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!
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!
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