Wow, this month is flying by, and as the days pass I am realizing how close I will hold Cambodia to my heart. These days, I am holding onto every little second because they are seemingly escaping me faster and faster. In these sweet Cambodian moments, I find myself:
sweating
DJing children’s birthday parties
swimming (fully clothed) in the hot tub that is the South China Sea
waking up at 2:30 am with a mouse in the bed with me
walking to the market in the morning to get waffles, fruit, and mini rice donuts (thank you Shipley’s for engraving the spelling of “do-nuts” into my brain for eternity)
talking about the latest and greatest music releases with Sarah Beth (Cage the Elephant, we thank you for your new album as well as you, Vampire Weekend)
sweating
digging through bricks with broken shovels a.k.a “plumbing”
chasing after the ice cream truck
celebrating the Khmer new year by jumping around with baby powder flying and fire trucks drenching us with water
watching mice drown in our toilet as we attempt to rescue it
sweating
going to bed at 8:30 to wake up at 5:45 for a morning walk with my best gal, SBG
teaching English in cow pastures
singing in a van headed to Kampot Town
printing out an absurd amount of polaroid pictures of the peeps I miss the most
letting little ones play and paint with our water colors
walking across the street for 50 cent coffee served in a bag with a straw (*note that we drink these as quickly as we can because the ice is unclean, and we proceed to use the bag of ice as our means of cooling off in the afternoon sun)
sweating
walking and having loads of little ones blow you kisses and yell “hello teacher! hello!”
catering Buddhist parties
thinking that I hear the ice cream truck, when in fact I just hear bells that are hanging from the neck of a nearby grazing cow
visiting homes with 14-year-old translators who don’t know much English
feeding a little chick outside that 100% has a disease, we are rooting for you little dude
listening to podcasts and drinking coffee at a picnic table in the mornings
telling our dog, Jackie Chan, to get off of the table more times than we should have to
sweating
getting sprayed with water guns by children on motorcycles
having swollen hands from gripping shovels and pickaxes
watching men fish in a pond of mud
receiving facetime calls from my fav peeps
dreaming about our futures and praising the Lord for our present
bragging to everyone when my pee is anything other than dark yellow (jk) (sorta)
digging a trench across a local road while our little 13-year-old friend yells “no!” at us from his bike, we are so sorry Rauwe, it will be filled in soon
getting pig kisses as we reach over into a pin of piglets
sweating
sitting in hammocks with my best friends as the sky turns from blue to pink to black, with laughter filling the air
Cambodia is flying by and I’m not ready for it to be over! Month 9 you’ve been so so good to me!
Thank you, Aubrey Biddle, for letting me steal some of your words and add to them. You captured parts of this month with perfection and I couldn’t help but want to share them.
As always, thank you for taking the time to read this- I receive so much joy and love from knowing that people back home are invested and rooting for me from across the globe!
In addition, I wanted to ask for prayer for my SWEET SWEET friends that are going back out on the field in August to Alumni Team Lead / Alumni Squad Lead. Please join me in praying for Sarah Beth Geis, Paige Mueller, Aubrey Biddle, Nicole Murray, Thomas Pond, and Robert Ames.
Xoxo
Abigail
