Busy, busy, busy in the best possible ways

    The last two weeks have been busy, which explains the lack of updates here. Our friend Alison, and two of her children, Julian and Willa, came to visit us, which was fantastic! They were enthusiastic guests - they embraced the opportunity to do and see everything in Siem Reap and beyond. When I have more time to write, I'll say more about their visit, but we absolutely loved having them here.

     Right now we're in a guest house in Phnom Penh, a stopping-off point on our way to Mondulkiri for a few days. Our friends Andras and Eszter have arranged this week-long trip and we are looking forward to finally seeing more of Cambodia. After roughing it a bit in Mondulkiri, we'll take a long drive to the coast and spend a few days on Koh Rong Saloem island. I'm not sure we'll have internet access in either place, but so I may be off the grid for a while, but there will be hammocks and beer and good company, so we'll be enjoying ourselves and will tell you all about it later.

    

Adventures in transportation and communication: a snapshot.

Lately I often dream of being thwarted in my efforts to get somewhere. You know, the dreams where you can’t read the map because the print is too small, you get on the wrong bus, you get on the right train but going the wrong direction, you miss your stop, you lost the scrap of paper with the address on it….It’s not so much that you’re lost, because you know where you are and where you want to go, but you can’t there from here, so to speak.

(I’ll skip the psychoanalysis of what those dreams are saying about me. You all just entertain yourselves for a few minutes with your own interpretations………Now, feel free to post them as comments.)

Today I seemed to be having this actual "can't get there" experience. It took me four tuktuks and almost two hours to get to the Angkor Market, when I could have ridden my bike there in 8 minutes. I will tell you this story – which is long and meandering and probably pretty boring – because it illustrates some of the daily challenges I still have with communication:

            I rarely use a tuktuk, preferring to ride my bike even it means frequent small trips. (I think I may have already bragged a bit here about how much I can carry on my bike, so it doesn’t have to be THAT frequent.) But today it was 94 degrees, I’d already been sweating all day, and I knew it would take 2-3 trips on the bike, so I decided to indulge myself.

When I do need a tuktuk, I can almost always time it for when Sovann is available; when he’s not working, his tuktuk is sitting right here in our front yard. The challenge with that is whether or how much to pay him when I ask him to take me somewhere. When I ask him how much I owe, he always says, “Nothing, mum.” If I don’t ask and just try to give him money, he refuses to take it. I’m torn about this a few reasons. On the one hand, he lives here and therefore sometimes eats our food and drinks our beer (though he also buys food and beer for us on occasion.) If giving me an occasional ride makes him feel like he’s returning a favor, I don’t want to deny him the opportunity to feel he has evened things up in some way. And if I was truly his “mum” I wouldn’t be paying for rides, and I don’t want to insult him in some way by implying I don’t really think of him as “family.” On the other hand, not paying him makes me feel bad about asking him for a ride – he might prefer to wait around for a paying customer or just go play volleyball if he has free time, and I hate to make him miss out on either of those opportunities. Also, I know he can use the money a lot more than I can, so I feel cheap if I don’t pay him.

Today he was working all day, but just about the time I was thinking of going shopping, he made a brief stop at home. When he headed back out, I asked him for a ride (tuktuk #1) to Seven Candles, because there’s almost a tuktuk or two (or three) sitting there waiting for some work, and I know and like all the drivers. Today, there were no tuktuks there at all, so I called one of the regulars to see if he was somewhere nearby and available, and he came to pick me up. (Now I was on tuktuk #2.) I announced our itinerary: “Lucky Mall, then Angkor Market, then fruit stands.” He took me straight to the Lucky Mall so I could go into the Lucky Supermarket (such a lucky place!) but while I was inside checking things off my list, our friend Ponheary came running up behind me, calling my name and telling me “Lori hit her head and there’s a lot of blood! She hit her head in the van! There’s blood!” Her tone was urgent and I was a bit confused by this turn of events. I figured out pretty quickly that Lori was back at Seven Candles and was probably fine, but I promised Ponheary I would go and see her. “Right now?” “Yes, in five minutes, I promise.”

