At McDonalds! (in Thailand)

Cheers and boos for living cheap

First the cheers: My first fill-up of the motorbike was $1.50 and I don't really need to fill the moto more than once a month because it uses so little gas. Also, my first motorbike repair for leaking oil, a broken fuel guage and a broken mirror cost $6. Hooray!

Now for the boos: I don't get ice cream sandwiches as much because I'm never at the gas station. Also, our house is built very cheaply and and last night gabe broke the faucet off at the neck with his head. His head doesn't hurt at all, but that's the second faucet that has broken off with a minimum of force.

Noise

When my dad came to visit Phnom Penh, he was fine with the heat, but bugs didn't bother him, I don't think he noticed the dirt, but he really didn't like the noise. Life here is a lot noisier than anywhere we've every lived. Fortunately, none of us seem to be very noise sensitive because there is noise all the time. Our road was one of the first roads in our section to be paved a few years ago. It runs parallel to a big, busy road and runs right into a large temple, so there is constant traffic noise right outside our door. We live in a row house so we can hear the noises of the five houses around us and someone is always doing something. They start cooking early in the morning and so there are pots and pans banging, people talking, laughing, crying, stereos, TVs, people honking to be let into their houses, random banging and all the rest of the noises of life. Every couple of days our neighbor pounds on the adjoining wall to our bedroom at 6:00 am with a hammer (I assume his mosquito net has fallen down). In addition, vendors are continually passing our door. Some of them shout, some of them have bought bullhorns with a recording device so they don't have to shout themselves. The ice cream truck plays the same tune in a 15 second loop and he starts coming around at 8:00 am. They are building a new house a few houses down so there is constant sound of hammers and saws. Dogs and rats get into frequent noisy fights. The noise is such that we cannot hear each other if we are more than 10 feet apart. Watching TV is pretty futile without subtitles because the accoustics in our room make the louder volume difficult to understand and at a lower volume you are sure to miss something every few seconds as a motorbike goes by, a dog barks, someone yells or a vendor goes by. However, the loudest sound of all is the rain. We have tin roof, all of our neighbors have tin roofs and when it rains, it is almost impossible to hear someone speaking in a very loud voice right across the table from you. This all sounds terrible, but I love the sound of the rain on a tin roof. During one rain storm I went up the roof. Most houses here have a roof that you can use as a living space and an open tin roof above it. You can see our space in the pictures I have posted. It's a nice space as it catches all the breezes. Our neighbors usually sleep in our roof space (as you can see by the bed).

Anyway, I was up on the roof and watching this incredible rain storm sweep across the city. The rain was almost horizontal and the noise was incredible is it beat on the our roof and the roofs of houses all around. To me, it's a beautiful thing and fresh air it brings just adds to the pleasure of watching a storm. I took these pictures, but it in no way captured the overpowering nature of the storm. Of course, it's a little sobering to realized that these storms come from the same systems that have been devastating the Philippines, but it's still awe-inspiring. I wish I could better capture it.

A few random pics

Gabe on a boat on the Mekong or Tonle Sap (not sure which) with a friend.

Eric having coffee with students. He is the pastoral care teacher for the year 12/13 students and they have devotions together many mornings.

4 year 3 boys on a trip to the market.

Our new family vehicle

Having decided that a car would be more of a headache than a help in this city, we bought a motorbike. On the streets of Phnom Penh motorbikes outnumber cars and this is probably the most common model-a Dae Lim Citi. I really wish I'd had my camera at the motorbike shop because we bought this bike from a shop with hundreds of identical red Dae Lims. As you can see from the long seat, it is considered a family vehicle. One of the Khmer staff at school helped us to select this bike and encouraged us to buy something boring and unattractive like this one so, as he put it, we "wouldn't get our throat cut." Many of the staff have nicer bikes and are still living, but we decided we'd like to have something that didn't draw attention. Not having ridden a motorbike much, I've mostly ridden around the neighborhood to get used to it. Some of the students from Hope saw me the other day and apparently told their parents, "I saw Mr. Eric's wife on the motorbike and now there's someone who rides even slower than mom!"

Duch's Trial

Today I went to the trial for Duch, director of S-21, more commonly known as Tol Sleng prison. Duch was a member of the Khmer Rouge regime and presided over the facility in which more than 15,000 accused enemies of the party were killed. Only a dozen prisoners survived. Tol Sleng (poison tree hill, in Khmer) is only a few minutes from where we live and trials are taking place about a half an hour away, so we thought it would be a good idea to take some of Eric's older students to see the trial.

The courtroom was already full when we arrived, but they allowed us into the press room. That in itself was interesting. I thought of all the reporters who have written about famous trials and here were reporters reporting on history as it happened. There was nothing exciting about it. The members of the press sat around at tables with laptops. Many copied the trial verbatim. Some seemed to be writing editorial pieces. A few napped and played games. Some had been coming every day since the trial started.

