La Sonya

I've just finished putting my green chair back inside my apartment, I've turned the kitchen lights off and it's the end of another wonderful Friday night Pasta Night. Pasta Night is when the other RAW expats gather together in my kitchen, cook a simple dinner and hang out. It was born when I first got here out of a desire to carry on a family tradition of sharing the Friday dinner together and starting the Sabbath (Saturday, the day I go to church) off right. After a long busy week it's nice to slow down, cook a meal with friends and chat about life. It is an always evolving party. At one point when Re-Knee was here we had to make sure we didn't cook with A LOT of different foods that she was allergic to (tomatoes, garlic, gluten, etc) it was a fun challenge and we were all in support of it. That was how we ended up branching away from always cooking actual pasta. Since then we've experimented with recipes, making everything from roasted capsicum (bell peppe...

No two days are the same here. One day I may be heading to Ta Skor village to meet with the principal (Tuesday) another day I may be in Mondulkiri conducting a Teacher Training (last Tuesday) or I may be doing a random afternoon of prep for the staff retreat that is next week (today). I'd say most my days start with me opening my eyes at 5:30 am and getting up at 6 am. Breakfast, quiet worship time and the whole rest of the morning stuff and out the door at 8 am, with a quick stop at Wild Coffee before work with Morning Meeting/Worship starting at 8:30. Then I work on projects, lesson plans, communication etc till lunch at noon. Lunch is normally rice and veggies eaten with my friends in the office but sometimes is an adventure at a new lunch place in town. Then from 1 pm to 5 pm work some more with a recess break somewhere in there so I don't go too crazy (imagine a lot more chair spins then necessary.) I'm back at my apartment by 5:30 pm and I clean, cook, read, wat...

I walk to work on Wednesday. I don't work far from home. Since I've moved it's even closer but I usually take the long way. On Wednesday you can get a $1 coffee from our favorite little café, Lot 369. So I walk to the coffee shop (opposite direction from work), say hello to all my friends there and then walk to work. I call my dad and chat with him as I walk, it's hard being 12 hours time difference to chat. Wednesday's are good for calling, no one is busy on a Tuesday night. As I walk to work I get to see up close the neighborhood. I get to dodge around traffic and tell the tuk tuk drivers I don't need a ride. I really enjoy walking past my regular morning-ride-to-work friends. There's the ladies who sell fruit at the corner, just down from the 5 way intersection. They always have a smile and wave. Then after that next corner I pass "Grandma". When I walk I get to interact more with her. We do a lovely formal greeting, then she says stuff to m...

Technology. When I first lived outside of America I still had to use calling cards, a floppy disk to transfer emails from one computer to the next and I had personalized cd mixes from friends. That was in 2004. Fourteen years later I video chatted with Tessa and Lou, two friends--at the same time, one was in Perth, Australia and the other was in Brisbane, Australia. We had a mostly clear conversation for an hour without any interruption. I was on my laptop and they were on theirs. It's crazy! Another video chat with friends in Ohio.  Living here in Phnom Penh I am quite spoiled. I have internet almost everywhere I go, from a coffee cart to my favorite dinner place, they all have wifi. Even if they didn't have wifi I get more than enough weekly data in my plan that costs all of $1. It's incredible! I am easily connected to EVERYONE! I can talk to my dad in Texas with a better connection than when I lived in California! It's incredible. A few months back my p...

In the stories of my Cambodia weather is a central character. Whether he would be the antagonist or protagonist is yet to be known. The weather of Cambodia at it's best. Wind has become my closest friend, I open my apartment windows right when I get home to let him settle into each corner. There are windows on three of the four walls and it conveniently lets Wind in on one side so that it can explore the rooms and leave on the other side. With my new apartment there are no neighbor buildings to block my growing friendship with Wind. In fact I sometimes, because Wind is so strong I have to close windows to keep things staying on my walls. pillow. It is not always playful and cool caresses with wind, there have been times in the middle of the night where something has been brought into my room by wind that smells as if it has been dead awhile or perhaps sitting with death for a few days. There is no way to get the smell out other than to wait for Wind to remove it in whateve...

