Duck update

Well, this morning Swimmer was fine when I opened his box. I left him there for a bit (he had water last night). Then at 8:30, Ung (our guard) had a peek and he was splayed out - almost dead. I tried to give him water and food (very hard to force feed a baby duck). But he died. That brings the tally to four.

Duck Fatalities

When I first lived in Phnom Penh, Annelise brought home two baby ducks from the market (she is an animal lover and can't resist these things). I can't remember how long we had them, i think they were still fluffy and small, but one morning before I left for work, I dropped a raisin into the basket for them. Don't know why. Next thing, one of the ducks died.

On Sunday, Ben thought he'd bring Amelie a little surprise home from the market. It was two baby ducks. This is very strange because we already have three ducks (two of which are males) and Ben is always complaining about them. How greedy they are. How noisy they are. How expensive they are to keep. He then left for the week to go back up to Chey Saen. The ducks were doing fine. This morning I got busy doing not too much. Actually, there is the Cambodian National Baseball team here right now doing a "baseball camp" with the children from the primary school (more on that later). The field is right by our place so they dropped by to see us. Then Amelie and I decided to go and watch them play. We came home at 11 and only then I remembered the ducks. I had been keeping them in a dry box at night and in the day times in a bucket (they get water everywhere otherwise). Well, I opened the box and one of the poor ducks is dead. I think it was Tick. Swimmer is OK - I hope... better go check now!

I have also run over a duck on my motorbike. So that takes the duck tally to 3. I hope I am not responsible for anymore fatalaties.

Dead Frogs

Lately, Ben has been busy in Chey Saen district, which is just adjacent to where we are. He is working on repairing a dam. We had contractors lined up to do it (and another one) but they didn’t jump on the stick and so the decision was made to coordinate it ourselves (by that, I mean ADRA). And so Ben now has a big headache to look after. Chey Saen is about 50 km away from us. 30 km is very good road just graded. The rest is very like oxcart trails. The road used to meander through beautiful dryland forest but lately, with land prices soaring, they have cut many of the trees (in order to claim the land). Anyway, because of this bad section of the road, it takes about 2 hours to get there and so Ben is overnighting there.

This is normally not a problem. We have an excellent guard that looks after all the animals and the house. But then last week, he wasn’t here. The guard at Jombok Haos called to say he was sick. It sounded like he had malaria. Now, it has been difficult to find a “spare” guard for Jombok Haos. Just for one or two nights a week, we can’t seem to find someone responsible, trust-worthy, or – for that matter, wants to do the job! So, for the last few months, our guard has been going and covering there. Normally this isn’t a problem. Well, last Wednesday, he went to cover there. The Jombok Haos guard came home. He did have malaria and quickly got started on the medicine. Now, I can normally manage at home. On Wednesday, someone came by with some frogs for sale. We had had trouble getting fish for the stork that day and normally, the frogs are very welcome. So I bought the frogs. He wanted a dollar a kilo. Which is a lot. But cheaper than the fish (which we had just bought for $2.50 a kilo). But I still bought the frogs. These were live frogs and usually we can keep them for a few days. But, he had 8 kilos. It didn’t occur to me that it was too many. So I just bought them -- $8 worth of frogs. This was before our guard had left. That night he fed some of them. And ran off to Jombok Haos. The next morning one and a half kilos of the frogs were dead. I put them aside, trying to feed some of them (doc, the stork wouldn’t eat them). I fed a live frog. He still wouldn’t eat them. So if left them. That evening, more were dead. Or rather, most were dead. I forgot to put water on them. So that was Thursday. Ben had said that he’d be back on Thursday morning. So I waited. And I waited. Long (our project manager) went out and saw Ben on Thursday and brings back the news that Ben wasn’t coming back on Thursday. So Friday comes. About 5 frogs are left. Ben finally comes home at 3 or 4 pm. Only 2 frogs are left. Ben feeds the two frogs to doc and surprisingly he eats them. He buries the rest. I won’t write about the smell. And I’m not going to buy frogs again. And I didn’t take any pictures to show you either.

Animals continued...

