One of the features of Cambodia is the vast array of smells that are on offer. Some of the smells are quite pleasant others are unpleasantly pungent. Driving for only a few minutes in a tuk tuk you can experience a complex mix of burning incense, roasting meat, and open sewers smells.

Yesterday there was a distinct burning smell everywhere we went. My first instinct as an Australian was to think “bushfire” but of course there is no bush here in the middle of Phnom Penh. As we went about we saw people all the way down on every street standing around small metal drums burning things. Taking a closer look we saw people throwing in gold paper, wads of money (obviously fake) and even a brand new pair of shoes into the fire to be burnt.

I later discovered that this was a tradition of the Khmer people who have Chinese ancestry. They believe that burning what they they call joss or gold paper, ghost money and other items will help their ancestors in the afterlife.

The state religion here is Buddhism hence the ubiquitous Buddhist temples and monks. But in reality many people are animists believing in spirits who inhabit everything in the world. Clearly there are many here who worship their ancestors too. All of these practices are mixed up in some complex way that we are yet to get used to – just like the smells of the city. Yet another reminder that the people of Cambodia need to hear the good news of Jesus and the salvation that is in him.

It’s the wet season here in Cambodia. Most afternoons or evenings it rains but only for an hour or so..and the rain is really heavy. The other day when we were playing football and there was a massive downpour. We’ve never seen rain like it. The sound of the rain hitting the roof of the football centre was deafening.

It was too much for the kids to resist. After we finished playing indoors, they all ran outdoors to continue playing in the rain. The kids had a great time cooling off after a hot and sweaty day of ministry and football. We read before we came to Cambodia that if you embrace the wet season you will enjoy it. It’s pretty hard not to embrace it here….

Although….we soon discovered what an hour of rain typically does to the streets of Phnom Penh. It made for a much slower trip back home, especially after the girls tuk tuk stalled due to water getting into the exhaust. Cameron had to jump out of his tuk tuk and knee deep in water, help the drivers pull their tuk tuks onto higher ground to try to get the water out. We eventually found higher ground and thanks to our tuk tuk driver Dina, were able to find some back streets that weren’t as flooded. We all went out for pizza that night, including our two drivers and Jonothan (Dina’s 6yrs old son) thankful we’d survived the rain and the trip back. It made for quite an exciting adventure!

When we first began thinking about doing a short term mission overseas we looked into doing some kind of sports ministry. Unfortunately none of the options we found were suitable. After we accepted our current placement in Cambodia we were still hoping to somehow use our love of playing sport in our ministry. So we packed into our bags half a dozen deflated footballs kindly donated by Zachariah and Nathanael’s football club – the Marrickville Red Devils Academy.

At the end of our first week in Phnom Penh we were busting to get out and find some open space to kick a ball around as a family. So we went in search of grass.  This was not an easy task. First, we tried the Olympic Stadium but the grass field was only open to professional players. Eventually we found a sports centre on the road to the airport that had half-sized football fields with artificial grass that were undercover. Perfect! We had a great time as a family playing together, stretching out our legs and scoring some goals.

We then thought that this would be a great thing to do regularly with the youth. When we told the church about our idea they were delighted and said that they had been praying before we had arrived that a football competition like this could be started. So far we have had at least half a dozen youth sometimes more join us each week on Monday and Friday afternoons. Some of the younger children from the morning program have also come along and played and even our tuk tuk driver Dina.

Making connections with the locals is difficult because we can’t understand each others language but playing football with them has really helped us to make those connections more readily. We hope and pray that this will help us as we minister to them during the program in between matches.

On Friday, we ran our first day of the Children’s program. All the faithful old costumes came out as we took 2 tuk tuks to the Community centre dressed as pirates. We got even more smiles than usual as Malakai rode along with his bandana and eye patch on.

We set up the Pirate flag at the gate, hung up our Union Jack (Pommy) flag over the aim for the morning, stuck up the Blast-o-meter on the white board and set up the data projector with a pirates theme song playing. It was Kids church/Pirates of Marrickville all over again, only with the slight change of name to Pirates of Phnom Penh and the luxury of translation every couple of lines which was a much welcomed respite for Miss Rebekah Bigelow and Captain Nathanael Oates!

