Projecto!

A site for many people to join in systematizing the process of trying to emulate Abdu'l-Baha:
www.bahaireflections.com

Writing this from Kampong Thom, where myself and a colleague are spending a few days working with some of CORDE's teachers to strengthen their classes!

Heppy times!

Tweet-Tweet

No time to post for the last two weeks!

I've got my iPhone unlocked, so if you can see the twitter feed to the left - that's where I'll put some updates until I get a breather!

Much love,

Ashraf.

Turn up the heat!

We learn to cook the Khmer foods

There's a restaurant here called Smokin' Pot. It's been here for about 11 years. There's another restaurant here called One More Smokin' Pot. It's been here for about a year or so. They offer cooking classes. We took one last Friday:

We'd invited Ridvan and Wody, and some new friends, Zack and Eve, to come join us in the cooking class. This might be the first real like "couples activity" we've done. Wow. I just realized what I wrote. Means I'm seriously married right? When you start doing "couples activities"?! Either way was tres fun. We met up at about 9am, and sorted out what dishes we were going to cook. We settled on the classics, Fish Amok, Beef Lok-Lak, and Cha Krueng. Ok, that last one doesn't seem like a classic, but, as we discovered, its a pretty stock dish, and the name just means "fried spice". After deciding on some dishes, we headed straight to the market.

 VEGGIES!

The first stop in the market was to buy some fish for the fish amok. This was actually a really cool part of the class, because we got a chance to find out which vendors our chef buys his food from, how he chooses it, what questions he asks, and how much he pays. For the two tourists that tagged on to our group, this was a fun experience, but for the six of us that live here, this information is like solid gold! For example, we may want to eat fish amok in the future. Rather than buy the whole fish, and have to gut it ourselves, we can simply say "filet", and the fish-sellers'll hook you up with some filet-o-fish

(Side note: these fish are intense. It was a bit unnerving to come here to shop for the fresh fish because they were still jumping. you can see the netting in the photo that covers the bucket-o-fish. This was not enough to stop them, as they actually hopped up and down, forcing the netting open, and then, when the seller was distracted, hopped right out of the bucket and onto the sidewalk! It didn't stop there, I swear that two of them seemed like they were making a "run" for the river.
Part of me really wanted to see them make it back to the water. We tried to get the seller's attention, but she was in the zone with that filleting, so Wody took it upon himself to pick up the fish and return them to the bucket.)

We also picked up some fresh veggies (learning the Khmer names for them along the way), and some things like dried chili(!), and roasted peanut. He also told us where to get the best cuts of beef, and whom to get them from, but when we went, the lady was all sold out. So we discovered who the second-best is as well. (Again, side note: Emily and I don't really cook meat. Not that we're intense about being vegetarian, or even that we're put-off the rawness of the market, just that it doesn't seems to happen.) We took our goodies back to the restaurant, and then had 15 minutes to hang out while our Chef's assistants did all the washing!

And we COOKED:

So HOT!

Beef Lok-Lak

Emily tests out her plate decoration skills

Cha Krueng Saek Moun (sp?)

We were all incredibly stuffed by the end, since we ate the fruits of our labour as soon as they were cooked. Em and Eve couldn't finish the last one, so they packed it up to go. We got cookbooks when we finished, so if you want a Cambodian meal, feel free to come visit, and we'll make sure you get a delicious Fish Amok, or Beef Lok-Lak when you do! 

I can't remember much of the rest of that day, but I know we were invited to GEMS for dinner, and we got a second class (for free!) in how to best prep Vietnamese coffees. Thanks Prema!

calcul renal

Kidney Stones...

