Back in the US

I wanted to call this blog, "back home," but then I realized there were a couple problems with that. First, we aren't in our home yet. We came back a little earlier than originally planned for Janaya to join marching band, but our renters don't move out until the end of the month. We are so thankful for the friend from Messiah College who has allowed us to move into her house while she has been gone. She had our cats for the year too, so it has been nice to get to know them again. However, it isn't our house, and starting this weekend, we have a lot of work ahead of us.

Second, for some of us, it is hard to say where "home" is. Not everyone was equally enthusiastic about coming back. That would be the truth. So, what is it like being back?

Our unanimous comment would be that "nothing has changed." Here we have learned a new language, made all new friends, worked new jobs, attended new schools and learned how to get around and find what you need in a brand new city, but everything seems the same here. The biggest change we have noticed so far is that one of our cats got quite fat and lazy while we were away! There is one new house in our general neighborhood - but we are very happy there aren't more! The truth is that there have been a lot of changes at Messiah College. Due to finances, the academic departments have been restructured, I have a new Dean and assistant. Others have lost their jobs. But since I haven't started working there yet, I haven't really noticed those things yet.

Without a doubt, it is incredibly beautiful here! While the Cambodian countryside can be very lovely in the middle of rainy season, it can't compare to the rolling hills, forests, farmland and 100 year old houses and barns around here. Plus, there isn't trash everywhere! We have all noticed that big difference.

There are a lot of choices in the grocery store, but frankly, I don't think the produce section can shake a stick at the varieties found in the local markets of Phnom Penh. And everything looks so large, and perfect! What should one worry about more? The pesticides used in Cambodia or the chemicals used in the US to make fruits and vegetables very large, and very beautiful? The peaches and blueberries we are getting from our local orchard are helping with this adjustment.

We've eaten a lot of Mexican food - something that was pretty rare in Phnom Penh. At home, at taco bell (closet prices to Cambodia we have found) and Chipoltle (new in Harrisburg since we left). Some of us are really wishing for rice and m'hope Khmer (any Khmer topping for the rice...)

Honestly, Janaya is having the hardest time adjusting. She began marching band mini-camp just two days after arriving home. Playing again after a year and learning to march for the first time is certainly challenging. But far more challenging is the feeling that she has no interest in what the other teenagers are talking about over lunch. She really loved school in Cambodia, so I'm sure the adjustments to public US high school will be difficult.

Acacia, on the other hand, is spending nearly half of her time with her two best friends. This must be at least in part to the difference between spending a year cross-culturally as a 10 year old, vs. a 15 year old.

But, it sure is nice not to have to carry around a sweat rag and toilet paper at all times!

Well, by the time I'm ready to post this, we have moved into our new house. Busy, busy. Maybe I'll post one more summary to our year abroad and move back home in a few weeks. We'll see.

Roseann

On the way home

We've been home now for a week, and I feel so blessed to have had the experiences we have had this past year. I love adventure, and new challenges - but my children, especially, I hope will be forever changed by the experience. I feel fortunate to have worked for Mennonite Central Committee, much better understanding their work and their role in relief and development better than ever before.

Time, however, for one last experience. As we looked for tickets home, we looked for a stop somewhere that wouldn't cost much more than a direct flight home. It is quite unlikely that we will all be together in Asia again. A stop through Delhi turned out to be this trip. India is a large, very diverse, very crowded country. My coworkers in Phnom Penh told me that we would either love it, or hate it - and five days was just long enough if it was the latter.

Sure, there were a lot of people in Delhi, but most of them were in cars or on buses. Because of that, it didn't seem much more crowded than parts of Phnom Penh. Cambodians have seemed to us as very patient people, not terribly concerned with the frequent traffic jams that occur in the city. It didn't seem the same in India. In Delhi, drivers honked their horns as soon as a light turned green - impatient to keep moving. The city is preparing to host the Commonwealth Games this fall, and I think many improvements are being made. New Delhi had many beautiful parks and boulevards. India isn't so shocking when you've lived in Cambodia for a year. In the cities and towns outside of Delhi, however, it was very crowded. Lots of people, almost all men, moving around mostly by bike. The women, regardless of where you saw them, the street, in the fields, at parks, were beautifully dressed.