The Cambodian kids were great. They laughed in the right spots, our translator Sothea does a great job, and looked scared when Long Jack Cameron Pewter, the pirate pretending to be the English ships entertainment officer and cook, came on.

They all got into the actions as we sang together and they enjoyed making new friends as we played lots of games together. We all had so much fun and they seemed to really enjoy the craft too. We got lots of excited waves as they left on their tuk tuk back to their homes.

The community centre decided to fund two tuk tuks to pick up and drop off the kids as most of them can’t even afford the one way $2 fee to get to the community centre. This is not surprising when you consider that 23% of Cambodians live on less than US$1.25 a day. I’m glad they did, cause it meant all 27 who had registered for the 8 weeks came. We have been warned that it is not unusual for Cambodians to not turn up to things. After talking to some of their siblings in the youth program, it seems that some of the kids might have to help their mum selling goods in the markets or whatever work she might do. Again, this isn’t surprising when there is 37% child labour here. Kids often start school at an older age or drop out of school early depending on whether they are needed to work for their family. One of the girls we met at the youth program is 20 years old and only in Yr 11 at school. We’ll pray they will all be able to come along and enjoy spending time with us, make new friends and learn more about our great God.

After each session, we are having feedback meetings with the volunteers. We have four volunteers, 2 males, Vannak, Rotina, (both Yr 10 boys) and 2 females, Sopear (female, finishing phychology at uni) and Raksmy (doing MTS). We also have 2 translators, Sothea (who works 2 days as a dentist and 4 days at the community centre) and Sotuik (the pastor of the church). Our feedback meetings are proving to be great opportunities to teach the volunteers about why we do the things we do. None of them have ever done anything like this before and they are really keen to learn. They are also very valuable as they are the ones who can really talk to the kids and get to know them. We try and they translate for us, but there’s nothing like being Cambodian and knowing the language! As we learn how to best present the material to the kids given the language barriers, the volunteers are also learning how to put together a youth and children’s program. Everyone involved is learning and it’s proving to be a wonderful experience. As Vana said yesterday in closing at our meeting; ‘It’s beautiful to see us all working together!‘

We consider our time here ministering to the children and youth to be such an important opportunity because 37% of the Cambodian population are 12 years of age or under. The children need all the help they can get spiritually and financially so they can afford to eat and get an education and have a brighter future. We are often surprised to see how small the children are. The other day, we met a boy the same age as Zachariah, who Lily was taller than. This is not uncommon. Sonai, the manager of the community centre told me that often all the kids eat is rice. They rarely have veggies, hardly ever eat meat and maybe have a bit of fish sauce with their rice. They just don’t get the nutrients they need to grow. Yet, they smile! And we smile as we get to know them and as our children play alongside them, quickly becoming friends despite the colour of our skin, the ridiculous extremes in our standard of living, opportunities available and language barriers! Praise God that we are all one in Christ!

P.S. Thanks for praying for Bek. She finished her 60th tablet tonight and is finished her antibiotics and feeling like her usual sunny self. Poor Lily though is the latest victim to the runny tummy. She had a pretty bad night last night, so hoping and praying she’ll have a good sleep tonight. Please pray that Lily will get better quickly. Thanks…..

P.P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPOP!

After lots of meetings with the missionaries, Vana and Inpa, the staff at NACE and the youth volunteers who would be helping us run the childrens holiday program, we finally started the program on Thursday.

The first day was the Youth program and the topic was What do you worship? We had 22 youth come and we organised lots of games, songs, Bible challenges and Cameron gave a talk on God being worthy of our worship because he made everything and everyone. The youth had lots of fun and so did we. Half of them don’t go to church, so it was a different experience for them. When they arrived, they didn’t know each other, but by the end, everyone was having fun together, including us!

Rebekah, Zac and Nat had the challenge of playing piano, guitar and bongo drum for the songs, Hannah was on the data projector and Lily, Mal and Luke helped hand things out for the games. It was a great Blair team effort with the kids stepping up in areas they normally wouldn’t feel comfortable.

Youth Skipping Game Video

Everyone we’re working with and teaching are so lovely. The youth are so friendly and the kids are really enjoying hanging out with them. Its not uncommon when we talk to them or sit next to them that they touch or rub our skin. I think this is because Cambodians seem to love white skin. There are all kinds of products you can buy at the supermarkets and pharmacies to whiten your skin. Even though it is so hot here, they all wear long shirts and trousers so they don’t get any browner from the sun….and I thought it was cultural!