At the recess, many people who had come to watch the trial left to get something to eat. We watched the audience, mostly Cambodians, stream out of the courtroom and noticed that so many were the same age as Duch and almost certainly lived through the Khmer Rouge regime. It left us wondering if they were victims hoping to see justice done or former friends of Duch who have not yet revealed the role they played. Another teacher who went with us met a Cambodian woman in the bathroom. She asked her where she lived. This woman had come with other residents of her village from a town close to the border of Vietnam. When the teacher asked the woman, "Why did you come?" the woman replied, "I came to see his face."

I can identify with that woman. I had seen pictures of Duch, but seeing him in the flesh was surreal. Here was a man who ran a prison where so many were tortured and killed. Visitors to Tol Sleng prison/museum in the first year it opened said that the smell of blood and rotting flesh was overwhelming. Yet he looked gentle, intelligent and peaceful. He states, though, that he is constantly haunted by remorse and has plead guilty. He has also apologized for his crimes against the victims.

An interesting side note to the this story: Duch had been an exemplary mathematics teacher in Cambodia until he became a part of the communist party. He himself was arrested and held without trial for two years for communist activities. The day that the Vietnamese occupied an empty Phnom Penh, Duch walked out of Phnom Penh and established a new life in another area of the country. During the 90's his wife was killed in a burglary and he subsequently became a Christian after contact with a Cambodian-American missionary.

Another interesting side note: Duch's defense lawyer also defended Zacarias Moussaoui.

Most interesting quote of the day-from a witness: "As far as I know, this is the first time someone has been prosecuted for crimes committed against the people in the name of the people."

Moving to a crowded, chaotic Asian city, we were sure to miss the lovely parks and open green spaces in Michigan. Then we discovered a recreation area (vacant lot) just down the road from our new home. Obviously, we worried in vain... This is a picture of the neighborhood volleyball game. They play most days that there aren't too many puddles in the mud. It draws a good crowd.

FCC

My dad took us out to the FCC (Foreign Correspondents' Club). It's a nice restaurant in a pretty spot, but is decorated mostly with arresting photos of the years of war here in Cambodia.

Gabe reading to new friends

Amnesia

It's scary how short Gabe's memory is. Today he was doing some homework. He had to write down the name of a shop. He wrote down "Lucky", the name of the small supermarket where we get some of our groceries here in Cambodia. I asked Gabe, "Where did we get our groceries in America?" "Lucky?" was his guess. "You think we had Lucky in America?" I asked. "I don't know," he answered. Finally, he remembered the name of one store we went to in America.

We have been gone only three weeks and the American environment already seems to be fading from his memory. It's almost as if he never lived there. Of course, he remembers people, for which I'm glad.

Adjusting

This will be brief as our internet connection is very fickle. A week ago I was thinking, "This might be a more difficult adjustment than I bargained for." I knew about many of the difficulties of life before coming, but facing them was another thing. I still miss many of our friends and family in the States, and in many ways our our thoughts are with many of you. Also, we had an attempted break-in, we had food eaten by rats and I felt driven to hide by the bugs. It often seemed like I was spending a lot of time waiting around to accomplish relatively little and was getting lost a lot. In spite of all this, I feel like we're adjusting to the difficulties. The deterring of pests and thieves is becoming part of routine and waiting offers more time to just reflect. We've had some really lovely dinners with new friends this week and have found some cool spots by getting lost. When I think back over the week, it's the good things that have come to mind. We hope you have had just as good a week.

Phnom Penh

Well, we are settled in our new home in Phnom Penh. This has been a very fast adjustment-partly because we've lived in Asia before, partly because Eric was here first and also because I have had no jet lag at all. One of the main benefits to working nights all year long is that I had absolutely no difficultly in moving 12 time zones. It's been GREAT!

I just want to say first off that I have pretty limited internet access, so I will probably not be checking e-mail all that often to start out with, but will try to answer within a week.

So far, things are going well. Eric was able to get things pretty well settled in our house and thankfully, much furniture was left, so there's not too much to do with that. Our house is very different from anything we've lived in before. When I walked in I felt like I was walking into a train station-the ceiling is that high. I think it must be 20 feet high or more. The only window in our bedroom overlooks this space so sometimes I feel like a factory floor supervisor when I look down on Gabe and Eric down there. Our house as a whole is so dark that when the power goes off I would need a headlamp to do any work. But overall, it's a good living situation. We have great neighbors and their kids have been over quite a few times to play.