...make me cry

around four am last friday i was half awoken from a vivid dream and stumbled to the bathroom with what i thought was a full bladder. i came back to bed, assuming i would sleep. i found however that my bladder seemed full again. only beginning to really wake up now i headed back to the bathroom. however, my bladder was indeed empty, but i did indeed still have the very urgent sensation of needing to pee. i was now fully awake and a little bit disturbed at not being able to find any relief.

the sensation persisted and empty bladdered i visited the bathroom countless times, until something new happened. this something was a little ache in my back. it was noticeably on the left and became painful enough quickly enough to distract me from the intense lack of urination irritation. it was probably almost five am at this point and ash had been searching our medical coverage online to find out if they could hook us up with a clinic. he was having no success and i was on the floor crying so he made the decision despite the early hour to call our afore mentioned friend prema.

from my position on the floor i vetoed the ambulance that was being spoken of. unfortunately that just left us with bikes. prema headed our way on her bike and we began a very very slow shuffle down our stone, mud, potholed alley. prema got to us quickly and brought a tuk tuk with her (the above picture was taken during the tuk tuk ride to the clinic). prema has been here for a number of years and had a few sick friends during that time so was able to take us straight to a 24hour clinic and is fluent in khmer so was a great help with the doctor and other health peoples. the doctor met us outside and brought us into a room immediately- no registration, no intake, no administration, just a person in pain who needs to be taken care of. he asked me a few brief questions, starting with anglais ou francais? we told him english. the next couple of questions were about the pain, he felt my stomach, felt my back, turned on a machine and did an ultrasound on my stomach and back. while doing this he asked my name and age and typed it into the machine. that was all of the personal information that was ever asked for. 

he showed us the kidney stones in the picture, said that i have a few on the go, to drink lots of water and jump up and down. then he left and another guy came in and gave me two shots in the butt cheek. 

at this point the pain was pretty unbearable and i was being pretty dramatic. it really was beyond my control though. in the 10 minutes between the shot and the painkillers kicking in the ridiculousness of the pain peeked. and then suddenly it was gone and life was great. life was amazing. i have no idea what the drugs were but i liked them. 

we got my prescriptions filled right there in the clinic by an ancient woman who was slowly opening the pharmacy now that it was after seven am. i walked out with four brightly coloured sets of pills and no idea what any of them did or directions on how to take them. im not a big pill user on the average day so i was a little bit wary of the collection i now had in my possession. i wanted to call my mom and give her the drug names and then call our good friend mari (the pharmacist, and overall health care supervisor since i was an infant) to confirm the usefulness of the pills. my mom however answered neither her cell phone nor her home phone so i decided to go straight to the source myself. i found the phone number for the vernon london drugs pharmacy online and called them on skype. at this point some cosmic force had decided that i had endured my sufferings and without even asking for her directly i was talking to mari with three minutes. she confirmed the meds, some easily and some after some research. i had been given an antibiotic, a pain killer, a something for acute spasm pain, and a diuretic. apparently all standard for kidney stone treatment. she told me which ones to take with food, which ones to take with lots of water, and i finally felt not only the physical but also the emotional relief that had been eluding me since four am. 

i took the day off of work, luckily i have coworkers who are cambodian and are built to handle anything so they just absorbed my classes into theirs. i spent the day sleeping, drinking water, taking pills and peeing. nothing seemed to change but the pain didn't reappear until about four-thirty the next morning. ash woke up with me and i think fearing that i would slip in to the world of extreme pain again turned the music on loud and got a few bottles of water and we had an early morning dance party in the living room to jump out the stones. and it worked! 

a couple of hours later, after talking to my mom on skype and getting to compare stories (she also had kidney stones a few years ago) i "passed" my first kidney stone! that one i just let be, but the next one, on my mom's advice i kept as a souvenir :) 

Fixing the Broken Things: Part II

Now that Prema has returned, and is safely in her room, I can relay the rest of the story about the broken things.

Additional broken things:
Washing Machine
Bed Board

The decline and fall of the washing machine is a long process, which is still happening. We were lucky enough to be around during an exciting part of this decline. One of our housemates, Kim, was distraught - the washing machine wouldn't drain. I scoured the internet for a repair manual or something, anything. I found something in Japanese for a close cousin model, but this model is elusive like a Dodo bird in December. Kim called a repairman the next day, and he managed to get it to drain. They tested it on some small dishcloths, it worked. Everyone was happy again.

