Tuesday and Wednesday

Well the rain that started on Monday night continued and Tuesday was the coldest Cambodian December day I can ever remember.  Everytime I looked at the thermometer it said 20 degrees but I think maybe it is broken.  We woke up and it was absolutely freezing.  I dug out all our warm clothes and found some fleecy lined pants and a warm coat to wear which I didn’t take off all day long.  Amelie shivered through her school work and Jarrah was lucky enough to be able to curl up on the bed under blankets with some audio stories.  They were happy because in digging out the warm clothes, they found their monkey and unicorn costumes which don’t really work well here most of the year because it is too hot to wear them.  So they enjoyed wearing those all day long. 

 

 

After a lunch of lentil and pasta stew, we noticed some heavy walking on the roof – heavier than the normal squirrel steps.  Looking through the skylight we could see monkey feet on the roof.  It was stumpy – the one without the tail who had got loose.  Luckily she is the nicest of all our monkeys. A call to Ung, our guard and he came back early from lunch.  Although she wouldn’t let herself get caught.  We eventually gave up and as it was so cold, I suggested that we snuggle up with a movie.  So we spent the afternoon watching Free Willy 3 which I have never seen, and I quite enjoyed it.  The monkey got herself tangled in a branch at about 5pm and we were able to relax a little. 

 

After and dinner of leftovers we were lucky to have a hot shower (thanks Jo and Angus!).  We loaded up my bed with all our blankets.  Jarrah had put herself to sleep already so Amelie and I were able to read.  Jarrah complains when we try to read with lights on after she is trying to get to sleep.  It was freezing.  It was nice having Jarrah in my bed because she is a little hot water bottle.  As it was I had to find some thick socks to wear.  Amelie read most of Doctor Dolittle (again) and I was reading a book by Joni Eareakson Tada (sp??) and Ken Tada (the quadriplegic lady and her husband).  Amelie finished up Doctor Dolittle today.  She is becoming quite a reader – getting that can’t-put-down-a-book problem.  Jarrah is also enjoying her letter learning.  She has a few on her belt and is pretty motivated at the moment.  I’m trying to slow her down!

 

This morning, it must have warmed up.  I was actually able to get out of bed without too much effort.  Left the kids in bed reading and went for a 30 minute jog.  It takes me 30 minutes (actually 32 min, 25 sec) to run about 4.3 km.  That is a terrible time.  But I figure it is better than not doing anything. Came home, made breakfast of fried rice and cocoa for everyone.  Amelie did her chores and we started school at 8.30 am.  We have been trialling this new schedule with conditions.  She has to stay at the dining table and we work solidly till 11.30 – 12.00 and we are done except for the fun school which we can do in the afternoon.  So mornings we open with Bible from 8am to 8.30.  Then maths for an hour.  English for 1.5 hours and review stuff till 11.30 or so.  Afternoons we can do History, Science, Art, Music whatever.  This has been working pretty well.  Except Amelie freaked today about the solid page of maths problems she had to work through.  Once that was finished, we were happy again.  Not allowing her to go to the bed to work on schoolwork seems to have helped get things done faster.  She gets so distracted – anywhere actually, but I can keep better tabs on her at the dining table. 

 

This afternoon, I had to run into town so left them home with Pu Ung.  They were hard at teaching Jarrah how to ride her bike.  And by the time I got back from the market, we had a little bike rider.  The ball field is a great place to learn and she can now ride all over the place.  She is so proud of herself.  She only just started riding her bike.  We had put Amelie’s little bike away and never got it out till just at the end of November, when our friends with little kids came to visit and wanted to ride bikes.  So we fixed the tyres and pedals but didn’t put the training wheels on.  She learned in three weeks – not bad.  Oh, and while at the market, I got my hair washed.  It was getting a bit grungy after not washing it – it has been so cold at night time, I haven’t had the will power to wash it.  So paid someone 75c to wash it for me.  Nice.

 

And that has been our Tuesday and Wednesday for this week.

 

 

 

Our Monday

I thought I might write a short diary of our day to day life, to record for posterity!  So I can remember a bit about our life here in Rovieng before we move.  So I’ll start as of yesterday – Monday, 16 December.

 

Woke up at about 6 am with the roosters and hens.  The roosters actually start their jobs from about 5 am I think (or anytime during the night) but I am used to them now such that they don’t bother me until 6 when ALL the chickens (ALL 100 or so) start their morning routine.

