A Suzuki in the family

Sreymom, Sopheap and Bonna checking out the new machine.

At the risk of having a jealous Spider, we've expanded our fleet of motos - to two. Apart from my moto spending a tragic amount of time with a flat tyre (yep, got another today, but it had been two weeks ...) the amount of running around with patients and for stuff that is involved for the Healing Home makes transport a real juggle at times.

The little Suzuki Viva (specs: 110cc, 2006 model first rego in 2007; 22k) was hand picked for us by Pastor Mara, just the most caring, zealous guy who has pastoral oversight of the Healing Home - and an ability to suss out the dogs and lemons.

Our NZ friends Marty and Robyn initiated this through their homegroup. They arrive for three months with us at the end of July. May little Miss Suzuki be a blessing to them then, too!

Did I ever mention the time when our daughter, Kara, was visiting us? The first couple of days, she was very, very quiet on the back of my moto. Then, she came alive to the vibe of traffic flow here - and I would hear her going 'weeeee - weeeee' every time something exciting happened. Here is Sopheap going 'weeeee' on the inside around the Healing Home yard.

Home sweet home

Yesterday I signed up for another two years at 8c Street 460. Like most things, lease signing is a process that has taken a few weeks.

A few new clauses were inserted into the lease this time around. One of them said that we were to be wholly responsible in the event of any fire. It was all fun explaining that we are tenants, not an insurance company. So three days later the ammended lease comes back ...

Monsieur Bonnvee at Rue 460

Anyway, the lease got signed - well, thumbprinted actually. We were all happy smiles. Then out came the second lot of lease documents - the same as the first but stating we were paying $200 monthly rent (we are paying $400). Son of landlord happily explained that would we please be helpful to them as this second set of lease docs was for the tax man.

Son of landlord is doing his masters in law. Daddy is a lawyer - high up. He's sitting on the Khmer Rouge tribunal and raking it in courtesy of the UN. I really enjoy my get-togethers with son of landlord. He is a fun Cambodian guy who at this time may not be particularly helpful in straightening out the crooked paths within this nation. There is no point in being all dogmatic and righteous. I just told him that his daddy is a very clever man and that he would know how to handle the tax man.

Farm girl

Cambodian people are often quite shy. The girls especially are polite, proper and anxious that they do no wrong around their boss. But people are people and like in every country, girls love to have fun.

When I returned to the Healing Home from lunch earlier this week, I could hear noises but could not see our staff. Peering around the corner, I found Sreymom literally up the jackfruit tree - and the rest of the girls calling out encouragement to her!

Girls will be girls

Jackpot

Today I went and sorted accident and medical insurance for four of our staff. It is part of their employment package as New Life Fellowship staff. Here is trusting that those jackfruit branches stay strong ...

Straight to the pink room

We had high tea this morning in the heart of Phnom Penh. Sitting with dainty English china in a room painted pink, sipping on a cuppa of English breakfast tea ... it was all a bit surreal.

This is Sandra's doing - our awesome Aussie friend who together with hubbie Graham have spent the last seven years being mum and dad to 16 children here. Recently they have set up a hairdressing training centre, managed by Sreyna, one of the girls they have been parents to.

Sandra, Susie (getting trained up for High Tea duties) and Sue

On the second floor of the hair salon is the Pink Room - a delightful dream that has become a reality to Sandra. On her last trip back to Brisbane she went op-shopping for the china and carted 85kg of gear back to Cambodia!

High Tea is open three days a week. I am the first bloke to come and daintily sip. There was scones and cream, club sammies and other goodies too - a great way to unwind in the midst of a pretty full-on week.

There's even lemon honey on the plate ....

Four punctures and a power surge

Efficiency can be a challenge in Cambodia. Early in our time here, I was helpfully told that, if you start the day with ten things to do on your list and finish the day with three things accomplished, you have had a successful day.

One of the things that conspires against reaching even the modest 'three tick day' accomplishment level is the dreaded puncture. Roads here are littered with every imaginable little nasty. I have very seldom gone a month wthout a puncture. My norm would be a puncture every two weeks. This week I scaled new heights - four flatties in 48 hours. Check my hair line - it has affected me.

