There’s nothing quite like that feeling youget when you return to the Dorms and the BEC where you are greeted with those
warm and familiar faces that squeeze you tight (or give you an appropriate
handshake) and give you that unusual buzz of happiness you get every now and
then. It has been SO great to be back here in Phnom Penh with the ecclesia and
all the friends and contacts that I have the good pleasure to know from the
good old days (a year ago…).
So here’s the long story short without going
into too fine a detail…some highlights.
Week 1 - Bible School: A great range of
people attended from a range of countries. Talks were great, Talent night was
as hilarious as usual, ‘Mystery Trip’ was as predictable as always, food was
great, but most of all it was the local company that I loved. Some friends from
home, Naomi T and Zoe J popped into the Bible school for a day during their SE
Asia trip and it was great to be able to share with them just a snippet of the fantastic
people that we have here as our Cambodian family.
Day trip to ‘something’ Island, aka Koh
Deck I am informed: Steve, Chloe and
myself headed out to ‘Something’ Island the day after Bible school finished
with a TukTuk full of dormers and some Motos as it was a public holiday. We
spent the day a-splish-splosh-splashin in the Mekong, which to my delight was
amazingly clear in the shallows. Of course I hadn’t worn my togs out there as I
guess I figured I would not be needing them. Alas, how silly I was not to
remember back to my last experience at this place (Chantry’s baptism) where I
was literally dragged into the Mekong by all the dormers as it poured down
glorious buckets of rain, sullying up the water to a beautiful brown-er shade. This
time we must have played games in the water for at least 2 hours. We played
“Swah” (monkey), a Khmer version of Piggy in the middle crossed with Scissors
paper rock. We were all having a whale of a time until someone noticed our
soccer ball drifting afar off down the river. So Steve the strong foreigner and
competent swimmer set off on the trek of a lifetime down the Mekong to fetch
the dormers beloved ball. But he was too late; someone had already spotted the
ball further down the river and taken it into their own possession. When we approached
to reclaim our ball we were told we could have it back if we paid the guy $10.
Of course we were not going to hand over 10 shmackers for a ball that was
already ours and stolen in broad daylight! This seemed to leave the dormers in
poor spirits as they struggled to understand the injustice of the situation –
of course the world is not such a just place in the present days. Luckily, a
new soccer ball turned up at the Dorm a few days later and was received with
smiles and ‘akuns’.
Teaching: It’s been good to get back into
teaching an old student, our BEC neighbor Ratana, from when I was here in 2010.
It’s a wonderful thing to see the growth in someone is many ways. She has asked
to be baptized in the last few months and is currently having lessons for
baptism – great news. Not only has her Bible knowledge and belief developed,
but her English as well. She has also lost her ‘shyness’ and can now be seen
going about poking BEC fieldworkers when they least expect it, and has
developed some good relationships with the dormers which is wonderful to see.
Trip to Kompong Speu province: At this time
of the year some villages celebrate the end of the rice harvest with a
festival/party. Vitou, Saory, Rothana, Samrach, So Cheat and Dy all come from
Kompong Speu province and invited us out to their village for the night. We
received warm welcomes at the village, and experienced warm hospitality from
our friends’ families. We spent most of the day at Vitou’s family home, Dany
cooked a chnaang lunch, and we spent the afternoon reclining and relaxing on
the bay of hammocks. After an afternoon nap we all headed out to the other side
of the village for the village celebrations where So Cheat’s family cooked us
up a restaurant style dinner which once again was chnaaangaa! It wasn’t until
about 9:30pm that we were told that we were allowed to begin dancing, and we
went and met with what seemed like the whole village, where we danced Khmer
style for what seemed like ages. It was great fun kicking up the dust and
dancing around with friends. The next morning on the way back to Phnom Penh we
stopped in at a Khmer ‘resort’ which was loaded with cheeky little monkeys,
araccoon in a rubbish filled small cage, and a few crocs in an equally small
enclosure.
It’s also been nice to have Marv T and Mike
S drop in this week. Old friends have been chuffed to catch up with Marv again!
Well that’s it from me in a nutshell,
hopefully I’ll be back on here again in the not too distant future doing this
all over again.
Lee howeee
Deb
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