 

Ben has been home over the weekend but will be leaving for the forest this morning.  I wait for the pitter patting of little feet coming to tell me they are hungry or that they didn’t wet their nappies (yes, still in nappies – I still have hope they will cease to be needed by the time she is 12 or so).  The whole family find their way to my bed and soon the “I”m hungry” cries force me out of bed.  This morning I need to go to the market to get the bunny trakuen (gazun-u-eh, or water convolvulus) – the bunny eats a lot and I end up having to go to the market every two days for greens.  Have worked out that we can keep a good supply in buckets of water and they don’t get withered so that has helped some. 

 

Oh, the night before it rained.  It has been dry season for over a month now and so rains are not expected.  I washed clothes the previous day and since I had to wait for Ben so that he could use the generator at the same time, I couldn’t get them finished till about lunch time – losing half my day of sun.  So by the end of the day, the clothes were not dry and so I didn’t bother to take them off the line.  That night it rained. Of course.  Because it is the one time for many months that I have left my clothes on the line overnight.

 

So the hungry one and I get up and head out to the market on the motorbike.  Because of the rain it is all muddy at the market.  We get a few snacks.  I found some fat bananas at the banana lady stand halfway to the market.  At the market, we get some waffles, some fresh bread and some leaves.  Lots of leaves.  A rice bag full of leaves.  We get some apples and some nice mandarins.  These are great at the moment, all from China no doubt but delicious.  We head home like an overloaded donkey. 

 

Ben is organising to leave.  Our house is a mess.  It is supposed to be a school day so once Ben leaves for his forest, the girls and I start to clean up.  I give up on school for the morning and we tidy and clean the house instead.  I really can’t function when our house is too messy.  By lunch we are pretty much done.  We eat.  I made a sort of Tom Yum soup with potatoes and carrots and beans.  I wanted it to be a Tom Kha but we have no coconut milk (and no chicken since Kha means chicken).  The girls ate it pretty well – seemed to enjoy it more than me.  We then spent the afternoon reviewing our memory work for our homeschooling program we are attending.  Amelie has tentatively decided to go for “memory master” which means she needs to recite ALL the information that we have covered throughout the 24 weeks of classes we have been attending (and not attending, in our case).  She has an amazing memory so I’m glad she has taken this opportunity to stretch herself.  She needs to work on her times tables and some of her English stuff but otherwise it is pretty much all there.  We get in one hour of maths work before it is dark.  I then tell the girls to clean their room.  This was not done in the morning and a lot of the junk cleaned out of my section of the house was dumped in their room.  And so for the next two hours you can hear me saying, “Are you done?” With more and more junk getting dumped on the floor as they decide to go through each of their toy boxes and organise.  I’m not sure if it is well organise and I hear them playing right now in the room so maybe it will look just as bad again tonight. 

 

While the cleanup is happening, I fry some potatoes and warm up the leftover Tom Yum.  It rains.  Finally they are done after I go in and intervene a little.  We eat dinner and then find out our water has run out.  Forgot to pump.  No problems.  We just can’t have baths or wash the dishes.  It is getting cold and we didn’t get too dirty.  The girls try to have a spit bath with a sponge and a bucket of cold, leafy brown rainwater.  I decline.  Teeth and Bed.  I get them to sleep in their cozy, tidy bedroom (usually when Ben is not here they pile into my bed).  So I get to go to sleep by myself with a book.  It rains again.   So much for dry season.

What we have learned

In 1789 the French Revolution began when citizens stormed the Bastille and fought for the declaration of the rights of man.  Later during the reign of terror the aristocrats heads were removed by the guillotine. 

 

This is a little bit of memory work the girls have been learning as part of our history studies.  They have learned a giant timeline from Creation to the current day.  And then they have short history sentences for a selection of these historical events.  So, the French Revolution is one of these events selected to remember.  The program we are using has put these to catchy tunes and this one in particular is very sticky in your mind.  So all day we have in our heads, “Later during the reign of terror, the aristocrats head were removed by the guillotine.”

 

We were discussing this reign of terror when Robespierre was in charge of “taking care” of the monarchy.  Jarrah then asks me, if that man was a “guilladine,” responsible for removing the heads of the “aristocats.”

 

So Jarrah has been memorising all this time, “.. the aristocats heads were removed by the guilladines.”

 

I then explained what a guillotine is.

