Alvin says "I can't take it anymore!!"

"Take what?" you may ask. In short - Basketball ...or the lack of. When packing to come out here I told Alvin basketball wasn't big, that the Cambodians liked volleyball (which is true). But he was sure there would be basketball courts galore as there are in other asian countries. So he packed his basketball trainers, his basketball tops and shorts, and even a basketball and pump. But guess what? No basketball courts anywhere in sight. There is one basketball court that the youths know of, and it's in the high school, but no one plays because they don't have a teacher. So after two months of basketball inactivity Alvin decided to take action. This is the work in progress.

Two days later it was finished and hung up. And just as they were about to start playing the heavens opened and the rain came down. But being as desperate as Alvin was at this point, he couldn't be bothered to wait for the rain to stop, so he played anyway.

All the pastors have really enjoyed having the basketball hoop. Some refused to eat their dinner until they managed to get a basket in from the imaginery 3-point line. Alvin's next plan is to concrete an area 5x8m around the ring...any sponsors?? :P

Moving onto a completely different topic. We've told you about the creepy crawlies and snakes but haven't as yet managed to tell you about our night visitor - the Gekko. There's actually a family of three gekkos living in our roof, I assume a mum, dad and a baby one. The other night I managed to get a close up of the biggest one which is about 25cm long - we'll call it the big daddy.

Here's what it looks like on the wall and a close up.

There's also something else in the roof but we're not sure what. We know there are mice sometimes, as the other night one managed to chew it's way through the roof and poked it's head into the room. But there's something bigger up there that comes and goes, at night we sometimes hear loud scuttling and collision type noises. I wish I had one of those night cameras to film the action and see what's up there, Alvin just wishes they would go away!