Last month we stayed at A Greater Hope Orphanage in Takeo Province of Cambodia. We were there during the Khmer (pronounced ‘ka-mye’) New Year, a national holiday, which meant no school for the first 2 weeks. Most of the kids went home to their families and relatives during this time. Our ministry was loving the kids, helping with Sunday school, visiting local families, and helping to teach at the school our last week. Because we were in a rural area we got to experience so much of the culture, which I absolutely loved!!! I want to share with you some of my crazy cultural experiences!
On our bus ride to Phnom Penh, we stopped at a streetside market where they were selling beetles, grubs, spiders, and cockroaches. My teammate bought a tarantula and somehow convinced me to try a leg!
Our first weekend at the orphanage, they celebrated quarterly birthdays for the kids, and we all went to the lake! We piled in the back of a cattle truck, standing up, and rode for about 30 minutes. The lake was refreshing but very full of seaweed…. I jumped in anyway!
For the New Year holiday we visited an old temple on a mountain. That whole day was an adventure! After the mountain we went to the home of a staff member from the orphanage. She made us a delicious meal of fish, rice, and soup! While she was preparing it we went for a walk through the swampy rice fields, and Mykal and I were brave enough to paddle around in tiny dugout canoes! We paddled with sticks through the lily pads (I felt so Asian!). We also got to try fresh sugar cane.
Almost every day we ate mangoes. The kids would pick them from the trees around the yard, slice them, and eat them with chili salt. It was a daily snack.
One day we heard that a carnival was being set up in a nearby rice field (the rice fields are all dry at this time of year; it hasn’t rained in several months). So that night everyone went out to the carnival. There was dancing, loud music, lights, games with prizes, inflatables, Khmer food, and a play that started around 10pm and went until 4am!
Some days we would play baseball, soccer (better known as football), kickball, and occasionally volleyball with the kids in the yard or the back field. Even though I’m not the best, I joined in with them!
Every day we went to visit people in the community. Usually we rode bikes, and I loved riding through the fields and feeling like I’m in the middle of nowhere! It felt so freeing. After one home visit, we were on our way back to the orphanage when we passed a cow giving birth in someone’s front yard. We stopped to watch because it’s not everyday you get to see a new life come into the world!
When the kids wanted to come with us on home visits, we would pack everyone into the van – our whole team plus 5 or 6 kids, making a total of 15 people in a 7-passenger van! A couple times I rode in the trunk. We rode like this over bumpy back roads, sometimes getting lost before finally arriving at the home!
Every day the kids get up between 5 and 6am to eat breakfast and do chores. We also got up to eat with them and help with chores. This included taking care of farm animals, gardening in the huge garden they have, cleaning the swimming pool, sweeping sidewalks, and burning trash.
One afternoon we were sitting in the dining area and heard loud screeches from the kitchen. We investigated and found them butchering chickens on the kitchen floor!!
This month I learned a lot about Cambodian history that I never knew before coming here. In the late 1970’s, there was a terrible time where the dictator Pol Pot murdered all the educated people of the country. Over 3 million people were killed. On one of our off days we went into the city to visit the genocide museum and the killing fields (the picture below is of a school turned into a prison where they kept and tortured people before executing them). It was hard to see so much pain and suffering and realize the effects it had on Cambodia. This country is 20 years behind in development, compared to the neighboring countries. It was a very eye opening and sobering experience.
I went to the market with one of the older girls to get rice porridge for breakfast one morning, and what the experience! They sell live fish, freshly butchered chickens, an abundance of fruits and vegetables, and raw meat, among other things you would never see in America!
Every meal included rice, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The meat/fish always had bones in it, and it’s amazing how I got used to picking out the bones! It was a normal thing to be served a whole fish. When I get back home to America I won’t know what to do with boneless meat! I was also joking that when I get home I’ll need to make a pot of white rice to eat with all my meals!
I truly loved Cambodia and being able to experience the culture in such unique ways. Even though it was a challenging month, I am so thankful for our time spent there!!!
