An Education...

It's been a real learning experience living in this village, and I thought it would be nice to give you a little
list of things we have learnt or come to realise:

1. When we first got here we were intent on minimising the number of insects in the apartment,
especially the ants. Now we can't be bothered, and in fact we quite like having the ants around as they
clean up the place for us. Luca was up in our apartment yesterday and was eating a toffee, he dribbled
everywhere. There were little round pools of sticky sugary saliva in various places. I cleaned up some but
missed others, later on I noticed little circles of ants. Turns out they were eating up the sugary saliva.
Within half and hour they were gone as was the saliva. Last night I dropped a bit of food on the worktop
whilst cooking and thought I'd clean it when I did the washing up. When I went back into the kitchen to
wash up, there was a group of ants happily munching away. Alvin told me to leave it and see if they
cleared it all away. I check the worktop this morning and it was spotless. Fab, I don't have to clean
anymore!! I just wish they also took away dust and hair so I don't have to sweep up!!

2. Mosquito repellent doesn't work. The mosquitos here are like commando mosquitos, they are not
fazed at all by our repellent, in fact I suspect they are drawn to it!!. We think the next best thing is to
burn something like a mosquito coil, or in fact anything which creates smoke is good at getting rid of
them. The locals however don't use the coils much or any repellent. Instead there is a leaf they eat as
part of their diet, roughly translated as duck egg leaf (because it's similar in shape), which if you eat
enough of it makes you sweat a certain odour which mosquitos don't like. Alvin and I have taken to
eating A LOT of this leaf. It's really nice in a salad with some cucumber and chilli sauce :)

3. Two nights ago there was a massive storm, crazy lightning and thunder. When the lightning struck
the sound was like the earth tearing apart, a massive cracking sound. Our little wooden apartment was
shaking away and being battered by the rain. The next morning Pastor Kea told Alvin that next time
there is big storm we should switch our phones off as it acts like a mast. He was praying all night for us
hoping we would know to switch our mobile phone off, he himself doesn't have a phone so he couldn't
call us to tell us. We of course didn't know, but I'm sure his prayers kept us safe. So peeps, when you
are living in an unearthed wooden house with a corrugated metal roof at your entrance and there's an
electrical storm going on outside, switch your phone off.

4. I have learnt how to prepare and preserve fish you buy at the market in the morning so you can keep it
until the evening for your dinner. Wash the fish out, cut lots of slits along the fleshy bit and rub salt in.
Then in the evening when you want to cook it, wash the salt out and cook it...or just leave the salt in if
you want to have salted fish. Living in the UK we just bung everything in the fridge and know it'll be fine,
it's good to learn new ways of keeping things fresh.

5. Do not leave any food in plastic bags! I thought it would be good to leave stuff in the bag we bought it
in, all tied up and stuff, so the ants and flies wouldn't be able to get in and eat it. One of the Khmer girls
here saw a ready cut pineapple we had bought sitting in the bag in the kitchen, she shrieked, ran over to
the bag and opened it, then proceeded to scold me for tying it up as it would go off. Food left in bags in
a hot country is not a good idea, better to leave it open, if the ants and flies get on it then just wash the
food off before you eat it...I'm sure a lot of you are cringing at the thought of still eating the food. It's not
so bad, Alvin and I are ok. Hopefully our immune systems are stronger because of it!!!