We tried to run a load of clothes. It made it to the rinse cycle, and caved. We agreed that we'd call the dude again tomorrow, and ask him to fix it for real this time. In the mean time, we had a full load of cleaned clothes that needed to be wrung. So I set about wringing, and Em set about hanging what was wrung. What I didn't realize about wringing out a large load of laundry, is that it's actually tiring, and can flay your skin. Ok, ok, "flay" is a bit excessive, but my inferior wringing technique manged to give me minor blisters, and remove the skin by the end of the load. Aaaah.

The repairmen took the washing machine away this time, and returned it. Only for it to not work again that night. Sigh. One of the teachers at GEMS, Thavet, decided to give his washing machine repair skills a shot, and succeeded. Apparently, the culprit was a pipe which was pointing up, instead of down. I wonder now what the repairmen actually did?

The Bed Board.

This one has a back-story:
1) Battambang gets very dark at night - there are no streetlights near GEMS, so we were often submerged in darkness by about 7p.m.
2) When we arrived at GEMS, there was talk of a rat, or of rats in the kitchen (and thus the need to store everything securely before going to sleep)
3) The combination of these two preceding points left Emily somewhat fearful of the kitchen at night. I think that she knew seeing a rat in the kitchen would ruin her time eating food in the same kitchen ,and was more afraid of seeing a rat, than actually knowing that one exists in the house. This resulted in her often asking me to come turn the light on in the kitchen...to make sure it was safe (or give everything a chance to hide).

One night, a week or two ago, I fell asleep while Emily was preparing her lesson for the next day. Before going to sleep, she decided she wanted a glass of water. Considerate wife that she is, she decided not to wake me up just to turn on a light. As she approached the kitchen in the dark (you have to walk into the kitchen, and around a corner in order to flick the light switch), she thought to herself "there's nothing here, nothing's ever here, I don't have to be afraid". Almost in response to her brave thoughts, claws scrabbled on the floor, and small animal ran past her and down the stairs (turns out it was a cat). She let out an ear-piercing scream. Down the hallway, previously asleep in the bed, I lept completely upright. landing just in front of the foot of the bed, with my face in the mosquito netting. I ran to the kitchen, and, after discovering what had happened, laughed with Em for a solid 10 minutes.

Dudes setting up chop

Then we went back to bed, and I noticed that something wasn't right when I res-set the mosquito netting. The bed-board is in two pieces, and the piece on my side of the bed was completely broken near the foot of the bed. Luckily, this doesn't actually interrupt sleep, as the rest of the board holds the mattress up fine - and all is well as long as you don't sit on that exact spot. Still, we wanted to return Prema's room to her in good condition. So we decided we'd look for a replacement board.

Replacing MDF is Battambang is a challenge, and I ended up having to use wood of the same thickness instead. There is a shop close to GEMS that sells construction supplies, but she didn't have a saw to cut the wood to the size that I needed (and I didn't have a saw either). So I headed off (just yesterday) to road 5, where I was told more construction supply shops abound. I cycled around, and asked at once place, fumbling my way through khmer, and using a lot of gesturing to explain what I needed. After a few minutes, when the seller finally understood what I needed, she told me that she didnt' have any, and that I should go farther down the road. I did, and found a place. I talked to about three people before finding someone that seemed like they were understanding what I wanted. They went back and forth from having the wood to not having it, from being able to cut it, to not, etc. Finally, I realized that the hang-up was whether I would pay for the whole sheet, or just my small cut. I assured them I'd buy the whole thing (at a discount because the sheet was damaged). I marked the lengths that I wanted, and they got a guy who could use a skill-saw like a champ to cut the piece out for me.

I left the rest of the wood with them, and grabbed my two-meter piece, mounted my bicycle, and rode off like a knight in a jousting competition. Managing neither to bring injury to myself or to others, I arrived at GEMS (I shared many smiles with people on the way, marveling at the ridiculous prospect of a white guy attempting such a feat of balance). After all of that, the piece was a bit long. So I went back to the nearby shop, bought a hand-saw, marked the length, and cut it up. Finally, the bed-board was replaced!

