By Request

A blog post is long overdue, and so, by request: another day in the life of Katie. Sorry, this isn't a specific day, because really, my days aren't that exciting. But the below will give you a pretty good idea of what my days usually look like. And hopefully the internet will cooperate to let me tag a few pictures on at the end. Without further ado, the typical day:

6:00 am--alarm on my cell phone goes off. Drag myself up soon after, untuck the mosquito net from around my mattress and twist it up into a knot to keep it out of the way for the day. Proceed to get ready and eat breakfast.

7:25ish am--lock up and climb on the moto to head to the office.

7:30 am--devotions begin for all staff. We open in prayer, sing three songs in Khmer, read a chapter in the Bible (currently we are wrapping up the book of Luke), staff share their comments/questions/insights from the chapter, share prayer requests, pray all together, the end.

8:15-8:30 am--get to work. For me, I find a spot at a table in the main room at the office (where we have just had devotions), plug my laptop in, and check e-mail. From now until lunch I work on whatever my current tasks are--lately, I have been formatting some documents for HR, editing some donor reports in English, making travel and accomodation arrangements for a guest who shows up next week, and installing antivirus and web filter programs on staff computers. I also spend about an hour each day doing some language study, have a few meetings each week, and get asked for help several times during the day: "how do I add paper to the printer? what's this word in English? my computer is doing this ___________," etc. So, I also spend time looking up IT solutions online, when the internet is working. Somewhere during the morning I usually succumb to the call of nature and brave the office bathroom--no light, no TP, no toilet seat, wet everywhere....

12:00 noon--pack up and head to lunch. If it is my turn to cook at the house (my Swiss housemate and I take turns) I head to the market for veggies and eggs or "fresh" meat...somedays we also cook dry beans. Head home, put rice on to cook, chop and stir fry everything, eat up--usually around 1:00. Clean up and relax for a little bit.

2:00 pm--back to the office, more of the morning.

5:00 pm--pack up again and head home to whatever needs doing during the evening. Some of the exciting options are: getting gas or an oil change for my moto, going for a bike ride before it gets dark at 6 or 6:30, burning our trash, reading, looking at Internet news articles that I found during the day, watching a dvd, playing a few rounds of solitaire on the computer, taking a cold shower, petting the cat.

6:30 or 7:00 pm--heat up the lunch leftovers, which have been sitting on the stove and surprisingly do not make us sick, or make something simple for dinner. Clean up again and do whatever until bed.

10:00 or 10:30 pm--hit the sack. Our landlords downstairs and the rest of Anlong Veng have been asleep since 8:30 or 9:00.

And that's that! On the weekends, switch office time to laundry time and house cleaning on Saturday, and church and helping with the kid's Sunday School/English class on Sunday. I know you all now wish that your lives were as exciting as mine :)

A few pictures to spice things up: a few of the guests in our bathroom this past week, and some shots of Preah Vihear, an ancient temple about 100km east of Anlong Veng. It lies directly along the Cambodian-Thai border, and while it is under Cambodian sovereignty, the temple area is disputed between both countries (hence the soldiers, weapons, and bunkers). There are occasional firefights and skirmishes here, sometimes leading people to evacuate the border regions out of fear that more intense fighting will break out--the chances of this are pretty small, though. Preah Vihear is a matter of cultural Cambodian pride. For more info, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preah_Vihear_Temple .