So with Panha (the driver) waiting for me at the checkout, I paid for my groceries and we loaded them into his tuktuk and headed to Seven Candles for me to check on Lori. While I was going in to see her, I asked Panha if he would take the groceries to our house and put them on the balcony, then come back and we could finish my shopping.

Thanks to my amazing nursing skills (ha!), I was able to determine that Lori was OK: I asked her if she was OK, and she said she was. Just for good measure, I looked at her scalp, which had a pretty impressive split right down the middle of the top of her head.  No sign of serious head injury, and no more bleeding, so we both decided she would live without further medical attention.

Back I went to resume my shopping errands. Panha was right there in the driveway when I came out of the guesthouse, but he was loading two huge backpacks into the tuktuk while two young women were settling up their bill.

 “Panha, are you going somewhere?”

“Yes, now I go to the airport.”

“Oh. OK…..No problem. I’ll get another tuktuk.”

“Oh! You still need tuktuk? Where you go now?” He had apparently forgotten the original itinerary, or hadn’t quite understood it. I reminded him I still had two more places to go, but assured him I would find someone else to take me. I tried to pay him for the earlier ride, but he refused to take any money, which left me torn. Was he feeling bad that he misunderstood and therefore wouldn’t let me pay him, or was it because he has enjoyed many beers on our balcony over the last few months and just wanted to return the favor? I didn’t know, and I couldn’t figure it out, and he wouldn’t take my money. He offered to come back for me in an hour, but I assured him that wasn’t necessary. He waved and took off for the airport, and I was left needing tuktuk #3.

It seems that most days when I walk down any given street in Siem Reap, I see dozens of tuktuks and drivers sitting idle and I am offered more rides than I can count, which I never need at the time. So I headed out into the road, planning to take the first tuktuk that came along. I walked for about 150 yards and not one tuktuk made me any offer. This made me wonder if all the tuktuk drivers on Wat Bo Road have seen me around for so long that now they know not to offer any more? Do I no longer walk like a tourist and they can tell the difference? Just as I was considering walking home and taking my bike after all, one of the other guest house drivers, Rani, went by headed back the way I had just come. He was grinning and waving at me and he stopped, so I asked if he was headed to Seven Candles and then was he available? The answer was yes, so I hopped on his tuktuk, only to realize that he already had a passenger: his mother, who I had met once before. As we both recognized each other, we smiled and patted each other’s arms and said nice things to each other, though neither of us knew what the other was saying. She doesn’t seem to speak any English and despite all my efforts to buckle down on my Khmer studies, I’m still trying to learn the damn alphabet, so after “Hello! How are you?” my Khmer rapidly fails me. I didn’t think she would be interested in hearing me recite the Khmer alphabet, so we just kept petting each other’s arms and smiling like idiots.

But now I was confused. Was he taking his mother to Seven Candles, and if so, why? We arrived there – now I was back almost where I started at the beginning of this tale – and I tried to figure out if Rani was really available to give me a ride or not. As he and I danced around trying to determine what I wanted and what he was doing next, it eventually became clear that he had intended to take his mother somewhere, but he offered to take me to Angkor Market instead. I insisted that he should take his mother where she needed to go. Did I want to come with them, he wanted to know. No thank you, I’ll just go to do my shopping, I told him. Now he was squirming, I think having realized that he misunderstood my original intention and now feeling bad. I assured him over and over that it was no problem, and he asked me to please wait for him to return so he could take me. I really didn’t want to wait that long, so I thanked him some more and said, “If I still need a ride when you come back, then you can take me, but maybe I’ll just go soon so I can finish.” Then I immediately felt bad because I didn’t want him to hurry back if I wasn’t going to be there, but it seemed it would somehow break his heart if I told him I couldn’t wait.  To end the whole guilt-inducing interaction, I thanked him yet again and told him goodbye and went inside, thinking I would just hang out in the lobby until he left to make things easier for both of us.

