Cambodians have surprisingly high rates of diabetes. Why? Is it because they put a lot of sugar in their coffee? This is what one expatriate told me when I mentioned that I was excited to have Cambodian coffee again. To paraphrase “Be careful, you’ll get diabetes.” I normally drink my coffee black so it’s a…
Wounds take a long time to heal here
Wounds take a long time to heal here. A scratch on the skin of my strong and healthy children used to heal within a day or two in the United States. Here, it’s at least a week, sometimes more. Perhaps it’s the air quality as thousands of cars, motos and tuk-tuks pump unregulated toxins into…
Probably not food poisoning
I’ve had food poisoning a lot in my life, as noted in my last post, so I’m familiar with the symptoms by now. This latest bout started off feeling like an extreme case of it. The nausea, fever, and vomiting lasted around 48 hours. But the diarrhea (and associated lightheadedness/weakness) has continued since. That’s way…
Ugh. Food poisoning.
I’m very susceptible to food poisoning. Even back home in the United States. It was a challenge for me last time – living in a rural province – as I had major bouts of food poisoning every two to three weeks for my first two years. I lost a significant amount of weight because of…
Olympic Market
The Olympic Market was one of the three markets that I visited the most often during my term in Cambodia from ’06 to ’09. This was entirely because this was where buses heading to and arriving from Prey Veng could be found in Phnom Penh. The buses rarely left on time so that there were…
Cooperation Committee for Cambodia
On Monday, I attended my first Cooperation Committee for Cambodia (CCC) meeting. The CCC is a group that coordinates and supports NGO activity in Cambodia among it’s nearly 170 members. What is an NGO? In the United States this is what we would call a nonprofit. But in international contexts the common term is Non-Governmental…
What are YAMEN and SALT?
I’ve mentioned Mennonite Central Committee’s YAMEN and SALT programs in a few posts. These are one year cultural exchange programs that send participants to countries around the world. The two programs are very similar with one core distinction – the sending countries. SALT (Serving And Learning Together) sends Christian North American young adults (ages 19-30)…
Oh Ticks!
Over the weekend Crystal noticed that Leena had a tick between the toes of her paw. She tried to remove it but wasn’t successful. I don’t remember ticks in Prey Veng last term but, then, Prey Veng had roving bands of chickens. We looked up the name of Leena’s veterinarian and made plans to take…
Local Grocery Store
There isn’t a market in our immediate neighborhood of Phnom Penh so we need to travel some distance to a market, shop at a smaller grocery store, or visit a western style supermarket (there’s one about 15 minutes by foot from our house but…expensive!). I wanted to share some photos of the smaller grocery store…
Phnom Penh Mennonite
This morning I attended Phnom Penh Mennonite while Crystal took the girls to New Life Fellowship. Arthur and Phyllis, the Area Directors/our supervisors, came with me to Phnom Penh Mennonite and we met the five new YAMEN/SALT participants there along with one of the Exchange Coordinators, Phillip. The service format was greetings/introductions, three songs, three…