Life and Times

So I usually post about something to try and be informative--this time, I figured I'd just give you a little glimpse into what's been going on. In general, my days are as follows: wake up around 5:45, leave for the office a little after 7, attend staff devotions at 7:30 for 45 minutes or an hour, spend the rest of the morning doing language study and online communication and whatever other meetings, etc. need to happen, lunch at 12ish (usually I eat Khmer food with some of the staff at the office, or bring a sandwich or something, and maybe once a week or so I go to a restaurant), relax or run errands, tutoring from 1:30-3:30, more office time until we head home sometime between 5 and 6, do stuff or chill until dinner between 7 and 8, relax, shower, go to bed. Weekends--Saturdays I wash clothes (and by that I mean that I myself wash the clothes, not put them in a machine), do errands, do something fun, etc. Sunday is Khmer church in the morning and English church in the afternoon/evening. That's the basics.

For some specifics, let's see...last Saturday I did the usual laundry, did some reading, got all showered up, and then went with my Cambodian roommate to the hairdresser. She got her makeup, nails, and hair done; I stuck with the hair. I perplexed them a little bit because they insisted my hair was too short to curl or pin up. So, I ended having all the ends carefully curled out and up and away from my face--they thought it was great, I felt like Farah Fawcett. Oh well, it only cost a dollar to get done. The reason for the hairdos--we attended a wedding that evening for the children of some FH staff members who are working in Anlong Veng. Cambodian weddings traditionally take a day or more to celebrate and involved numerous outfits for the wedding party; sometimes you can attend the actual wedding ceremony in the morning, or more commonly, do like we did and show up for the party in the evening. When you arrive you are directed to the nearest open seats, and once your table is filled up, you receive the appetizers for a 6-10 course meal. The courses follow one or two at a time. Later in the evening is cake cutting (but not eating) and traditional-style dancing (involving hand movements and walking with a group of people around and around in a circle).

Sunday--the usual two church services, watched a DVD on my laptop. At the afternoon service I joined the worship team to play the guitar and will do this on a somewhat regular basis. After church there is a felllowship time with yummy baked goods, and then usually heading to dinner with people.

Monday--regular day, except I skipped tutoring to visit the US Embassy and register my presence in the country. The theory behind this is so that, in the case of emergency, the Embassy knows where all the in-country US citizens are and can contact them with relevant information. The Embassy can also be helpful for things like voting from abroad. To register, I went through two security checks with metal detectors, leaving my phone and camera at the first one (no electronics allowed in, apparently). Then I waited in the right line (much shorter for me as a citizen than for people of other nationalities who were there for visas, etc.), filled out a form, turned it in, got my stuff, and left. Mission accomplished.

Tuesday--after tutoring, I ran errands--got gas in my moto (usually $2-3 per tank), stopped at a local bakery because I am a foreigner and like things made out of wheat, and went to the grocery store (yes, there are a few international-type grocery stores in the big cities, with local and imported food that foreigners like to eat). I got pulled over on my moto by the police on the way to the store because I don't have a license plate yet (something that is easier said than done to get)--they wanted to fine me ten dollars for this fact. More truthfully, as they told me themselves, there were five of them and they wanted some beer to drink (accepting bribes is very common in many professions here, and is not shocking--many jobs do not pay enough to live off of, and the system of accepting payouts is thus in place). With my small Khmer vocab, I managed to joke them down to $5, and then with a phone call to my Cambodian roommate to talk to them better than I could, we go the price down to 5000 Riel ($1.25).

Today (Wednesday)--normal day again. We all went to lunch as a staff as a goodbye thing for a man from Canada who has been here on a short-term trip for the past three months. Tonight I am eating dinner at the home of another American who I met through church and some other people.--yum yum.

