During the day, and at the risk of sounding pious, we did go to an orphanage and give sweets out, play games and do some singing with Dan dressed as Santa and me as an elf! It was organised by our friend Minea and I'm so glad she did because we were planning on having the rest of the day off but it was such a good buzz making these kids day, probably their month. Their were about 15 of them from about the age of 5 to 12 and they loved it. It was fun driving to and from in our costumes getting some good stares and giggles and handing out sweets to passing motos and throwing them into people's baskets or even just resorting to launching them at anyone who gave us a grin.
In the last week we have had the Phnom Penh Bible School which has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride between stress and great fun. Even though I wasn't responsible for that much, people are still looking to me as a long termer who is in the know. It was great to hang out with the Vietnamese again. As usual, the language was an issue but we made do with playing silly games. Some great studies by Tim Galbraith and Shane Kirkwood. The highlight for me was the boat trip down the Mekong with some Khmer/Western dancing. Another special moment was singing 'This Is The Day' 3 times in 3 different languages, Khmer, Vietnamese, & English, a real goosebumper. Igor Podaisky (iPod) also joined us from Moscow for the week which was ace, so good to see him again particularly as I probably won't be able to make a visit to Russia this year.In other news, Deb Collins left us. Sad times. It's a bit strange without her, because now I realise where most of our conversation came from! It was good to find someone who shared a mutual love for 'Round The Twist'. Also, Dan & Kez have left for Oz for about 5 weeks leaving me to pretend to know what on earth is going on! Flip! I think I've managed to fool Terry & Karen Nutter, who are here for a couple of weeks, for the time being but I'm sure they will see the truth by the time they leave : )
A couple of weeks ago, I had to make a trip out of Cambodia to renew my visa. I decided to only leave for a day as I had lessons to do the next day, so I went to the Cambodia/Vietnam border which is about 3 hours away and planned to hang around for a couple of hours and then head back. On the Cambodia side there are restaurants and a few huge casinos, presumably for the Vietnamese who hop over the border gamble their đồng away as they can't do it in their own country, but on the Vietnamese side, there turned out to be nothing but road! So, for the same price I carried on 3 hours to my first visit to a Socialist city, Ho Chi Minh, and had a look around the Independence Palace for two hours then went 6 hours back! It was quite nice and relaxing, reading and listening to music on the bus knowing there was nowhere else or anything else I could be doing. The đồng is pretty worthless, according to Wiki, after the Zimbabwean Dollar it is the world's most worthless currency, £1 = 30,432.41₫
To end with, some poignant food for thought. A young sister at our church said to me the other day, "I remembered today that as a child I didn't play games like other children, I ran away from bombs." Wow! The major benefit of preaching work is the eye openers and puts your own problems into perspective.
Simon
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