Over five days, we visited three cities, Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, and the forts, palaces and monuments that make each of those famous. It was very, very hot. Rainy season is late in coming to northern India. As we know from Cambodia, daily rains really help beat the heat. I think our favorite sites were the Amber Fort in Jaipur, Fatehpur Sikri between Agra and Jaipur, and of course, the Taj Mahal. They all were beautiful. For the week, we had a van, driver, and an English guide at each place. What we didn't know came with this tour was at least one stop every day at a local handicraft shop. It was a little annoying to get the heavy sales pitch every day to purchase something we didn't necessarily like and probably couldn't afford. But on the other hand, these places were air conditioned and they usually offered you a complementary cold drink!

In Jaipur, we stayed a little ways out of the city. The streets were quieter. I enjoyed watching the camel carts moving along the road, the elephants heading to the fort each morning, and the people moving in the streets. There, we were even comfortable enough in our surroundings to walk and find the local Indian sweet shop, where we tried several kinds of homemade Indian candy.

Our trip ended with a sound and light show telling Indian history at the Red Fort in Delhi. After that we headed to the Delhi airport for an all-nighter, before boarding our plane at 4:30 in the morning for home. A long night in the airport, but I think the lack of sleep helped all of us readjust our clocks better upon returning home!

Roseann

Trip to Malaysia

It seems a bit odd to write a blog about our experiences in Asia after we have returned home. But we won't see many of you for a while, and that includes all our closest family members, so we will tell you some of our last stories.

After finishing my work at the university we left the next day for a trip to Malaysia. There is a cheap southeast asia airline, and we booked this trip a while ago. Malaysia is a diverse, fascinating and colorful country, as we found out. Most people there are Muslim, some Hindu and the clothes the women wore were beautiful. Kuala Lumpur was a very modern city, with a very good sky train system that we used every day. On our first day we went a short ways out of town to the Forestry Research Institute, where we went hiking. The hike included a canopy walk high in the trees. I think, however, there were far too many people there to see much wildlife.

Our hotel was near Little India so we were able to find great Indian street food to eat, and on Saturday night we found a great night market. Since our suitcases for home were already full, we shopped only for desserts, enough for the next three nights. That was fun. Later in the week we went to Chinatown and the street market that is most popular there. I think we will miss shopping at markets after we get back to the US.

A trip to Kuala Lumpur these days is hardly complete without a trip to the world's tallest twin towers, the Petronas towers. We got in line for tickets before 8 in the morning, and I was the second to last person allowed in. After a two hour wait we got our tickets, and returned in the late afternoon for our 10 minutes on the skybridge between the two towers.

In the middle of the week we headed up into the mountains, a cooler place to be. This was the first time we adopted a backpacker mentality in our travels, and didn't have either transportation or lodging arranged ahead of time. After a 30 minute sky train ride to the edge of the city, we purchased tickets on a bus that would take us 2 hours out of the city. We were dropped of in a small town where we purchased tickets for a more run down bus that would take us up into the mountains. It sure helped that most Malaysians speak several languages, including English. The Cameron Highlands were very cool. We enjoyed visiting a tea plantation there, walking, and eating great Malay, Chinese and Indian food. Austin, finally, got to use his Christmas money from my family for 18 holes of golf with Ron. Janaya was pleased about the bus ride home, a very nice bus without a transfer in the middle. But the heavy perfume worn by the Muslim women on the bus, combined with the windiest road we have ever been on soon made her sick. But we don't think she was the only one that needed a bag on the trip down the mountain.

On the last day, Acacia cashed in a birthday gift for a fish massage - something we had seen in several places across Asia. She put her feet in a pool of small fish, which quickly removed the dead skin from her feet. It tickled her quite a bit.

After a year in a developing country, Malaysia was very different. Modern transportation, cleanliness, rest stops along the major highways and public restrooms (for a fee) were all pleasant, after a year without these things. It was also the most culturally diverse place I have ever been. We are fortunate to have had the experience.

