Cambodia: Day 5
Start at the beginning.JW Phone Home
It's nice to sleep in for a change. Even though we didn't do much this weekend, I ended up sleeping for a long time.
A little after we woke up, Nancy, M, Jeff's mom, and Todd and Sharon called us. It was nice chatting with M and just letting her know what's been going on. Even though I've been working on this blog, without the internet, no one can really keep up with what we're doing here until we're back. It was really weird that Todd and Sharon were there. Especially since Sharon didn't talk to us at all.
We didn't have time for breakfast, so we had the last purliwi for breakfast. We later found out it was called dragon fruit. But we still like purliwi better. Then it was off to Light for Living.Best Meal Ever
Chaan gave me Todd's favourite fruit. It's this little green fruit that kind of looks like an artichoke. When the fruit is ripe, the skin just kind of falls off revealing this sweet white meat. The fruit is a little sweet with kind of a crab texture. It's light and refreshing.
Then she gave me this other "fruit" which turned out to be a root. It didn't have much of a flavor, but wasn't bad. Then she gave me this other fruit that had the same texture as guava but was a little sour.
When we drive around the city on the moto, we see all these kids with these goucho pajama pants. The things are so popular, we wanted to rock a pair so we could be more Cambodian. Cherr was kind enough to go to the market to buy some for us.
Cherr and a few of the other girls were really kind and cooked us some great food. We got some soup with vegetables they picked from the backyard, pressed fish, and chili beef. We also got some fresh lemonade picked from the backyard. All the food was really good. I would have to say it was the best meal I've had in Cambodia so far.
All the girls in Cambodia know how to cook, and cook well. They all start apprenticing under their mothers when they are 10. I wish girls from the states would cook like them.Kampong Chnang'nyom ni-yee-ay Khmer
Then back to the temple for some more Khmer lessons. Gentoo wasn't there last time so I was looking forward to seeing her. It's definately nicer studying with a pretty face. As we began, the sky opened up and just started pouring buckets down on us. This was the worst rain I had seen yet in Cambodia.
'Til now, most of the Khmer I've been learning has been random nouns. Most of it is pretty useless. I made an effort to try and learn some verbs so I can start putting together some simple sentences. I also started writing down everything I've been learning. Even though there are English-Khmer books, I don't really understand the pronunciation. It helps if I write what I think it sounds. I was so happy when I put together my first sentence.
I had learned so much Khmer from them, that it was about time I taught them English. It's a little more difficult because the only way I can explain things to them is in English. I tried explaining the difference between "pretty" and "beautiful" and it was really tough. I didn't get that much time to teach them, so I'm going to spend tomorrow teaching them English. Then it was off to teach guitar.Monsoon
It rained a lot today. It started a little after 1pm, when we got to the temple and didn't stop until 5pm. It was some big hard rain. It really cooled things down to the point where it was actually kind of chilly.
For dinner, we grabbed some stir fried noodles and went back to Cherr's church where we taught one of the classes. Then it was to Grace School to teach English. I had never taught English before, so I took a lot of direction from the book Patrick gave me.
We picked up some more purliwi and dragon eyes.
We hung out with Ringsay a bit at his clinic.
posted by w3y at
8/14/2006 11:36:00 PM
