A Week to Remember

This past week, which marked the Khmer New Year, our family spent five days in a rural village in the province of Kompong Thom, about 3 hrs drive from Phnom Penh. We went in response to the invitation of our house helper, Ming Nyaw, staying with the family of her older sister. The experience was an excellent opportunity to learn more about Khmer culture and to experience rural Cambodian life. Though challenging in many ways, we are grateful for what we learned from the week.

The house was a traditional Khmer house, cement on ground floor and wooden on the second floor. It had electricity, and even a generator for when the village electric wasn’t available (a daily occurrence). There was a well nearby the house and water was pumped up through a hose to large cement holding troughs. When needed, water was then dipped out of these tanks to wash dishes, shower, or flush the toilet.

The owners of the house, the family of Nyaw's older sister, were farmers. They grew cashews, cucumbers, and some other vegetables. Here we are showing off cashew fruits. (The cashew grows in the seedpod on the top.)

The fruit is much larger than the nut, and is a bit bitter in taste. We had the opportunity to eat the fruit dipped in syrup made of palm sugar.

Khmer families typically gather together to celebrate the New Year, so we got to meet and interact with many of Nyaw’s relatives. One day we went with several of the youth and children to a small lake where we played in the water. Juliana and Kai had a grand time there! Later in the week we hiked a mountain together.

The youth/children enjoyed watching Kai eat and kept him entertained.

Proof that playing with cars is a boyhood activity that transcends age, language and culture.

One day we traveled an hour and a half to visit friends from Phnom Penh Mennonite Church. There we enjoyed visiting, and were served a tasty lunch. Juliana also enjoyed serving lunch... to the chickens! (She had good practice with her Paw-Paw’s chickens in Atglen, PA.)

Here we are with Nyaw (center in pink/black/white stripes) and some of her children and extended family members. We were on the grounds of a Buddhist pagoda, which also serves as a community gathering place for the Khmer New Year. Here we got to see some dancing (the group dances remind us a bit of country line dancing) and buy some drinks. Though there was not much in the way of farm animals, exhibits, or tractor displays, the whole event had the feel of a Lancaster County fall fair.

On Friday afternoon we were happy to arrive back home in Phnom Penh. We were feeling physically and emotionally tired from the lack of sleep, the lack of predictable routine, and the lack of space to just be alone as a family.

Our prayer is that God will continue to lead us into deeper understandings of Khmer culture. We aren't planning on giving up our American citizenship, but as servants of Christ, we want to follow the example of Paul, who said, "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some."(I Cor 9:22) May God grant us grace to discover ways to clearly model and articulate God's truth and grace to our friends in this culture.

- Ryan

Turning Up the Heat

Indeed. It's getting rather warm here in Cambodia, and as the heat increases, so does the frequency of power outages. We've been blessed where we live to not experience as many and as lengthy blackouts as some other parts of the city (not sure exactly why), but it's still a bummer. Just when you really want to be able to count on consistent airflow from your nearest fan, you may instead be sitting in your sweat, praying for the power to come back on... : )

The change of temperature has also marked another change in the Umble home. We began a new schedule of language study last week - Ryan and I are studying together for the first time! We are taking the Institute of Foreign Language's Level II Khmer, and it's going really well. As you may recall, Ryan studied Level I there, but I spent the last 6 months with a private tutor. I was curious how it would be to jump in at the second level, not having taken IFL's first course, but so far, so good. We were also a bit concerned about the childcare situation, but needn't have worried. Nyaw, our house helper, agreed to lengthen her work day by an hour and a half to enable us to take the class together. (She hadn't really watched the kids before - we took turns studying and tending them ourselves.) Juliana and Kai are usually both napping when we leave for class at 3:30 pm, and then they play with "Om" (older aunt) until we return by 6:15 pm. We're thinking it will also be a boost for them to learn Khmer, as they play and communicate more directly with her. (No parents around for Juliana to request an English translation!)

Lokru (teacher) Phara, our professor at IFL is a jovial and knowledgeable instructor

"Om Nyaw" and her rambunctious charges

Next week is Khmer New Year, the biggest holiday of the year. It's actually three days long, but most of the city empties out for the entire week as people travel to their hometowns to celebrate with family. We'll be joining Nyaw and some of her children for a five-day visit to their relatives in Kompong Thom. We're looking forward to a lot of new cultural learning experiences, but we hear that it might be a week lacking in sleep due to the noisy, late-night festivities that accompany the celebration. We'll let you know all about it in a couple weeks! : )

- Bethany