Back to School

Although we've been learning Khmer ever since we arrived in Cambodia six months ago (tonight!), we recently stepped up our studies by enrolling in language courses where, in addition to listening and speaking, we're going to attempt to learn to read and write. Last week, to aid our study of the Khmer alphabet, I bought and hung two posters on the walls of our dining room. Now, as we eat our American breakfasts and Khmer lunches and suppers, we get to study the never-ending (or so they seem!) consonants and vowels. And just in case anyone out there is interested in studying them a bit, too, I'll give you an introduction.

In the poster above, each block showcases a consonant in the upper-left corner, a subscript in the lower-left corner (I haven't really learned what they're all about, but I believe mainly used to spell words that have two consonants beside each other), a picture of a word that begins with that consonant, and the word spelled in small letters in the bottom-right corner. Red consonants are first series (with an "-aw" sound) and blue consonants are second series (with an "-oh" sound). So, reading across the top, the letters are Kaw, Khaw, Koh, Khoh, Ngoh. (And the k without the h behind sounds more like our g, but now I'm getting technical...)

This is a close-up of the numbers 0-9 on the bottom right of the same poster. Starting on the left top (with zero) and reading down two columns, the numbers are shown characterized by an animal with the black numeric script beside it on the right. Thankfully, the arabic numerals we're used to in the west are recognized and used universally as well, or we'd be lost just trying to find an address or get a phone number!

And here we have the 23 vowels, which each have a first and second series sound as well, making for nearly 46 vowel sounds! One knows (once one has mastered the alphabet, that is!) which sound to use by the series of the consonant with which it's used in conjuction - oh, and as far as position, the vowels can go over top, beside, or below the consonant. (For example, in the photo with the numbers, two vowels are seen on the bottom left -the grey circle represents the location of a consonant.) Also, for your viewing pleasure, an assortment of pictures/words of Southeast Asian food.

*Side note: The fruit in the center of the poster (third row, third column from left) is called durian (English) or Too-rain (Khmer), and to many (I'm not one of them) is considered a delicacy. It is large, about the size of a football, has soft, yellow-white flesh, a VERY pungent odor and a unique taste. In my own opinion, the smell is a cross between sweaty, old gym clothes and rotten eggs, and the taste reminds me of an onion omelet. We have heard of airlines that forbid travel with said fruit, hotels prohibiting its consumption on their premises, and a wife who can always tell hours later after her husband indulges his durian cravings - his breath gives him away!)

So, on the days when learning the Khmer alphabet is more than we can grasp, we try to take lessons from our kids and either not let it scare us...

... or just grin and bear it anyway!

PS. Language Learning Update: We've had a recent change of plans, and Ryan and I are actually taking two different courses - he's still at the university (Institute of Foreign Languages), but I'm now studying with a tutor at Khmer School of Language. We are each happy with our teacher/tutor, and the arrangement is working well.

- Bethany

Welcome to our Home - Part Two

On this post we'll continue the tour of our home, started in the last post. Welcome to the second floor of our home.













First we'll see Juliana's room. Notice our little "almost four-year-old" sound asleep in her little blue "tent" which keeps the mosquitoes away while she sleeps. The mosquitoes here aren't too bad, but we've woken up with some polka-dotted arms and legs when we've slept without a net or when we've not stayed completely covered up with a sheet.














Next we have Bethany, my, and Kai's room. Little Kai is hiding behind the rungs of his crib. He had just woken up from a nap, so he wasn't too happy I took this shot.














This is the family room with a bookshelf and sofa opposite the wall pictured. This is where bed-time stories are read and DVD's are watched. The multi-colored foam squares below the T.V. are to prevent Kai from chewing on the remotes.




This tour brought to you in part by Children's Tylenol, which helps fussy teething babies, like the one here, reclaim their photogenic smile.

-Ryan

Dad Turns 60!

Today, October 6th, 2008 is a special day indeed. It marks the 6oth birthday of one of my most favorite persons, my dad! To those of you who know him, you understand why I deeply appreciate him. To those of you who don't know him, you're missing out. I love you Dad!

See the 60 year old man in the pictures below...

Family Photo, Summer 2007 at Swampy Hollow Farm

With Juliana and Mom, Summer 2007 at our home at Turtle Hill Rd.

Wtih Mom, Juliana, and Kai during some special months of living together at 530 Valley Ave, Early Spring 2008

-Ryan

Welcome to Our Home - Part One

We've been wanting to give you a tour of our home for a while, but were waiting until we were able to "rip-jahm" (organize) a bit more. But if we were to wait until everything was where we want it and neatly arranged, you'd probably never get to see it! So, just like I would say if you were here to take a tour in person, "Please excuse the mess!" and enjoy photos from House 0A, Street Tapun, Phnom Penh, Cambodia...

This is our first-floor living room, facing out to the street.

Here are Juliana and Kai playing in the living room (looking in from the front doors, with the dining room in the background)

A family meal around the dining room table

Our wonderful housekeeper, Ming (younger aunt) Nyaw, cooks a meal in the "outside kitchen" (which isn't really outside, but in a tiny room at the back of the house). It's separated from the "main" kitchen by a door (photo on right taken from that doorway facing in toward the front of the house.)

