Wow, it has been a long while since I updated my blog. The reason being is that I haven't have much to talk about really. It's pretty much the same old with me, teaching English, going to church, leading Bible study, etc... Nothing knew. So I thought that it'll be boring to reiterate all the things that I already told you guys. So this update, I wanna use it to show you all the bloopers (funny things / interesting things) that happens to me in Cambodia. Enjoy!
1. Wow, there is such a big difference here in Cambodia regarding washroom layout. In the malls and other restaurant, men washroom are fully exposed to anyone who passes by. The urinals are fully expose to curious eyes. For example, if you want pass the washroom and look in, you can see people peeing! That's intersting.. And what's more is that the cleaning person (ALWAYS a lady by the way) clean the washroom while people are inside. This one time I was using the urinal and the cleaning lady just stood beside me and start cleaning the floor. That felt really uncomfortable LOL. But it's the culture, so I guess I just have to get used to getting expose while I'm in the washroom.
2. A month after I got my precious moto (they call motorcycle here moto), I got into an accident. It was pretty lame considering that I didn't actually hit anybody but the road. There was a gigantic pothole in the r
oad and I jumped right into it. And somebody figure that it was a smart thing to cover the hole in sand so as soon as I landed, I got zero traction and skid across the 
road. I suffer minor scrapes while my roomate (who was with me) got a major bruise on the knee. My poor baby (moto) got scratched up pretty good. But it turn out to be a good thing. Since I named her Bumblebee, and she was blue, I decided to fix her up and gave her new paints. Now she is truly my Bumblebee. She has a slick looking yellow coat on her with black linings. Here is a before and after picture. Pretty slick and sexy eh? =)3. So Hung got his moto and it was working very nicely. Then my friends and I and Hung decided to celebrate the occasion by going to eat out in the mall. On the way there, his throttle wire snapped and rendered his moto useless. We had two options: first, we can pay like $10USD for a tuk tuk to take his moto back to my house or second, we can be cheap about it and pushed it back (which was like 10KM). We took the cheaper path lol. So in our cleverness, we had my moto riding next to his moto while he holds onto my friend's hands so that my moto was pulling his. This would be so illegal in Canada and we would probably be fined big time. But it was so fun here in Cambodia because there is so much freedom. You can pretty much do whatever you want.
4. So I got into trouble with the law when I was riding my moto. I made a left turn when I shouldn't have (along with like 6 other people) and the police pulled me over (and of course they would, I'm a foreigner). So we spent like 15 minutes there arguing with them that we were just following traffic and such. At the end, they wanted like $3USD. Their exact words, "you give us $3 for coffee and we let you go." ahhaha, it was so funny. Because I was mad, I start bargaining with them. In the end, we manage to get away with it for $2USD. It was interesting because you can actually bargain for anything here... even your tickets / fine... =)
5. Since the road to our house was under construction, the garbage truck could not get to the houses on our block. The garbage start to stack up really really high and then we became
desperate. Then one day, I was woken up from my nap by this really stinky smell. I stepped outside only to find that my landlord and all the neighbor decided to take matters into their own hand. They gathered the garbage together infront of each one of their house and had a neighborhood burning garbage party. It was so stinky, so bad for our health and environment... Here's a picture of one of the house. It just blew my mind away. It was so different than what I experience in Canada. Burning even a campfire in a provincial park will get you in trouble in Canada but you can burn anything here, even garbage in front of your house and it'll be fine.
6. It was the harvesting season here in Cambodia and we decided to have a little venture into producing our own crop at home. We cleared off a patch of land and start planting vegetable seeds. I wasn't sure what was being planted but it was a fun experience. We titled the soil, watered it with like dog poo, and sow the seeds. To my surprise, it turn out great! I felt so proud because we had grew our own food. I can only imagine a better feeling if I was killing my own food. But planting is good too. Here is a picture of our little crop.
7. I wen
t to the market and came across a stand that really caught my attention. It featured a lady with a couple basket of bugs! It had snakes, crickets, spiders, croaches, maggots, etc. I wanted to try it so badly but I figure I couldn't stomach it. It wasn't until my ELE that I manage to try the cricket, which wasn't that bad. It's sorta crunchy and tasteless really. Then my taste for adventure really flourished when I visited a restaurant that feature dog meat. Umm, seriously, don't judge. Wait until you try it. You'll never go back to cow, chicken, or pork. Dog's the new future! It inspired me to raise a dog farm and sell dog meat in Canada (if that was not illegal). =)
8. So i was with my mentor to head to the new CAMA office that was just built and on my way to the office I saw something shocking. It was an electrician fixing up a broken line near the office. It was so crazy because he climbed this really tall ladder without having the ladder lean on anything else. Instead, there were two guys at the base holding this ladder (it wasn't a triangle ladder either, it was just a straight up ladder). Talking about dangerous... And to make things worse, it was an open line and he wasn't wearing gloves... Seriously, this is so illegal and should be illegal, even in Cambodia.
9. Since the time I got here until now, God had really blessed me with access to a laundry machine. For the first 2 months, I used the machine at the office until it move to the new location. Then I stop using it because it was simply too far away (on the outskirt of Phnom Penh). However, that's when my brother came and I start using his mentor's laundry machine. It was really nice of them to let me use it until they found out that it had double their wat
er and electric billing. Then they kindly tell me to stop wasting their money. =) So now i'm stuck with doing laundry by hand. I've never done it, not even on my short term trip to Thailand (one of the local girl there was nice enough to do it for me). So I had to learn a new skill. At first, it took me three hours in the hot beating sun to finish one load. By the end of it, my hands were totally blistered. But after a month of doing it, I was so glad that I learn. I'm so proud of myself now because my clothes smell better, they're way cleaner, and I have the sense of satisfaction of knowing that not only did I planted my own food, I washed my own clothing. YAY for independencies! =)Prayer Request
Well, I had a couple of personal issue that I prefer not to share right now in this blog but I do have prayer requests for them. If you are kind enough to pray for me, I really appreciate it. First off, I want to ask God for knowledge and wisdom and strength to finish well. The last two months is actually the most busy month for me since i have a couple of projects that I'm in charge off. Some of the project really stretch me because it requires me to learn new skills, which I'm not so accustomed to. I will share in my next blog what they are but for now, it is suffice to say that I really need God's help.
Secondly, I pray for God to give me wisdom of what He wants me to do with my future. There are certain things that I'm really confuse about and I really want God's guidance. Pray for affirmation and guidance in my life. Thanks for checking up on me for those who are reading this blog. Next blog, I will be telling you about my wonderful trip to Thailand on my ELE. Until next time, God blesses you my friend. Cya soon!
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