Lori was in the lobby, still looking as though she was not suffering any traumatic brain injury, and wondering why I was back so fast. I gave her a run-down of my challenges thus far, and told her I was headed back out to find yet another tuktuk to go finish my errands. As I turned to go back outside, I realized Rani and his mother were still in the driveway packing some things onto his motorbike, so I stayed inside until he left. I was afraid that if I went out to grab another tuktuk while he was still there, it would start a whole new wave on angst on both of our parts.

With Rani safely out of the driveway, I ventured back out and retraced my steps of 20 minutes earlier, walking down the street once more hoping to find tuktuk #4. I got as far as the first intersection and found a driver sitting in his tuktuk, apparently daydreaming. In a completely unfamiliar role reversal, I had to call to him, "Tuktuk?" He snapped to attention and asked where I wanted to go. “Angkor Market.” (I was still trying to get to my second planned stop of the day.) For reasons I don't understand at all (though I know there is a reason), he called to a group of men sitting at a table across the street, and one of them came literally running, with a wide grin on his face. He seemed to think that Angkor Market was a perfectly delightful destination, so he hopped in the first guy’s tuktuk, and we were off.

I made it through the next two stops with no further confusion, and the driver brought me home and carried my groceries upstairs.  All of my time with tuktuk #4 was completely uneventful.

It just occurred to me that one of the ironic twists of English here is that when you ask someone if they're available, the correct and commonly understood format for the question is, “Are you free?” (Sometimes expanded to, “Are you free or are you busy?”) In this context, “free” just means available – except, apparently, when I’m asking a tuktuk driver who I know personally. In those cases, they appear to take me literally. “Yes, I am completely free. I won’t cost you a cent.”

I don’t usually take four tuktuks in a whole month, but it was four today.  Thank you, Sovann & Panha & Rani & guy whose name I don’t know. Now our kitchen is stocked and ready for guests – Alison, Julian, & Willa arrive around 10pm – that is, assuming they let Willa into the country, since they just discovered on the way here that her passport may be expiring too soon to get a visa. Poor Alison has been a wreck on the plane, worrying about it all the way. I choose to believe that Willa will squeak in through immigration, but I won’t really relax until I see all three of them walk out of the airport.

Whatever happens when they land, it ought to make for an exciting next installment on Alison’s blog and mine!

Friday, 17 February

    Not a lot to report, but I'm enjoying my friend Alison's blog (< that's a link, folks) as she prepares to come here for a visit, and she writes these nice quick little updates. Maybe I'll try to do the same for a while...

     I went shopping today for a couple of things we needed around the house. First, pillows for Alison and her kids. (We can borrow extra mattresses and sheets from Seven Candles Guest House, but they don't have any pillows to spare.) Sovann was amused by the fact that the pillows were vacuum-packed flat in plastic and then puffed up impressively when we opened the plastic bag. They are "Supper Healthy" pillows and they promise that "Pillow of Dolphin make you have sweet dream." I'm not sure what dolphins have to do with pillows or sweet dreams, but that is just one of many daily mysteries.

    I was also thrilled to find WD-40. We have some squeaky doors and I have tried oiling them with vegetable oil, which wasn't terribly successful. Now our doors are quiet and I have enough WD-40 to last for years. How satisfying.

     When we came back from our pillow-and-WD40-buying spree, Sovann had a snack of what he refers to as "baby eggs." I think the rest of the English-speaking world refers to them as balut (see Wikipedia) but for those who are unfamiliar with this delicacy, they are duck eggs that have incubated for about three weeks and are then boiled, so it's essentially a hard-boiled partially-formed duck fetus. At 1200 riel each (about 30 centes), I suppose they make a nice high-protein snack. I have tried a bite before, and tried it again today. There's some yolk in there, which tastes just like yolk, but there are also identifiable feathers and head and other duck parts. The consistency isn't as bad as you might think - it's sort of like country pate (can't figure out how to put the accent marks in there; sorry) and the taste is quite fine. However, I doubt I will be indulging in them on a regular basis as regular hard-boiled eggs are fine by me.

