Some of my favorite memories from Cambodia:
- walking the kids to the orphanage, and getting to pray with them every night.
- walking through the village, where friendly strangers always greet you.
- learning Khmer from the girls, even though they laugh at my pronunciation.
- having old ladies say “Chute! Chute!” When they meet you. (They are much cuter themselves)
- seeing Sophon’s face light up when our team sang him Happy Birthday. He didn’t know when his real birthday was, so we gave him February 23rd as his honorary birthday. He turned 18.
- getting to worship with Courtney and the kids every Saturday and Sunday. There really is nothing like hearing so many voices singing in Khmer together. To me, it really was a glimpse of what heaven might sound like.
- walking every day (sometimes twice a day) to get this amazing, sugary lime drink from a lady down the street. It was known to us as “Green Drink”.
- Eating fresh mango that I know I will not be able to eat in America.
- Getting to take the kids to a trampoline park in Phnom Penh.
- Spending Valentine’s Day with the girls. They kept talking about how much fun it was to get their hair and makeup done.
- Coming down for breakfast and finding out we get to have Vandy’s famous “breakfast noodles”. I don’t have any clue what he puts in them, but they are so good.
- Alternatively, finding out that we get to have pancakes for breakfast. Sometimes you just really need pancakes.
Some memories that perhaps are not my favorite, but I will most definitely remember:
- getting woken up at 4:45 every morning by multiple roosters.
- Going to the “Spider Market” and having cambodian children continuously try to place gigantic tarantulas on you no matter how many times you tell them you’re not interested.
- Watching my teammates eat said gigantic tarantulas.
- Eating a mysterious large dumpling that had a sixty percent chance of being filled with dog meat. I was told it was pork, but I am honestly still skeptical. (Either way, it did taste pretty good.)
- Having spiders the size of my hand in the showers multiple times. At that point I really didn’t care how dirty I was.