I feel like I can’t say anymore without mentioning the smell! Cambodia has an aroma of it’s own. We thought living near the M5 entrance might be bad for our health! Well, that’s like living in the country compared to being on a tuk tuk in Phnom Penh. It’s pretty bad. Driving along in the tuk tuk with big old trucks roaring behind and overtaking you smells pretty bad. When you’re in the middle of traffic going every which way all around you, the fumes can be pretty intense. But it’s not just the smell of exhaust fumes, that make up the smells of the city. There is rubbish everywhere, which has it’s own type of smell, but it’s also the strong smells of the street food vendors cooking their various foods on the side of the street as you pass by. The heavy smells when driving in a tuk tuk are an experience of their own.

Despite the smells and perhaps because of them, we decided we wanted to travel around by tuk tuk. We feel like you can’t truly experience Phnom Penh unless your part of the excitement of what goes on in the traffic. The other day we were coming back from the soccer centre, when an entourage of soldiers drove past on their motorbikes blowing whistles at the motorists to get out of the way as they zoomed past looking very serious with their machine guns
casually draped over their shoulders. I was praying for safety at that point, but the kids, especially Nat thought that was pretty exciting. You couldn’t get the full experience of that sitting inside a car!

Despite this, we found out today we can’t get out of our car commitment for a month. So, unfortunately we’ll have to put those glorious, somewhat disturbing smells aside for a month, until we can get back into it again! Who would have thought….when we first arrived here, we were scared to leave the house….now it doesn’t feel like we’re part of it unless we’re breathing in the smells and chaos of the traffic! Praise God for all he is doing here!

It’s been interesting to observe (and experience) Cambodian traffic these past few weeks. At first it seems completely chaotic. There are vehicles going in every direction seemingly without any regard to the road rules (if indeed there are any). The traffic in Phnom Penh this week has been particularly crazy because of the general election that happened over the weekend. But as we’ve been driven around we’ve noticed that there are some “rules”.

Rule number one: Drive on the right side of the road…or the left…or any space you can find. Here in Cambodia like the majority of the world, they drive on the right side of the road. However, if right side of the road is blocked by traffic then some people won’t hesitate to drive on the left side of the road to get around the traffic. If, however, the left side of the road is also blocked with traffic then the footpath is another option (but only if the footpath is not also blocked).

Rule number two: The bigger the vehicle the more right of way. On Australian roads you have to give way to whoever has the right of way on the road but here not in Cambodia. Here the bigger your vehicle the more right of way you have. So if you are driving a car you don’t have to give way to a motorbike or a tuk tuk (that’s a motorbike towing a passenger trailer). Lately, we have been getting around in a 12 seat van. A number of times when travelling in the van I’ve had to brace myself as the driver pulled out from an intersection in front of a dozen on-coming, speeding motorbikes who in Australia would’ve had the right of way…but not here. The motorbikes would just go around you with no complaint. During our trip from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh our driver often pulled out onto the other side of the road to overtake someone when there were motorbikes coming the other direction. Again, they just moved to the side and went around us – no complaints.

Rule number three: Honk your horn and honk it often. If you are ever thinking of investing in a Cambodian company, invest in one that make horns for motorbikes and cars because here they use them all the time. Our driver is constantly using his horn to warn the smaller vehicles ahead to watch out and move over. When they use their horns though it’s a friendly “beep” not an angry “get out my way” honk. You would think with such chaos on the road that there would be a lot of road rage but not as far as we can see.

Rule number four: Obeying traffic lights is helpful but not necessary. Traffic lights are quite rare here and it seems that not everyone takes much notice of them – even when there are a dozen police officers directing traffic at them!

Rule number five: The number of passengers or the amount of goods you can carry in your vehicle is not limited to the number of seats or space you have. We have seen trucks with at least 20 people standing in the back, 8 seater vans with a dozen people in it including luggage, a regular sedan with 8 people in it – one of the passengers was sitting in the drivers seat with the driver and a family of 5 on one 120cc motorbike. And the same principle applies to transporting goods. We’ve seen people on motorbikes carting ladders, aluminium framing, water barrels, zincalume sheeting. We’ve even heard of people carrying large livestock on the back of a motorbike but we are yet to see that with out own eyes.

