Susie is home - and straight to the Koffee Korner

Sue is back, safe and well. She is navigating Asia with good skills now, fully informing the taxi driver that he was lost in Bangkok (for when she had to stop over the night). I am like totally and utterly lost permanently in Bangkok - it is a hideously-sized city. Anyway, the long missing wife is back in Phnom Penh just fine.

My trip to the airport to get her was marked with hilarity. An intersection on the way used to be so much fun, but has since been ruined with the introduction of traffic lights. This night, the lights were out and people were flooding into the city for the boat racing during Water Festival. The chaos was utterly glorious - gridlock to the max.

I used the time to observe new records - 12 adults and a little child in one tuk tuk; five teenage boys on one motorbike. It took perhaps 15 minutes to get thru' the intersection. Two hapless police with glo sticks and whistles were barely visible in the midst of everything. They may as well have been twiddly-winks players - the louder they blew their whistles, the more completely they were ignored.

The resident kiwis were well aware that Susie was back. Coffee on Thursday morning was the go with Colleen, Grahame and Sue Taylor and Sue Hanna - all NZ'ers and all living in our area. Susie supplied the choccy goodies.

The legendry, humble Pineapple Lump - world famous beyond NZ

Floaties

I was reading an article about Phnom Penh's water supply a while back. A bunch of work has been done to pipe clean water thoughout the city. This article claimed that Phnom Penh had been recognised as now having the cleanest water in the world. I want to see that claim emblazoned upon a Tui billboard ...

Algae floaties straight our of the tap

At home, we buy our drinking water in 20 litre plastic containers for $1. All good. At the Healing Home I was doing that but have shifted to two water filters - a simple but effective system that filters water through a big clay pot. I also use heaven's own supply, capturing water from a roof run-off and into 20 litre bottles. As long as I allow the first 15 minutes or so of a downpour to wash the dust and atmospheric grime away, the 'from above' water is great.

Rat trap came back

I've been clearing out an overgrown piece of garden - and lo and behold. We have reclaimed the walkabout rat trap, a full five metres away from where it was set. I've already met the rat that most likely did the walkie with said trap sconed on it's head. He's the size of a full-grown dog (as in chihuahua) and comes visiting from out of a drain 6pm-ish in the evenings.

Another year another Water Festival

Water Festival is almost upon us. This is second time around now for us - the beauty of living for more than one year out here. Big waka canoes take to the Mekong for the boat races, and Phnom Penh swells by an influx of some one million people. The vibe is already happening. I took a trip to riverside to pay the power bill and meeting with a local pastor. It is bedlam already out there; you can feel the weight of people already arriving into the city.

There is a wee problem this year, tho'. The wet season is meant to be over. Blue skies should be overhead. But ... neighbouring Vietnam has turned into a giant swimming pool and the rain continues to pour down here too.

Meanwhile, the Healing Home exodus is all over. Three patients and their families headed back home on Sunday and the remaining two patients, Sak and Ngeit, left today. All of a sudden we have gone from overflowing to empty. We're keeping busy tho' - always stuff to clean and do before the holiday week kicks in next Monday.

Chantol riding my steed, taking Ngeit and little Dtouch back home. They live in a village an hour out of town - "a very little house", Chantol reported, "with six children at home - and they all have colds". Ngeit is due back after the festival.

Grumpy old men

I found myself becoming one of these guys for a bit this week. Was it Wednesday?? - anyway I arrived at the Healing Home to discover that visitors were, well, now camping. The Healing Home was becoming a marae and I still have too much pakeha blood in these veins. Silly stuff really - it's most likely set back my sainthood a year of two.

We try to have a 'one patient may have one family member' policy. Not two family members and two kids - one person. Read my lips.

Sophea and Donnie - who live upstairs and help me to keep laughing through my wifeless days. Sophea has discovered my love for passionfruit - and knows the one stall in a local market to source these beauties. She gave me half a dozen yesterday - yay for Sophea!

Part of the fun at the mo is navigating the public holiday system. Cambodia has over 20 public holiday days - I kid you not a bit. This Wednesday and Friday were holidays; then Monday week followed by Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for the Water Festival. Our staff have happily agreed to take a full week off over Water Festival and I'll owe them a day in the lieu thereafter.

This means that the Healing Home will close for a week from 9 November. It is not actually a problem; people want to be with their families and a number of our folk were plannng to exit anyway and come back afterwards. Susie is due back in the middle of that week (12 November). I'm trusting that I'll be grump-free by then!

Ngeit's tale

'Ngeit' is fun to say. You put your tongue into 'ng' as in song, and then say 'night'. The girls correct me every time.

Ngeit was one of our new patients whom I was introduced to on my return from NZ. She has been diagnosed with arthritis and has been in a lot of pain through her body, arms and fingers. I did not know so much about her until I sat at her bedside this week, together with Chantol, to pray for her.

While praying, I kept having an impression of a verse that says that 'when you pray, if you have anything against anyone, forgive them ...' So, we stopped praying, dug out the verse and talked to Ngeit. She started to cry.

Ngeit and her little daughter Dtouch (we call her Dtouch number 2, to distinguish her from our cook!)

Ngeit told us that she had a major falling out with her village neighbour. The animosity escalated. The neighbour went to a local witch-doctor and paid him to curse Ngeit. After that, she became sick.

We've got Ngeit on a new medicine. It is called 'blessing those who curse you'. Now, before we pray for her, we ask her to pray blessing on her neighbour. These are her steps to freedom. She testifies that the pain level has truly decreased these last two days.

I have a dream

Actually, I've got a few of them on the boil.

The dream in the heading is not such a spiritual one. I'm keen to get to making a calendar to communicate with the world just what a motorbike's life can be like in Phnom Penh.

This happy moto I snapped on the phone camera as we were pulling off some traffic lights not far from my house.