Cambodia Fun Facts:
- A public high school teacher in Cambodia makes $150-200 a month.
- 80% of the population is 30 years old or younger.
- Most Cambodians don’t celebrate their birthdays and many of the older ones don’t even know how old they are.
- The average age of marriage is 22 for women and 25 for men.
Ministry:
This month I am with team “The Boxcar Children” or Boxcar for short. Boxcar is made up of Whitney, Lizzy (team leader), Linda, Christina S., Casey B., Jess, and Courtney K. (logistics coordinator for the squad). A very fun group of ladies! We are working with a YWAM program (Youth With A Mission) in Phnom Penh-the capital city. We teach English classes to university students in the YWAM dorms. There is a women’s dorm and a men’s dorm. Each dorm can house ten students. The students are on their own for meals and pay $10 a month to live here. Most of the students are from the countryside. We also participate in the Tuesday and Thursday night Bible studies and the Sunday house-church service.
Living:
We live in the women’s dormitory. We are on the second floor and have a fridge, table, bathroom (gravity flush toilet), and two rooms for sleeping and our packs. We sleep on the floor on thin mattresses. We have fans and a balcony that most days lets in a nice breeze. We eat breakfast here and then lunch and dinner at the men’s dormitory. Our hosts cook for us, and are wonderful cooks! We have been given so many fruits and vegetables this week, just what we need! We are very thankful for our housing this month. Many of our squad-mates are in their tents and roughing it in the villages. We are feeling pretty spoiled.
Random news:
- I have bed bug bites all over my body. It looks like I have the chicken pox. Apparently my bed at the hostel last week was housing these little creatures.
- Four of my teammates have had the flu all week.
- The little kids on the streets love to yell “hello” at us when we walk between the dorms. Some adults do too.
- Whitney and I are walking every morning, which I love. I love to start the day with exercise and am thankful we have a place to walk that is not too overcrowded with motor- bikes.
- From 2-3pm I have a one-on-one English class with Macara. He is 19 years old and grew up on a rice farm by the Vietnam border. He loves literature and loves telling me about his culture. I look forward to our class each day because I learn so much from him.
- If Thailand and Bolivia fell in love, got married and had a baby; I think their baby would be Cambodia.
- The sunsets are beautiful here. The moon is beautiful as well. It is a dark yellow/orange color. When I look up at the moon, I love the fact that you all see the same moon I see!
Lots of love from Cambodia!