To get a feel for the traffic see below:

Today our new friend Sonai (she’s the manager of NACE where we will be working) took us out food shopping at the local market. We’ve been told that it’s cheaper to shop at the market, so we thought we’d give it a try. There was certainly a lot of fruit and veggies and meat sitting around.

The kids were excited to find an escapee crab dodging all the feet walking along the broken wet pathway. We walked past large fish still squirming, waiting to be sold, chicken heads, feet and various other kinds of fly attracting meats. The walkway was very narrow with various coverings over the top and then you’d hear a beep as a motorbike squeezed past! The different odours became too much for the kids and we decided we’d stick to what we knew best…the supermarket! We discovered a new one today that sold some familiar products much to everyones excitement. We haven’t found a McDonalds yet, but we did splurge and buy some Coco pops for breakfast tomorrow!

Yesterday we visited NACE the community centre (see below) where we’ll be working. We’ll be discussing the program we have come up with in a meeting with the staff and interpreters tomorrow.

On Saturday, we are going for a tour of the city with Vana and Inpa on tuk tuks. We’re living on the outskirts of the city and the city centre we are told has broader and greener walkways. We’re looking forward to that as it isn’t easy to get out and go for a walk where we are because of all the traffic and crowded footpaths.

P.S. Bek is feeling much better now. Thanks for all your prayers.

We seem to take a while to get organised over here! Maybe it’s because we feel like we’re on holidays and don’t need to get up quickly and off to school. Well, we missed our bus to Phnom Penh. We didn’t really want to leave. Thankfully our friends Jia and Me were able to hire a mini bus for our family that left at a more civilised time of 10:30am. This meant that we felt better if we had to stop off for Bek if she was feeling sick. We’d read and heard a lot about the crazy driving and got to experience it first hand. We made it safely and a lot quicker than if we went on a large bus, but our driver didn’t slow down for anyone! Let me tell you, Cambodian roads at full speed are awfully bumpy!

We arrived in Phnom Penh Sunday evening and the traffic here is pretty crazy. It will take us a while to get used to it. In fact, we haven’t really ventured out much apart from going to the local super market, which does have some familiar items, although a lot more expensive than Australia. We bought some Australian oranges and Chocolate crowns that were a comforting reminder of home.

The other place Cam and Bek have been is the International SOS clinic today. Bek is still sick and so with the help of Vana, the missionary we will be working with, they went off to see a doctor. She was put on a drip and given antibiotics after finding she has a parasite in her system. Now she is back home again with her bag of ‘goodies’ (antibiotics, gastrolite, tylanol, probiotic solution and imodium) and we feel much better knowing what’s ailing her and having the medicine to deal with it. Thank you for your prayers, but we’d still love you to keep praying as it will take a few days for her to start getting back to normal.

Our accommodation is comfortable. We are living above a family in three rooms with access to our own lounge area and kitchen. There are other rooms above ours, but no-one else is staying here at the moment. We were a little surprised to find out that there is no hot water here especially knowing that means we’ll be having cold showers for the next 9 weeks. Thankfully the weather is warm, so it is a refreshing start to the morning! Also, it seems we can’t flush toilet paper down the toilet or we’ll block the drains! This one is taking a little longer to get used to. All toilet paper goes in the bin! But, our hosts are friendly. Posda is only 16 yrs old and she lives with her family below us. Her parents don’t speak English, so she is the one we deal with. She has taken us to the supermarket and given us a phone and whenever we need anything she is there to help us. Apparently they’ve been running this guesthouse for 5 years. It seems like a great way for her to learn English and for the family to make extra money.

Tomorrow we are going to the Community Centre to meet the staff and translators. It will be good to have a look at where we’ll be working and go through the material with the translators to see what will work and what won’t. It’s good that we still have over a week till we start work so that Bek can recover, but it will also be good to start the program so the kids can make some more friends and we can get into it.

Yesterday we met a Canadian woman named Lisa. She is starting up a tour around her Cambodian friend Sokai’s village. She asked us to be her “guinea pigs” to see what we thought of the tour.

