Hey everyone!
Sorry I haven't have a blog in a while. I had no internet where I was this month. I spent my month of Cambodia in a village that I still don’t know the name of. It is surrounded by dried up rice fields, dirt roads, starved cows wandering around trying to find food, and joyful, half naked kids running around! The minute we go there, I knew it would be a personal challenge for me as far as living conditions go. (I’m not a real outdoorsy type, haha.) We stayed in a little concrete building that we set up our tents inside of because of bugs, lizards, rats that run around at night. If we wanted to go to the bathroom, we had to go to our contact’s house and the bathroom was usually crawling with rats and cockroaches after dark. So another teammate and I always used the nearby field instead…What is my life that we prefer a field over a bathroom at night? haha!
Our humble abode for the month.
I could tell so many stories of this month's experiences, but I'll share with you what a typical day looked like for us:
Breakfast at 8
Rice ball things, and rice/banana things wrapped in a banana leaf…Didn't taste too bad! It was mostly bland but we covered it in peanut butter, so it tasted good then! 😉
Play with kids at local school 8:30-9
One word: Precious.
9-10 English class
10:30-11:30 Team Bible study on book of John
11:30 Lunch — All meals were always served with rice…ALWAYS. Also with some sort of vegetable and meat. Actually really good meals!
12-2 Different classes we split up to teach
My teammate, Amanda, teaching an intermediate English class.
2-3 Free time– AKA sit in front of a fan time while drinking something with ice. We had to ride bikes to the store ten minutes away to get. It was our biggest treat!
3-5 Class/one-on-ones with more advanced English students
5 Dinner
5:30 Shower time for me
We got to use the master bathroom complete with squatty potty and bucket showers.
5:30-7 Free time
7-8 English/Bible class (Fridays nights are game nights)
8 Team Time
Overall, it was a good month. The living conditions were tough for all of us whether it be getting stomach sick (which we all did), sweat pouring down our bodies all day, or just living very closely together 24/7. But it was so great at the same time! As a new team, it gave us a lot of time to spend together getting to know each other, studying the Word together, making relationships with the sweet people in the village, star gazing at night, laughing when cows tried getting into our house, dancing at the village dance party after the rice harvest, and so much more! Cambodia has definately left a sweet spot on my heart!