 

Isn’t it fun studying history!

Almost a Family Photo

Here are some recent pictures of the family on our recent trip to the forest, without me since I was taking the pictures and when I tried to get a family one, the only spot to perch the camera was very precarious.

Animals All Over

Here is a little composition Amelie wanted to share – it is inspired by the book, There’s a Possum in the House, by Kiersten Jensen and Tony Oliver.  And it isn’t so far from the truth.

 

By Amelie Davis

 

“There’s a peacock on the bed and he poo-ed on the pillow.”

“Oh! No!” yelled mum.

“Clean it up!” yelled Jarrah

“OK,” growled dad.

 

“I stepped in the poo!  Where is the poo picker-upper?” Amelie yelled.

“Get him NOW!” she screamed.

 

“There’s a myna in the house and he stole my toy coin!” Amelie said.  “Get the trap!”

“Don’t hurt him” said dad.

“We won’t,” Jarrah and Amelie said together.

 

There’s a hen in the house and she’s eating all the dog food.

“Shoo!  Shoo!” yelled Amelie.

“There’s only one crumb left,” Jarrah said.

“Oh no,” said mum.

 

My dog’s on the table and she’s eating up my food.

“Oh, no!” said Amelie.

“Ha! Ha!” Jarrah laughed.

“Off the table!” mum said.

 

“The rabbit escaped!” Amelie cried.

“Catch her!” Jarrah screamed.

“I’ve got her,” mum said.

 

“The hamster bit me!” cried Jarrah.

“Oh drat!” said dad.

“Why did you get bit a second time?” Amelie asked.

“I don’t know,” Jarrah said. “The sky is getting dark, let’s go to bed.”

 

 

Steps on How to Make a Homemade Book

By Amelie Davis                      

1.     For the cover, draw  a picture of anything you want. Here are some examples : animals, people, houses, forest, plants, and cars. 

2.     Write the story first and draw small boxes so you have space for pictures if you want some. After drawing the pictures  rub out the boxes.

3.     If you can’t draw well, print some pictures and colour them in.

4.     Staple on the cover and you have a book.

A Zero Effort 9th Birthday Party

It is a very good thing that kids are so forgiving and so grateful for any little thing we do. 

It is Amelie’s birthday today.  She is NINE!  Can you believe that??  Wasn’t she just a little teeny weeny baby??

Well, we got home from Phnom Penh on Sunday.  I was not really thinking “birthday” when in PP and was hoping for a very low key affair.  She asked for the Narnia movies as her birthday present.  That was pretty easy.  But I didn’t get her anything else.  She has just finished reading the series so I thought the movies would be an OK birthday present.

Yesterday, we (she actually) planned out what we were going to do for her birthday.  She wanted to invite over some friends.  We made a simple party menu.  She designed some games.  Then last evening she invited 4 friends over.  I cooked a packet chocolate rectangle birthday cake and some coconut oat cookie thingies (following an Anzac biscuit recipe but not turning out like any Anzac biscuit I have ever tasted – maybe something to do with the oatmeal rather than rolled oats).

This morning, I made some extra banana muffiny things, grinded up some sugar to make icing sugar, made up some red icing and decorated the cake.  I tried to cut out a liony shape (on the spur of the moment) and I had some decorating pens that I used to help add a few more touches.  She liked it!  I am the WORST cake decorator ever but kids are so forgiving of bad talent.  Thankfully.

Another problem that was gracefully forgiven was the absence of birthday cake candles.  I had none left!  I had 3 big utility candles left.  They were horrible dirty things that the bugs had been in.  Anyway, I cut them in 3 each and put them on a plate and Amelie didn’t mind in the least. 

So the kids were supposed to come at 9am.  They arrived at 8am.  Amelie immediately took them out to look for hidden animals.  Her theme was a jungle theme and they had bought some small plastic animals and Daddy helped to hide them.  So they went out and found them.  They then attempted to play some of the games.  One was “deer being chased through the jungle by a dog” so the kids were the deer and one person was a dog.  I don’t think that game was a big hit.  They came inside.  Ate. Then wildly played all sorts of chasing games around the house.  Finished off watching of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (I really should have previewed these before!).  Then all the kids went home.  Pretty easy for me! 

Here are some pictures from today and a few before   

 

An overdue update

Well, it has been a long time since I posted anything here also (see Ben's Forest Project's blog post from today!).  It is after midnight and I can’t seem to turn the computer off.  I thought I’d just post an update on what we are doing in Rovieng of late.