They look like innocent little eggs...

...until you crack them open.

Tastier than you might imagine.

     But just to put it all in perspective, this was Steve's lunch yesterday:

All I want for Christmas..

(I wrote this post on December 23, but never posted it. Now, six weeks later, I feel more comfortable about sharing it, though I will admit that I edited just a little. Here is a glimpse into where my head was at that week.)


     All I want for Christmas is a week where nothing breaks down or is stolen, a week in which I don't have to learn any expensive lessons, another uneventful week that results in yet another boring blog post about my inertia. I'd like a week when I don't feel foolish, when I don't drop anything or forget anything, a week in which I carry all my new keys with me at all times and never lose them.


     I'd also like a bagel with lox.


     And while I whine and complain about our robbery (my fault, I know  - I'll lock the door every night now), I'm still embarrassed at the ease with which we can replace most of what we lost. I live in a country where a large number of people struggle to have enough to eat, but not only can I own laptops and cameras and other expensive toys, I can afford to replace them if I'm foolish enough to let them get stolen. And despite the unfortunate events of this week, I could go out with friends to eat chimichangas and wash them down with mango margaritas. I could go to the supermarket today and splurge on some cheese and a couple bottles of wine. It's embarrassing.


      I used to say that part of what I loved about coming to Cambodia those many previous times was that instead of being the person with the answers, I could be the person with the questions. And here I am, asking myself questions every day that have no easy answers, and it still makes me squirm. To make the comparison I made in an earlier entry, if coming to live in a different country is like having children in that you can't possibly understand what it will be like until you do it, then I am having an adjustment disorder. And it turns out that's embarrassing too - because I want to write blog entries about how wonderful and exciting and interesting and inspiring my everyday life is - and it is, but it's also messing with my head, with my concept of who I am, with my perspective.


      As I write this, I wonder if I will ever post it. Some things may well need to be written ( as part of my own processing) but don't necessarily need to be shared. I've already gotten myself in trouble for the post about leaving my "job" at the clinic; do I want to bare my soul again and admit that life is not a bed of roses? Or maybe that is an apt analogy - it is a bed of roses, thorns and all.


     I feel compelled to say for the umpteenth time (which makes me worry that you will think I doth protest too much) that I have no desire to be anywhere else. I'm where I want to be, having the experience I want to have, which isn't always the experience I thought I came here for. Which is not to say that I didn't expect bumps in the road.


     Oh - the war in my head! I want to be honest and open about how I'm feeling, and at the same time, I want you all to continue to think well of me. I want you to think I'm strong and brave and clever and organized and resilient and flexible and creative.  I suppose what I really want is to believe myself that I am all of those things. And some days, I think I am, to some degree. Some days, not so much.


      As I write this, Steve is in the kitchen, listening to Joni Mitchell and making pesto. I just went in there to get a beer, and he said something nice to me which I didn't feel I deserved. Jaz is at a Christmas party at the school where she teaches and will probably come home with amusing tales of Khmertastic versions of Christmas celebrations. I should be calling all our friends here to make sure I've given them the details of the invitation to come here tomorrow afternoon for Christmas drinks and snacks, but my phone won't cooperate. I'm sleep-deprived and feeling inadequate. Perhaps I need a nap.


     As I write this, most of you are likely sleeping, or staying up far too late wrapping or assembling gifts. You may wake up on Christmas Eve morning and read this and think, "Oh, poor Jess - she sounds so miserable." And again, I feel the need to assure that I am not.


     Well, maybe a little. Or maybe a better word is discombobulated. I am tossing around in a sea of questions, at the mercy of the winds of uncertainty, and possibly slightly drunk at 3:30 in the afternoon. I have too many questions, and not enough answers to feel comfortable. What was that great quote I found and posted? I probably need to read it again...

