Christmas Greetings from Cambodia

Plastic Christmas trees with glittery ornaments have been popular in the shops of Phnom Penh this December, but the anticipation and bustling preparations are distinctly missing. For me, listening to Handel’s Messiah and reading the lectionary every morning with my housemates has helped bring some definition to Advent here in the tropics.

It is the harvest season in Cambodia, and the rice fields have turned that lovely gold that glows in the dusk as the wind brings the weary workers home. But, there is also a somberness this year since so many fields were destroyed with the flooding. Thanks to donations from around the world, the Methodist Mission in Cambodia was able to distribute relief packages to more than 1000 families in November and this week again to nearly 800 more families in the impacted regions. About 10% of the farmers in the communities where we work have re-planted fields with dry-season rice, if they have sufficient access to water. There is a story from Mr. Thy on our CHAD blog about how church members in the village of Raksmei have shared their plots of land that are suitable for dry-season farming to highly-impacted neighbors who otherwise would have nothing this year.

The morning I sent funds to a new project group in Kampong Thom to purchase a water pump. Thank you to everyone who has contributed through Alternative Giving to support these projects this year. (There is still time to make a year-end donation!) While on a church visit last Sunday, Mr. Thy gave me an update of another irrigation group that was started 2 years ago in Svay Rieng. We helped the group to dig a deep irrigation-well and purchase a water pump. At harvest, each family in the group puts 100kg of rice into a savings fund for each hector of irrigated land. After 2 years of saving they were able to dig another irrigation well to expand the impact of their group in the village.

As this is my fourth year working in Cambodia, the sustaining joy of it is the transformations I am privileged to witness as leaders in the church experience new ways to live out their calling. These last two years I've had the joy of working with Rev. Sok Nora in the Kampong Speu district. I've come a long way from the feelings of frustration on my first monitoring visit to his church. But just as I have learned patience and better communication skills, Rev. Nora has also been expanding his vision. Mr. Thy has captured this in a profile of Rev. Sok Nora on our blog.

I've received several emails asking about how we celebrate Christmas in Cambodia. Local Methodist churches here hold Christmas programs throughout the month of December and even into January. It is a joyful time to take a break from the harvest and also to visit each other. This year I joined Toul Kork church in Phnom Penh to drive 2 hours out to the Kirirom church in the mountains of Kampong Speu. There were games for the children, a modern-day Cambodia interpretive play of the Prodigal Son by the youth of Toul Kork, songs by the men’s choir of Kirirom, a sermon from District Superintendent Hong Phally and the ever popular and delicious curry (both green & red varieties) with rice noodles. We finished off the day with fresh, organic bananas that had been harvested from the lay leader’s farm and then hung from trees around the church so that children could grab one as they ran by; they reminded me of piñatas hung to tempt children with treats. The harvest was indeed plentiful!

In the face of adversity and the terrible realities all around us, I have found hope in the powerful witness of communities coming together. Together to re-plant the rice, to eat bananas and to rejoice in the coming of the Christ Child -- the reminder that God is with us even here, even now.

With joy and gratitude,

Katherine

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NEW Office: House #152 St. 12BT, Phum SanSom Kosal 4, Boeung Tumpun 5, Khan Meanchey Phnom Penh, Cambodia

homesick for what

Sometimes I get asked if I ever get homesick and usually my answer is no. But today I was reading an article (online) in the New York Times Home & Garden section about shopping for bathroom fixtures and it made me feel nostalgic for the summer when I helped to remodel the bathroom at my parent's house. I remember shopping with my mom to select the fixtures.

Life in Cambodia is quite good. I have running water almost all the time. It is room temperature, which is sometimes warm and sometimes cool, but I don't mind not being able to adjust the temp at the tap. Previously, we lost water pressure every morning, but now we've got a system for switching to the water tank during that period, so no problems there anymore. I even have a faucet fixture that I can push open and closed since I dislike turning faucets.

So what is it that I miss? Polished chrome. Construction is all low quality here. My faucet is often leaking and was rusted and unattractive within a few months of my land-lady installing it. It seems like a minor point, the water still does run after all, but I do miss those lovely shinny metal bathroom fixtures.

a typical day?

I don't think there is such a thing as a typical day for anyone working in community development, but since I get the question a lot, I though I would start to periodically write about my day (or at least the interesting ones). Here is what I did on Wednesday October 19.

5:30 am - wake up in my apartment in Phnom Penh and check emails.