Not sure when or what I last wrote.  I will work backwards and maybe not get very far.  Right now, the girls and I are at home alone with Ben at his forest.  The girls get to sleep in my bed.  And I get to get kicked at night.  Anyway, that is the treat.  We try to do school on most days.  Amelie is doing great in the work that we get done (mostly!)  She is learning not to complain too much and can almost stay in her seat at the table when required (or stand up at the table).  She still asks to go work on the bed or to sit in the hammock when not required to sit at the table.  I got her a wobble seat so that she could wobble at the table and allow her to fidget!  I think she is in Grade Three.. homeschooled kids never know what grade they are working at so nothing new there.  She is just now in the midst of the Narnia series.  Can’t put them down – I almost have to confiscate them sometimes.  She can read one of them in about two days.  We started on Anne of Green Gables – we usually start these as read alouds together then she goes on ahead and I get left behind.  This time we finished the first Anne, and went halfway through the second.  She then got distracted in Narnia and I ran on ahead to finish Anne of Avonlea and now the next one!  In fact I got back from work today, had lunch and then just plonked down on the bed and read for a long while.  I read somewhere that CS Lewis said that any children’s book is a great book if it is as interesting for 8 year olds as it is to 50 year olds.  Both these series must then be great books by that definition. 

Miss Jarrah, who will be interesting an student for me, is still four and has finished one set of alphabet workbooks on her own initiative.  She does these whenever the mood takes hold.  She almost has her letters down pat with some reminders.  I want to start her on putting the words together.  I tried earlier but she wasn’t too interested.  The other day she did pay some attention to what I was trying to teach her and was quite happy when she could read “no” or something simple like that.... so maybe soon she’ll be ready.  She is just such a “I’ll do things when I want to do things” person – I wonder how I will get along!

This week we are starting a program in Phnom Penh for our education.  It is a Classical Conversations group which meets weekly.  We’ll come down as we are able.  There are about 20 other kids which meet in 3 smaller groups.  It follows the classical model of education and the Trivium (teaching a lot of information and facts in the Grammar Stage, putting those facts together in the Dialectic Stage, and learning how to form, articulate and argue your own ideas at the Rhetoric Stage). They will learn a lot of history facts, science facts, maths facts, English facts etc. – all memory work, they’ll do a science practical, a fine arts lesson (music or art), and also have to do a presentation to the group every week.  I thought since Ben isn’t home much anyway at the moment, it would be a good time to skip to Phnom Penh and join in a program for the girls.  Both are joining so it should be fun for everyone I hope!

Our dog, Sippy was taken to Phnom Penh last week and spayed.  She has had about three litters of puppies so it is about time.  She is doing OK although her excessive licking has meant that the wound has not healed quickly.  I started her on a second round of antibiotics and have learned to give injections.  Sippy is not happy – but seems otherwise healthy.  It looks like the wound is healing now.

Today, I was at the office and Amelie calls me on the phone excitedly telling me, “I caught a baby squirrel!”  I came home and it is actually a baby treeshrew. I promised her we could get some hamsters when in Phnom Penh this next week but now she has a baby shrew also to add to our menagerie.  We later saw another of its siblings being held by our monkey – she had somehow caught it and killed it and slowly ate it.  Sorry about that image. 

I shall end my random recollections for now.  It is very late.  And maybe I need to read a chapter of Anne so I can get to sleep.  I always have trouble winding down after being on the computer late at night.

Maths Problems

Well Amelie had a question today on her maths work. 

 

If there are 6 rows of desks and 5 desks in each row and 40 children in the class, how many desks are still needed? 

 

She asked me, “They didn’t say how many children sat at each desk?”  A very valid question considering the only school experience that she has had with 4 to a desk!  Here is a picture from Grade 1 when Amelie was 7.  (Jarrah was just visiting!)

 

Amelie was able to finish first grade and did half of second grade here at the local primary school.  A result of our frequent absences (trips to Phnom Penh, to Australia, to the beach!) and also the teacher’s (she ran away at some point because she owed someone too much money) meant that we were just wasting a lot of time.  Pretty sad.  But it was a good experience for her and us.  She can still recite some of her alphabet (better than me at least).  We need to find a tutor for her and me (now is that the right pronoun to use there??) so that she can continue where she left off, and so I can finally learn Khmer properly.