Kep, Cambodia

We went to Kep on June 10 to stay and visit the surrounding areas for 3 days. On the first day we got there around lunch time so we went down to the crab market for our first lunch. That lunch we all had crab for lunch with Kampot pepper. To me the crab wasn’t worth it because it took to much work to get the meat out. So I never had crab again. Then we went to the pool at the hotel to swim for the rest of the day.

For supper that night we went down back to the crab market. For supper we went to a tapa place for supper, but only Acacia ordered the tapas. For supper Janaya, Mom, and Dad had mee cha (fried noodles) with seafood and I had a whole fish (I literally mean the whole fish, eyes included) with veggies for supper.

The next day we took a early boat down to Rabbit Island after breakfast for the day. Rabbit Island is so called the best beach in Cambodia (which isn’t really much). The stay there was to be a relaxful and peaceful time to rest. There Acacia and I got snorkels to snorkel and Janaya got a innertube. For lunch Acacia had a pancake (Crepe) with banana and chocolate while the rest of us got seafood again.

The next day we were going to go to the caves outside of Kampot and for lunch to the “The Rusty Keyhole.” The “Rusty Keyhole” in most western food reviews is said to have the best ribs in Cambodia. The caves weren’t the best and were covered with the smell of incense and Buddhist shrines so they didn’t turn out as expected. So we left for Kampot. When we got to the river in Kampot where it was supposed to be, we found out that the restaurant had moved farther out of the city. So we went on and found it open and had lunch there. The rest of the day we swam at the pool. - Austin

Favorite things in Cambodia

What I will miss about Cambodia:

Tropical fruit
Riding in a tuk-tuk
Riding on a moto
Sugar cane
Cheap food

Austin

What I will miss about Cambodia:

My most recent pet, a kitten
Nice people
Tropical fruits
Tuk-tuks and motos

Acacia

Weekend in Prey Veng

Two weekends ago we went out to the province to see friends in the town of Prey Veng. I like going to Prey Veng because it is very quiet there, except for the dogs that bark at night. Our friends have two cats and a dog. I liked the dog the most because I’ve never had a dog. My friends are lucky because they have a yard to play in.

When we were there, they borrowed bikes from friends so we could all bike together. One night we went out to monkey island, where we saw five monkeys, and a duck farm.One morning we got up early and biked a very pretty road that had trees on both sides. We biked to the riverside, which is not filled with water right now, because rainy season has only just begun. During rainy season, all the people that live on the river have to move up to the sidewalk along the road.

One night other MCC workers joined us for a wiener roast. We also had some fireworks to set off. On Sunday we made pizza, and I helped Ruth cook. I would have liked to live in the province except I do not think I would have had as many friends.

by Acacia

What I will miss about Cambodia?

What I will miss about Cambodia?

Big smiles of the Cambodian people

The group of tuk-tuk drivers that greet me every morning as I bike past “their corner”

9 Hours of sleep every night

Cucumbers all year long that taste like they are from your own garden

Mangosteens – my favorite tropical fruit

Meeting and talking with people from all over the world

Family home together most every evening

Unexpected holidays when the administration cancels classes for odd reasons

Sunny blue skies every morning

Geckos on the walls

My Cambodian students

Lunch on the roof at MCC with new friends

Bicycle repair a half block from my house (Ron will really miss that...)

Afternoon downpours during rainy season

Okay - and a few things I will not miss...

Looking like I wet my pants every day

Traffic in Phnom Penh

Rewriting your syllabus every time the administration cancels classes

Trash everywhere

Mice in the house

Not being able to find the simplest of supplies in the chemistry department

Roseann

Last Days at Logos

Today yearbooks were passed out and as I was reading some of the notes people wrote in mine I was thinking about how blessed I was to get to go to a school like Logos. I really don’t think any school could ever compare. God really used Logos to change me this year and as I reflect on the school I think about how I never would have guessed that Logos would be like well Logos. I remember giving my part of our presentation on church about where we would go to school and at the time I had no idea what Logos was really like. The same goes when I wrote the blog about the first day of school.

