Journal #2

-Aug. 13^th-

Today was our first day in Sompovloun, specifically the Kilo Dap-Bye (Kilometer 13, or K13) Village. This is quite the place! Dirt roads, motodopes (motorcycle taxis), mangy dogs, cattle, goats, and Khymer (ka-my) people are everywhere! We are the only white folk here, and I think that for some of the people, we are the first ‘barang’ (foreigners) they have ever seen! We have gotten many stares!

We stopped at the center and met Pastor Sophan (so-pan), his wife Sopheap (so-pee-up), and their three-year-old Ezra! The Khymer people can’t say ‘Z’, so they just call him Esra, with a flapped ‘R’. He is a pretty cute little boy! The center is pretty nice, with a little room, an open shed where they hold some meetings, a nice backyard (very muddy), and a goat yard! They also have a swing set that has fallen into disrepair, which we might fix if we get the time. We also took a look at the wood we will be using…this campstool project might be quite the deal! No two boards was the same width or length, and none of them was straight; some were horrible! We glanced at the saws that were bought locally, most had rust spots on them, and they looked like they would not cut butter! This is going to be quite a project!

We checked into the Tay Haeng (tie-hang) Guesthouse, and it’s actually not that bad! Coming into this trip, I really had no idea where we would be living, so I just expected that we would be in a hut, on a mat with a mosquito net over us! Well, when you set your expectations that low, anything is nice! There were a few holes in the walls, but we had running water, which meant cold showers everyday! I had expected that we would have bucket baths, or less! We had air conditioning, a European style toilet, and a nice bed (well, nice if you like coconut fiber mattresses and pillows, which I don’t mind). However, to the average American it would be pretty hard. It was like sleeping on…well; let’s just say that you don’t sink down when you lay down! The nature of coconut fiber bedding is that it is very dense and is very heavy, so even the pillows weigh about 5 pounds!

Megan and Paula’s room had a 6-inch spider in it that Ben killed…so that was a bit of excitement! I am reminded that the plants and wildlife are different in Asia!

We had our first meal at the haeng-dye (restaurant) in Sasada, which is where we will be having all our meals. It is about a four-minute moto ride, and I can tell I am going to like the moto rides! Ben sat behind me and got video of the ride. The motos are not really like the motorcycles we have in America, they are little 125 cc scooters; but you can do so much with these little things! We have seen up to four people on one, and sometimes there are so many bags and boxes that you can’t see the driver! We put two on each, so we need a total of five motos each way. The cost is 1000 riel per person, one way, which equates to about 25 cents in US dollars.

The biggest thing we have to be careful of is landmines. When Pol Pot came though, his army COVERED the country in mines…so many that it will take another few hundred years before they get rid of all of them. They laid down so many, and then the rains unsettled them, so some stayed at the surface, and some have sunk down far enough that you don’t know they are there. They only go off if they are at the surface…but the rain keeps unsettling the dirt and bring new ones up. Just a few years ago, they hired a minesweeper and found three live mines in the backyard of the center. If we keep to the roads and well traveled areas, we should be fine. What an amazing blessing we have in the US that we can walk anywhere we want without fear of losing limbs!

An amazing day today, and I am tired! I hope that I will sleep well tonight!

-Aug. 14^th-

I actually slept pretty good last night! Ben and I have a room with one double bed, which works fine, except for sharing a blanket, so we got another. We both tend to be a blanket hog!

Breakfast was a different experience for me. I ordered noodle soup, which was basically Ramen noodles, a few various greens, and some pork parts. I say ‘parts’ because not all of them were what an American would consider meat. The liver was tougher than leather, so I left that alone. The joints were inedible, and there were just a few fatty pieces of meat.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot (yeah right!)…there were a few chunks of small intestine. Well, I was not planning to eat that, but I was a bit curious, so I asked Micah if he had had it. He said that it did not make his list of favorite foods, so I asked him what it was like…and he said, “well why don’t you find out?” Well, I could not think of a good answer to that, so I popped a bit in my mouth! That was the absolute worst mistake of the trip so far. It tastes WORSE than it sounds. It tasted absolutely like bitter dirt, and was honestly the bitterest food I have ever eaten. Not only that, the texture was comparable to rubber. I chewed and chewed and chewed…and finally I just swallowed it whole. Yuck. I am NEVER doing that again!