“I beg you..to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer…”   - Rainer Maria Rilke

     What the hell does that mean, to "live the questions"??? Can I put that on a list of things to do? How will I know when i can check the box that says I have completed that item? 

     I had a useful conversation this morning with someone who has lived here for a long time. (I guess he has a hell of a lot more answers than I do.) He mentioned the grieving process that happens when you come here with expectations and real life rears its sometimes ugly head and you have to cope with the reality of being here. He said that his process took a couple of years. Thanks to my finely-tuned but delusional superiority complex, I immediately thought, "I bet I can do it faster." And then I laughed (and cringed) at my own impatience.

     Everything is impermanent. I guess those are Buddha's words, but they were quoted to me by a former monk in relation to my impatience and frustration about something here. I need to tattoo those words on my arm. I need to let go of the belief that I must find the answers, because the questions will change over time anyway. 

     Yeah, I'm pretty sure I should never post this....I'm probably not ready to be quite this honest about my internal struggles, and this is nothing more than a stream-of-consciousness rant about where my head is at on this particular afternoon. Why would you care to read it?


     Yeah, I definitely shouldn't post this entry...


     (Apparently, I changed my mind about that.)

A happy dance

     Perhaps I should give Steve enough time to post this himself, but I'm afraid he won't bother.  

     This morning at school, he took some time to play music and dance with the kids. Luckily, someone captured a few of these moments with Steve's camera. I love the joy on both of these faces, especially since I know that this little girl started out as a very withdrawn and quiet kid and has blossomed in the classroom thanks to Steve's efforts.
    
     Lots of kids in that classroom have blossomed thanks to Steve's efforts. And thanks to the generosity of many people far from here who have sent toys and art supplies and books, those kids are having an immensely richer experience than they were having six months ago.

     I admire Steve's dedication to those children and the  patience that allows him to work in an environment of chaos and constant change. If we came here to make some small difference, he has certainly succeeded with those 50+ kids he works with every morning.

I'm not sure who's having more fun.

My recent reading (and other) adventures

     The weather is heating up. While we wake up in the morning to a pleasant 74 degrees or so, the afternoons heat up into the 90’s. I have just broken down and retreated to the bedroom with the a/c on for a few minutes for the first time since we arrived last August. The heat just made me feel too sleepy to accomplish anything, despite my early afternoon nap. So now the temperature here in the bedroom is down to a cool 88 degrees, and I’m feeling quite refreshed – though I miss sitting outside and enjoying the sights and sounds of the world in and around our front yard.

      I spend a fair amount of time lately reading other people’s blogs, many of them written by people I actually know who are right here in Cambodia. For anyone interested in reading others’ perspectives on their work and adventures here, check out the links here:

     Finding My Way
     Robin is a fellow Vermonter who is here for three weeks or so as part of her around-the-world adventure. We never met before she arrived here last week, but she is the former coworker of the sister of a friend of mine, so we emailed a lot in the months leading up to her arrival. I enjoy reading the perspective of a first-time visitor and being reminded of our own first experiences here as we tried to make sense of everything we were seeing.

     Don't Count the Moments...Make the Moments Count 
     Dorothy and her husband Gordon are here for a couple of months and volunteering fulltime at a new NGO that I’ve visited a couple of times. They were here last year, which is when I first met them at Seven Candles Guest House.

     Throw Off The Bowlines 
     Hahn is a pathologist from Oregon who came to volunteer at a small clinic which has since been closed unexpectedly, so now he’s making the most of things and having other adventures. We met him through Dorothy and Gordon.

     http://sullivanandgelfer.posterous.com/ 
     The Sullivan-Gelfer family (Joe and Carol and their teenage son and daughter) are from Portland (Oregon) and will be here until April. Three out of four of them are volunteering in some capacity with New Hope, as well as doing other things. They are possibly the most energetic, upbeat, well-adjusted people I have ever met, and we love spending time with them. Many happy dinners have been enjoyed together.

