On Saturday we had people over for lunch. I ended up cooking heaps of food as I didn't want to run out. We often have students over as we live on campus, but this time I had invited a group of teachers from the school I help at. There were about 10 of us and the main two dishes i made were sushi rolls and beef and veg in a peanut sauce.
After those guys left we found some students to come and eat some left overs. But there was still more food so they came back at dinner time and made fried rice out of the left overs. And there is still food in the fridge. I did heaps of cooking on Friday and Saturday, so after that follows lots of eating!

Arrival of Aussies!!!!

The last few days have been a whirl wind of tuk tuks, markets and restaurants. Over the weekend some friends from Australia arrived in Phnom Penh and we've been having fun helping them settle in. Its been so fun for me to have Aussie friends around, its so nice to have friends that are easy to relate to- same language, same culture, same age, have lots of mutual friends. I don't know anyone else here like that, esp anyone who has known me for as long as them, and who knows my friends in Australia. Often showing new people around is physically and emotionally exhausting, but for me the last few days have just been really fun and refreshing (even though we have spent a lot of time in Phnom Penh traffic which normally makes people grumpy- esp as its hot season). I don't think I realised before they came but I think I've missed having friends to hang out with and talk to. This last weekend was almost like a bit of a break from Cambodia, a holiday in Australia!(In the comfort of my own home- without having to go overseas.) Also its fun that they are a married couple so the four of us can hang out. Mostly I know single girls here so if I meet up with them its just the two of us, so its been nice have Kimsoeun around too. Not many of my friends and family in Australia have spent much time with him so I'm happy these guys can get to know him.

Saturday lunch

On Saturday we had some people over for lunch. We often have students come to our house for meals, but its not often we invite others, everyone else lives so far away! I invited the three girls (and families) I work with at the bilingual school. Two of them knew where the Bible school is so they came on their own moto. The other girl is a bike rider and didn't know, so we went to pick her up in the car. Much easier than trying to explain where we live, and easier for her not to have to spend an hour each way in the hot sun!

Kimsoeun and I both really enjoyed the day. Mostly our social life is with the students at Bible school and youth at church. They are younger than us, and Soeun is their teacher. It was fun to hang out with people closer to our age who don't call us Teacher.

At school we have to speak English, so I had never heard these three teachers speak Khmer before. I know that they are Khmer and so its their native language, but I still found myself surprised when they began chatting away- and so fast!

Our garden

The latest- 2 rows of dracoon, 2 rows of basil, then more dracoon.

Power cuts, no water

Often we have power cuts, which can be pretty annoying. Particularity if its hot and you want to use the fan, or if you just put on a load of washing. The other morning I was happy to see that the power was on, many mornings its off for a few hours. However, just as I started the machine our water stopped! Our tap outside still worked but all the taps inside didn't. I had just been about to wash the dishes too! To use the washing machine you need to have both the power and water on at the same time.

But anyway- most people in Cambodia don't have running water or much of a power supply- let alone a washing machine. The students in the dorm next door hand wash so I all their clothes as most people do.

Many areas of PP have power cuts, but I haven't heard of anyone else having water problems. I think our problem has something to do with the water pressure on campus, cos I had really good showers when all the students were away. Also, right now the area near our local market is flooded even though no rain, I guess there must be something wrong with a pipe.

Harvest and Feast!

As I posted before, we have been growing a veggie in our garden. If you click here you can see its growth in photos over a few weeks. This photo shows how it looked after some of it was harvested. Some staff in the Bible school community bought some of it and the students who did all the work to grow it ate the rest. The money from the dracoon they sold was used to buy food to eat with the straw like green veggie. There were two dracoon cooking events in our kitchen.
One night some male student came over. They cut up a duck, prepared some herbs, spices, peanuts etc.....
...and made soup with it. We added the dracoon at the table , as the hot soup sat on the bbq.
It was really yummy! We ate it with rice, of course. I really like that mix of herbs and spices.
The other day some female students collected the rest of the dracoon.
We spent the afternoon chopping and snapping off leaves, and selling bags of it to staff as they went home. Our garden is on the driveway just after the car park.
Then the girls washed it...
... and stir fried it with garlic and other things. We ate it with rice for dinner.