(Side note: the clear, glass cupboard on the right is where we keep our pantry/dry good items, and we call it the "ant cupboard." We don't keep ants in it - the name comes from the fact that this type of cupboard stands in "ant cups" which are filled with water or talc powder - which ants won't cross - to keep ants from getting into one's food supply. The ants here are a very determined bunch, and will get everywhere and anywhere if you're not careful!)

This shot is taken from the back of the "gonline da lan" (place to put a car), standing right outside the screen door from the main kitchen. It's big enough for 3 cars, we're told, but we mostly use it to park the EMM van; keep the trash and recycleables until they're thrown to the street for the trash men or given away to the recycle collectors, respectively; and to have visitors park their motorbikes inside.

Well, that's enough of a tour for this week, since we really do need to clean up a bit in some of the rooms. Also, the kids are napping in two of them! : )

But I thought I'd leave you with a photo from a recent outing to a Bubble Tea restaurant. Bubble teas are pretty popular in Asia, and usually consist of a milk-based, flavored tea with large, black, tapioca pearls in the bottom of the glass. I've never been one for things floating (or sinking!) in my beverages, but these are really tasty drinks. They're served with enormous straws through which one sucks the tea and tapioca pearls. Juliana especially likes these teas, and we've been to three different BT resaurants already! (The ones you see in the photo below are (L to R) honeydew, coffee, and almond.)

- Bethany

Muddy Roads, Pure Hearts

As many were rolling out of bed in Phnom Penh this past Saturday, I was rolling out of the capital in the EMM van. Destination? Kompong Cham, one of Cambodia’s rural provinces. I proudly drove the group of 11 university students and Sophal, the women’s dorm director to visit the family of Chairon, a third year student. What incredible young people I had the opportunity to travel with! The eleven hour round trip was filled with loud conversation, laughter, and the singing together of a wide selection of Christian worship songs. The purpose of the trip was to strengthen the relationship between Chairon’s family and EMM's dorm, to recruit potential dorm students, and to discern ways in which the current students can be praying for her family and her home village.


Highlights of the trip include:
--Having my first taste of fried tarantula. I am being truthful when I say the little bugger’s legs actually did taste good. Hungry, anyone?
--Driving for 2 hrs. on the worst road I have been on in my life. (Not an exaggeration). This road made PennDot’s workmanship look good. The rainy season had created a muddy, bumpy, puddle-filled semblance of a road. Thankfully we only had to stop once on this road because the spare tire which was located under the vehicle was dislodged from its home.
--Most of my interactions with the dorm students have been in the setting of a worship service or a brief conversation at one of the dorms. Therefore, I was grateful for the opportunity to have an extended period of time to relate with them in a context where they could “let their hair down.”
--Coming home to my lovely wife and two children was the closing highlight of the day. It’s rare that I spend the whole day away from them, so it was good to be back home.

Enjoy the pictures below,
Ryan





Chairon's Family's house with the EMM van parked in front.





The stundents enjoying the noon meal on a traditional Cambodian rice mat.

Posing for a picture before we departed. Chairon's family in back and university dorm students and I in front.

The Latest Edition

We realized recently that we're due for some updates on various situations and experiences we've written about recently. Sorry to keep you hanging on the household plumbing saga and the family's health! As far as the indoor flooding, we are back to being on dry land when it rains - the worker came while we were in Thailand and cleaned out the clog in the pipes. (Not to get into too many yucky details, plumbing here is generally pretty wimpy, and it's very typical to put used toilet tissue into a wastebasket in the bathroom instead of flushing it - sometimes the septic system can't handle it. We hadn't needed to do that at the other house we lived in, and were hoping not to have to here. Pray that our system - with a little TLC - will handle its load from now on!)

Photo above: Our new home (the AC unit you see is not ours - we use fans and sweat!)

And our family is healthy again, though it was a rough ride. The day that Ryan wrote about needing to take Kai to a doctor, we went to an international clinic (the doctor and nurse we saw were Khmer but spoke English) at 9 pm, concerned that Kai was dehydrating since he couldn't keep anything inside. He received good care and recovered in a few more days. So, after the sickness that started with Juliana, went to Kai, was passed to Daddy and then on to Mommy, we are all back to good health (PTL!).

Three-quarters of the recovered crew

Kai has some more milestones to report. He's been busy cutting more teeth - the total count is up to 6! He was not himself the weeks when two or three of the top four were trying to come through the gums almost all at the same time, but he's less cranky recently since they're almost all in now. His other big news is his new mobility! Our days of just sitting him on his play mat and knowing he'd stay there are over - he's very happy to scoot on his well-padded bottom to explore places that look interesting. We just had a "jee-ung" (worker) here this morning to talk about installing gates for the stairs, in hopes of avoiding a tumble down the concrete, non-carpeted steps!

Showing off his new teeth

Being mobile has interesting moments (getting stuck under a dining room chair being one of them!)