Getting a puncture fixed is no biggie. In a land of small businesses, every fifth block or so will have a guy under an umbrella with a few tools. The trick is to look for a compressor machine at the side of the road. Helpful locals will always point a poor bloke pushing his moto in the right direction.

Here we go again - time is waiting for me too often, too

The basic repair has a piece of rubber cut out, then the tube sandwiched in a little flamed setup that bonds the patch into the tube. It costs 2,000 riel (US.50c). As I've often got one or two people on the back of my moto, the art is to feel the flatty as quick as possible. 20 metres and you've done the tube in too.

I'm riding a little paranoid at the moment - tho' it is now 20 hours and the tyre is still firm. I'm hopeful that my discovery 7pm last night that the rubber liner was missing on the inside of the wheel rim may make the difference. How does a liner go missing??

But there is some good news on the home front too. We have got power - as in serious power - at our house. From day one our power levels have been dismal. Turn the electric jug on, and the lights dim; the fans slow. At night we could turn on a switch and it would take five minutes for the light to flicker on. Our bathroom light would regularly not come on at all .... until 2am (in the dark, you forget the lightswitch is down).

There has been no landlord joy - until now. Our two year lease is up next month and we advised him that we would be moving. Two weeks later (after viewing some shocking joints owned by amazing optimists) we said that 'if we were to possibly consider to stay, then we have a list here ...'

The voltage stabiliser machine - settling into its duties at our place.

Getting the power sorted was the top non-negotiable - and there has been action quicker than my flat tyres. A transformer machine has been hard wired into our power, stepping the voltage up from what we were getting (170v) to a consistant 230v. Wow!! We now have fans like aeroplane propellars. Our toaster can now brown the toast. The jug boils in half the time. The bathroom light turns on within five seconds.

230 glorious volts - day and night!

The only thing not yet sorted is our aircon. We've had it checked and told that it is fine - just the power was too low to run it. But alas - we need a second opinion. We've got a sound and light show happening when we try to run it now. The power is sucked in - the machine gasps, takes a breath and everything dims - then surges. The second meter, sitting on zero, flies up to 75 - the lights blaze like crazy, lighting up the neighbourhood; then it all settles down until the machine takes another gasp 30 seconds later.

It is entertaining - but maybe just a wee bit dodgy.

Veasna's new clothes

We have had a most lovely young guy with us this week. Veasna came to care for his mum who has come to us with still undiagnosed throat and chest pains.

Veasna has pains of a different kind - a big cloud of rejection and sadness hanging over him. He has just 'outline sight' in one of his eyes and he lost his dad four years ago. As a 14-year-old, life has been very sad.

For three days, Veasna would not speak at all, even when he was spoken to by our staff. He would smile and nod but he was so shy and withdrawn he just would not respond. Susie decided that he needed some individual attention; some caring that told him that he was loved and special.

Sue noted that he only had one set of clothes. We got Sopheap to take him shopping for two new sets of clothing - whatever he wanted. You can hardly imagine the transformation in this little guy when he came back in the most colourful gear to be found in the market! Such a small gesture of kindness has such an enormous individual impact.

Veasna in his new gear

These last three days, he has worn these clothes day and - I suspect - night. The second set of clothing he got was actually school clothing - a long-sleeved white shirt and some good looking longs. When it came time to go today, he got out the school clothing and put it on - over the trendy new shorts and t-shirt.

Getting dressed for the return home.

It is common for us to see patients arrive with next to no clothing. The poor are very, very poor. It is possible to buy used clothing by the pile here - as in a 1.6 metre high bale of clothing for US$150. We thought this was maybe just too much clothing to handle, so looked to option two - 400 pieces of clothing for much less. Our friend Michelle (a fine Aussie nurse who is here for six weeks yet again, working with Donnie into the provinces) heard of our plans and gave a bunch of clothes to us for this purpose.

Healing Home op shop - Sue, Bonna, Sreymom and Touch happily sorting through the clothing pile given to us today. Thank you, Michelle!!

My ABC's

Now I know my ABC's - I wish

Actually, I'm still nailing the alphabet - and thought it was about time that I introduced you to my journey of learning Khmer script. If you have a cup of coffee and ten minutes to kill, then feel free to engage your brain and step into my language world for a bit.

