A day in the life of....

When talking to Shaun on Friday- I mentioned I was happy to have had my first whole good week at school... he promptly reminded me that I had had a horrible day on Monday but concluded that one good day is better than none. I am excited to find little bits of happiness in my week; receiving assignments on time, having students write a whole page of work- though somewhat grammatically incorrect I was happy to read in a few autobiographies, ''Now, I am in P6 my favourite subject is English. Miss Christy is a beautiful and fun teacher''. Now that's something to smile about!

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before but the Thai people are very honest. They will tell you if you are fat....they will ask ''why is your hair so messy'" they will say ''you should not eat that you will get fat'' etc etc.. It's sort of refreshing in a way, because they don't mean it to be mean, they are being honest. I think in a lot of our western society we have stopped telling the truth and supporting each other, because we are scared that if we are honest we won't like it. I mean I don't want anyone else to tell me I'm fat-- but I do enjoy when they say I'm beautiful! (Though on one occasion a student approached me shortly after exams and kept repeating something I did not understand- I finally realized that he was saying ''Miss Christy you are beautiful'- can I have extra points" He wanted to solidify he was going to pass his exam- ha. pretty funny.

Recently in one of our university classes we were talking about injustices in the world. I have just found an injustice. As I sit down-- attempting to work, but really getting my blogging done-- I purchase my favourite Starbucks drink- a caramel frappachino, and realized with disgust and amusement that my purchase was the same price as a one hour massage- THAT is injustice.. but I still bought it as not much can compare with a little bit of heaven in a cup!

Well I believe it's 47-nope just checked 46 sleeps until Shaun arrives, hopefully we are going away once inbetween to get some work done beside a pool somewhere close to the city (it only costs about 7 dollars to get there and 15 dollars to stay for a whole weekend).

SOOOOoooo if anyone wants to send a little note with him you have 45 days to get on it... let me know and he shall bring it along:) (He doesn't know I've volunteered him as a mail man yet!)

Well, not much from this neck of the woods- I always think of exciting things to say when I'm not near a computer or when I'm too tired to type- I'll try to be more interesting next time :)

Just went to a very cute Thai love film! Just in case you were wondering...

Phnom Penh Cambodia

SORRY this whole BLOG uploading picture does NOT work very well... so here are the explainations of pics below in mass order-- it might be reversed.. who knows how they upload!

-football in bare feet
-Tuk Tuk with Wanna
-Tuk Tuk with kid
-Carleigh and Christy and Blush Wine...
-Lamb! MMMM
-Moldy Toilet - not working
-HUGE water carrier with motocy
-Monk with matching umbrella- for the sunshine!
-Tuk Tuk with Matresses
-Tuk Tuk with Fruit!
- Building Depot
- Brick? Wall.
- For Shaun: You no longer have to worry about broken mixer, they mix like this all the time
- Bike with Bannanas
- Truck with rolls of paper!
- Pol Pot Genocide Killing Fields
- Cart with metal rods
- Construction with bare feet!
- Kid driver
- Genocide Museum; counting prisoners
- Upon returning to Guest house-- they are pouring cement over levelled floor- done with crushed up reused bricks and garbage and glass....
- Palace in the RAIN