Eric is enjoying his classes and Gabe has had a great first week. The first day one of his classmates was waiting for him and had drawn him a picture welcoming him to school. The other kids in his little class have been incredibly friendly and nice and overall, that is exactly as we hoped for him. He seems very happy already. It is a little different adjusting to the security issues. Kids up to 5th grade must be collected directly from teacher by a parent and people don't tend to go out as much so kids and parents stay around school for quite a while after school to let kids have a bit more play time together. Gabe's teacher is English, but grew up in Thailand and even taught at Grace before it was Grace, so she knows exactly where he's coming from, which is great since he's switching to the British curriculum.

Overall, we've had a good first couple of days and hope that it's a taste of how things will go during our time here. I'll try to post more pictures soon.

From Taiwan (again)

I last posted more than a year ago, and here I am again in Taiwan. I've never been outside of the airport, but this airport is starting to feel sort of like Gary to me. I've been through both so many times and know all about the amenities. In Gary, I know all the cheap gas stations, all the clean bathrooms, the train stations, the meeting points, and all the fast restaurants. In Taiwan, I know the most comfortable places to rest, the free massage chairs, Hello Kitty Land and the free computers. Yet I've never stayed in either place. Maybe someday. Until then, I'm passing through on my way again. Two flights down and one more to go til we land in Phnom Penh.

I also want to say that we had a good year in the States and it was hard to leave. We missed everyone before we even left.

I'll write soon and hope to post some more pics of life in PP.

From Taiwan

Here we are in Taiwan. We have spent many boring hours in the airport here in years past waiting for connecting flights to Los Angeles. Now they have free internet though! So we'll spend some time checking e-mail, looking in duty-free shops, riding the people movers with Gabe, running up and down the halls in the dead of night and taking drinks from water fountains (a novelty for Gabe). We can't wait to see our friends and family in America, but first 12 hours of flying, Los Angeles, a few more hours of flying then recovery. I actually find it kind of fun in a very tiring way.

This is the son of a collegue from Hong Kong. I was amazed at how dextrous he appears to be with chopsticks. Unfortunately, it's all a show. He can't really pick up anything, but he sure looks like he could.

Temporarily Dutch

Some friends of our used to teach at GIS but now teach at Northwestern (in Iowa). They brought this shirt for Pii La and told her to wear it to our house to show Eric. She was very disappointed he wasn't there, but I promised to show him the picture I took of her.

Kindergarten Graduation

We had a little kindergarten graduation ceremony on Monday. It's scary how quickly this year has gone by. It's been a good year for Gabe and he's learned a lot. The kids performed a little play and a couple of their favorite songs from the year. The teacher gave an award to each child and presented them with a portfolio of their best work. Gabe won the Science award for the class and needless to say, I was very proud. A lot of the parents looked at me when he won. Many of them know from preschool co-op know that I was pretty hopeless at teaching any subject but my favorite-science. I think they were more congratulating me than Gabe:)

Taekwondo

Gabe has been taking Taekwondo lessons for about a month. He'd been wanting us to let him learn to fight in some way (karate, kick-boxing, taekwondo, kung fu, etc.), so when a friend of ours recommended the taekwondo gym in our neighborhood, we decided to let him try it out. It's actually a pretty good class for him. The teachers are local Christians and it's been a good way for Gabe to understand what strength is for.

The other day I was sitting around at the Taekwondo gym during Gabe's lesson. I was feeling hot and lethargic and wishing I could be somewhere else. The TKD gym is on the top floor of a three story building so it can get pretty hot and this was a humid day. I went over to the balcony to get a breath of air and was refreshed by the view. To my left a water buffalo and its calf meandered through the newly green rice fields and to my right was the lovely view of the mountain that dominates Chiang Mai. Just the green of the landscape made me feel cool and peaceful. A moment later a cool wind announced the coming of rain. Within a minute a soft, breezy rain was falling on our neighborhood and I was feeling so grateful for mist on my skin, the fresh smell of rain on rice fields, the rhythm of the rain on the roof and the cool air blowing through the gym.

Since moving to a hot tropical country we have gained a deeper understanding of rain as a great blessing, but it's not just a physical blessing; it's also a blessing for the soul. We're in the middle of a season of hard physical work (moving, finishing the school year) and emotional good-byes, but my spirit felt revived just by a beautiful view and a cool rain. I'm so thankful to God that he has provided so many ways for our soul to be comforted and renewed.

Happy Anniversary to Eric!

I'm sorry this picture isn't better. Eric celebrated his sixth anniversary at GIS at the annual staff appreciation dinner. Only two others were in their sixth year and there were also only a handful of others (out of a staff of more than a hundred) who had been at GIS longer than six years. The staff appreciation dinner was yet another event that reminded us about how much we'll miss our community here. We sat at a table with good friends and had such a good time that we decided to continue the evening at a local restaurant.

Mmmm, sounds good!

New at 7-11!