Many languages have one big plus - they use the Roman alphabet. Alas, Khmer is composed of whirls and twirls - a Sanskrit-based alphabet system that has morphed over the years into what we have today. I'm told that the written form here has similarities to Thai and Lao. It has no vague similarities whatsoever to the good old ABC's.

So, here are the consonants - all 33 of them. So far, so good. Note the number of variations of the letter that looks a bit like a 'G'. Six of them - a couple that I still mix up. Then there are the four 'n'-type letters. Four is better than six, I assure you.

The blessed consonants

Every consonant has a built-in vowel sound. We have a 'k' sound; the Khmer consonants (yep, plural ..) sound 'core' or 'co', depending on whether it is a first-series consonant (the red ones in the alphabet picture) or a second series consonant (the blue ones). The 't' sound is a bit sadder - four consonants start with a 't' sound and a further two have a 'dt' sound. Which one to choose in spelling is still a complete lottery to me.

But wait, there's more. The pronunciation of each consonant changes with the vowel used. My sweet mother-tongue language has five vowels. Khmer is a wee more complicated - there are 23 vowels. Every vowel will alter the consonant pronunciation. Many of the subtleties are indistinguishable to my old ears. That leads you to the times when people helpfully correct you - when what they say and what I think I have said are identical. But no, it is different.

... and the blessed vowels

23 vowels are obviously not enough. So, to correct this deficiency, 17 of the 23 vowels have a different sound when used with first-series consonants to when they are used for second-series consonants. Check out the first vowel like a reversed 'r'. Following a red letter, it changes the 'ore' sound (that is built-in; remember?) to an 'ar' sound. Following a blue (second series consonant) letter, the consonant is pronounced with an 'ee-a'.

So, now we have 40 vowel sounds to play with. Vowels here are very random animals. In placement with the consonant, they can appear over, under, before, after or a combination of the above (seeing many vowels have two and yay, even three, parts to the one vowel).

Once the consonants are learned (I have) and the vowel sounds sorted (I haven't) we are just getting started. Enter the world of the subscript consonants ....

In Khmer, many words have consonants running together. For example, 'I' is pronounced 'K'nyom'. The 'k' is half-pronounced before cutting away to the 'ny'. There are lots of words like this. Sometimes (but certainly not always) when two consonants run together at the beginning of a word, the subscript consonant is used. What this means is that the second (usually smaller) consonant is placed underneath (or before) the normal first one. The fun is that in lots of cases, the subscript consonant does not bare any resemblance at all to the normal one. When I discovered this whole new world of subscript animals my heart sank greatly.

No blessing at all in these little guys - in black and in light blue are the subscript consonants.

OK lets string a bit together. Check out a simple one - 'hallelujah'. We assemble it like thus:

mmm, that's a bit messy; I hope you get the drift ...

If your coffee has made you extra-bright, you possibly picked up that the 'y' is a second-series consonant, and so the attached vowel should be an 'ee-a' sound (halleluyeea??) That's where the little " above (they are called 'rats teeth') change things - when they show up, they change the vowel sound of a second-series consonant to that of a first-series consonant. I guess you are figuring by now that there are a whole lot of dirty tricks in this written language! And - I'm still discovering more ...

Secondly, take the word for 'eye' - 'p'nairk'. How much trouble can you get out of a three-lettered English word?? Here is how it pans out.

'P'nairk' - eye

So, in this case the progression goes from the second letter, down to the subscript, back to the first letter which is the vowel for the subscript and then to the final consonant - the 'g' which gets pronounced 'k' at the end of most words. Well, not quite - Khmer is notorious for dropping off the final 'hard' sound of a work so 'eye' comes out more like 'p'nair' with the hint of a 'k' sound at the end.

18 months ago, I had no heart for trying to learn the written stuff. Just give me the conversation. A year plus down the road, and I was hitting just too many blocks. Some people learn great by listening and learning. I wasn't.

I discovered that I need visual structure in order to sort out pronunciation. I have to see and nut it out in order to comprehend. There is plenty to see too - there are no gaps between words, so everything runs together. It is a real slow magical mystery tour but I'm actually finding more go-forward by backing up and getting some alphabet handles.