We have actually had a slew of different animals coming to us lately – some longer than others. I was most perturbed the week we got the little monkey. Frustrated probably is a better word. I had this monkey hanging onto my leg. A mother hen had run off her nest and left the youngest baby chick so we had him with us, and then a boy brought a baby owl which Ben paid 1500 riel for. The owl was the least troubling as he just slept all day. The monkey was the most annoying screeching all the time wanting attention. The chick was loved by Ammy and we must have imprinted somewhat on him as he would follow us around. The first night, Oliver (the owl) got out of his box. Then I saw that there was another owl on our veranda trying to get to him. Thought it might have been his mother. The next night the same thing happened so we let him go. Then the next day we weren’t sure – he was in a nearby tree all day and looked a bit sad. The next day we caught him and kept him for a bit and then thought again that maybe she really was his mother so we let him go. He hung around a bit at first…then eventually went away. The chicky was given back to his mummy on day 3 (we had him for 2 days). Then the best thing was that we gave the baby monkey to our female adult monkey, Sok. They are both the same species and she took him on like a long lost baby. She cuddles him all the time now. He has escaped from her clutches a couple of times and run to the house where he isn’t nearly so clingy and wants to play. She is pretty good about letting him drink her milk. So things seem to be working out there. Ben was watching them today. They were both on the ground and the Chips was playing. He noticed Ben and tried to make a run for it. Sok then tackled him, not letting him get away and hugged him tightly, while walking away, giving Ben very bad looks.

So, relieved of those three, Ben goes and brings home a baby porcupine. Admittedly, he is kind of cute. He likes to be scatched on his tummy. Kind of rolls over like a dog with his back leg kicking (must be ticklish). He got loose one night. They like to dig like wombats and he had dug his way out. Luckily, or unlukily if we hadn’t found him, he still had his rope on and he had got caught up in some bushes not far from the house. So we spotted him and Ben made him a wooden enclosure with a floor. Now at night we hear gnawing away on the wood. I am sure he’ll get through it one day.

The woolly necked stork has made his yearly appearance also. We raised him from a baby in 2002 along with his 2 siblings. They all eventually flew away (assumed shot) but this one, about a year after flying away came back. He seems to be smart enough to avoid the dreaded MAN. A few times he has brought back friends (who aren’t brave enough to land). It is usually in the dry season when I suppose the food resources out there are limited and he knows there is always a good supply of fish or frogs here. So he has been with us for a couple of weeks now. He is our lone success story!

animals animals

Ben called me the other night on his way home from Chey Saen. He had just come into phone range (about 10 mins from our house). He told me to tell Amelie that he had a surprise for her. Last time he brought home a little turtle for her (which she promptly lost the next day) which was dug up by the excavator digging the dam they are building over there. When I asked what he was, he just said, tell her it’s a reptile. Well… she was most thrilled with the present. As you can see. Bindi is her hero right now (I don’t think it is temporary). And she told us very frankly that she knew how to hold it. She does at least understand not to pick up any old snake. This snake is a sunbeam snake. He is iridescent in the light and actually quite pretty – as snakes go. Amelie woke up the next morning and went straight to the bucket where we had kept him for the night. Didn't even say hi to me. And announced that he was gone. Escaped. Outside I hope!

PS it took me about 20 tries to get these photos on here!

Mango Season

It is mango season. Or at least it has been. It is very short here in Rovieng… unfortunately. Last week we had some wonderful juicy and sweet&sour “Svay Gat-ee.” They were grown locally and freshly picked off the tree by the old lady that grows them. They cost 50c each. I sent our guard to the market to buy some mangoes (along with some other animal food) and he came back with the cheap ones which cost about 10c each. He was horrified at the price of the 50c ones so didn’t buy any. Amelie here is holding a “Gow Lim-eeat”. These ones are good eaten hard and still green. We were having a mango picnic with the animals after the their train ride.

I used to know all the varieties in Myanmar, but keep forgetting the names of the best ones here. Maybe I have it down now.