One of the great things about Logos is the teachers. They all have great faith in God and trust in his plan for their life. They taught me so much this year about God. How he uses people in his plan, how the Old Testament applies in our lives, and more. The relationship between students and teachers though is what really makes Logos different. Students consider their teachers friends and go to them for advice not just on school but on other problems in their lives. They share their own experience and I probably know more about the teachers I had this year than any I’ve had before.

Another great thing about Logos that probably isn’t unique to Logos but was new to me was chapel and homeroom. Each day you start off we devotions in your homeroom some days its just quick cramming for a test but others would be listening to a testimony or singing worship songs. We also had chapel every other week, which was usually singing, and a speaker. I also went to a high school girls bible study once a week, which really helped me see what God was doing in the lives of other students and learn a lot.

God really blessed me with Logos. Next year will be a hard adjustment back to public school but I trust that that is where God wants me for the next season in my life. If someone asked me what changed me the most while I was in Cambodia I would definitely reply Logos.

Janaya

My last lesson.

Well, it is that time to say good bye to my students. I finished the last two months teaching intermediate English. My students are more fluent so I have decided to discuss the value of English in their lives. I have been very disappointed with the curriculum available. It promotes an affluent lifestyle. So I wrote my own final lesson. It is religious without the jargon. With ESL students it wouldn't communicate anyway.

What English Doesn't Teach

Many of our classes begin with the question: “Why do you study English?” The most common answer being “English is the language of international trade.” The second most common answer is getting a good job. Seeing so many Cambodians working at jobs that don’t support them, I can understand the hope that globalization is better than isolation. Doing business with foreigners is more profitable for some than doing very little business with just your neighbors. So in an effort to do business globally, Cambodians eagerly learn English.

What you haven’t read in your textbooks is what English will not teach you. All the English fluency in the world won’t teach you to be content, at peace with what you have and do not have. You have read stories of travel, hotels, and great inventions. The more you study and see what others have, the more likely it is that you will be unhappy with your own life. Some think that such unhappiness will make you work harder to make Cambodia a better place. Gazing upon all that is available, if you have the money, widens a hole in your heart. Working with an empty heart is worse than working with an empty stomach.

An empty stomach finds satisfaction when food comes. When you have an empty heart no amount of money brings satisfaction. The business of business is emptiness. What sales people do best is convince you your life is missing something. Of course they have just the thing to sell that will fill your emptiness. Emptiness cannot be filled by a good job or world travel.

Yes, it is hard to be at peace within when you have so little. But working your whole life out of envy of others is the greatest misery of all. For international trade to take place you have to want what others have. So the developed world first seeks to establish that their way of life is better than yours. This was not hard to do in Cambodia because so much was destroyed in the wars. In the west the industrial revolution made the harvest and processing of food virtually labor less. Using machines to do the hard labor has left much farm soil worse off. Land has less ability to produce food. In the state where I come from, Pennsylvania, the most profitable farms use neither electricity nor diesel-powered tractors. The people who run these farms care for the soil, it is better than when they started farming it. While these people have committed themselves to a simpler life, they are neither poor nor uneducated. They value community and the land and are financially secure. The English language will give you a window to see the world but it will not give you peace. Looking through that window may only make you unhappy. If you study English to have a better life, study first what “a better life” is. A million sales people will tell you they have what makes a better life.

There is a saying in the U.S. “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.” Lack of peace within one's heart makes you always want what is beyond your reach. With only a little English you see only the grass (on the other side of the fence) and none of the weeds. Another cultures way of doing things may appear better, but is wrought with pain and disappointment equal to your own.

English will do nothing to protect you from greed, others or your own. An empty heart causes people to take more from the land than it can give. An empty heart causes people to take more from their neighbors than they need to live. But emptiness can lead to blindness. In Cambodia, English is needed to get a higher education. To get an education one has to work very hard and spend a great deal of money. Doing so much to improve yourself can easily give an attitude of being better than those without education. Those who work so hard to climb to the top have little empathy with those at the bottom. Education is power. But power without empathy creates poverty. Power gives birth to pride. Power feeds indifference to the needs of others. Out of emptiness we pursue power, thinking it will make our lives better. Power makes us blind to the needs around us. One is blinded to the poverty of power.

