On legends great and small, returning to third grade, and winning the food war

Dear Friends and family,

Well, it would seem for once life is more eventful on the home continent than it is here. My thoughts go out to everyone affected by that terrible storm in the US. In Cambodia, the weather continues charming, with the occasional rain to cool things off. Now that I think of it, we had a spectacular thunderstorm Wednesday evening. As a result, the roads were so exceptionally terrible that they decided to fix them. In place of valleys of mud, there are now mountains of mud, and all of the mostly predictable paths through the potholes have been erased. It just so happened that I was visiting the house of a missionary couple in a nearby village on the night of the thunderstorm. Their house overlooks a sea of rice paddies, and from this vantage point we had a marvelous view of lightening streaking across the sky while the sun set behind us. In addition to enjoying the view from their porch, I very much enjoyed getting to know John and Debbie. They have been working in Mesang district for many years; John was here 25 years ago before he was married and has since come back. They were with MCC way back when, and are now working with Eastern Mennonite Missions. Debbie is a nurse, and John does all kinds of stuff (agriculture work in the past, now he has set up a program to teach children biblical values, and he does a lot of administrative and organizational capacity building). They are something of legends here. Everybody in Mesang knows them, and every Cambodian Christian I have met asks me if I know John and Debbie. And now I do! John also gave me directions to a church in yet another village that was started by a Cambodian english school teacher. He said a lot of students go to that church. I am planning to venture out there on Sunday with Jenna, an EMM volunteer who is in Mesang district for a couple of weeks. Pray that we don’t get too lost! Please also pray that this will be a good opportunity for me to connect to a local church and develop relationship with Christians here. Though the service will be in Khmer, I am sure the students will want to speak to me in English afterwards! [I ended up posting this blog on Monday a couple of days after writing it. To save you all from a week of terrible suspense, I will add that I did in fact make it there and back safely, but not without some adventures on the way! Stayed tuned for next week’s post when I will describe in detail my trip to the Peaceful in Christ church!]

Other than my visit with John and Debbie, this week has been pretty uneventful. I had such a relaxing Saturday that I fell asleep in the hammock while reading The Lord of the Rings. I have reached the final pages of the final book. [Spoiler alert]: when the ring was finally destroyed and Frodo and Sam experienced the bliss of rest for the first time in weeks, so I too gratefully shut my eyes after sitting on the edge of my seat for so long as I followed them on their perilous journey. Each time I read I put down the book with greater reluctance; I relish each moment I spend within those masterfully written pages, but at the same time I don’t want to story to end! With self-sacrificing actions and heroic adventures on my mind, I was flipping through my Bible and came across the passage in Ephesians where the armour of God is described (read Eph 6:10-18 if you need a refresher). Let us not forget that our very lives are a part of God’s epic story of salvation. Do not live indifferently, as if your life has no purpose. For in each kind and loving action, in each step of faith, in each prayer, there is found power of the greatest kind; the very same power that raised Christ from the dead. How is that for a call to action?

 There hasn’t been a whole lot to do at work, but I managed to find a Khmer typing program on my computer… you remember the kind with the fingers that light up to give you hints and it counts how many words per minute you can type. I have so far managed to pass the first 2 lessons, working on the third. I feel like I am in grade 3 again, and it is so much fun! It is challenging because since the Khmer alphabet has so many letters each key is two different letters instead of lower and upper caps. It will be a long while yet before I pass lesson 16!

During language lessons this week, we were talking about stories as a topic for conversation. She said she wanted to try to write a story and I could help with spelling and grammar, etc. When I asked if she had ideas for a story (assuming she meant to make up one of her own), she proceeded to recount a traditional tale full of giants, 12 princesses, dangerous forests, and the like. I asked if she had ever written a story of her own in school, and she said no. How sad is that? On one hand I was thrilled that traditional tales are known by the young generation of Cambodians, but on the other hand, after horrible years of war and terror that all but squashed culture and creativity, how do we expect the arts to return to Cambodia if students are not even given the freedom of writing stories in school?

I was also struck by loss of another kind this week. The office kitten, Joy, died. I was a bit worried when I came into the office Tuesday and there was a nearly identical new cat in the office, and then someone told me the other cat had died. I’m not sure what happened to her. To be honest, she wasn’t the brightest cat. I wouldn’t be at all surprized if she fell in the pond or something. I’ll miss her stubby tail, her lopsided canter, and the way she would sprawl on my lap and purr in bliss. I was thankful to have another cat in my arms when I got the news. Now I have to think of a new name for this cat…

To end on a more positive note, my host brother (who is 1 ½) has finally started to eat rice, much to the joy of his mother. Each time she succeeds in getting him to eat a spoonful, she announces it to whoever happens to be within earshot. Ironically enough, he started eating rice along with prohok- a paste made from fermented fish that tastes ghastly as it sounds. But he seems to like it! He also likes the sour fried cabbage leaves we had the other day and ate quite a bit of real food at that meal too (and by real food I mean rice instead of his usual fare of breast milk and cakes). Things are never dull with that kid around! Yesterday he started chasing me around with the lice comb... my second greatest nightmare. 10 points if you can guess what my greatest nightmare is (no cheating Janet!). To give you a hint, I skipped reading an ENTIRE chapter of the Lord of the Rings.

Until next time,

Rebecca

Here's to you Joy. This is the only photo I ever took of her, just because I happened to be photographing the garden at the time. I figured I had lots of time to get cute close ups of my new best friend. Here she is, not quite inconspicuously stalking something in the garden :)