Only in Cambodia...

Hello Family and friends,
We have experienced another busy week in Cambodia. This weekend was General Conference for us. What a wonderful two days of inspirational messages. I took lots of notes.Interestingly while conference was going on  there was a funeral being held in another section of the building. Like funerals in the states the family gathers for a meal together. Because of this the building was filled with aromas very foreign to us. As we sat listening to conference the smells grew stronger. We were surprised when the door opened and some of the Khmae sisters came into the room with trays with cups of popcorn on them. They went to the front of the room and began to serve this to the congregation. Only in Cambodia would General Conference be considered "a matinee movie"!

Between sessions we went to the Mission Home for Easter dinner.  The Elders who live in areas some distance from the South District Center where conference was being held enjoyed Easter dinner with us. We experienced a great USA feast of  ham and turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, roasted corn, fruit salad with the wonderful fruits of this area. We had rolls with butter and jam and a veggie platter.  Dessert was a choice of brownies, cupcakes and other sweet cakes. We even had Easter egg candy. As we finished our meal we each took a moment to share a message from conference that we particularly enjoyed. Today was a great day to be in Cambodia.

Saturday between conference sessions we went to Bistro Lorenzo for lunch. It is an Italian restaurant.  I ordered minestrone soup with garlic bread, Dale had a hamburger and some of the other couples ordered lasagna, spaghetti,and salads. My soup was pretty good.  Dale's burger was uneventful. We followed up our lunch with a trip to Swenson's for ice cream sundaes. Swenson's is located in a mini mall. We went to Paragon another of the odd stores in Cambodia.  I bought a new hairdryer. Saturday morning my hair dryer i brought from the states literally went up in smoke.
Some bad news. Dale's sinus infection is acting up. Ice cream triggers miserable side effects for him. He has resolved that he can not have any more ice cream until he gets his infection controlled.  Dairy products seem to make him worse. He was pretty careful today (Sunday).

The photo to the left is of a  young girl who was walking along the street as we were walking home from work. Notice the flames under her pans to keep her foods hot. She is pushing her cart along the street. This is a very common site each day. It is hot outside but she is covered head to toe, including gloves. Light skin is a sign of beauty in Cambodia. In the USA people work hard and spend lots of money to be tanned. The people here do just the opposite.  Several Cambodian women have unfortunately ruined there skin. There is some method used to bleach their skin.  We have seen several women who have patches of white skin on their face, hands and legs. One woman did only her face. It looks a bit odd. There are also some people here with skin disorders which the sun worsens and they also cover up.

This is the parking lot to our office and also where we hold institute classes, the career workshop and attend church once a month at the English speaking branch.  When we arrived to work on Monday this vehicle was in the parking lot. This is basically a hearse.  A young sister died of cancer. She is Vietnamese and her body was being transported closer to her country, but not into Vietnam.  This week there were two funerals at our building. The hearse is like an open air bus. I believe members of the deceased persons family and friends rode with the casket to the burial site. I understand it was a very long trip.
The last two days of this week we taught our first Career Workshop for missionaries returning to the states. Dale did a wonderful job teaching this. Those that attended were really appreciative of the insight he gave them into what to expect when they go to apply for jobs. Since Dale has had experience in interviewing people he was able to give our students good counsel. He did mock interviews and helped the students experience being interviewed. They also experienced being the interviewer. We taught Sister Holloway and Sister Erickson, Elder Sookoo and Elder Wright.  After our class they went for their final interview with President Smedley before departing to the airport for their flight back to the USA. Sister Erickson stayed behind because her family is coming to Cambodia on Tuesday.  She was having mixed feelings about not flying to the states with the other missionaries.  She is so sweet.  She made some games for the missionaries to play while on the plane. The missionaries we taught are going to be a great strength in their wards and communities when they return.  We are blessed to be able to do these workshops.

We have two houses that we are assigned to inspect. It is important that these homes are clean. There have been Elders that have gotten sick because of unclean living conditions.These conditions are preventable. This week we will be delivering supplies to update the 72 Hour Kits and 30 day Emergency Barrels in these homes. We received emergency supplies for our apartment this week also. The buckets and barrel adds so much to our decor. At the end of the week is Khmer New Year.  We have been told that Phnom Penh will become a ghost town. The people travel to their home Provinces.The Elders will be having some fun days together, but only if we give them a good house report.  One of our houses needs to greatly improve.  They have been warned that we are coming on Friday at 3:00 so we hope we will get to allow them to participate with everyone else. I think they will step up to the task.During Khmer New Year we are looking forward to doing some exploring. We also have been asked to speak in church on Sunday. So part of the week will be preparation for that and then of course the usual office work.
Some of you have asked us questions about life in Cambodia. It is hot, but we spend most of our days in an air conditioned office. We walk to work in the morning. Mornings are quite pleasant with usually a gentle breeze.  At the end of our day the air is cooling down. The walk home is warmer than morning but also not too bad. The other day we left early from work and it was HOT, but we survived. We have been blessed to have been offered rides with some of the Senior couples who own cars to some of our events which has been great, but using the tuk tuk is not a bad way to travel. The stores we frequent are similar to the old Kress dime store or Newberry  store if you remember them. They are more expensive than the Dollar Tree,but some of the stores are sort of like that also. The grocery stores are air conditioned and sell a variety of  breakfast cereals in smaller boxes than we are use to with a much higher price tags. For example 14 ounce box of Corn Flakes can cost $8, a pint of Hagen Daz ice cream is $15. Bread is reasonable, eggs are reasonable, fresh fruits and vegetables not bad. Produce is wrapped or bagged so you can't pick individual pieces of fruit, etc.Chocolate chips are hard to find and very expensive when you do find them. Brownie mixes are hard to find as well as cake mixes and muffin mixes.  They are available it is just if you happen to be in the store when the items are on the shelf.  I am learning that if  I want something or think I may want something I better get it when I see it or  I may be out of luck in the future. Products are different than in the USA.  Brown sugar tastes a bit like molasses, granulated sugar is really grainy, flour comes in very small packages, chicken and beef bouillon cubes are bigger and a bit different, spices are very expensive and they don't have a lot to choose from, butter is a bit different, we buy milk in a box on the shelf instead of the refrigerator, however, they do also have fresh milk, pop comes in 11/2 liter bottles instead of 2 liter bottles.  They also have some strange flavors some good and some nasty. Peanut butter is pretty good and so is the jam. Honey is really expensive so we haven't purchased any. Meat is expensive. Most beef is really tough both in the store and in the restaurant. Canned products are expensive. Paper products are expensive and things like napkins are hard to find. Cleaning supplies are different here.  There are some that are the same as in the states but those are really expensive. They have Oreo Cookies packaged like a roll of Ritz Crackers.  We get those as a special treat and when we crave chocolate. Cheese is expensive and hard to find.
We are learning and with time perhaps we will become good shoppers in this crazy part of the world.  We haven't shopped for clothes yet.  That will be another day...so far we have only needed to cook and clean our apartment and clothes. As we learn we will keep you informed. Restaurant prices are very reasonable. Our average restaurant meal has been $3.50.
Friday night I went downstairs to do our laundry.  There had been a down pour of rain.  All the washing machines were covered with water and the ground was drenched.  I try hard not to drop my clothes on the ground or allow things to rub up against anything. Doing laundry has been a new experience. Of course everything is line dried in the main room of our apartment. We have truly downsized.
Thanks for visiting our blog...I hope this next week we will have some fun pictures to share.God bless you all.