Coming up--two more days of work/studying. This coming weekend we have a retreat for all the international FHCambodia staff--two Japanese staff members (one has been here over fours years, the other almost one), one Burmese lady (Burmese as in Myanmar) who has been the accountant for over a year, a Phillipina lady who got hired the end of December, a Swiss couple who will be starting soon, myself, and the country director and his wife (also American). So, I am working with one of the Japanese staff to lead worship for the event--need to get that ready by Friday, and then for the retreat itself we are using the pool and a meeting room at a local resort-type hotel, and then going home to sleep (doing it on the cheap!). Sunday--there is a potluck at the International church for two pastoral candidates that they are considering asking to co-fill the pastorate.

And I think that is enough for now! Just about time for me to head to dinner. :)

Christmas Part Deux

Ok, I'm a little behind the times with my Christmas posts, but here you go anyways. Thought you might like to see my gift from our office gift exchange. Everyone picked someone else's name from the pot and bought them a gift--in the US equivalent, a decently nice gift, in maybe the $15-20 range (here, $5-10). In Asia, you do not give gifts halfheartedly, even if you are not the wealthiest person in the world and it is only a random office gift exchange. Anyways, on the big day, we all gathered together and one person at a time retrieved the gift they brought and gave it to the receiver. This must be done in the following manner:

1. When it is your turn to give your gift, get very excited, and also a little embarassed. The other participants will aid you in this by clapping and hooting.
2. Stand in the middle of the circle with your gift. Melodramatically make a big show of pretending to give the gift to several of those present. Again, the other participants will aid you by standing and pretending to take the gift from you.
3. After an appropriate length of time, present the gift to the actual recipient. The clapping and hooting will continue. IMPORTANT: do not actually let go of the gift until you and the recipient have both paused and smiled at the camera for the official "handing over of the gift" photo.
4. You can sit again as things calm down and the recipient opens the gift. Once the gift is opened, everyone will be happy about it, and the recipient will thank you very politely, and the next gift will now be given.

So--here it is, a video of my gift. Keep in mind that this was not a white elephant, gag-gift type of exchange--this is considered a quality gift. And I must say, my pens and pencils have never had such an exhilerating place to reside. Turn your sound up and watch the clip. Prepare to be jealous...

Good Eats

So, Cambodian cuisine--it offers quite a few tasty dishes (and a few more...interesting options. Tarantula or fermented fish paste, anyone?). And one of the highlights of food in Cambodia is the number of yummy fruits available, most of which are unlike anything available in the States. Culturally, fruits are often given as gifts, or served occasionally as a dessert. They are also eaten as snacks, and many fruits can be eaten while unripe--when eaten this way, they are often dipped into a mixture of salt, sugar, and chili flakes.

Earlier this week one of the fruit trees in front of the FHCambodia Phnom Penh office produced some ripe fruit, and after ripening further in the office kitchen, we cut them up and ate them today. May I introduce you to--jackfruit! This is a jackfruit from our office tree--you can tell it's almost ready from the big split up the side, and when it's all the way ripe you can tell by the strong, jackfruity smell.

Jackfruits are large--most of them are the size of a watermelon (the big ones, not those little seedless ones). They can grow larger, though; according to Wikipedia, a single jackfruit can grow up to a length of three feet and weigh 80 pounds. In fact, they are the world's largest fruit that grow on trees. They are tasty, too, with a flavor like a mix of pineapple and banana (and I think some overtones of peach and strawberry). A jackfruit is hard and knobby outside, and lined with a number of seeds on the inside. Each seed is similar in size to a peach pit, and is surrounded by a "pod" of fruit. This pod is what you eat, although the seeds themselves can also be cooked and eaten, and are supposed to be similar to chestnuts. Also according to the internet, jackfruit is full of vitamins, minerals, cancer-fighting antioxidants and phytochemicals, and even fights ulcers and indigestion (and here I thought it just tasted good!). For more variety, jackfruit can be eaten cooked (some Indian dishes use it in curries), dried, or unripe, when it can be used as a vegetarian substitute for chicken (who would have thought?). If you need a few more factoids, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackfruit or Google "jackfruit".