 

 

12 months on..

Twelve months ago our family was in Bangkok.  Ben was only 5 days into a 10 day stay in ICU at Bangkok Hospital (and a month long stay in the hospital!).  Ben's mom and brother had just arrived and we were all still very unsure what the outcome would be.  He had had dialysis about 5 times and his lungs were only operating at about 90 percent with full oxygen through a tube going down into the lungs.  He had had a seizure on arrival at the hospital and we weren't sure if he had any bleeding in his brain (due to a blood stained lumbar puncture) - they were loading him up with blood thickeners to make sure he didn't start bleeding all over his body.  At about day 8 in ICU he went psychotic - that was the fun part.  He told his mother to move the finger probe (that records the pulse, oxygen levels etc.) as it was a bomb.  He was imaging escaping out to the street then running back into bed just before the nurse found out.  He accused the nurse of giving him sedatives and she assured him they were just vitamins (actually anti-psychotics!) They quickly got him out of ICU after that. At the end of the month long hospital stay, he had lost about 15 kg (30 pounds). Somehow he had damaged his rotator cuff of his shoulder and had had surgery to repair that.  He had a blood clot in his leg from being immobile (and probably the blood thickeners) for so long, so was on blood thinners and about 30 different other pills for various other complications from the typhus gone bad (two little doxycycline pills taken earlier would have sorted that out if only we knew).

Prayers from all over the world from all kinds of people, who we don't even know, were being prayed.  And they worked.  He recovered and we are so grateful.

This was the only picture we got when he was really bad.  No one was game to take one - at least I wasn't - in case I'd jinx anything.  You can see his swollen hand there.

After "coming to."  He was not impressed with the intubation and wanted it out just for a bit.  

Anyway, at the moment, Ben is in Nepal with our good friends Jason and Melissa and about 30 college students from Avondale.  Jason, I think heard about Ben being sick last year via satellite phone when he was at Everest Base Camp.  Well Jason and Ben put together a plan to get Ben and the Jombok Hoas team to Nepal this year.  And that worked.  So this is where they were a couple of days ago, not Everest (they couldn't get a flight in) but Annapurna.  Still pretty awesome.

Boreno Day 4

Day 4 we were still at the Kinabatangan River.  We had and early rise at 6am for another river boat ride.  I think the only big species we had not seen after the first boat ride the night before was the orang-utan.  And finally we saw one.  The highlight however was the little mangrove snake (not coral as I had identified earlier).  Jarrah unfortunately had woken up with a little fever but still came out on the boat ride and slept through most of it.

 

The next activity after breakfast was a hike.  Ben and I went on the “long” hike to the oxbow lake.  It was about a 3 hour trip through lots of mud puddles so again we had to wear gum boots.  This time, Ben found a size that fit him so he didn’t have to go barefoot.  We were still underdressed in our shorts however somehow were lucky enough not to get a leech on us – the guy in front who was all rigged out, managed to get five or so on him in one shot!  So the lesson was that in a hike with leeches, always say at the back. 

 

Aunty Jill, Uncle Vijay and Dad had a short hike with Max who showed them lots of things on a shorter walk.  Dad found lots of greens that he used to collect from his jungle home.

 

Went on another boat trip in the afternoon, much more relaxed since we had seen everything already!!  But we did get a good glimpse of orang-utans and the funny probiscus.

 

No one wanted to go on the night hike, so we all retired – very tired.

 

 

Borneo Day 3

Once we all got together, there was no rest scheduled into the itinerary.  Today we had to wake up at a crazy 5 am to get us all our the door and in a taxi and to the airport.  We managed all that somehow and made it onto the plane without any problems with about 18 pieces of carry on and 6 heavy suitcases.

We flew over the mountain all the way to the east coast of Sabah.  I actually didn't look out the window at the right time to see the mountain but it was apparently pretty impressive.  Arriving in Sandakan town we had a couple of hours to wait for our transfer to the Kinabatangan River.  We roamed around town looking for a suitable (read cheap) Indian style restaurant to fill up Ben's stomach and everyone else's.  Uncle Vijay and Aunty Jill were most impressed by the freshly-made-in-front-of-you parathas for 1 ringgit (30 cents).

Finally we got on the bus and rode the 2 hours to the river.  Through lots and lots of oil palm plantation.  In fact the wildlife reserve is bordered by palm oil plantation.  The reserve is a narrow strip of secondary forest - a corridor.  Very sad.  But what it means is that in this small area is a large concentration of lots of animals.