Cold weather

Recently it has been in the low 20s here, colder than usual. I've had to wear all the clothes I can find both at day and night. I'm not used to dressing for such cold weather. Soeun has been taking photos of me, he thinks its funny I find Cambodian weather so cold. He wonders how I lived through winter in north China, where is was almost 40 degrees less that this! (minus 8 at the moment).
This is me doing my Saturday morning Khmer language study- watching a cooking show. Its one big long advert for MSG, everything they cook has MSG in it. (CTN, 10.30am , Saturdays)

Our garden

Earlier I posted a photo of our garden see it here.

And these photos show what has been happening over the last few weeks.

Rice is important!

At church today we ate these cold noodles with herbs like basil and mint,with veggies like lettuce, with sauces like sweet chili sauce, coconut milk, meats like stir fried mince beef and crushed peanuts (and other things but I don't know what they were). So yummy! There was left over so we got to take some home. At dinner time I thought we would each have a bowl (they gave us two bowls to take home.) But Soeun cooked some rice and ate it with some preserved radish (the one that in Chinese is called "white carrot" because it looks like a white carrot, but it does not taste like a radish or look white when its preserved).

He said he needed rice- he didn't want to just eat noodles for a meal.

Garden

Soeun has the students turning our front lawn into a place to grow herbs and veggies. Stay tuned for developments.

Eating with people

We often have Khmer people over for meals. Recently I was feeling tired of always being part of a group of Khmer people. Mostly I enjoy sitting around eating and chatting with all Khmer people, a lot of the language I've learnt has come from these situations. But sometimes I wish I could enjoy the food and jokes as much as others in the group do. Even when it's food I like it's still not my "normal" food, and mostly I have no idea why everyone is laughing.
Recently I invited a few other expat girls over for brunch. It was the first time I'd had people from out side the Bible school come over. Everyone else who has eaten at our place either lives on campus or has some association with the school, so they don't have trouble getting here.
In August I did invite a group over for lunch, but then the roads flooded so they couldn't come.
Anyway, for these girls, I gave them some directions via email, and sent them some photos of where to turn. We are not on the map so I couldn't just give them our address. Actually I don't even know our street name/number- do we even have one?
But they all got here and we ate muffins and fruit and talked in English!

Our house stinks!!!!

Fish.......... it stinks!!! And so does our whole house.

On Saturdays we..

A while ago Saturdays was when Soeun wrote sermons, as he was preaching about twice a month. Since two others joined the preaching roster he has been able to do other things. He and a few friends usually spend Saturday mornings playing music together. They are using some books and cds to teach themselves.

While he does that I usually watch a cooking show on CTN. I already know heaps of food words so between the words I know and the actions I can see its gives me heaps of context to guess some more words. I used to think the show was called "Lose food, lose life" but once I watched it with a Khmer person and they told me it is actually "Real Food, Real Life". (The word for real/true and lose sound similar).

Then in the afternoons he had youth group at church. I tagged along sometimes and tried to join in the singing, and follow as they read the Bible. Afterwards sometimes they ate snails, but if I was there we ate fried noodles, pictured here. This meal cost about 50 US cents.

But now the youth have class in the afternoons. (School here is 6 days a week either in the afternoon or the morning, it changes every few months for some, every few weeks for others. So for two months you could be going to school every morning, (7/7.30-lunchtime), then it swaps to the afternoons for a few months.)

So hopefully now he'll have time to teach me to drive... although the next two Saturdays he'll be at church getting ready for Christmas Sunday.

Are we home yet?

From above, the hot, tropical midday sun beat down. From below the dark red-brown rainy season mud splashed and splished around, often upwards on to the motorbike riders surrounding us.

We, and almost the whole city were heading back into town after the nation wide festival. The two lane road was being used as a four lane road. From our car we had a great view of the mini buses, motos, and various other vehicles that were packed full, as an Aussie I would say more than full.

I’ve lived in Asia for four years but I’m still amazed at the amount of people and things that can be packed into houses, beds, classrooms, cars, buses, on bikes, motorbikes and other vehicles I’m not sure what to call.

“I can’t believe we didn’t think to bring the camera.” Soeun said for about the fourth time. Even my Cambodian husband was amazed at the sight that surrounded us.