English can improve the business you do through trade. More skilled workers invites more corporations to do business in Cambodia. English can improve a student’s employment chances. But no one lives on food alone. Many foreigners come to Cambodia because of the open business climate. They come to make money. If you go into business with someone, even as an employee, be sure they treat all Cambodians justly. When you take a job thinking only about your own prosperity you become a partner to another's greed.

A long, long time before English was the language of international trade, the Greek language was used to do business between many cultures of the world. From one tiny conquered nation came a message of a just community created through the redemptive sacrifice of one. In giving his life for others he cleansed our empty hearts. To anyone who confessed their emptiness there was given the seed of an abundant life. This seed is the voice of God living within. People were set free from the blindness of power and became a community of justice. This community grew and spread. It became so large that the conquering culture, that once tried to destroy it, legalized its existence. Sadly, it's character got replaced with rituals. But the teachings of the Redeemer were preserved. From time to time there is a revival of community through these teachings. There is far greater peace and hope for you, and for Cambodia, in understanding these teachings than in understanding English.

What I have wished for, as we have plowed through these lessons on English, is a curriculum using development as the foundation for the stories that teach grammar. Development is more than making lives easier for people. Development is more than making the soil produce more food. True development is about building character. Character does not get you a job but it will keep you from taking a job that destroys communities or the land that must serve others after you. Character will enable you to ask the tough questions about the results of your choices today. Character gives you the power to make sacrifices for the good of others. Character does not create poverty but community. It is concerned that all relationships are just.

Street Scenes II

We don't find adding pictures to a blog and putting them exactly where you want extremely easy on the Google blogging program. So, finally, Janaya imported some interesting pictures as a slide show. Sorry they are so small - but we haven't been able to solve that problem.

Traveling the streets of Phnom Penh is always interesting. One never knows what one will see. But this slide show gives you a few of the pictures we see every day. The following captions describe them:

A Recycler

Ox cart bringing in pottery from the province

The Broom Seller

Street Sweeper

Hauling Bananas on a moto

Fresh Coconut Drinks

Hauling produce to market

Buddhist monks walking for their morning food

Snail food carts

Sachs family

The Best Things About Logos International School

My children have eight days of school left. They have had a good year at Logos International School. I asked them each to reflect on their favorite things about school this year.

Acacia

*The new campus - large open space with a pool, nice playground and soccer field

*After school snack carts bringing soda, caramel corn and fried meat

*Swimming every week

Austin

*Ethnic diversity - friends from Cambodia, Korea, Africa, Canada, the United States

*School lunches - good Asian food, eaten on the roof

*Staying after school with other students to talk, study, swim, play soccer or just hang out

*Ms Robert's Bible class

*The snack carts that wait right at the gate for his Riel (Cambodian currency)

Janaya

*Chapel every other week

*Homeroom devotions

*Air conditioning (sometimes)

*Girl's Bible study

Facing Your Fears

Moving to, and living in Cambodia for a year certainly takes one out of your comfort zone. Many of the new things are exciting. Others are a little nerve wracking, and some, downright scary. Thought I would give you my list of 10 Things I'm No Longer Quite So Afraid Of (in no particular order).

*Taking a motodup (motorcycle taxi) across the city to the MCC office

*Riding home with Ron on his moto

*Gastrointestinal abnormalities

*Crossing a busy, unmarked intersection as a family of five

*Visiting a country where you don't speak the language

*Communism

*Biking with motorcycles coming at you on both sides

*The loud night noises that echo through these concrete houses as if they were in your own home

*Health care in a foreign country

*Not having everyone at home and "safe"

Six weeks left in Phnom Penh. A lot of reflecting to do.