For Mum

You're always worried about our nutrition. So I thought I’d take some pictures of the vegetables we were eating just for you. Actually this was a few months ago and they are getting sparse again. Just to let you know that we eating nutritiously and also I know that you love the little cauliflowers they get here. I tried to cook it Burmese style with tumeric. Came out pretty yummy. The cauliflowers in the market lasted for a few weeks (in January), then started to get all buggy and now we don’t have any. Also had lots of nice fresh greens for a while there. It is the end of the dry season right now. There are a few tomatoes in the market and some greens (mostly “ga-zuen-yu-et”) and a few other odds and ends. Mostly we are eating mung bean dahl and potato curry. The price of flour locally has increased to $1.50 per kg (compared to 65c in Phnom Penh before) along with many other items (eggs are 15c each!!). Milk is the most crazy item. I have always just bought powdered milk. It used to be about $12 for 1.8 kg of powder. Lately though, it has gone up to $28 for the same amount (it makes about 14 litres). I switched temporarily to UHT milk which was cheaper (and great for making really creamy yoghurt) – that is now $1.60 per litre. It all comes from Australia or NZ. I think we need to get our own milking cow now. The price of fuel has gone up to $1.30 per litre for petrol. Diesel is also over a dollar also. So i should also invest in a bike. It is a good thing we have solar power!

Amelie's Prayers

Dear Jesus,
Please help the Chinese people to be good and get on an aeroplane and drink water and eat fish and chicken. And bless the food.
Amen

Amelie has been praying about the Chinese people for a while. Since we got the baby monkey and told her that the baby lost his mummy and daddy, probably to the Chinese who want to eat monkeys to make them smart, she has started praying for them to be good. She prays for them to get on the aeroplane so that they can bring the mummy and daddy back. And this time, to eat fish and chicken (instead of monkeys I presume). This prayer seems to have replaced the prayer for the pony!

Monkeys, Chickens, Rice, Storks and Fish

25 March 2008

A man stopped by our house yesterday and said he had a baby black monkey that he wanted to give us – would we take it? Of course I said yes, not because I like monkeys. In fact I dislike monkeys and primates in general! Mostly because they are mean spirited (probably a result of mistreatment), you can’t look them in the eye without feeling like they are going to jump on you. And I have a couple of little scars on my arms from their lovely long fangs. Mickey, our gibbon has now narrowed the people he likes to just me and Amelie. He developed a grudge against Ben after he escaped when we had guests over. In trying to protect our guests, we had to wave a stick around at him. Mickey didn’t like that although he placed all the blame on Ben – even though I was waving around the stick just as much as Ben. Since then, he has had it in for Ben. If he does get out, I am the only one who can catch him. Great. Back to the baby monkey, I said yes because I was so surprised that this man wanted to give him to us. I was caught off guard I guess. It not very unusual for people to want to give away animals. Even if they don’t like them and can’t look after them. They would rather have the animal die than give it away. So having this man offer the monkey was strange. He had bought him off kids in Chi Ouk village and brought him to us. Now it is like having a newborn. He screams all the time and wants to be held. He is drinking milk and some food. He weighs about half a kilo (I should go weigh him) and should be with his mother. But now I am stuck with this little dependent. Amelie is thrilled. She named him Chips.

We caught a chicken yesterday. Ben killed it to eat for lunch today so it is cooking now (in the pressure cooker because it is a tough one). I am making curried chicken with Basil and coconut. We have too many chickens. Only 3 roosters (as we had a cull on the roosters a few months ago) but about 20 or 30 hens. They eat a lot of rice and there is no more rice in Rovieng until the next harvest which is in about 7 months. So they are importing it at exorbitant prices. Unhusked rice is about double the price it was last year. Incredible.

The wooly necked stork flew back for a visit on Sunday for a day. We raised him and his 2 brothers (or sisters) way back in 2002. As normally happens, they flew off one by one. But this one has managed to stay alive and comes back about once a year in the dry season when food is scarce. Unfortunately the fish was scarce here too so we only had 3 tiny catfish to give him. And so he flew off again to greener pastures I hope.

Amelie has been praying daily for a pony. A medium sized brown pony. Here is a picture of her on a pony at The Happy Ranch, in Siem Reap.