     Asta's Blog 
     Asta is a young woman from…oh dear, Sweden perhaps? – who is here and doing a lot of work with Life & Hope Association, so she blogs from time to time about the girls at the PAGE program, where I have a bit of a connection, so we’ve met a few times.

     Barbara in Cambodia 
     Barbara is a British woman who has been here several times now and is quite involved with the Ponheary Ly Foundation (which was our original volunteer experience.) We see Barbara at Seven Candles now and then.
     This one is good if you can read Hungarian. 
     Our friend Eszter writes a lovely blog, and for amusement, you can ask Google to translate the Hungarian into English for you. Unfortunately, it won't really make it any easier to understand.

     I also read a number of other blogs that focus on all things Cambodian: listings of upcoming events, news round-ups, blogs from other volunteers at the organization where I originally worked, and varied writing from both Khmer people and ex-pats. Each one provides its own little perspective on life here (and on the writers themselves) and I enjoy the different perspectives. Together, they also keep me in front of my computer screen a fair bit each day, which explains why I haven’t been reading much in the way of books over the last couple of weeks.

    Here’s an update on what keeps me busy besides reading about other people’s adventures and volunteer experiences:

     I’ve been going out to a little orphanage outside of town every couple of weeks or so to check in and provide some basic health supplies and education. My connection to this place is through a Dutch friend here who has devoted an enormous amount of time and energy there over the past year or two. I originally stumbled upon it while on a bike ride a year or two ago and I remember being a bit appalled by the conditions there. The organization houses 50+ kids in ramshackle palm leaf huts patched together with scraps of wood and cardboard, and is staffed by a Khmer couple. Resources are slim, but the kids living there get three meals a day, access to toilets and a place to wash, and can go to public school, which may be more than many of them would get in another situation. Thanks to a generous donation from someone back home,  I’ve put together a bit of a basic medical kit for them – thermometers, bandaids, bandages, paracetomol (aka Tylenol), antibiotic and antifungal creams, oral rehydration salts, throat lozenges, and a Khmer copy of the book “Where There Is No Doctor.” Last Sunday when I went there, Yeum (my Khmer teacher) came along to translate for me, and now he’s planning to volunteer.  I also brought Robin (whose blog is referenced above) who had just arrived in Cambodia a day or two before, which gave her a bit of a stark introduction to some of the realities of Cambodian life.

The orphanage - I worry about conditions when the rainy season returns.

Some Khmertastic brickwork there

New (Dutch) brickwork and sinks being installed

     I’ve also promised to do something similar for another NGO/orphanage, but I need to wait until the director returns from a trip to work out the details.

     In addition, I have a real “job” of sorts with an international organization that houses young girls who have been victims of rape or have been rescued from sex trafficking. This will keep me busy 2-3 times a week for a few hours each time, providing some health oversight, training and supporting the housemothers in addressing minor health problems that arise, and generally being available for anyone and anything that might benefit from the attention of a nurse. So far the bulk of my orientation has been spending time hanging out and playing with the girls so we can all get to know each other better, which has been delightful. They range in age from 5-17 and come from all over the country, with a variety of stories to tell. Unfortunately, our lack of a common language means I can’t communicate with them as I wish I could, but it has certainly been a motivating factor in buckling down with my Khmer studies. In the meantime, we use a translator and/or the universal language of smiles, gestures, and body language.

     My brain continues to resist all efforts to learn a new alphabet and new language, and I continue to try to overcome that resistance. I know enough of the alphabet now to occasionally be able to read a sign as I pedal around town, and I’m as excited as any self-respecting six-year-old who’s just learning how to read. I’ve started combining my effort to learn the alphabet with learning a few words or phrases every week that I can use with the girls – and those words seem to stick better as I have a chance to practice them immediately. I can now name eleven colors, and some basic emotions/states (happy, sad, worried, scared, hungry, thirsty, tired.) It’s slow going, but I’m trying to be patient.