We stayed at the Kinabatangan Nature Lodge.  We had aircon rooms and our own bathrooms!  Nice.  At 4 pm was our first boat trip on the river.  We had a local guide Max (whose real name was Raziman but he started using his nicname Max when people started calling him Craziman).  Because there were so many of us, we had a boat to ourselves.

Spotted over the 4 boat trips (one every evening and another in the early morning):
Pygmy elephants
Proboscis monkeys
Orangutans
Macaque monkeys
Silver langurs
Saltwater Crocodile
Rhinoceros Hornbill
Black Hornbill
Pied Hornbill
Wrinkled Hornbill
Wreathed Hornbill (maybe)
Kingfishers (not sure the type!)
Broadbills
Cattle Egrets (yay!)
Coral Snake (Aunty Jilli's favourite - especially when we parked the boat under the tree it was sitting in)
Some kind of stork that I can't remember - the biggest in Malaysia

Oh, I'm sure I have forgotten something or someone.  Max was incredible at spotting things.  This snake was sitting quietly in a very leafy tree.  When he spotted the snake, we were way off and no one could work out how he saw it - to the point of accusing him of putting a rubber snake in the tree!  It started moving so we took back the accusations!

That night, Ben and I (we had many offers of babysitters) went out for the night hike.  The others weren't too keen on the idea of mud, mossies, leeches.. !  I located a pair of gumboots in my size.  Ben didn't bother.  His feet are big and it looked like all the big boots were taken.  So he went bare footed.  I had shorts on!  We both had shorts on in fact.  All the others going out had long pants.  Long sleeves.  Leech socks.  We looked quite underdressed!  Despite that, I didn't get any leeches on me and not any noticeable mossie bites.  I saw a leech on Ben's calf trying to fix himself on, which I quickly flicked off.  The only really interesting thing we saw however was a poor little kingfisher trying to sleep while 15 people were shining flashlights in his face!  We also walked over fireants which Ben also found particularly interesting in his bare feet.

We decided not to go out the next night and naturally they saw something interesting - a Western Tarsier (a small very cute looking mammal).

It was a good day though.  Very pleased we saw the elephants!  there were about 20 of them.  Babies and mummies and daddies and youths.  They were eating grass and drinking by the river.  Quite used to being looked at by humans.

Borneo Day 2

Today was our sea day.  We had booked a snorkel trip through Borneo Dream Tours and they picked us up at the Jesselton Jetty and led us to their very lovely boat.  We drove (boated? sailed? motored? not sure what verb to use there!) to an island where we got off and spent a couple of hours snorkeling around (aside: did you know that snorkeling only has one "l"? Why is that?  All the other short vowels syllables double their last consonants when adding a vowel suffix).

There were lots of pretty fish.  Also sadly lots of rubbish and lots of people.  Once we got out past the rubbish and past the fish, it was pretty good.  We saw parrot fish and clown fish and lots of other pretty things that we can't name!  Amelie learned to snorkel and enjoy snorkeling so that was a good accomplishment of the day.  Dad and Uncle Vijay I don't think even got their feet wet.  Mum looked after Jarrah playing in the shallows.

Aunty Jill and Amelie suffered the after affects of too much microscopic sea biology biting their stomachs and both were scratching for days and days after!

There was lunch on another island.  Then drop off for another snorkel on the outskirts of another island where the divers were also diving.  We didn't go up on the beach (after a sandfly warning) but snorkeled around that island for a bit.  Unfortunately not nearly as much sea life there to see.  It looked like the coral had been destroyed, apparently they still dynamite fish in the area.  All very sad.

Finishing up there - we picked up the people left on the beach and headed back to the mainland.  Ben couldn't bare to pay the exorbitant prices for a 5 minute taxi ride ($5 each!) and so we all walked back to the apartment, about a 60 minute walk!  All of us ladies still in our swimsuits and maybe a towel.  Probably not the best attire for the long walk through the shops.

Norma and Edwin visited us again that evening and brought some delicious salt fish and some other funny vegetable resembling dinyinthee also fried with saltfish.  All quite delicious.  She brought us a cut up pineapple - the sweetest I have ever tasted!  We packed all our bags up - all the many things that the Aunties brought for us to take home.  Lots of books and school supplies!  Fun.  But no time to look at properly.

