Day 11

Wow, can't believe we've been in Baray now for 11 days....and I'm still alive!!

It's been a busy weekend for the local church as Pastor Ling and Aunty Helen from DUMC have come to visit. This weekend Alvin and I got to sit in on the youth's worship practice. They had their bass guitar, electric guitar and mics out, all hooked up to an amp powered by a car battery and their seriously know how to rock and roll!! Somehow the car battery makes things more grunge. Whilst the youth were belting out their tunes the cows outside were munching on grass and the kids ran around half naked playing games I don't understand. All in all this place is kind of surreal.

Here are a couple of pics of the youth of Somrong church. Alvin wants to attempt a 5-tier pyramid next time.

(From top to bottom, left to right. Jeremiah, Abednego, Vannier, Rutta, Jonathan and Alvin)

I guess you could say we've settled in, after some initial teething problems. We've kitted out our little apartment with some furniture so it's a bit more homey now. We bought a rattan wardrobe and a shoe rack from Tuol Dam Nak village about 5km down the road and carried it home on the moped in two goes. We should have taken a photo of us on the bike, really looked like the locals and how they stack things on their bikes, except we had helmets on. We have a little routine going on as well, once we wake up and sort ourselves out then we do our laundry, tie up the mosquito net, dust the bed of dead bugs, sweep the floor, wash the bathroom and then go find some breakfast. The bugs aren't as big a deal as they were when we first got here, guess we're learning to live with them, well, at least the little ones anyway. The big ones still send us cowering into a corner. We've had praying mantis, stag beetles and strange looking leave insects come to visit us at night. We are constantly amazed at the people here and how brave they are...or maybe it's just because we're wimps. This little kid is Luca, he lives next door to us and is one of Pastor Kea's sons. He was holding this leaf insect and was totally ok with it. Amazing.

We're still suffering quite a bit from bites from both mosquitoes and ants, so far it seems all we've been good for is feeding the local insect population. I have a bite on the sole of my foot, it is driving me insane. It's been rainy a lot here the past two days and so the mosquitoes are reproducing rapidly, there are some monsterr sized ones too. Usually I'm quite clap happy and smack em dead with my hands, but these ones are big and scary. We just wave our hands around or run away.

Alvin's also been making use of his handy man skills and fixed our coffee table. Here he is in action with the local women looking on.
We've also been busy getting to know the local area, going to the market to shop and trying out some of the Khmer food. And before all the adults start yelling at us, yes we have been responsible about what we've chosen to eat. No prolonged toilet episodes thus far, praise God! We've found some very yummy things to eat out here, the yummiest of all has to be durian milkshake/smoothie. One of the youths at the Saturday night youth group we are helping with told us to go to this juice bar. We went one night last week and ordered one mixed fruit and one durian shake. They were soooooo delicious. I think the fact that we don't have a fridge or freezer here made the coldness of the drink all the more amazing. Another night we were in the market and bought two cokes out of a cooler box, and it was just so good. Coke has never tasted so good before. It was such a treat, so sweet and cooling. Mmmm. It makes me think back to that story that Pastor Ong told about being given a can of coke whilst in the depths of the jungle, we can appreciate that story now!!

"Work" wise....We're currently still waiting for word from the primary school principal about teaching English. We can't really decide on other areas to serve in until we know whether we are required there, as it would take up a lot of our time. School starts on the 1st October, so we should know by then whether we are needed or not. We've also been approached about teaching English to a number of groups of youths, and we know it's going to be difficult to choose between them.