     Someday, when my Khmer gets much better, I’ll be able to read children’s books, which will be exciting. In the meantime, there are many Khmer children’s picture books printed in both English and Khmer (for the benefit of Khmer people learning English, I assume) – which provide me with another interesting glimpse into the culture. I’ve begun to collect these inexpensive paperbacks, choosing them mostly based on title or cover illustration. Some of my favorite titles include:

• Magic Nose Boy
•  Rose Growing on Cow Dung
• The Girl Entering the Age of Puberty
• Obedient Baby Frog
• Ghost on Large Banana Tree
• Salted Egg Child
• Godlike Doctor

This one is about a robber who kidnaps a young girl and keeps her locked up in a room until puberty.
Eventually, she is rescued by a young man who loves her for her beautiful white sun-deprived skin.

This wins for scariest cover illustration.
(That's blood coming from her eyes.)

Part of the paragraph on this page:
"The husband suspected his wife's strange behavior since he saw her eyes became big,
came out in a reddish way and moved up and down,
 and the unpleasant smell of corpses came from the bedroom."
The unpleasant smell of corpses is generally a good warning sign, I think...

  
   Unfortunately for those learning English, the translations are sometimes a bit off, or at the very least awkward. Of course, sometimes the stories are just a bit awkward themselves. One story titled “Kong Hean” tells the story of a cowardly man whose two wives repeatedly save him from savage wild animals and other threats, while he takes credit for their actions. At one point, Kong Hean is riding an elephant into battle and as he “was getting nearer the enemies, Kong Hean was frightened nearly to die, excreting and urinating and shivering with fear...” There’s a wonderful illustration of Kong Hean on the elephant with his two wives behind him covering their mouths and noses in disgust. The story goes on to use the terms “excreting and urinating” at least twice more. I don’t really understand the lesson meant to be taken from the story. Despite being a coward and taking credit for others’ bravery, he never gets his come-uppance. The last words of the story are in bold print: Fear is stronger than love. What are we to make of that?

     The moral of another story is Good-looking people are not always industrious ones. Hmmmmm….

     And The Girl Entering the Age of Puberty has some interesting quotes:

• An unmarried rich man says, “This wealth will be useless, it is regretful. If I have a wife and children, they will inherit it and I won’t be so lamentable."
• A young couple meet for the first time and then: “They chatted with each other. Moreover she welcomed him in a way of loving.”

     So perhaps if I keep plugging away at learning Khmer, “I won’t be so lamentable.”

     The most intriguing book of all comes courtesy of my friend Lori, who posted this image on her Facebook page:

     This comes without English translation so it remains a mystery why the woman on the cover appears to be breastfeeding a full-grown man while forest animals gather around and laugh. According to Jaz, the title of the story is ‎"50 Minutes to Give the Kid Advice."  Someone might want to give that woman some advice...

More Saturday morning bike rides

     We have made it a habit to take a bike ride on Saturday mornings. We never leave the house quite as early as we intend to, but usually by 10:00 am we head out, water bottles and cameras in our bike baskets, and make an effort to ride somewhere we haven't been before. It's one of my favorite things to do, and we haven't failed to find new roads to explore. I especially love heading out of town and into the countryside, where the scenery changes from urban to rural in a matter of minutes.

     The photos say more than I can tell you in words.

Typical stilted house - the space underneath is a perfect place to park bicycles and motorbikes,
hang a hammock, wait out a rainstorm, etc.

Tending the rice paddy

I love all these beautiful orderly gardens

I'm not sure what she's harvesting here - maybe morning glory?

Dry rice fields, cows, palm trees...beautiful

High tech equipment

Buffalo - they just like to hang out

I still haven't figured out how they stack the hay like this

More lovely  vegetable plots

"Ting mong" - to protect from bad spirits 

You see these guys less often, but they sure are impressive!

Kids come running to the roadside to wave and shout hello to the foreigners

I love the variety of spirit houses

     And then there are sights like this:

"Do you have any idea what we're doing here?"
"Not a clue. How about you?"