So today we went to the village on tuk tuks and walked around the markets and rice paddies and watched handicrafts being made including miniature ox carts made from timber, bracelets, boxes made of palm leaves and Cambodian violins made from timber and cow bone. Lily enjoyed helping make the boxes and the boys had a wonderful time playing soccer with the children from the village. It took the boys from the village a while to join in, but once they did, they all had a lot of fun. They enjoyed giving the boys the ball donated from the Marrickville Red Devils Academy before we left.

We also got to eat some Khmer food cooked by Sokai’s cousin inside their timber hut. The hut was basically two levels of a flat timber floor (that had quite a few holes) that they slept and ate on.

The village is in one sense quite primitive. There’s no running water only an old iron hand pump that brings up water from a well. There’s lots of rubbish around. There’s no mains electricity only generators and car batteries but they power the television that everyone watches at night. Sokai told us lots of the men get up at all hours of the morning to watch the soccer.

Tomorrow we are off to Phnom Penh. We’ll be sad to leave Siem Reap and the friends we have made in such a short time. We’re not sure what to expect of Phnom Penh, but it’ll be good to spend some time settling in before we start working. Bek is still unwell, so we’re hoping and praying she’ll be okay for the 5 hrs bus trip.

So, we’ve been in Siem Reap for 5 days and so far only one of us are sick. Poor Bek has been drinking too many fruit shakes and despite not asking for ice and being assured there’s no water, it seems they might be the culprit. Please pray for her as she tries to sleep off her tummy bug.

The temples have been amazing. We love the massive stone blocks, intricately chiseled with either stories of battles or women wearing different skirt designs depicting different eras or massive faces carved out with lichen growing on them, surrounded by dense green jungle. It’s been fun traipsing over the fallen stone and walking over the uneven floor that so many have passed over for the past 900 years.

Our favourite temple was Ta Prohm, otherwise known as the Tomb Raider Temple. There were many massive trees that have grown over the temple with their roots holding the rocks together.

Today we also ventured out to Tonle Sap, the largest natural lake in Cambodia. The water was a white tea like colour and along the edge were floating houses. Apparently it’s free to live there, so lots of people live in the houses along the river. They move their house up or down stream depending on where the water is. It’s very dangerous living there as boats drive past too fast causing waves and the little children can fall in and drown. Apparently 10 children drown a year. There is a floating school, but not all the parents send their children there because they don’t see the point of an education when they could be getting their kids to work and make money now. Often the parents have a small boat that sells something like soft drink and they sidle up to a tour boat and the child jumps into the boat trying to sell you things. Again, this is very dangerous for the child who can slip and fall in as they try to catch the tour boat.

We think we may have fallen victim to a scam today, but still not too sure. We were told that there was a floating orphanage that we could buy some rice from the community market for the kids to eat. So we bought some rice and took it to the orphanage and the kids sang for us and we took photos and they showed us where they cook the rice. But, when we got to our van, the driver explained that it wasn’t a real orphanage and that they children were fed at home. The rice would probably be split among the teachers. Oh well, at least someone will enjoy our 50kg sack of rice!

The elections are coming up soon and we’ve been hearing a lot from the people what the government is like here. If you are a member of the family in government, you receive all the benefits. If not, there are little benefits and it is very hard to make change. The government have made another party to outdo the opposition to ensure they will win. It seems they will win, which is not good for the Cambodians. There is a lot of corruption and things are not getting better for the people.  We’ve been told that by the next elections in 5 years time, things may change when there is enough educated, young people to make a stand and take on the government. In the meantime, the help the people get from other countries, whether its a children’s hospital free of charge from Switzerland or a water refiner at the floating village from the US, or even the jobs created from tourism, it all does seem to make a difference.

We only have one more day in Siem Reap. We will be sad to leave because it truly is a beautiful town. The old market where the children enjoyed bargaining for some football jerseys, t-shirts and parachute pants is like a scene from Hollywood.

Tuk Tuks are everywhere and at night with the lanterns shining in the trees along the murky waters of the river, it’s hard to believe its real. We’ve met some lovely people and nearly all of them have a sad past of growing up seeing killing around them or having lost a parent, sibling or limbs from land mines. Despite all this they’re a remarkably gentle natured, humble people and we are really enjoying our conversations with them.

We hope all is well at home. We are still looking at our watches and thinking what is happening in Australia. I hope Kids club went well today! Zane, you’re right, the pirate pants are everywhere. We are appreciating your prayers.