I know this country summary is a bit late, but it’s been a busy month for me between teaching English and planning a wedding! Here is the lowdown on Cambodia…
Country: Cambodia
City: Siem Reap
Language: Khmer (though there is a large
Currency: Riel (conversion rate is 4,000 riel to $1)
Time difference: 12 hours ahead of EST
Weather: HOT! It is the dry season here and it has been averaging around the mid-90’s most days. The mornings and evenings are often quite nice as there is often a steady breeze, but the afternoons are scorching! Sweating is a daily occurrence since we have no A/C, but we are grateful to at least have fans and windows in all of the rooms at our main site.
Local meal eaten recently: I honestly can’t say that I’ve eaten much local food in Cambodia as we are responsible for cooking all of our meals this month and are in a fairly remote area. That, coupled with the fact that we are on a food budget of $5 per person per day this month, we have been making a lot of veggie noodle bowls, sandwiches and chicken and rice dishes. We have actually done a great job and enjoyed some delicious meals (so thankful for a team that knows how to cook!), but we have not got to experience much local cuisine. A very common meal for Cambodians seems to be fried fish with soup, but they eat all types of animals, including insects such as grasshoppers and even tarantulas. I also found out that those in the countryside very commonly eat dogs :/ Not interested in trying that out anytime soon.
Living conditions: We are working with CMC (Cambodian Ministries for Christ) and staying at their nice training center, which you can see at the bottom of their website here. There is a school held here during the day for missionary kids (with missionaries from all around teaching), but we are not involved with that. We are staying in dorm rooms on bunk beds without mattresses (that sleeping pad has been one of my most used items on the Race!). Most of us have strapped our hammocks up in the rooms too. We also have a shared bathroom with the lovely toilet/shower combo stalls again.
Those doors on the far right are our dorm rooms. The sunrises and sunsets here are GORGEOUS!
This shows the left side of the center and the water tower that some of us are still building up the courage to climb
My team ministries:
This month, our ministry solely revolves around teaching English to various children and teenagers in 2 different settings. In the mornings, we take a 30 minute tuk tuk ride out to the house of Chance, a local pastor who lives out in a very rural area of Siem Reap. Here is a short video I made of our daily ride, if interested.
Aaah, the bumpy and breezy tuk tuk ride. Lots of conversations are had here.
Chance leads English classes outside of his home twice a day for poor children who live in the community, some of whom are orphans. We take over the 2 hour block in the morning, with the first hour consisting of English class (numbers, animals, body parts, etc.) and the second hour involving a Bible story, skit and craft. Chance helps direct what area we focus our teaching on each day, but the rest is up to us to plan. These children are precious! They are always excited to see us, running up and giving us hugs, and they are very respectful and appreciative. Some of them come to class day after day wearing the same dirty clothes…and that same big smile.
This is where we teach the morning classes
Here are some of the kids that we teach at the Pastor’s house…so precious!
That is Pastor Chance on the left, in the wheelchair. We are doing a skit on David and Goliath in this picture. AT put a new spin on Goliath with a helmet and stick. Ha!
Love this little kid!
Her sister, who attends our classes, often brings her as she helps take care of her
In the evenings, we each have 2 separate classes that we teach here at our ministry site, CMC, consisting of different ages. They have volunteers to come out and teach these lessons each night for the students so that they can receive free education, which is not the norm for Cambodia. So, we are helping to provide each of those volunteers with some relief, in addition to providing the students with native speakers to practice their English with. Each class is very different in terms of their level of understanding, so we have to come up with lessons very specific to each group and their ability to read and speak English. It can be challenging at times as there is often a big discrepancy between students and their skill level, and they are often very shy and afraid to practice speaking English for fear of being wrong. Trying to teach words and grammar to students with such varying levels of communication barriers really gives me a newfound respect for those who do this full-time.
This is where we teach classes in the evenings, at CMC
With our class schedule as it is, we have a good chunk of our afternoon open each day, which is typically filled with cooking our lunch and dinner (have to eat early since our evening classes don’t start until 5:30pm), having team time, lesson planning and resting. It’s crazy how much the teaching and Cambodian heat can drain your energy, so the midday break is a welcomed blessing.
Interesting facts: There are many unique and interesting things in this country, but three small examples are as follows:
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The way they fill up their gas tanks, particularly for the motorbikes. There are stands all along the road with glass bottles filled with gasoline (look like soda bottles). When you need to fill up, you simply pull over and the attendant will pour as many bottles as needed in to fill it and send you on your way.
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Keys are a status symbol here. There are key copying “stations” found on many corners in the city. Apparently, the more keys you have on your ring, the better as it symbolizes how many things you own.
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I honestly knew nothing about Cambodia’s government before coming. After speaking to locals and doing more research, I was very surprised to find out just how much power Vietnam seems to hold over Cambodia, and the resulting tension as a result.
Off day opportunities: We have the weekends off here and though there are a number of cool sites to see in this country, we are somewhat limited due to our location out in the middle of nowhere. Ha! I am super thankful that we are in Siem Reap, however, as that put us right next to Angkor Wat, one of the wonders of the world! We got to visit it this morning, along with the Ta Prohm temple, where parts of Tomb Raider was filmed! That was an awesome experience for me, especially since I’m a video game and action movie geek!!
Ta Prohm in Tomb Raider movie…my pics there will be on Facebook shortly
One part of Ta Prohm
Ta Prohm
Angkor Wat was so cool to see in person! It blew me away thinking of all the work that went into building those temples, and the many intricacies involved in the inscriptions. I’ll have much better pictures taken by my teammate LB up on Facebook soon, but these iPhone shots will have to do for now:
You can see more temples in the background
One of the many Buddha statues within the temples
Rachel Workman shot a candid photo of me admiring the temple
The killing fields museum is also something I really want to go and see, but it is a long and very expensive bus ride away, so not sure if that is going to work out 🙁
In terms of a low key place to simply relax on the weekend, we came across Common Grounds, a really neat coffee shop with a great cause! They were started by the parent organization PCL, which is dedicated to helping the poor in Cambodia. Very cool concept! I might even get the chance to meet with their regional director soon.
Cambodia has been a really cool country to visit, and God has taught my team and I a lot through this month. Now that we recently hit the halfway point on the Race, many of us, myself included, have struggled with feeling tired and frustrated. Community living 24/7 definitely wears on your after a while, and I think the constant adjustments to cultures and hosts just adds to all of that.
God is continuing to use this all to show me how to rely on Him for strength and patience and motivation as it often takes me coming to the end of myself and abilities to do so, unfortunately. So, yes, I’ve had a more difficult time this month staying present and thinking of home, but it’s not without its own lessons and benefits. Please continue to pray for us all as we move forward, that we continue pressing in and investing 100%, even when days are long and tough.