Oh, and he's learning to drive a tuk-tuk, too! (Sok, another tuk-tuk driver/friend, and Kai)

Thank you for praying for us and asking how we are when we forget to give updates. - Bethany

To Thailand, New Holland, and Back

After a long day and a half of traveling North in Cambodia, we crossed the border into Thailand last Thursday. The reason for our journey? A three-day get-together of EMM workers from Southeast Asia, hosted by Skip and Carol Tobin. (Upper Left: A glimpse of Thailand's green rice fields.)


We had a wonderful time interacting with the group of 11 adults and 4 children. We came away from the retreat feeling very encouraged in our faith. Though we don’t have a large EMM Cambodia team to support us, we are grateful for the team we have with these brothers and sisters. We gathered together regularly for meals, worship, Bible study, and prayer. We were blessed by how meaningful the times of prayer for one another were.



A highlight of the weekend was having the opportunity to attend an Isaan-style church service. (Bethany and Kai missed out on this because Kai was sick.) The Isaan people are a people group in Thailand. Skip and Carol Tobin helped to plant this church. The worship group lead the singing using some uniquely Isaan instruments. Though Juliana and I couldn’t sing along, we clapped our hands and enjoyed the joyful noises that were being made to the Lord.

After the service we enjoyed a meal of sticky rice (which you eat with your hands) and all kinds of “fixin’s.”

Here is Juliana, after the meal, playing a xylophone-like instrument with the help of one of the members of the worship band.

While driving in Thailand, Skip pointed out this New Holland tractor retail shop. What a surprise to see this reminder of rural Lancaster County on the other side of the world!

We enjoyed the scenery as we traveled. Here’s a view of Cambodia, close to the Thai border.




The one dissapointment of the trip was Juliana and Kai being sick. Juliana was sick as we traveled to Thailand and Kai was sick as we came home. Juliana is better now, but Kai is still suffering from something in his digestive system. We'll see a doctor tomorrow and hope he'll recover soon.

Can you guess who's feeling sick in who's feeling like himself in this picture? These two grow more and more special to us every day. We are blessed to be their parents...

Until next time,

Ryan

When It Rains, It Pours

As is probably the case with all “new home” dwellers, some things come to light about a new residence only after you’ve actually lived in the house. When we first began to clean and prepare our apartment in the month of July, a few times we came to the house we noticed some puddles on the floor after a rain, and wondered from where it was coming. Then once when the FMC team was here, our guest bathroom drain backed up and flooded the bathroom with sewer water. The mystery deepened when, after very hard rains this past Thursday and Friday, we noticed that the puddles we remembered from before were reappearing, but that the water actually seeped through the walls!? We had our suspicions, which were confirmed Friday evening as our kitchen flooded with rain-/sewer-water. Our diagnosis? A clog in the pipe that runs from the house to the nearby sewer-water drain, that, during torrential downpours (which we’ve had several lately – this is the rainy season, after all) allows rain and sewer water to back up into the pipe that leads to the guest bathroom. This means that when we get flooded, the water is coming simultaneously from the pipe in the kitchen that combines the rain spouts with the bathroom drain water, the overflow in the bathroom itself (which on a bad day flows out into the guest bedroom, down the stairs, and across the hall into the office), and leaking through the walls. Needless to say, such nastiness has significantly added to the stress level of late. Ryan figures the solution to the problem is a visit from a roto-rooter (does Cambodia have such things?) and a new pipe to redirect the rain water away from the pipe that already can’t handle its load. As of this writing, the landlady has been to the house, but the worker who does the fixing has not. Therefore, in light of said problem and the general lack of organization to our home currently, we’re waiting to post pictures of our home until a later date. Stay tuned, but hopefully the saga does not continue!
- Bethany

Fussiness and First Teeth

Our dear Kai, the most easy-going and laid-back member of the family, went through a stage last month of fussiness and irritability that was most unlike him. We figured it was teething time, but his mouth gave no proof of our suspicions. Until… the last week of July - voila! – not just one, but two bottom, baby teeth made an appearance! And just this week, he cut his top left tooth, with the right obviously in hot pursuit of the goal. It makes for a most endearing grin. And we thought he couldn’t get any cuter…

Waving from his highchair, our little man shares the smile for which he's known!

Showing off his two front teeth two weeks ago

With our good friend Sopheak, who recently returned from a year in Canada as a participant with MCC's International Visitors Exchange Program

3-2-1-PRESCHOOL!

Juliana had been asking if it was August ever since June, when the decision was made to enroll her in preschool at Hope International School (http://www.hopeschool-cambodia.org/). She was so excited to begin her educational career that it was her favorite topic of conversation, both with family and with new people we’d meet. Well, the anticipation is over, as Hope opened its doors to students on August 11, and as far as we can tell, preschool is meeting Juliana’s expectations. She attends on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and enjoys playing pretend with other children, painting, playing in sand, and swinging on tire swings. (An interesting note is that the building was already familiar to Juliana since the Preschool moved into the house the Caldwell’s had lived in!)Eating breakfast on the first day of preschool

In front of our new house, leaving for our two-minute walk to Hope Preschool

Juliana in front of her bin at preschool

One of the play areas