6:45 am - still a bit sleepy, I stumble downstairs and over to my neighbor's apartment where we have our morning "bible club." My neighbors include 2 other missionaries (from the USA and from India) who are professors at the Royal University of Phnom Penh and my best friend Heng (also our landlady). We are reading through Luke right now.

7:10 am - hoping that the water pressure is back (it often drops off between 6:30 and 7:30am), I head back upstairs to shower and eat breakfast.

8:00 am - I'm heading out for 3 days in the province (country-side), so I pack an overnight bag, charge my phone and my battery lamp (no electricity or running water where I am going). I dawdle over a few last emails as well.

9:30-10 am - I make my way through Phnom Penh traffic (it is crazy at any time of day) to go from my house near Watt Sansom Kosal to the GBGM office in Toul Kork. I stop at the Caltex gas station along the way to pick up coffee for me and Daneth. The gas station coffee is cheaper than at a posh cafe, but a bit more expensive than at a Khmer cafe ($1.40 versus $2.50 or $.50). I like it because they actually have an espresso machine and it tastes more like American coffee. Plus, I can get it with real milk and no sugar. The $.50 Khmer coffee with sweet milk can be a bit too strong.

10 am - at the office, Daneth loads our things into the office truck while I meet with Vannak to go over some administrative tasks on which I need her help. I've asked her to review and update our list of donor addresses and to check for redundancies. My email request to her wasn't quite clear so I give a quick tutorial in how I use Excel. We also touch base about the financial records she has been preparing.

10:30 am - Daneth and I are finally leaving the office. We negotiate the road construction at the intersection of Russian Blvd and Street 271 and are finally off in the direction of Kampong Speu.

11:45 am - arriving in Kampong Speu town, we pick up Rev. Sok Nora, who is the pastor representative on the Social Concerns Committee for this province and stop at a road-side Khmer cafe for lunch. They order Somla Mchu Yuen (sour soup with pineapple and fish) since it is my favorite soup to eat while we are on the road, plus Tom Yum soup and stir fried mushrooms with beef (and of course rice). The meal is less than $6.

12:30 - on the road again heading west towards the mountains of Kirirom. We get to the turn off about 1pm and then spend the next hour on the dirt road. Some of the rivers are swollen, so it is a good think that there is enough clearance on the truck. Sok Nora gets out at one point to check the water depth before we try to cross.

2pm - we arrive at the pastor's house where we meet church members who have gathered there. The pastor sends out word to gather community members who want to come and meet us. We tour the pastor's house, rice mill, new hand-tractor, etc.

We then have an introductory meeting with folks from the village. We listen to their experience working on other development projects and try to find out if they have any interest in working together on project with the local Methodist church. There is some interest, but we decide to proceed slowly because we don't want to create any competition between a project facilitated by the church and an existing rice bank in the neighboring village. No concrete decisions are made, but we have been able to meet and start to know each other. I think the pastor feels encouraged and supported to continue facilitating the community towards a cooperative project.

4pm - since the village chief is away at an event, after the meeting we just take a walk with the pastor out to see his farm land. He has a plot of land near the river with mango trees and where he has been growing diakon radish and other vegetables for market. I manage to collect thousands of sticky seeds on my pants and I think the red ants must find me particularly delicious, but I still enjoyed the walk. We learned quite a bit about the economic conditions of the village and also of the pastor (who is one of the more successful families in the village). We walked by the old church location and picked up a few young coconut from a low branch of a palm tree on the property. Back at the house we have a refreshing drink and then decided to go and visit the new church location.

5pm - I didn't realize quite how far away the new church is from the pastor's house. They informed me that we should take the truck rather than a moto because it takes 1-lt of petrol to go there and back. This signifies quite a distance, but I thought they were exaggerating. A bit after 5:30 when we are only about 2 kilometers from the new church, we come up to a temporary dirt-bridge across yet another section of river. However, this bridge is impassable because there is both an over-turned truck blocking part of it and a mini-van stuck in the mud blocking the other half.  There is still space for a moto to get around, so traffic is moving, and the observers suggest that we should go down the embankment and ford the river.  However, the 4-wheel drive is busted on the truck I was driving and the embankment on the other side is quite steep. A lorry comes by while we are debating and pulls the minivan out of the mud. However, it is starting to get dark, both options look risky and I don't trust the truck, so we decide to turn around and skip the visit to the church.

