Dance, dance...

For your viewing enjoyment...a little video of Cambodian dancing! This was the last night of the FHCambodia staff retreat, at the end of my second week in the country. After a big and tasty banquet, it was time to party! Karaoke and dancing are a common way to celebrate in Cambodia--at events such as this one, at weddings--we even danced a few times as a fun break during our staff training the week before. The hand gestures you see here are based on traditional Khmer dance movements. Called "apsara," the movements are highly controlled and symbolic when done formally. Less formally, if you want to join in--walk around the room in a circle with everyone else, and copy the hand and feet movements, and you'll fit right in. Khmer dancing is similar to dances done in Thailand and Laos, and representations of the movements are found carved in the ancient Cambodian ruins at Angkor Wat. If you are curious, you can check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_classical_dance

Another video clip with more dancing and the karaoke setup:

Twister...

A little break from Cambodia news...as you have probably heard, a series of tornados went through several Western/Midwestern states the end of last week. The first of these touched down just outside of Gilcrest, CO, where I am currently living. Right in town we had some pretty crazy wind, but we didn't even know there had been a tornado until after it had passed. A few houses, barns, electric poles, etc. were damaged, but we did not have any of the major damage that other towns did. But--we did get to drive around a few hours after the tornados and take some pictures. Here's a link if you want to check them out:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25585897@N04/sets/72157605215301524/

BBQ

I figure I might as well stick with the food theme--get ready to learn all about Cambodian cuisine! As you can see in the picture, yes, we often ate with chopsticks. Although using a fork and spoon--one in each hand--is just as common. Typical meals start with white rice, to which is added various soups and stir-fried dishes. Cambodian food is not spicy, although sometimes it has a little kick, and you may add chopped red peppers to your meal if you desire. Fish and shrimp are common, as well as beef, pork, and chicken. As for spices and flavors--unfortunately, I am no culinary expert, so my descriptions will be lacking--but I do know we had dishes flavored with lemongrass, Cambodian curries, cashews, white and black pepper, and fish sauce.

Once night we got to eat barbecue, Cambodian style--check it out in the picture above. In our regular meals, soups were always delivered to the table in an elevated bowl that had a flaming Sterno-type heat source below--kept the soup warm throughout the meal. So having something burning on your table is not unusal. The BBQ apparatus above was something along those same lines. Underneath the food cooking on the top, you can just see the hot coals through the slits on the pedestal. The hot pot and the raw food arrived at our table, and we proceeded to cook away: beef went in the center, on the top of a dome right over the fire (the Cambodian name for this meal translates as "cow climbing the mountain"), and the veggies surrounded this in a sort of trough that we filled with oil. Pretty tasty, once it all cooked...

Tropical fruits also abound--small bananas, mangos, limes, coconut, watermelon, pineapple, and others you may or may not have heard of: manogsteens, durian, lychee, jackfuit, and more. Soft drinks and desserts are sugared right up, so if you like things sweet, this is the place for you!

Yum Yum...

As of Saturday night, I am back in good old Colorado, enjoying the spring weather after managing to go to Cambodia during their hottest season of the year...And so, my plan now is to give you a virtual tour of what I saw, complete with photos, a few video clips, and plenty of factoids :)

Say you're in Cambodia and want a snack, local style--one option is to buy a few of the round, green things on the head of the girl in this picture. These are lotus flower seed pods, about as big around as a big saucer. Your goal is not to munch on the pod, but on the seeds inside. If you look closely in the pic, you'll see bumps on the top of each pod--each of these bumps shows you where a seed in enclosed. So--buy a seed pod, crack it open near a bump, and pull out a seed. Each seed is shaped like a grape, but slightly smaller. Peel off the outer green skin of the seed to reveal the white munchie inside, and pop it in your mouth! Lotus seeds are firm but moist, with a mild flavor. Best of all, because the seeds are dug out from inside the pod, they can be eaten without any special cleaning or preparation--good when you want a snack on the go.

If the seed pods are not harvested to eat, but are left to grow, eventually they'll grow into lotus flower blooms, like those in this second picture. Lotus flowers can be white or pink, and grow in many of the ponds and lakes in Cambodia. The pink ones are the most common, and in fact, the Khmei (Cambodian) word for "pink" is the same word as "lotus flower." Lotus flowers hold significant meaning in Cambodian (and Buddhist and Southeast Asian) culture. The petals may be used as dishes to hold food, while the shapes of the closed buds and the open flowers are re-created in traditional architecture and dance.