     I have learned something about Troy and Nic Roberts, the founders and directors of RAW Impact. They LOVE a good mystery destination. The tradition for our Christmas retreat is to simply tell us the dates that we will be gone. After that you can't trust anything they say! Troy will toss out false leads as to where we are going for weeks leading up to the trip. He'll say, "Bring hiking boots, take containers for fresh water, bring your snorkel and flippers." There is no way to know exactly where we will end up! Ideas about where our destination is fly all around the office. I always suspect it will be beach related simply because the Aussies miss the beach and are pulled to it like a puppy is pulled to a squeak toy. Even once we have all boarded the bus in Phnom Penh we don't know where we are going as Troy gives crazy directions taking us in all sorts of directions.     I must admit it is exciting and fun to not know exactly where we will end up! It's...

Since I haven't been blogging much lately I thought I'd try a different approach to it. I've been taking a lot of photos of life. I think I've done a good job at documenting life that way. So I'm going to just share more of the stories around some photos! I'll start with this one: My oldest friend in the world, Ashley and her husband, Freddy, came to visit me! They were the first people to ever visit me in a country other than America. It may not sound like much but this is the fifth country I've lived in other than America. It meant A TON!!  Traveling with Ashley and Freddy is not for the faint of heart! They make sure and optimize their time! I got to show them around Phnom Penh and where I work as well as exploring parts of Cambodia that I have never been to! We took two different overnight busses, rented motos, fed elephants, explored ancient temple ruins and caught up on life. That's one thing I love about Ashley and Fred, we can pick up w...

Part of our team trips with RAW Impact  involve a kayaking trip while in Karatié. I have been on a few team trips as the logistics person but never able to go on the trip because of group size. I have been looking forward to the day when there would be room for me to join. That day came last week when they had room for one more! I LOVED EVERY MOMENT OF IT! Since I was the extra person I got to paddle with the tour guide. It was great to practice my Khmer with him but we soon got over that and I let him tell me all the facts about the Mekong in English.  The groups are 12 tourists and two guides. The first bit is hard because you have to cross over the river and explore on the other side. I remember thinking half way across how crazy this is because once you start you have to finish and it's hard! I had already been hoeing a garden all morning and now I was paddling across this river! The kayaks are open and made for two people. I stored my phone/camera in a small dr...

IMPORTANT INFORMATION!!!!! I now have a better understanding of the fundraising process. I will break it all down for you: Tax Deductible : If you need to make it tax deductible you can donate it directly to the umbrella organization that RAW Impact is under for it's non profit license in America. The name is Global Development Group (GDG). You can do that here:  http://globaldevelopmentgroup.org/us/portfolio-item/j790n-rawimpact-projects/ . If you do donate there please mark it with my name and email me to let me know. Please note that because it is such a small organization I lose 25%. Here's the breakdown; GDG takes 7.5% from each donation. Then 10% of each donation goes towards growth and 7.5% goes towards RAW's administration of volunteers. With the transfer of funds between exchange rates from US to Australia and then back to Cambodia in US dollars, we lose a percentage there so that's included in the admin costs also.  Go Fund Me: If you want t...

This is a note on how to help understand the things that are going to come in the weeks that follow. In the next few weeks I may not be seeming to be my normal self. I don't say goodbye well .  When it comes to packing up I will find any and every excuse to not do it. I will put it off and wait until I am a few hours from leaving to pack. Understand that it's hard for me to leave . I haven't been able to talk much about leaving to those I love here. I change the subject so as to not allow the liquid to pool up in my eyes. Yesterday alone I almost started crying twice. I know it's coming but I don't know how to accept it. I'm a normal teacher and excited about summer break but at the same time I don't want to let go of my students. I want to keep on teaching them, encouraging them and being there with them. Cleaning up my classroom means I am leaving and saying goodbye. I just don't do it well. I'm trying to be strong and brave about this ...

The week I decided to visit Cambodia to interview with RAW Impact , back in November, I was introduced to my new friend Khunara, known as Ra here in Oakhurst. She is a wonderful woman who survived a horrific time in Cambodia in the 70's. She is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge. Her story of survival is not one she likes to talk about very often. She was much younger in those days, a young newly wed and during that time she was separated, by force of the Khmer Rouge, from her husband for some time. During which she didn't know if he was alive or not. After a tale that is hard to follow at times, she was beautifully reunited with her husband. With herself and one other friend being the sole survivors of her village she and her husband made there way to the city of Los Angeles, California. It was there that she was welcomed to a country she now calls home. A place that helped her to heal from a terrible time. It was in this city that she and her husband had their only son and they le...