Bamboo vs. Elvis

The Phnom Penh Post has some interesting articles every now and then. One of the guys had mentioned one he read this week. He then emailed me this pic from his phone. As an ex-building contractor I was interested to hear about the tensile strength of bamboo but this is just icing on the cake.

I hope they meant to make me laugh but I'm not sure. It's either a stroke of genius or idiocy. It definitely caught my attention. It may even be enough to inspire me to read the story.

Never Trust a Carny

As I went to write this blog I remembered a SNL skit where Sean Connery had this line, "Never trust a carny, got small hands, smell like cabbage." For some reason it makes me grin. If you find it on the web it may be worth watching... or maybe not. What brought this up was the annual Logos Carnival - a highlight of the school year!Face painting!

Logan, now a true third culture kid, turned down Johnsonville brats in favor of Korean kimbap

Veassna manning the game "dizzyland"

Logan and the bean bag toss

Tia (lives in our house) and Fanny (from House of Faith, the girls home)

Shadows Tale

Rene has always wanted to see a traditional Khmer shadow puppet show. There is a Khmer cultural performance center in Phnom Penh that we have been trying to visit for over a year now. Rene's wish came true a week ago.
They combined masks, costumes, mine, acting, shadow puppets and a narative to tell a story.The story was a section of a lager work called the Reamker Chronicle.I was glad they handed out a program that explained the story in English.It was very interesting but would have been easier to follow if I could understand Khmer.

Fish Massage

While we were in Siem Reap we came across these little fish pools on the sidewalk. They try and get you to put your feet in and get a "fish Massage". Gregg, Patsy, and I tried it. Rene was a little weirded out by it, mostly because her feet are so ticklish, and wanted nothing to do with it. It did tickle a bit.

Doctor fish is the name given to two species of fish: Garra rufa and Cyprinion macrostomus. Named for their ability to produce healthy results from flaky, dried or diseased skin. They are the key ingredient in treatments becoming increasingly popular across Japan, China, Korea, and Singapore. We even have them here in Cambodia. You put your feet, hands or the entire body in a warm pool that swarms with hundreds of little hungry feeders (Dr Fish). The fish nibble away the crusty and scabby epidermis to reveal the fresh layer beneath. It is supposed to be very helpful for many skin conditions.

I'm really glad I'm not those fish. =)

"Wat" did you say?

The word "Wat" is Khmer for temple. The largest temple in the world is Angkor Wat. In the early 12th century king Suryavarman II ruled the capital city of Angkor, located in present day Cambodia. Near by is Angkor Wat, a temple complex built as his state temple. Enough with the history lesson and on to the fun stuff. :)

We just finished hosting Gregg and Patsy Walters for three weeks. Their visit gave us the opportunity to visit the ruins of the ancient Angkor Empire and the town of Siem Reap.
Gregg read it was great to get up before dawn to see the sun rise behind famous Angkor Wat... So we did.

It's hard to tell by the picture but these stairs are more like a ladder with a hand rail. This section of the site was usually off limits for repairs. The day we visited was the first day that they had allowed visitors in five years and the first time our tour guide had ever entered that section. God loves us. :)

There are many other ruins near by, one of them being Ta Phrom temple. It is over run by the jungle in places and had a different feel. This is the place they shot parts of Tomb Raider.

The trees have destroyed many parts of the temple.

There are many places that people have had to stabilize the roofs.

Another place close by is Bayon temple. It has these Buddha faces everywhere.

We loved it (some of us more than others). :)

When Things Go Crazy

I was trying to think of how many cliches there are in reference to things getting out of hand. I'm not sure if any of them seem quite right so I'm creating my own. It goes something like this "Just as I was learning to catch a ball, now I have to juggle chainsaws while dodging bullets". Yeah that seems more like it.

We are catching things.
I was starting to feel like we were finding a rhythm here in Cambodia. We know where things are, our 2 boys are doing well, and the 10 guys are relating to us well, the third world stuff is feeling more normal and life had become over all smoother.

Another ball
Our day of is Monday. We started into a holiday season with the all the guys being home from school think it was only 9 days of school, none of them Mondays, in three weeks.

Hold this chainsaw...
We have been very financially tight for the last year. Last month we came to the conclusion that we need to fill the holes that have occurred due to economic hard time of our supporters. After being here a year and a half we have also came to the conclusion that it takes more money than we expected to provide for our family's needs here. All this means we need to raise support from half the world away... Stats on that are not in our favor.

We are Juggling
Our lease here ends December 31st so we have to find a new place to stay. We have 14 people to fit in a house so it is a harder than you might think to find a place to stay. Found three living situation we liked. On all of them the door has been closed.

Sure what's one more...
In the middle of it real good friends of ours in Cambodia started to have a critical time in their life. We, being committed to them, have stepped up to be there for them. It took a bit of time but that's what friends do for each other. It meant Rene and I took turns being with them when we would normally spend time doing paperwork or errands but no big deal we could catch up later.

Add another... ???
The need of our friends became so great they had to get assistance outside the country. Rene is currently spending Monday-Friday at their house taking care of their kid(s).

This one is smaller you can handle it
Logan picked up pink-eye and passed it to Caleb. Logan did well but Caleb thought you were trying to torture him for the first few days and had a hard time doing eye drops

Here take this one
While our friends are gone I have been asked to get involved with one of the collage student's situation where the college is essentially holding her hostage. I was appointed to be one of the decision makers in the situation. It is taking more time I don't have.

But wait there's more
This is all short term stuff, plus we had a friend taking the guys to the beach this last weekend so we would get a chance to recover, except...

Dodge this...
I started to feel sick and my weekend off I ended up in the hospital with Dengue Fever and an E. coli infection. It also was the first time we used the medical coverage so I spent most of the time helping Cambodians and Chinese understand each others English. That effectively shot any sort of rest that was going to happen that weekend.

Now it's getting ridiculous...
Rene dropped by one day long enough to separate the receipts and find out that the electric bill was there and now passed due. No worry's, I just ran it down to the office so they could get a messenger to pay it... the next day. I was not soon enough and we lost our power for 8 hours the following day.

Do this for a sec
Since the power was out for so long it reset our router. I'm a "wana-be-geek" it is not impossible to fix. There are a few custom settings because the modem and router had the same factory I.P. address and that creates a separate issue. Needless to say it was a headache for me.

You gotta be kidding me
The other side issue from the power going out is that they put in a breaker that pops if the whole house is in use. For many reasons, I won't bore you with, it is our personal area and office that has to be kept off. So her I am in the dark typing a blog.

The up side
As I'm writing this I'm amused. It's like one of those comedies where things just keep getting worse, every time one thing gets fixed two things break and just when you think it's fixed it breaks again. In the end it works out and people have grown.

Just as I was writing the previous paragraph three of the guys came in and really wanted to show me a video of them juggling a soccer ball. Kinda apropos don't you think. It was very encouraging to have them be excited to show me their stuff. I love my job. :)

Fishing, Mice and a Little Salt & Pepper

We Went out riding on a moto the other day and realized there were people fishing everywhere. Not sure witch part was more odd, that they were fishing in drainage ditch or that it was extremely polluted. Nobody seemed to be thinking twice about either problem.

After taking the picture of this group Rene said "We should find out if they have had any luck and if it is a national holiday involving fishing." A little surprised at how at home Rene has become, I reminded her we don't speak enough Khmer to communicate about it.

Someone left the lid of of the rice bin and six mice decided to get stuck in it. Good thing we were almost out of rice and only threw away a hand full. And yes the guys smote them with extreme prejudice.

These salt & pepper Shakers were so fun and cute that Rene just had to Get a picture.