The Move!

We moved into the new house!

A procession for the King's Birthday?

Not to give something more importance than it's due, but after getting married, and living in rooms in houses for 6 months, we're pretty happy to have our own place. Since Em is teaching, and is in the habit of lesson planning every weekend for the upcoming week, and since she is also studying online, AND since we still want to make friends and spend time with people, it left us very little in the way of time to move on this three day weekend. Still, we managed. :)

Bunthueon and I waiting for the procession to pass @ road 3

Actually, the bulk of our moving/shopping happened in a 2 hour time-span where we hired a Tuk-Tuk driver, and made a few trips around town, and back-and-forth from GEMS to our new place.Originally, we were just walking to a shop to buy some sheets and pillows for one of the beds in our place - the pillows are enormous (but not very comfy in the end!) and an enterprising tuk-tuk driver by the name of Buntheourn convinced us to hire him for a ride home. We had plans though, and asked if he wouldn't mind trucking us around for an hour. In the hour we returned to GEMS, put the sheets in the washing machine, then headed to Street 2 to buy some electrical appliances for the house. We played the sellers on either side of the street against each other's pricing to get good prices for our purchases, and, after loading up the tuk-tuk, headed to the house. At this point, we still didn't have electricity running to our place! Em thought we might ask the tuk-tuk driver if he knew anything about power and how to get it up and running...and he didn't, but it turns out he was bright enough to follow the power-lines from our house across the street, and over to a power-box in the yard of the 'across-the-street-' peeps (can I just call them neighbors? or is there a term for neighbors that face you as opposed to ones that are beside you?) he strolled in, and flicked a switch, and voila! we had power. Lucky lucky.

The second trip from GEMS to new home

We then decided to head back to gems and check on the sheets...and I wanted to go to the bank, because our shopping had almost exhausted our cash. The bank was, how do the french say,  Fermé. So I called Emily, and we decided we'd just pack and move all our stuff right then. Boonthon and I pulled an about-face, and headed back to GEMS. Emily had already hung the new sheets to dry, and packed two bags. I started loading up the tuk-tuk, and helping to pack. Buonthorn and I headed to the new house to drop off the bags, then back to GEMS, then one more giant load, and we were all done!

After we moved in, Emily spent an hour getting to know
The local chillins.

Of course, moving our stuff is only 1/4 of the battle. Cleaning the place on Saturday was another 1/4, unpacking is another 1/4 (which we're nearly through!) and the last, and perhaps longest 1/4 is buying stuff. I'm kind of torn about buying stuff. On the one hand, I like nice things. For reals! I like things that are well-made, and aesthetically pleasing, and functional, and best if they're all three rolled into one. On the other hand, I feel like spending money on things is a bit of a waste. Right? If a .50 cent bowl will hold as much soup as a $5 bowl, why not get the .50 cent one? I'll let you know how that internal battle plays out, or if you have any advice - I'm all ears. In the mean time, We bought a bunch of cheap, functional things (except for aluminum pots which changed color and stuff flaked off of!) and will have to get a few more things and some furniture before we can really say that we've 'settled' in the place.

First we bought bikes, then stuff
and a bucket to put the stuff in

We got new (second-hand) bikes! They're pretty awesome. They came with baskets and lights. The lights are cool - they have a little wheel that connects to the front wheel, and that's how it powers the light. faster = brighter! The cityscape has transformed with our purchase of bicycles - everything is now so close and so easy to access. I'm glad we walked around for 6 weeks though, because now we really appreciate the power of the wheel.

We were pretty insular last weekend, but we managed to join a Diwali celebration with some of the friends from malaysia (they're not hindu, but they took the excuse to make the food :D). Then we all watched "3 idiots" on our projector. Great film. Check it out.

Ridvan and Wody at the Psar Thmeuy Market

There's more to say about the weekends unending activities, but that's all I'm into typing for now.

much love,

Ash.

p.s. "Fixing the Broken Things: Partie Deux" is coming soon!