Well I made it to and from Cambodia safe and sound! What an experience. Very different from the other weekends away I have had Cambodia was a nice mixture of culture and food, and more food, and history and more food! YUM. Cambodia has a big French influence over the years so we got to eat many fresh cheeses and sandwiches on fresh fresh baguette, rye and french rolls- scrumptious, along with fresh ingredients; pesto and eggplant and BACON and such! A highlight of our time in Cambodia was staying in a very small guest house called the Blue Dog. This was basically someone home, and it was nice to be taken care of so well! The owner of the guest house ended up taking us out on Saturday night to a local Cambodian BBQ (where you have meat and veggies on a hot plate!) Quite like Christmas at the Sawatzky's :) We then proceeded to go out dancing for Sarah's birthday- it was pretty funny at the end of the night that we realized why we were the only girls seemingly in the club- I think we walked in on a gay night at the bar- no wonder none of the guys were interested in us. We felt safer that way anyway- and it's so great to have a group of 8 that no matter where you go, we are a built in party!
DISTURBING: DO NOT READ IF YOU GET QUESY
It was great to experience a new culture. Phnom Pehn was a much more relaxed city than Bangkok, and much less progressed or developed than Bangkok. This has much to do with the Pol Pot regime and Khmer Rouge Rulers that took control in the late 70's and annihilated the working class of Cambodia. This is something I learnt that I don't feel overly comfortable writing about, but was really hard to see. This group of people decided they wanted Cambodia to be returned to a natural agricultural society so they decided to kill anyone with any sort of education, or who looked educated. They killed anyone with any type of degree or that had gone to school...doctors, lawyers, teachers, the king.... So the history of the area was very sullen and VERY recent. We saw two of the historical sites, one was a killing field where they took people to be mass executed- It was horrific, you could still see some teeth on the ground- where they had tortured people by pulling out teeth and bones protruding from the ground as although the graves were excavated around 1980-85 some of them were not and now erosion is uncovering new things. We also visited a large school that was used as a prison and torture chamber, it was disgusting to see the actual stalls were people were kept and pictures of the bodies as they were found- some chained to a bed, of that same bed that was sitting before us. It made my heart hurt wondering how many other people around the world are going through the same injustices today and no one is doing anything about it.
This was only 30 years ago and so now Cambodia is still rebuilding physically (as many monuments were destroyed and schools were turned into concentration camps and prisons) as well as educationally. We got the opportunity to experience such eager learners with nearly everyone we met wanting to learn English and glean information. We were pleasantly surprised to have our fears of safety minimized when we were taken such good care of by our Tuk-Tuk drivers (a mode of transport where a small motorcycle/crotch rocket pulls a big cart/hut in which we rode around:) It is a great way to see the country side!
Anyway now back to school a bit of a rough week, but I had TWO good days in a row, with some breakthroughs as how I can better help individual students, so that's encouraging. We now don't have any long weekends before our 2 week holiday in October but this week ended up being short as I'm now sitting in an immigration office waiting to finalize my work permit- or something, not too sure as the school is very organized in this manor and a Thai teacher has come with us and is organizing everything for us. All I know is that I'm wearing a cute outfit instead of a uniform and I'm getting some time to write a blog entry- so I'm happy! It's now 10:30 am and we left school at 7:20... maybe we'll be done soon.. I'm not too sure?!
Well Shaun comes in just less than 2 months (So if you want to bake some cookies and send them along that'd be great!) until then we just got a TO-DO list of final exams, and evaluations and such we have to do before then (a LONG to-do list) and then completing 2 university courses before that-- so 3-2-1 work! At least I don't get bored here and it's nice to have our pool up and running again...too bad it's covered though so no nice tan!

Rain Rain and Buriram

There is NOTHING like a 2 hour ride home when it rains. Funny... because it rains here for a LOT of months during the year and yet when it rains things seem to stop here.... not just slow down but come to a standstill. I haven't quite figured out yet if it is the wetness- the lack of vision- or what, but it's very interesting. Don't get me wrong- sometimes the rain is so hard that you can't see. Thailand is very different than Uganda in that regard- though in Uganda the rainy season would have hard rain for about an hour mid morning. The rain in Thailand always seems to come JUST when we're getting out of school so we either have to race to the other side of the street to catch a cab home before it comes or we wait until it settles down before stepping outside (the Thai's will NOT let us leave the school if it's pouring---even though I quite enjoy a good down pour!)

Currently I am in a cab-- typing up a blog entry while I'm waiting in the rain in a cab, on my way home. I came home with a friend to pick up some stuff I bought off someone- once getting all the way here- it ends up the things the person said would be there--- aren't there and there are only a couple of small old things- not really house supplies at all- what a rip off. BUT I am choosing to look at the bright side which is I got to experience a real flash flood- thankfully my feet didn't touch any mysterious items in the murky water as I was in the cab-- but the water went up to the tops of bicycle tires and up to store fronts (as high as 4 stairs up)- in a matter of 15 minutes. It wasn't like that everywhere, just on the one street we had to turn down... but was AMAZING to see!

I am excited for the new term-- did I just say that word- excited?! We have just began a new class for University and the one class we had was great- We have a VERY passionate prof who is very expereinced in community work and building and working in inner city Winnipeg. For the first time in months-- and probably for about a year.. I felt that little tingling inside that said'' you could be like that- you can be passionate about teaching- about working in inner city Winnipeg-- there ARE areas of teaching you LOVE and that are useful!" It was a wonderfully refreshing feeling after the last couple months of feeling inadequate and having to adjust to so many news things at one time.

I am looking forward to spending the weekend (and taking my one personal day; I can take off)...at a Thai friends home- 6 hours from Bangkok. It was an honour to be asked-- so I figured I'd better head out there- and it will be lovely to be in a Thai home!

Other than that- I am excited to have plans for my 2 weeks off in October- I've book some flights around Thailand to explore both inland and off course get some beach time in! Anyway I think it's naptime for the rest of time I"m in here:)

Probably another hour until I get home!

Ops! I forgot to upload this by the time I got home!
Update: My weekend away to Burirum--pronounced Bull-lam) was great. Mostly it was great to be with a family and breathing fresh air. I got to see a few local sites, take a motorcy ride up a large hill to see a giant golden buddah and an old mouth of a volcano, take a long Saturday ride with Prame's family to the Cambodia border, through a forest and almost up some very steep hills (we didn't quite make it). I think my favourite stop was at a freshwater lake with large boulders by the water....reminded me of the Canadian Shield in northern MB :) Besides that I got to feed some elephants ( bartering to get the best price for the feed they sell you to feed it), and try some wonderful Thai food including Thai barbeque!). Thankfully we got to ride in air conditioned buses, unfortunately 6 hours seemed to take forever and the air conditioning was freezing!