Of mountains and mudfights

Hello everybody!!!

I've been here for over 3 weeks now, time is really going by quickly!! Last week while I was sitting in church, one of the girls noticed that it was the 10th of August (as in the 10th month of the year) 2010 at 10:10. And I shocked that it was already the 10th I kinda thought it was just the 4th or the 5th, I guess that comes from not regularly writing in my diary.

I'm really doing very well here, that in itself kind of unsettles me, in a rather twisted way. Since I've heard quite a bit about people going on missions trips, and have heard a number of bad stories, and because I always like to be prepared for the worst, I really have been expecting some form of misery. But I've really been very very very happy, a lot happier than I've been in a while. I just love hanging out with the kids, they're all extremely helpful, friendly, and funny. To me they seem to have a kind of innocence I think a lot of kids in the western world have lost. Now I know that they are maybe just being extra nice to me because I still have a guest status, and that it might change after a couple more months, but I don't really think so.

They can also be completely goofy as I found out a few nights ago: Most of the kids had gone to bed pretty early (like 7 o'clock) and nothing was planned for the evening. I didn't want to go to bed yet so I asked some of the teens of they wanted to play a card game. So it was just like the 6 of us, and maybe because none of the workers were around, or maybe because they're finally starting to feel really comfortable with me they started to act soooo goofy, even the more reserved boys, we were playing "Go Fish" and we started to think of a kind of rap for it. I was just laughing most of the time. I'm really laughing a lot here,  there's nothing nicer.

I think this is just really the right place for me, the place that God wanted me to got to. I've told a number of you that when I was looking for other places I started to feel panicky when it started to get more concrete, but when I found out about the orphanage I just really felt at peace, God's peace, I believe. So even though this is just the beginning, and the misery could very well still come, I think this is the place I am meant to be at.

Ok ok enough of philosophising, now to mountains and mud fights. Thursday last week was the beginning of the Pchum Ben or Festival of the Ancestors. Its a Buddhist festival, in which people give sacrifices to their dead relatives, and bring gifts (mostly food I believe) to the monks.That part actually isn't so cool, because a bit of fear is involved in the whole thing, the flip side of it being if you don't bring enough sacrifices, you have bad luck (be cursed). Whats nice about the festival is that its a time when all the family tries to come together. Most of the kids however where not able to visit their families. We as a Christian organisation, of course didn't celebrate the festival, but the kids did have three days off from school (Saturday is a half day), and there was special food that is common for the festival (more to that later).

On Friday I left the orphanage at about 7:30 in the morning with a group of kids from the orphanage one of the workers, and a young woman from New Zealand who sometimes helps out here, for a trek to a nearby mountain, to see a old ruins of a temple.

Waiting for everybody to get ready

We rode our bikes for about 15-20min to the base of the small mountain. The very beginning was quite cool, because the sun was still pretty far down, but during the bike rid you could notice it getting warmer and warmer. It was really interesting driving through different villages and along the rice fields, people would look up from whatever they were doing look at me then look again, quite shocked, I'd smile as broadly as I could and then they'd smile back (and they have amazing smiles). Some of the younger ones might try a "Helloooo!!" and I'd yell hello back, which usually made them laugh.

 Buy the time we reached the bottom of the mountain, I was already drenched with sweat. I'm really happy I took a bottle of water with me, not just for me but also for a lot of kids who didn't, and were dying of thirst. I kinda thought it would be just us climbing up to a deserted temple ruin, but boy was I wrong. Up at the temple ruins there are new temples, and in the ruins there are different shrines, and it being a religious holiday and all, everybody and their aunty were climbing up the stairs, and praying and lighting incense sticks at the various shrines. I was kinda pleased to see that the Kmai people were sweating as much as I was, especially the rich women who all were a kind of "see-I'm-rich" uniform of a lacy almost kinda see-through blouse, and an ankle-long silk skirt. Absolutely beautiful but absolutely impractical when it comes to climbing up a billion steps (the kids said there were only 44, but I'm going to attribute that to their language deficiency ;) ).

Many, many stairs

Me after too many stairs

When we got to the top we were able to see the absolutely amazing view of what seemed to me to be all of Cambodia stretched out beneath us. Besides the few small mountains our area is flat as pancake, and you could see soooo far.

                                                      



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Me with Rachana, a really great funny girl



Me with Wot, all dressed up

After complaining that the boys didn't like me, I got a few to pose

I also saw my first monkey not in a zoo!!!!!!! It was really tame and more like pigeon in a city living off of scraps than the ones in Mogli, but I was extremely happy.



A monkeeeeeeey!!!!!



 I also saw a huuuge giant millipede, totally awesome.



I held it too, by the way ;)



As a kinda picnic we brought the holiday special, a "cake" made out of glutinous rice with either a banana, pork, or bean filling, cooked in banana leaves.  I really like the ones with the banana filling, and the banana leaf covering makes it great to transport.



Yummy "cake"



We then proceeded to explore the ruins. They look really amazing, and are so great for jumping and climbing around. I, however, was told to please stop when I had just climbed up one bit that was a teeny bit dangerous. Now I'm not sure if this was because it is not fitting for people to climb around old temple ruins, or because they didn't want the smaller kids to imitate me and get hurt, or because they thought I was likely to fall down and injure myself, I kinda hoped it was the second but fear it was the last, I will remain the awkward Westerner.



Some cool carving



Not exactly Angelina Jolie^^

 On the way back we stopped at two of the kids houses, where we were greeted with "cake" water (bottled water for Cath and me) and lots of smiles. While I was only on their "front porch", or better said under the stilted part, it was the first time I've really been in a Kmai house, and I thought it was really cool.



The whole group, try to find me


Now some of you may be thinking, "Hey, I thought these kids were orphans, how could you be visiting their homes?" The answer is that families are very large here in Cambodia, so almost no child is ever completely orphaned, there are always aunts, grandparents of cousins left over, but they are often not able to take care of them, A Greater Hope Orphanage counts those as orphans whose families are not able to take care of them anymore, very often they come from families with only one parent. So the families we visited really couldn't really even afford to feed their children, but since we were guests they were offering us food, and quite a bit of it, that really made in impression on me.

That evening after "chore time", we all went to a nearby field, which the orphanage is renting. They grow a kind of edible morning glory, which is absolutely delicious (but has of course nothing to do with a certain property some morning glory seeds have). It grows best in about a foot of water, like rice. Anyway while we were weeding out the field I was wondering why the kids weren't splashing each other with water, it turns out that they had better planned...towards the end they started with a few tentative mud clods, which turned out into a full fledged mud fight!!! They were a little bit worried about getting me in the beginning, but after I creamed a few of them I had a field full of enemies ;) I was very stupidly wearing one of my two white shirts, and was absolutely covered in mud in the end. I don't think I've ever had sooo much fun before!!! It was really good for breaking the ice between me and some of the other shyer kids, especially some of the boys. All in all it was a great day.
That of course is over a week ago from today, since then, there's been a ton of raining, the roads have gotten flooded, I got a little fever, we received a new 8-year old girl and I went to a small fair with an ancient merry-go-round and Ferris wheel, aptly named "death traps" by Kit, and had a glorious time riding on them.
Today I'll probably be going to Phnom Penh for a few days to renew my visa. And hope to be able to write about it soon.
Love and Peace
Sarah