6:30pm - it is full dark by the time we get back to the pastor's house. Luckily for us, he is quite wealthy and even has a generator to provide some light for us. They have killed a chicken for our dinner. We eat a delicious sour soup with herbs, lemon grass, lime and of course fresh chicken and also a dish of what tastes like liver (or other similar chicken parts) and onions. Both are very tasty.

7pm - a neighborhood lady shows up, we smile at each other, and soon we are gathering in the central room of the pastor's house for vespers. We read Psalm 121, sing and pray, including a time of laying on hands and healing prayer for the neighborhood lady.

8pm - most others took a bath before dinner, but I like to bath right before I sleep, so I went off for my bath.  They have a very nice indoor bathroom at the pastor's house. No running water, but a large room with an indoor cistern that fills from the rain water coming off the roof. Bathing involves using a small bucket to dip and pour water over myself. It is very refreshing after a long day on the road and nice to have lots of room to splash water everywhere.

9pm - when I come out, the pastor's wife is explaining to Rev. Sok Nora about her work as a Malaria Control Volunteer for the village for the last 2 years. We discuss many of the local misconceptions about the cause of malaria. Even among those being trained as Malaria Control Volunteers, the pastor's wife was one of the few people who actually knew before the training that malaria comes from mosquitoes rather than from bad spirits.

9:30pm - I retire for sleep since we plan to wake up at 5am (first light) the next morning to travel on to visit another church. The pastor and his wife have given up their room and are sleeping in the common area so that Daneth and I can have a private place to sleep. We even have a wooden bed (no mattress, just a woven mat) to elevate us up off the ground and of course a mosquito net!

A malaria control volunteer in Kirirom

I just got back from a three day visit to a remote part of Kampong Speu province... actually one of the few "mountain" regions of the country. It was a lovely visit and the countryside is just gorgeous. This is the third month for us to be working with a new cluster of churches in this region. And so, on this visit I traveled out to actually meet with community members at their village - rather than just with church leaders at a central location for the cluster.

One of the joys of meeting people in their home place is finding out small ways that individuals are living out their Christian service to their community. As is true for church members in the US and around the world, people of faith in Cambodia are active in their communities and partnering with various local initiatives to improve lives. Many church members are very active in health care ministry, especially accompanying neighbors to the local clinic or farther afield to the provincial referral hospital. CHAD provides orientation to this kind of service through our Good Samaritan training program. But our training really just builds on what folks are already doing in their communities.

The first night of this trip I spent at the house of the pastor of the Kirirom church, and learned about an example of health outreach being done by the pastor's wife.  His wife is the local malaria control volunteer. This region has particularly high incidence of malaria because many people get their livlihood from going into the forest (mostly to cut wood) and this is breeding ground for mosquitoes.  Because it is cool and damp under the trees the malaria mosquitoes are also more active.

She has been trained by the government's Ministry of Health in partnership with USAID in a simple chemical-blood test for the malaria parasite and how to prescribe the correct dosage of medicine according to age, size, etc. for those who test positive.  She showed us her records over the last 2 years and the growing awareness of people in her village about malaria indicated by the increased number of people who come for testing each month.  The malaria medication is provided for free to those who test positive.  She has also had some training in women's reproductive health and provides birth control and/or iron supplements to women in the village would like those options for about $0.25 per month.  She receives an honorarium of $17 per month for this work.

Flooding in Cambodia

Flood damage update. I've received several emails with questions and concerns about recent flood damage here in Cambodia. Thanks! I am fine, but there has been quite a bit of damage especially to many rice fields that were so close to being ready to harvest. Daneth Him just went up to visit Kampong Chhnang yesterday to assess the extent of damage to communities we work with there (the link is to her facebook page where she posted pictures). The flood levels have not been as high as during the typhoon in 2009, but the water has been very slow to recede, which is why the crop damage has been extensive.

The Social Concerns Committee (SCC) of the Methodist Church in Cambodia (MMC) has already distributed some funds for immediate food aid to about 1150 families in 55 villages (in 9 provinces) who have lost their harvest, but this is still just a drop in the bucket so to say. The water festival has been canceled by the government this year in order to use those funds also to provide relief. At the same time, I've heard that the flood levels in Thailand are even higher. I can't imagine.

Thanks for your concern. If you would like to make a donation to be used by the Social Concerns Committee, you can give online at http://secure.gbgm-umc.org/donations/advance/donate.cfm?id=3020542&code=3020542 through The Advance and 100% will be delivered here for use in this effort. Please add a note/memo that this is for "flood relief" so that we will know how to channel your funds.