It was Sunday, so we went to church at the center at 2pm. That service definitely ranks one of the best church services I have EVER been to. It was just 15-20 adults in a small room, with a little stand at the front. All the kids went outside to the open shed, and had Children’s Church. The adults began with singing. It was honestly some of the worst singing I have ever heard, but they were all praising God in their own language! That made it a beautiful noise unto the Lord!

Fellowship while the rest of the people were arriving.

Prayer time followed…and there the people introduced us to the Khymer prayer method. The pastor starts praying, and then everyone else joins in, praying about his or her own individual prayer requests. I choked up…it was so beautiful. The man next to me got down on his knees and lifted his hands to heaven. A few people had silent tears running down their cheeks as they prayed. Even though I could not understand the language, I knew that many of them were praying for their daily bread, literally, because they did not have enough money for the next day. It was so beautiful. The pastor closed when it started to die down.

Then there was the sermon. Pastor Sophan preached about the flood, but all he told us in English was the reference, so I have no idea what the sermon was about. The people asked questions, and there was plenty of discussion! It was so cool to see that much interaction in a church service. Many church services in the US seem lifeless compared to that little gathering of believers.

They ended with an offering and another prayer time. What an amazing church service. You could FEEL the presence of God in the room.

After the service, we hung around and played with the kids. The kids in Cambodia are so different than American kids, but yet the same. The biggest difference is that every kid looks five years younger, so the kids that looked seven or eight were actually twelve or thirteen. They were SO easy to entertain. I rolled a tennis ball on the floor with an eleven year old for ten minutes, and he never got bored! We only stopped because I got tired of sitting that long! I went outside and tossed kids into the air for half an hour, basically until I my arms wouldn’t do it anymore. Then I carried them piggyback for another 30 minutes. Each kid wanted to do it again and again, and some would stand on a bench four feet away, jump, and slam into me, trying to knock the kid already on my back off so they could have a turn!

After that, the kids dragged me over to the ditch in front of the center…a vertical six foot drop. They yelled and hurled themselves off the edge, landing with a thud in the mud/dirt at the bottom. I was shocked to say the least, watching kids jump into a ditch two or three times their height! The motioned for me to jump and it took a little courage at first! Then they all climbed up again and jumped off. It looked SO impressive from the ground, watching these little kids who look to be between the ages of five and eight freefall!

When they tired of that, I pulled out my harmonica and played for them. They REALLY enjoyed that. The liked to hear me play American Folk, Irish Jigs, and Blues, none of which sound anything like Khymer music. I also played one of their guitars.

After supper, our team made a rule that a guy has to ride with a girl at all times on the motos. We were not really thinking that anything bad would happen, but the motodopes sometimes would miss the turns or something like that, and so it was just a good precaution. We had our debriefing meeting, and I will be heading to bed soon!

-Aug. 15^th-

Today was the first day of VBS…and that was an incredible experience! I am SO tired…it takes a lot of energy to work with 60 kids who hardly speak English!

The VBS theme for today was honoring your parents, so we performed a shortened version of the story of Ruth as the skit. I was Boaz, so I didn’t have to do much.

The kids sang first thing in the morning, and then Pastor Sophan gave a little overview of the story. Then he narrated in Khymer while we performed the skit…but that was a bit difficult, since we didn’t know what he was saying or at what point he was in the skit. After that, as a craft, we taught the kids how to make friendship bracelets. Most of the boys never got it, so they just tied a whole bunch of knots in their stings to make a bracelet. We tied their bracelets on their wrists, and the look of joy on their faces was priceless. We did not do a game, but went right into the projects. The girls are making a drawstring backpack, and the boys are making the campstools.

The boys are all hard workers for their age, so they buckled right down to work cutting boards as soon as Sophan had given them the lengths to cut. Their precision in cutting was…minimal, but it should work. Every board was within a few inches of the designated length! Sophan had the team drill the holes, since that was a job that did not require language skills.

When all that wrapped up, the kids went home and we headed to lunch. We rested for about an hour after lunch, and then headed to the center. We prepared for the English lessons, which we will teach to the older kids and adults. From 3 to 5pm we taught the lessons. I am helping teach an intermediate class with Jeff. There are three people in our group. They all look to be 17 or so, but the oldest is 31, and the youngest is 22. Cambodian ages are SO hard to guess. The lesson went well; we read and discussed the nativity story. I think by the end of two hours the students brains were fried, but they were learning a lot and enjoying it! We had our debriefing meeting after supper, and now we are pretty much just relaxing. I am really tired.