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.

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.