Connections

I've finally got a fancy phone. One that can email and do all that stuff so hopefully now we can communicate with the outside a little better. Our house has not too bad reception so when we get to move there life will be simple. Right now i am sitting at the house waiting for clothes to be washed by our washing machine. I wish I knew how to wash each days clothes, each day, as they do here but i don't, or rather i am too lazy. So now i sit with some spare minutes attempting to type a post here with this tiny keyboard.

We have visitors at the moment. Alex who came to help out in December and January came back with two friends. They, along with our other family and friends helped raise funds to do a small water and sanitation project. About four thousand plus dollars was raised altogether and the guys are helping to install latrines and rainwater tanks. They put up two and a half on Thursday and Friday. If it wasn't for the rain it would have been three.

The rain is also causing outher complications as the village is deviod of people. This year has been a really dry year. It is just the beginning of the rice growing season and people have been waiting and waiting for enough rain to plough their fields. Then they start the rice seedlings and they normally let them grow for about 20 to 30 days before transplanting. They should be finished transplanting by now but some are still ploughing and growing the seedlings.

So unfortunately we don't have all the households who want atrines lined up ready to go. The people do want them but most are just a tad busy at the moment. Having the guys there and with the attention a bunch of foreigners usually draw, is helping to promote the things in a positive way. More updates on the latrines later. And thanks to all the family and friends who donated money to this little cause. There were about three latrines put in earlier and they look great... clean and nice with all the things you need to keep them that way. So your help is much appreciated and we could not have done anything without your help.

We went for a walk yesterday. The girls, David and I went only to the temple and back. David has bung knees so wisely didn't choose to go on the "Ben hike" with the other guys who kept going, after the temple. We came back and on the way spotted a cute baby green viper on the trail. Further along there was a troop of languars heading down the valley. These guys have been hanging around lately. I saw them near the house site and heard them in the trees just before their bedtime. They have a distinct piglike grunt. A couple of weeks earlier we saw another troop of them and in amongst them was sitting a male gibbon. I didn't think he was anything but a black bit of vine but zooming in could make out what he was and he was staring right at us so casually. I believe his picture is in my previous posting where i didn't have time to write anything.

The other guys hike was just a bit longer, at 20 km through a rainstorm and over and afound the mountain.

So that is a short update from us here in the forest. We are still living out of our boxes in a mess. We still have a forest and hoe toilet but we are getting by and really looking forward to moving into our house someday... walls and floor... walls and floor to go!

posted from Bloggeroid

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.

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!

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.