Borneo Day 1 (May 15)

We had planned this trip, with my parents, Aunty Jill and Aunty Sue for July last year.  Aunty Jill and Aunty Sue had been going to Australia via Hong Kong and the timing was right for them to make a side trip to come with us to Sabah together with Mum and Dad.  Then Ben got sick.  Mum, Dad and us all ended up in Bangkok hospital instead of going on the planned wildlife safari.  Not nearly as much fun.  Although the girls remember staying in the nice Amari hotel with a swimming pool on the roof and a buffet breakfast with access to as much smoked salmon as they wanted.  Mum, Dad, and our family managed to get refunds on our tickets however Aunty Jill and Sue could not.  They instead rescheduled their dates to May 15-22 and so we at least has some firm dates for all stick to for another attempt at our Borneo trip.

Mum, Dad and our family arrived in Kota Kinabalu at midnight after flying from Sydney and Phnom Penh directly.  It was a very long day for Ben who started it by driving the 5 or so hours from our home to Phnom Penh first!  So we had an easy first day scheduled or so we thought.  The kids were up first naturally.  We were dragged out of bed and the first order of the day was to go swimming in the apartment pool.  We had rented a nice three bedroom apartment for the two nights that we were to be in Kota Kinabalu city.  It was close to amenities - namely some cheap Indian restaurants and a shopping complex.  It had water views except for the construction going on right in front of a car park or some other such building.  We were also waiting for Aunty Jill, Uncle Vijay and Aunty Sue to arrive that night to complete our intrepid group.

So while the buildings were still shading the pool we went swimming.  It was cold.  The sky was blue but it just wasn't hot like it had been in Cambodia before we left.  But swim we did - and play tag and lie in the sun.  Got out before lunch.  Ben had a short swim and then went back up and we found him napping - actually found him napping for most of the rest of the morning through till three - waking up enough to eat the lunch we brought him of dahl and parathas (or roti as it is called there).

There is an old friend of Mum's who married a man from Sabah and has lived there many years.  Norma and her husband Edwin.  Edwin picked us all up and took us over to their house which is on the way inland a little towards the big mountain (Mount Kinabalu, the tallest in SE Asia).

First view of Mount Kinabalu

They took us around the Adventist Mission and school compound, over a rickety swinging bridge and visited a market where they sold the biggest pineapples I have ever seen - and lots of dried fish!  And then they took us out for dinner and we had a way to big meal at one of the yummy restaurants.  Kind of Chinese style Malay food.  Yum.

At 11 pm the Americans arrived from the airport.  Jarrah had been waiting up to see all the goodies that had been ordered from Amazon to arrive via Aunty Sue's suitcase.  In particular a set of horses and horseriding dolls.  She had been counting down the days to meeting Aunty Sue in order to collect on these items.  Finally they arrived but alas, Jarrah couldn't say up long enough.  So only in the morning was she able to receive her presents.

And that was day 1.

Bambi Part II

I think in a developed country we would probably be up for child neglect or for child endangerment or something... so I hope no one reports us when we go on a visit home!

Let me elaborate.

We got home home on Sunday from our visit to Borneo with the American Aunties, an Uncle and Grandmama and Grandpapa!  More on that later.  Mum and Dad returned with us to Cambodia and we finally got home on Sunday.  Had a clean up day at home on Monday.  Tuesday morning we were going to start school again for Amelie.  At 7.30 am while I was getting breakfast, we all hear loud loud screeching.  Rushing outside Amelie is making a run for the steps.  Bambi in pursuit.  After the last incident in April, we had locked him up.  His horns then fell off so we let he free again thinking he would be pretty harmless now.

He had knocked her down and she had some nasty gashes on her back.  And on closer look, a very nasty gash just on her hairline about 10 cm long and pretty, pretty deep.  Apparently Bambi also likes to bite.  So off we dash again to the hospital in Phnom Penh.  It was a nice straight cut this time but still they gave Amelie a general anesthetic and we spent another night in the hospital.  Mum, Dad and Jarrah stayed in a nice hotel around the corner (Jarrah needing an ice cream bribe to stay with Mum and Dad).

So we have now learned that Bambi needs to be locked up for life (Amelie's words).  We have had many offers from people to take him off our hands - for less than pure reasons.

The Dressings - sorry no wound pictures

Post Discharge at the hotel restaurant

Trying to get a straight faced shot - impossible