Rice sacks, backpacks, suitcases, guitar cases, bundles of sugar cane, motorbikes, bikes were tied on to the tops and sides of vans. Arms and heads could be seen protruding out the windows. Sometimes the hands would be letting rubbish fall on the ground, and sometimes the heads would be ejecting vomit.

The back doors of the minivans weren’t closed. The load of luggage and passengers overflowed out the back. Some had a wooden frame attached to the floor of the van, to extend the floor out behind the van, so more luggage and people could fit.

The roof racks were piled high with more of the same. Motor bikes, bags and passengers. As the vans slowly moved forward a bit, then stopped, then moved forward a bit more we could see all the passengers, especially the ones on top, swaying with the movements.

One in particular was a lot heavier at the back than the front. Whenever it moved forward a bit and stopped again, it was swaying and jerking so much we thought it was going to flip over.

Car boots were also left open to fit more people in. Along with luggage you can fit at least three people in a car boot for an interprovincial trip! We even saw one lady asleep as she was sitting precariously on luggage in the car boot.

The traffic jam meant that we were all on the road longer than we had expected to be. We saw a few vans that ran out of fuel, or broke down. People had to climb out and try to push the van through the lanes of traffic to get off the road.

We had thought we might get home around 11.30, but it was already noon. Hot, hungry, and eager to get out of the traffic was the general feeling. I, in particular was really looking forward to being home. We had spent two nights away, I hadn’t slept well and my back was sore.

I amused myself by counting how many people were on each motor bike. Usually there were two or three adults, as well as their bags. Sometimes an arm or leg was sticking out from between the adults, which meant there was a small child someone in there. Kids also sometimes sit in front of the driver and enjoy the view and the wind.

A moto with three adults swerved in front of us, and as it continued forward the driver made a hand signal at us. The three of them kept looking back at us. They were trying to tell us something was wrong with out car. What was it?

Kimsoeun realized we had a flat tyre. We really wanted to just get home, we were almost there, but now it looked like we would have to pull over. It took awhile to get out of the traffic and find a space on the side of the road.

I have no idea how to change a tyre, and Kimsoeun had never done it before either. He took the spare tyre and tools out of the boot. I was wondering which one was more dangerous- driving home with a flat tyre or one that had been changed by someone who didn’t know what they were doing?

A grandma, a pregnant lady wearing pink pyjamas and a toddler were near our car, waiting for their car which was further down the road. I wondered if they thought Kimsoeun worked for me as a driver, why else would a foreign women and a local man be travelling together?

There was also a man who offered to help us. It turned out he worked at the garage we had unknowingly pulled up in front of. It was closed for the holidays, that’s why we didn’t notice. While he changed our tyre the grandma started a conversation with me, I tried to join in but didn’t really understand what she was saying.

What a relief to be on our way again, with the small spare tyre in place of the flat one. After we had gone what seemed like just a few metres we came to a group of men squatting around some car- fixing equipment. We pulled over again so they could fix our tyre. We watched as they pulled a big sharp screw out of the flat tyre- so that was the problem!

After they patched it up and attached it again, we were on the way again, with some new knowledge, our suspension was broken.

It was slow going all the way into Phnom Penh. I breathed a sigh of relief, back in the city at last.
We drove along the familiar streets, I was beginning to relax, we were almost home.
I was almost ready to cheer as we were about to turn into the last road before the front gate of the campus we live on.
But as we turned we saw a brown river before us, where our road was supposed to be.
When we left the day before last the flooding had almost gone down. The road had been a string of water filled potholes, it had been looking promising. But now it was all flooded again.

Kimsoeun moved the car slowly through the water. It sounded like we were in a boat as the water whooshed around under the car and up the sides.

As we turned into the campus we saw that it was all flooded too, so we drove around until we could find a place to park. Finally we unload the car, carried our bags through the water and to our front verandah.

We turned the key in the lock and opened the door. Our house! A clean dry floor, cool air, still and quiet,everything just how we left it. Home at last.

At the market

I have got into the habit of buying from the same sellers each time I go to the market. There are two veggie sellers opposite each other I always buy from. They know I like to buy carrots so when they see me they call out something like " Do you need to buy carrots?".



Yesterday the lady didn't have enough so I waited while she went someone to get them for me.

