We Are Back!

Hello Friends!

We had to suddenly return to the US after getting word of the unexpected death of Tod's mom on March 7. Our focus was on this difficult tragedy so we did not update the blog. We have settled back into our life in Kampot and now feel its time to resume our posts. We have recently spent time in Preah Sihanouk "Ream" National Park which will provide some beautiful pictures. We also will be posting the second part of our trip to Seam Reap. Right now is also the tail end of the Khmer New Year (Soo-a s'day ch'num t'may!)

The hospital also opened for inpatient and emergency services for 24h/7 operations. It has been a challenge in some ways, but the hospital is saving lives in even more ways, especially those of the children that come in.

And to our family and friends that helped us through the difficult loss of Tod's mom - thank you and God bless you for being there.

Turning the page...

Siem Reap - Day One (Cont)

The Floating Village of Chong Khneas

Day one stop number two was the floating village. It is a village that lives in the middle of a lake on house boats. To get to it, you have to take about a thirty minute boat ride to get to the middle of the lake. But it was definately a site to see.


We went to Siem Reap with two other people from the Phnom Penh church, Gerlinda Lucas and Will Goodwin. The guy in the very back was our tuk-tuk driver extraordinaire Phirun.

The village is made up of a couple hundred house boats. They also have a couple of restaurants, stores, gas station, basketball court, a clinic and a school. There are several hundred people that live in the floating village.

 

We ate at one of the restaurants that also had a crocodile farm, fish farm and some kids with snakes.

 

The guy on the right looks very hungry!!

 

This was the BIG DADDY of the gators!

 

Tod let them put one of the snakes around his neck, but Michelle wasn't going near them.

Look at that smile.

That's the sign of insanity...someone puts a snake on you and you smile.

 

That evening, we went to a photo gallery exhibit that several Ex-Pats were holding of life around Cambodia. It was very impactful to see some of the the horrendous mistreatments that the Cambodian people are suffering. Many are taken out of their homes, put in trucks and dumped into a field and told to live their because the property their home was on is needed to build somthing commercial.

Here we are with one of the Photo Journalist, David Belluz who was displaying his work.

 

To finish our night, we went downtown Siem Reap for dinner and watched a live band.

 

The best part was they had generators so had electricity and internet so everyone was able to update their facebook pages and check their e-mail. How did we survive without technology???



Siem Reap - Day One

The Silk Farm Tour

We spent three days in Siem Reap this past weekend. We saw a lot during that time, met some wonderful people, made some new friends and had an overall great time. The unfortunate thing for the town was a truck hit several electric poles on Thursday pulling down 20 poles total, so the town was out of power for over 5 days. This meant only people who had generators had any power or electricity. Thankfully our guesthouse, the Traveler's Inn (www.siemreaptravelersinn.com) had a generator so we had running water and ceiling fans to sleep at night. The hosts are members of the Siem Reap church and we felt very welcome there. So on to our sightseeing. We are going to break these into a couple of blogs so we can show more pictures.

Our first day, we went to a Silk Farm. It was amazing. The silk farm is located about 20 minutes from down town Siem Reap. It was put into a rural area so they could have plenty of space for the mulberry trees that the worms eat from. It also created over 1000 jobs for those people living on the outskirts of Siem Reap. The free tour they have is very informative and fascinating.

 

When we got there, they walked us through the entire process of how they cultivate the worms and gather the silk thread from their cocoons.

These are moths that have mated (some were still in the process) and are now laying eggs.

 

 

 

 

They have them on papers so that they can see the eggs as they hatch. 

 





 

Here is a picture of some of the worms right before they start their cocoon process. When they turn yellow that means they are ready to cocoon.

 

And then they cocoon.

 

They then spin the silk separating the raw and fine silks. The raw silk comes from the outer layers of the cocoon while the finer silk comes from the inner layers. They gather it by putting the cocoons into water and pulling the silk that way.

 

They then dye the silks using various natural elements (leaves, bark, berries, etc) to make the dyes. That is why unless you get the silk from the same batch you won't be able to match the color because it is not an exact science.

 They then spin the silks onto spools and use the silks to hand weave fabrics out of them.

 

Then they use the fabrics to create beautiful clothing. Like these traditional wedding clothes. The entire process was fascinating and we enjoyed it very much.

 

 

 

An Office of Our Own

Because we don't spend enough "quality" time here (with no TV or transportation to get away from each other) we now are sharing an office. We do have a nice view and windows that open to bring in the cool breeze. It also has air conditioning so that when it starts to get really hot in a few months we can stay cool!! YEAH for air conditioning in the heat. The best part is we get to be able to see each other at any time by just looking up from our computers. This 24/7 togetherness is great (at least for now - LOL.) Good thing we like each other.

So now, for those of you who don't think we are working, here is our office to show even if we aren't working (Michelle is always reading FB) we can at least look like we are.

 

Oh and we have our own bathroom!!!

First Sunday Service in Kampot

Feb 20 - We had a great weekend (last weekend). About a dozen members of the Phnom Penh Church of Christ came down to hold the first service here in Kampot. We spent Saturday afternoon going around downtown Kampot inviting people to come to our service on Sunday. We were also honored to host a potluck dinner at our house on Saturday night with everyone. It was very exciting and felt so right to be hosting a party again like we often did back in NJ before the fire. The Cambodians brought Khmer food and we Ex-Pats made our various Western dishes. We also bought fresh homemade lemon meringue and banana cream pies from the Pie and Ice Cream Palace in Kampot which were AWESOME (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kampot-Pie-Ice-Cream-Palace/163818297074172). There was plenty of food to go around and everyone had their fill.

 

 

 

 

Sunday morning we had church at the Borey Bokor Hotel conference room. We wound up having 11 visitors from the hospital and in town. Sovann Seng from the Phnom Penh preached a great message. We are still trying to get use to hearing the message in Khmer and being translated to English. I love the way they sing the songs - they sing verses in Khmer and then in English.  All in all it was a very good turn out and several people asked to study the bible after service. This was all very encouraging for the people from Phnom Penh and they have promised to start coming down once a month to have service here in Kampot. Keep praying for the church to build and Christianity to be spread throughout Cambodia.

A Valentines Day bouquet for Michelle, freshly picked:

Valentines Day generates a lot of enthusiasm in Cambodia. Here is a short story on it in the Cambodia Herald: http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=MTJmYTRjMTlhMDh. Notice the the flowers were now up to $1.50 US!

Tod took Michelle out to Mea Culpa, probably the best pizza in all of SE Asia (http://www.meaculpakampot.com/)! Yum!

Drying Clothes in Kampot

A quick shot of our clothes drying mechanism.