The Last Week of January 2008

It's Friday night now and I'm sitting here at the computer listening to Positive life radio broadcasting from Michigan or some place very far away. My but things have changed in the time I've been here. It seems like just a few weeks ago that I landed at Poegentong Airport in Phnom Penh and met up with Murray Millar the ADRA Cambodia country director. There were lines of logging trucks going through Phnom Penh toward the port. Army people everywhere with guns and tanks. Generally I had the feeling that I was in the middle of very frontier town and country. Like stepping back in time to Cody Wyoming in 1890 or something! On the one hand, people were going about their lives as they had for years and yet the atmosphere was charged. In a few months there would be an election and no one knew if war would break out again or not. Almost daily there were Khmer Rouge attacts somewhere.

Now the political climate is very steady, at least on the surface. We can drive anywhere anytime of day without being shot at with an RPG (better known as B-40's, here). There are no longer huge swaths of untouched jungle teeming with elephants and other wildlife. In fact, the human population has almost doubled since then, which probably helps explain the almost instant loss of most of the wildlife.

But probably one of most amazing changes is that fact that I'm sitting here on the internet listening to a radio station from America, able to chat with my folks or anyone else in the world. The first few years here we went down to one of two hotels that had phones in Phnom Penh once a day and sent and recieved faxes for 6 dollars per minute. Most of the time the faxes messed up and we would send the same fax two or three times for an average cost of about 15 dollars a page. There was no point in entertainng the thought of calling home when my salary was only 150 dollars a month. And now I can post pictures that I took this afternoon on this site for the whole world to see instantly. I know that change is normal and most people reading this will think it strange that someone finds it quite so amazing. Maybe there is something in me that doesn't want change to happen so fast. Especially here in Cambodia, change is often not all positive. For example, here in Rovieng, a Chinese company is setting up house and preparing to stay a very long time. They are talking 70 years for starters! The object is an apparent iron ore deposit with upwards of 3.5 billion tons of high grade ore. There is also gold which they have already begun to dig for. Last week several villages staged a protest over the fact that the company has been poisoning the local stream and killing dozens of cows and buffalow. The gold mine is extremely small scale compared to the iron ore one which is on the bank of our one an only river here in Preah Vihear. After reading newpaper clippings about Chinese iron ore mines in China where whole villages have cancer and other problems from living down stream of the operations, I have to wonder what this place will look like in a few years. And yet most people here are happy to have them here having bought into line that in a few years everyone will be able to live in high rise concrete apartments with running water and 24 hour electricity. I guess I've gotten carried away here with my reminiscing. I had actually meant to write about my week. I guess I can do that tommorrow!

The Leaf Insect

Amelie picked up this little guy today. She tells me that he loves her.

Conversations with Amelie

Amelie: I picked this flower for Bella my cousin. Can we send it to her in Australia?

Mummy: You probably can't send it to her.

Amelie: Why?

Mummy: Well they don't let plants into Australia.

Amelie: Why don't they like plants in Australia?

Mummy: Weeeellllll... they don't want the diseases from here to get into the plants over there?

Amelie: Don't they want plants there?

Mummy: Yes, they have their own plants.

Amelie: So, I can't send this plant to Bella?

Mummy: No, you can't send it to Bella.

Amelie: What do they do with the plants?

Mummy: Weeeeelllll, they would probably put it in the bin and burn it.

Amelie: What would happen to it in the bin?

Mummy: They would burn it up then it would be no more.

Amelie: But ....

... and this continues....

Wildlife

There are a number of little animals that come visiting. In the daytime we have little Chipmunk Willie (a character in one of Amelie's books) - actually a Bedmore's Squirrel but small and striped like an American Chipmunk. He has these cute little white tuffs on his ears and is mostly interested in the bananas we have hung up. In the nighttime, frequent visitors are the flying squirrels - Rosseals, as they are called here. They are quite tame now and can even be fed by hand if you approach them quietly. Friends of Ben's and Amelie's (and not mine) are a family of Golden/Flying Tree Snakes who live right above our deck in a hole in our Jombok Tree. They are harmless and admittedly pretty. They visit the house about once a year in the dry season (well twice this year). That is enough for me.