We (Mikki and I) eagerly flew to Phnom Penh for our month of preaching from holidaying in Thailand for 2 weeks, as part of our round the world trip. Seeing our names on a piece of paper at the airport held by Saruon, the first Khmer person we met was pretty exciting! She accompanied us on our first TukTuk ride to the BEC. I wasn’t sure what to expect at all but having so many familiar faces (Lynn and Steve, Dan and Kez) there made it easier to adjust and that much more enjoyable :)
Our first week consisted of meeting everyone at the dorm, sitting in on lots of lessons, a lot of introductions (and subsequently a lot of name forgetting) and learning and writing down some simple Khmer phrases (hello, thank you and my name is). Everybody though was so lovely, welcoming and patient with us. It also took us about the first week to get used to the Cambodian roads – the amount of moto’s and TukTuk’s, driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road, and the apparent lack of any road rules whatsoever! Though with time we soon observed that some kind of ‘ordered chaos’ does exist...( But i can still hardly get my head around it – especially Dan saying that instead of giving way at a roundabout, you just go with a ‘vibe’ that you get!)
We managed to settle into our home for the next month really quickly thanks to the ever-friendly Khmer people, unbelievable food from the wonderful cook Bonkun, and little comforts like having a washing machine, wifi and a cafe within walking distance to us! (Not to mention ice cream shop..) Steve gave us a little project on our first weekend for something to do; making some photo collages to decorate the BEC with and Dan assigned us some students to have lessons with. We soon had a few extra boys asking us for lessons as well, much to the amusement of everyone else. We eventually got into the swing of teaching, and the art of knowing how to explain things in simple terms to whoever was learning English or the Bible.
As promised, we grew to love Mondays (our day off from teaching). Riverside was where we happily spent most of our time off, strolling up and down the Western-ised strip with Dan and Kez taking us to their favourite places. We made a few trips to the markets as well, usually with Saruon translating to help us bargain. Some highlights of our time here for me would have to be going out to LCDI and meeting the kids out there, then seeing them again the following weekend at Outreach, where i gave a short talk on Temptation. They were just the loveliest of people and I really hope they got something out of my talk and the others. Another highlight would be walking to Olympic Stadium near the BEC with some of the girls to join in the dancing there – it was like outdoor Zumba! So many laughs and fun times were had. And I won’t forget sitting with Steve in a TukTuk, witnessing his classic one-liners to unsuspecting city dwellers and watching him start a conversation with anyone who smiled at him at the traffic lights (or didn’t).
I’ve learnt so much since being here and have had such an inspiring and uplifting experience. Everybody keeps asking us, ‘When will you come back to Cambodia?’... God willing, I’ll be back soon! I’ll miss the people with their smiling faces and infectious laughs. And I’ll definitely miss designated ice cream time with Mikki and Jess! Thanks to everyone who made my time here so enjoyable :)
Tamar
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