The Official First Cambodian Post....

Well....I am now posting from Cambodia! Which of course is exciting, but also means that I have a slow internet connection, and to my pictures would not upload :( So--those will have to wait until I'm back in the States. But--you are lucky enough to be able to to read about how things have been.

I've been here a week tomorrow, and after a day and two nights in Phnom Penh (the capital city), we headed by car to the northwest part of the country. This region is where FH Cambodia is currently working, in the villages around a town of 10,000 people called Anlong Veng. The purpose of the time here: to attend a training for the staff . Led by a group from the Navigators, this training is working to better equip the staff to facilitate programming in the villages. For me, it's been a chance to meet many of the staff, be in the loop about what they are learning in order to reinforce it with them later on, and start observing the dynamics of the group. And, of course, to jump into Cambodian culture and start figuring out my way around.

This weekend we'll head south to Siem Reap, Cambodia's second largest city, and lucky for me, a very touristy place (i.e. somewhere near where I'll be living to stock up occasionally on good old American food). For this week it will be the site of the staff retreat--more good opportunities to start connecting with people and getting a feel for the country and culture.

So--that's the brief overview! More details and stories will be coming later--this trip should provide plenty of blog fodder for a while to come.

Thoughts

So, I keep thinking how much easier it will be to blog when I'm actually in Cambodia, because I'll have a ready supply of cultural pictures and anecdotes to share. Right now I could tell you how I spent my day doing laundry, e-mailing people, and so on, but that's not quite an interesting as if I were telling you how I did laundry by hand in a Cambodian stream and hung it out to dry under my house on stilts to keep it out of the monsoon rains...you get the picture, things will be a little more interesting once I am overseas. So I apologize for the length of time that tends to pass between blogs for now--it's not because I don't want to be communicating, it's just that I have to rack my brain for an exciting topic to write about :)

I will say, though, that as you are probably aware, my life for now mostly consists of support raising. Like most people, I had a vague idea of what this entailed before I started doing it, but also like most people, I did not really have a clue what all it involved (and I am still learning about it, to some extent). The biggest surprise (and biggest challenge) of support raising so far is the sheer amount of communication it requires. Based on the personal experience of other support raisers, the most effective way to encourage people to be financially involved is through speaking with them face to face. Doesn't sound bad--but to make that happen requires a number of steps: meet and interact with an individual on some level so that there is at least a minor relationship already in place (whether this is an established friendship or a brief conversation at church or the post office), call the individual to ask them to meet with you, call a second time because they weren't home for the first call, meet with the individual and ask them to consider being a supporter, call and/or write to follow up for the meeting, call or write to remind individual to follow through with their new commitment by actually signing up as a supporter, write a thank you note after you receive their first gift, keep up the relationship through various means of contact....

...and now multiply the above by a hundred or so potential supporters. Also add in several speaking engagements, newsletters and blogs to write, and time to pray about all of it--lots of communication! So, lately I am busy communicating, or taking a break from communicating and psyching myself up for another round :) Just a little insight into the world of support raising...

Money, Money, Money

I'm usually not consumed by thoughts of money, but support raising has a way of constantly putting the issue in front of your face :) Add to that that it's tax season, and that Food for the Hungry works to alleviate poverty--and you end up with lots of topics involving resources and how to obtain them and what to do if they are lacking.

For me personally, this whole process has involved quite a bit of learning. Learning about trusting God as provider when my income will be coming through different means than it has in the past. Learning what my role and actions should be in the support raising process, and how what I do can be an exercise in trust--or an attempt to control (or avoid!) things myself. And learning about how take a somewhat sensitive topic, like money, and broach it with people in order to discuss, educate, and ask.

Anyways, sometimes a little perspective check on the topic is healthy. Check out the following two links to take a look at your current wealth (or lack of...), and to learn about world poverty:

http://www.globalrichlist.com/index.php --where do you land on the list of the world's wealthiest people?

http://www.fh.org/hd_introduction --take this interactive journey through the life of an individual living in a developing country, and see how your choices affect you and your family.