Can you find the monkey on a moto in this blog?
Hello friends and supporters! I realized today that our month in Cambodia is nearly half over already. It feels like we just got here yesterday! Anyway, I thought I would update you on the month and ministry. The following are short snippets that might have started out as blogs at one time, or they are just updates from the other side of the world. Enjoy!!
Team Tandem Goes Seven (again!)
So as you might know, Team Tandem started out as the biggest team on the squad with seven people. Then, after South Africa, we lost a team member to another team. This month, just before departing Debrief for ministry, we actually gained another (different) team member. We were thrilled to welcome Philip Cron (“Phil” or “PC) to Team Tandem, bringing us back to seven members. Welcome Phil. Additionally, we are now probably the most musically-inclined team on the squad. We have 3 guitars, 5 guitar players (and one learning – me!), one harp, and more singers than not. I love it!
Debrief in Siem Reap!
We had an amazing week in Siem Reap, Cambodia at our second-to-last Debrief (yikes! only one more!). We welcomed back our first squad leaders, Hollis and Noe, as well as Carolina Crawford of AIM staff and Seth and Karen Barnes, our squad coaches. We enjoyed a few “western comforts” for the week – AC, continental breakfasts with pancakes, a pool, and our pick of [real!] coffee shops. We also spent one day exploring the great Angkor Wat, and although its status as one of the wonders of the world remains in question, it was still a really amazing place, or at least amazing enough for Angelina Jolie to film Tomb Raider there.
Photos clockwise from upper left: tree at the Angkor Wat, street in Siem Reap, all our bags being transported on a man-powered street cart, lady with a pink parasol at Angkor Wat, the girls on our bike tour of Angkor Wat
Kampong Chhnang
This month, we are in Kampong Chhnang, about an hour from the capital city of Phnom Pehn. It is a small town, but not quite “middle of nowhere.” There’s a town, with a gas station, market, a park with at least two dozen monkeys, and streets dotted with vendors of all kinds. They actually just opened a new gas station with an air conditioned store, so we might spend some time there on one of our days off, just to enjoy the cool air.
We are working this month with TransformAsia at a women’s center for girls and women who have been rescued from prostitution and sex trafficking. The program here is designed to help these women gain the essential skills they need to secure job and re-enter society as well as to begin the process of emotional recovery from their experiences.
Our contacts this month are the Turners, a wonderful family of eight from Johnson City, TN (yay, southerners!). Two of their children left for college earlier this year, so the have two boys and two girls. They actually just moved to Kampong Chhnang four days before we arrived! They were previously living in another city in Cambodia but were asked to step in as directors for the women’s center. So in addition to being the first WR team at TransformAsia, we are coming alongside the Turners in pioneering what this ministry will look like in the future.
Photos clockwise from upper left: girls taking computer classes, lady at the market selling fruit, girls of Team Tandem on “cool headband night,” out two translators, Sitha and Angey with Tabi, the big white van
Should I Be Hearing Anything?
In addition to English and computer classes, which will help the girls increase their job skills, we are teaching a few “fun” classes, like piano, guitar, dance and jewelry-making, although the last one could potentially start earning them money, which would be exciting. Anyway, I volunteered to teach piano lessons, just because teaching harp would be impractical. After I left, what would they play? So piano lessons it was.
Here’s the thing. I don’t technically play the piano. And the only piano available for lessons is the Turner’s electric keyboard, which works great. . . .when there’s electricity. We are fortunate enough to have it on all night, but it shuts off usually between about 8 and 11AM and again from 1:30 to 4:00 PM. Because of the whole schedule, the lessons have to be in the afternoon, usually when the power is out, leaving me teaching music with no actual, well, music.
My solution to this problem at the first lesson was quite innovative, I think. I got my harp out, and each time the student played a key on the piano, I played the corresponding note on my harp. That way they could at least hear what they were supposed to be hearing. Sort of. At one point I had my right hand playing the harp, my left hand pointing to the notes, and my eyes looking at what the student was actually playing, so I could play along, too. Not to mention that we’re sitting outside in the boiling heat and humidity. A rain storm came up at one point and we had to move further under the cover to stay dry. I think some sand and dirt still managed to blow inside my harp, because now every time I pick it up I can hear little grains of sand rolling down the hollow inside like beans in a rainstick.
As if that wasn’t a big enough challenge, none of my students speak any English. Fortunately, music is the international language, right? Right. Just trying to teach the note names is tricky as they don’t write using the English alphabet. What have I gotten myself into?
Actually, the lessons are quite fun, and I love teaching the students. I’m using shapes instead of note names to get them used to seeing the different notes and reading music without overdoing it. And we moved the lessons to start at noon, so today only two of my students had lessons without power!
FACTS ABOUT CAMBODIA
- Cambodia actually uses USD! I haven’t seen a $20 bill in eight months! Oddly, though, they only use the bills, not the coins. If you pay with a $5 bill, and your change was $1.50, you will get back $1 and Cambodian money, called “reel.” One dollar is equal to 4,000 reel. So you would get back one dollar bill and 2,000 reel. Confusing at first, but you get used to it.
- Cambodia as a nation is still recovering from the aftermath of the devastating Khumer Rouge communist reign in the seventies. On our first day off this month, we visited Toul Sleng, a high school-turned-prison-camp where 16,000 prisoners were brought before being tortured and executed, many in the famous “killing fields.” Many of the older generation are wary of foreigners and untrusting of government because of this time.
- Also as a result of the Khumer Rouge, an untold number of land mines are still buried around the country. Land must be “de-mined” before new buildings can go up. So there’s no wandering off the beaten path around here. . .
- Cambodia has two seasons – rainy and dry. We’re in the rainy season right now, which means it rains about 30-35% of the time, and many days are just overcast with scattered thunderstorms. And it’s hot. All the time.
- Iced coffee anyone? Although not as prevalent as in Thailand, there are small street-side iced coffee stands all over the place that sell the coffee (and iced Thai tea) for 2,000 reel – that’s 50 cents!
- You pretty much sweat for 23 hours and 15 minutes a day here. The other 15 minutes is spent in the shower.
- The only relief from the heat are the multiple fans located around the house, and of course, the iced coffee.
- Unlike Thailand, Cambodians drive on the same side of the road and the same side of the car as Americans. Motos (mopeds), bicycles, horse-drawn carts, and tuk tuks are all popular forms of transportation.
- The food is very similar to Thai food. It is rice-based, although there are the occasional noodle dishes. There are a lot of vegetables and usually small amounts of meat. Bread is sold at the market, although the only bread we’ve eaten has been at the Turners’ house. We ate no bread in Thailand.
- Our ministry site has these amazing huge platform swings, where you can steal an afternoon nap and get a little relief from the heat.
Photos clockwise from upper left: monkey on a moto, some of the cells at the Genocide Museum, the outside of the Genocide Museum prison camp (which used to be a high school), big tree at the Angkor Wat, some of the boats docked by the river in Kampong Chhnang, Faith, Anne, and Tabi on the giant platform swing