As I watched her cut up a pumpkin for a few other customers I told her I wanted to buy some too. But after the others took their pieces, the remaining pieces turned out to be brown and gross inside. So she disappeared again to go and find a good pumpkin for me!



I also regularly buy beef from a particular meat seller. She is always really busy serving heaps of customers at once, cutting up bits and pieces of dead cow and pig, some bits I'm not sure what they are. But she knows I like to buy "pure meat", so when she sees me she asks "A kilo of beef, in two bags?"



Sometimes we end up with bits of pork or buffalo meat, which is understandable as her stall is heaped with so much and she is serving everyone very quickly.



A near by seller has fish. I don't know anything about fish, so when I first started buying fish I asked the seller to tell me which one is good for frying. Actually the very first time I just bought some random different fish. When I took them home Soeun told me they were good for soup. I'm not really into soup, so now I always get the fish for frying.



The seller has some lying on her table that are already dead and some are still flipping around in a basin of water. After I choose the fish I wait while they weigh it and then take out the guts and scrape some scales off. Then all I need to do it take it home and give it to my husband to cook.

Weekend gardening

We thought we weren't allowed to plant things in the lawn in front of our house, but the people who live next door just started to so on the weekend Soeun planted some basil and some holy basil.

Headache

Soeun has had a headache for about 10 days now, on and off. The other day he got some students to put hot glasses on his back. You might know it as Chinese cupping, Khmer people call it “pumping wind”. On Saturday he got his mum to “gos khjol’ him. So now he has red stripes on his back. I wrote about this Khmer medicinal thing in “What colour is the wind?” (I have some photos I can email if you ask.)

Friday family food

We thought the family was going home on Friday but it turned out they planned to stay until Saturday! Soeun had Friday off work (another public holiday) so that made everything easier. He drove us into town to a shopping centre called Sorya. We have taken the family there at least once before. It was their first time on escalators and in lifts/elevators. But this time was the first time they had been in the car. We parked in the 5 story car park, right up the top. That meant we had to go round and round as we drove up all the floors. The whole going to Sorya thing is a bit of a cross cultural experience for them. Even for me I find it so big and modern and shiny, so I wonder what it is like for them?

We went to eat at a The Pizza Company. My brother and sister in law like the food, but I don’t think my mum in law even considers it food. No rice! She tried her food but didn’t like it, but she ate some chicken wings. She said the food reminded her of when she went on the plane to Australia. I found that kind of funny, as I consider Pizza Company food a treat, and aeroplane food not that really that special. (I ate her leftovers on Saturday for lunch.)

The restaurant is a few floors up and has floor to ceiling glass walls, we sat at a table right next to the wall. So my mum in law felt like she was on a plane, as she looked down at the people in the street and across the roof tops, and tried to eat her strange food. My poor sister in law is scared of heights, and she was already feeling a bit off from the car ride.

That morning I went to the market to buy food for dinner. Yet another walk through the flooded road, and through the mud. And they happened to be doing more road works, digging up the road and pressing it flat again I think (or maybe they were putting in a pipe? ). Every time they do that its nice and smooth and flat, until it rains again, then its just a big muddy, watery expanse. And in raining season it rains quite a bit.

I bought beef and a variety of veggies. All the other meals they had had at our house my mum and sister in law had cooked. I don’t really know how to cook with them as their food is quite different and they use the kitchen differently and I get a bit freaked out. Soeun sometimes sends me away to read a book until the meal is cooked. I have tried cooking western food before, but my mil doesn’t like it.

So I decided Friday I should try to cook something they would like. Soeun cooked the beef and I cooked Char Bonlai (Stir fried veggies). I don’t know if it tasted normal to them but they ate it and said it was nice.

Family visit

My in laws are visiting today, they will stay a few nights. I always feel stressed just before they come and when they are here. Not that they do anything in particular to make me stressed. I get stressed partly because usually our house is my place to rest, away from everything that is exhausting. Maybe like a rest from Cambodia. I'm enjoying learning Khmer, but its tiring communicating across language and culture. And other cultures do things different ways, I guess my home is one space where things can be normal for me, where I can control things, I know what is happening and how to do things. When things are strange and out of control it can be stressful (it can also be fun and interesting). So when 3 Cambodians come to stay in my house for a few nights, my own space sort of disappears. Hopefully as I get more used to things here it won't be such a big deal.