Roseann

Christian Khmer Wedding

Teaching at RUPP continued

We are now about two thirds of the way through our semester at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. The numerous Cambodian holidays have a way of not only disrupting a lab schedule, but also seriously limiting the amount of material that students are taught. I wonder if some of the best students realize this. But I know many do not as they skip extra days leading up to, and then again after the school holiday!

One of our recent experiments involved the use of plants as catalysts in a chemical reaction. This is exactly the same project that my research student is working on. But by giving it to an additional 65 students, we can get a lot more data. As is always the case with research, some experiments work, some do not. In this case, the students (in groups) each had to interpret their own results and tell me whether their Cambodian vegetable worked in the given reaction. We tested our results over several days and with two methods. This type of analysis of an experiment was completely new to them – and challenging. I ended up slowing down the schedule so as to give us an extra day to just look at, interpret and understand our results. I tried to impress upon them the value of this critical thinking process, but don’t know if they bought into it.

In our next experiment we made biodiesel. Done in many general chemistry programs in the US (and made by many amateurs), this is an easy lab. Although it isn’t quite as fun when there isn’t an available vehicle to power with our product! The challenge will be that for this easy lab, they have to write their own lab report (again). Will it be better this time?

I’m about two weeks ahead of my students in finding reagents and equipment for each experiment. (Boy I sure do miss Steve, my lab manager at MC). It doesn’t pay to work any further ahead, because what you find and stash away may disappear again before you need it. My most precious supplies (especially those sent to me from Messiah College) are kept in my office! It is a challenging thing for this Type A person to just “go with the flow.” Uprooted and transplanted here, I think I’ve done pretty well changing my style. But I was more than a little frustrated today to find that my own filter paper, the only box in the whole department that fit the funnels, had disappeared!

If I started again, my course would be different. My students here have very little idea of how they can use a degree in chemistry, other than to return to their home province and teach high school. Other than in environmental chemistry, which is not the same as green chemistry, they are taught very few practical applications of their studies. Complicated and intricate subjects (like quantum mechanics!) are held in high esteem by faculty, yet students understand very little about how chemistry can apply to life and development in Cambodia. (Here’s hoping we do a little better job at this at Messiah College.) So I keep thinking about what the best course in Green Chemistry, in a developing country, would look like. Sure would be fun to try again. Next year? JK, JK

Roseann

P.S. - Yes, I know about the lab student on his cell phone in the picture. This gives you a better understanding of my work here. :) He wasn't the only one. But when you don't have equipment for individual work, this happens...

Dalat, Vietnam

After three days in Ho Chi Minh City, we took the bus to the mountain town of Dalat. You might notice by now, heading to cooler, mountainous areas has been a theme of our travels this hot season. Getting there took 7 hours. A nice thing about taking these trips in Southeast Asia is that someone else does the driving. Ron and I can appreciate that. The kids, however, don't particularly like being with so many other people and not being able to call a potty stop at a moment's notice. The weather was much cooler in Dalat. It felt like a mountain town. The French had taken down all the native forests at one time, and planted pine trees, so in some ways, it looked a little like Colorado.

Dalat is an agricultural area. They grow flowers, vegetables, fruit, and a lot of coffee, mostly in terraced gardens on the sides of the mountains. These were beautiful. It is cool enough there to grow strawberries, so we enjoyed fresh ones from the market and many strawberry shakes. They also grow avocados so we brought some home for guacamole.

On our second day there we took a tour into the countryside, where our guide brought us to see various family businesses (noodle making, basket making, rice wine making, mushroom growing, flower gardening...) We also hiked up to a hilltop for a beautiful view, and down a steep trail to see a waterfall. The next day we took an alpine slide down to another waterfall.

Another highlight was a trip to what the locals call the "crazy house." The house was built and is still being built by a local architect. You can book the rooms for night, but they would be a little spooky. Anyway, the kids enjoyed climbing around and exploring this place.

Of course, eating good food is always part of visiting a new place. We older ones tried several new Vietnamese dishes. For the youngest ones - western food is the desired treat at this point in the year.

We mixed a lot of things together on this trip: history, natural beauty, kid fun (the water park), rest, cool weather, exposure to local culture and good food. I think there was something for everyone.

Roseann