dizziness.

But i was screaming so much when i got there they didnt take me the check in room for exam. But straight to a suite.

40 plus weeks.....

After a few nights that were really hard due to flu y toddler ; keeping in mind soeun already sickish i was dreading the arrival of baby. Felt like we didnt even have enough energy for what we were doing already. So it felt a bit too much that i was over 40 weeks and really hoping soeun could be with me during labour. His chronic dizzy monster seems to appear when we are in aus and movement and noise make it worse. We almost didnt come to aus for the birth because of it.
Also the weather and our accomodation is just so different to last time, and last time was such a great experience so i wasnt sure what it would be like this time. Such as how i cope during labour in cold weather and with the different bsthroom set up here. First 12 hours last time i was walking around outside and in and out of our bathroom. That wouldnt work here.

Last night the toddler had a fever and blocked nose. He was ok in the morning but it flared up again in the arvo.
He

Lots of visits to parks and today a visit to the library.
Its so cold and about to get colder. We have a heater in our room and there is a fire place in the living room. Other than that the house is really cold.

Oven month

Im usually not in an ideal baking situation so this month is my chance! A full size oven, all the ingredients and cake tins, cold weather and aussie family ti eat....
Today i made some bran muffins with apple. Also a spiced cake ( common sense cook book) and addded some apple and used the topping from another recipe (1 tab so buttrr 3 sr flour 3 brown sugar).

Recenyly made gingerbread, grapefruit& sour cream cake, hot cross buns, pizza, garlic herb olive bread using the pizza base, peach crumble.
Also a carrot and orange cake.