The one downside of jackfruit--eating it fresh leaves you with sticky fingers (in fact, unripe jackfruit pulp can be used as glue). This stickiness wears off after a few hours, but can't be washed, rubbed, or even hand-sanitized away before then. Luckily, the ingenious Cambodian people have figured out a simple and workable solution: human hair. Rubbing your jackfruity fingers through your hair in some magic way takes the sticky off your hands without transferring it to your locks. I don't know why, but I can vouch for it working!

Soo-us-die Ch'nam Tuh-my!!!

And that, my friends, is Khmer for "Happy New Year"!!!! (a loose direct translation of it is "hello year new.") So--welcome to 2009! Hope you were all able to celebrate as last year wrapped up and we head into this one. I have had good intentions of blogging some more about Christmas, but here it is already past New Year's and that hasn't happened, so...we'll see if I can get to it in January. But--might as well spread a little New Year's cheer while I'm still on top of that.

New Year's Eve is not a huge holiday in Cambodia--it gets usurped by the celebration of Chinese New Year and Khmer New Year later in the spring. In fact, New Year's Eve I spent at yet another Cambodian Christmas celebration (think sitting in a chair for a few hours listening to people sing and then eating some kind of fishy Cambodian food) with the extended family of the family that I live with. We also had a big rain storm, unusual for this time of year (the dry season). New Year's Day--a holiday from work, so I spent a lazy day catching up on some reading and heping to clean up the flooded first floor of our house, compliments of the rain storm (Happy New Year!).

So--I've been in Cambodia a month and half and have made it through the celebration of my third major American holiday. In the coming months we can start on some of the Cambodian ones! May you see God's goodness and care in the coming year!

Christmas in Cambodia

Christmas is in fact celebrated in Cambodia, although I am learning bit by bit about what that actually looks like. Christmas trees appeared at the beginning of December in some of the shops and restaurants, complete with blinking lights, tinsel garlands, and big "Merry Christmas!" signs hanging under the stars at the top of the tree. I've also seen some lovely little Santa outfits for babies and toddlers--if you've been looking for one, now you know where to find it :) And advertisers and stores have partially adopted the idea of getting people to shop for gifts. I don't know if Cambodia's Buddhists (the majority of the population) do much beyond these examples to celebrate. For the Christians, however, families and churches enjoy celebrating, although it is not important to actually celebrate on Christmas Day. The Christmas celebration at the Khmer church I've been attending was on Sunday the 14th. It was a full-morning event, complete with visitors from local political leadership (a very big deal), lots of song and dance presentations, a guest preacher, and a big shared lunch. Many people stayed for an afternoon of singing and games as well. This video is from a few days after the celebration--a group of kids from the church who went caroling around the neighborhood and stopped by our house. It's a little dark and quiet, but turn up your volume and squint a bit and enjoy!

Biker Chick

So, if you haven't seen this picture yet, here you go--the official shot of me on my motorcycle! I've basically gotten the hang of driving it around--as in I feel comfortable on it, although I still take is a little slower and more cautiously that the average Cambodian :) The basket in the front is very handy for after trips to the market or grocery store. And I don't get saddle sore anymore, either, which is good :) If you also missed the bike details and are dying to know--it's a Honda Wave 100, made in Vietnam. A cheaper option than bikes made in Thailand or Japan.

Cabahl knyom hot hie!

Which means: "My head is tired!". A very useful phrase in Khmer which I made sure to learn. I can say it approximately ninety times a day when my poor brain is weary from studying and from all the general learning associated with being in a new culture. Lots of new things to absorb! As of one more tutoring session this afternoon, I will be happy to have made it through my first full week of language studies. I now am able to muddle through the entire Khmer alphabet and am starting to read and write some simple words--like going through kindergarten again! Fast fact of the day: "Khmer" is the name of the Cambodian language and is actually pronounced "kuh-my", rather than "kuh-mare". Khmer is also the word used for "Cambodian", in the way we would use "American."
And now--I have one more short study session before I get to take a break for lunch!