The fruit from hell

So this season not only brings an increase in rain here in Cambodia, but also an increase in the harvest of a popular fruit called durian. Almost every Cambodian I've ever met loves it, while most foreigners seem to avoid it like the plague. Durian is a large fruit that grows on a tree. It is kind of a dark, dirty green color on the outside and has spikes all over it (which should be a warning to anyone wanting to try it...or at least a foreboding sign of things to come!). The inside, once you get past the spikes and the tough shell, is a light yellow color with the consistency of a thick sticky goo when you bite into it. It also has a unique, vomit-inducing smell. Lucky for us, they are selling it everywhere right now so we can't go anywhere without getting a good whiff of it as we ride by!

Usually I can avoid durian or at least weasel myself out of any situation in which I might have to eat it. Unfortuately, I was not so successful at this the other day. Jes and I went to visit the family of one of my friends. They had made a special dessert. A durian sauce over sticky rice...which is actually a fabulously delicious treat with any other fruit. They also had fresh durian for us to eat. In their minds they were giving us a real delicacy. So there we were, caught between our survival instincts and our cultural sensitivity! What a bind! So I managed to down the durian sticky rice, but when I ventured to taste the fresh durian it was all over. Luckily, Jes began talking to them right as I gagged, deflecting the attention of the group at a critical moment. So just a warning to all of you potential travelers...Beware of the durian devil fruit!

Déjà vu and Firsts

This trip has already been full of many deja vu moments. The Cambodia I came to know and love was the one seen through the eyes of a missionary. Coming here as a researcher and as friend provides a very different perspective. However, some things bring familiar memories flooding back.

For example, those of you who are familiar with Southeast Asia know that the rainy season is just beginning. The weather seems to be fairly predictable right now...hot and clear in the mornings and afternoons filled with spurts of torrential rain that send everyone running for cover. Jes and I were going to visit some friends the other day and got stuck in one of those exhilarating downpours. Sometimes I forget that I don't have to be out in the rain trying to get to a teaching appointment anymore. Jes is good about always reminding me that we can stop and put ponchos on. By the time we got to my friend's house we were soaked and dripping despite the ponchos. We stood outside the door wringing our clothes out and still dripped water all over their house! Good thing they love us!

In addition to the rain, riding a bike brings back so many memories and flashes of familiar emotion! Yes, we did get bikes to travel around the city. It is much less expensive than riding on motos or in kombeys and you feel so free when you can go wherever you want whenever you want. As soon we got our bikes and began riding, I felt invigorated and energized! I was unaware of this until Jes noted that she was exhausted from riding around all morning...my experience was the exact opposite. Jes does a great job bringing me back down to earth, by reminding me to slow down and that there is "not an investigator at the other end" of our ride! :) We have a good time riding around Phnom Penh and even were able to find a difficult address this morning. I'm sure there will be more biking adventures ahead for us.

These moments of deja vu are almost as frequent a the new experiences I am having here. So far there have been many firsts. For example, the other day after beening stuck in the rain we went across the street from my friend's house and got our nails done. I know it is hard to believe that I would even think of such a thing! But I'm sure it wasn't my idea. :)

A couple of days ago I had a chance to go with Cambodian friends and some former Elders who are visiting or doing work here in Cambodia to a Cambodian dance club. I love music and dancing but I have never been to a club here before (not really a popular P-day activity!). It was a total blast! The music was great and you just felt enveloped in it as you walked into the club. You could feel your heart start to beat with the vibrations of the music and your body start to move to the beat. And of course we big white Americans blended in just about as well on a dance floor with our Cambodian friends as we do anywhere else around here!

I also had the opportunity to go to a movie theatre here...wow! not exactly what you would expect in a theatre experience. It was an interesting challenge for my language skills and and telling of Asian interests and humor. The movies they like here are so different, but they seem to really enjoy American movies as well. I think I might have to stick to my old favorites!

Cambodian Tales

Well, Jessamyn (my research partner and friend) and I have been in Cambodia for several days now. We have seen much adventure already, but are just barely starting to make some headway with the NGO research. We, unlike Quel's part of the research team in Mozambique, don't have one specific NGO that we are connected with. It took us several days to get in touch with the few contacts we have.
Today we met with a very nice man who is the head of an organization that works on community development here...in other words he does lots of training, consultation, and evaluation with various NGOs here. He talked about what the NGOs aren't doing and what he is trying to accomplish through his trainings. One major thing he does is to encourage them to adapt their services to the needs of the communities they serve rather than just the interests of the donors. He had some great ideas and indicated that he knows of no NGOs here that are really challenging the people they serve to serve themselves and move forward in their own way. This is part of what makes our research so daunting here. Few groups are actually running programs that are effective in helping individuals and communities develop self-reliance, and if they are no one knows about them. It is interesting to hear Cambodians talk about the problems they are facing and begin to better understand why it is so difficult for them to make important changes.
Our next research adventure will be on Wednesday. We are planning to head out to a village served by the Tabitha organization. We will be going out with them and we have no idea what to expect. Observation and curiostity seem to be our best tools for now.

Today we play ...

It’s not exactly like we’ve been hard at work per say but the last few days have been stressful with travel and adjustments so we thought we’d take the day to play since Care for Life doesn’t do anything on Saturday. The human resources director for Care for Life (Gil) borrowed on of Care for Life’s vehicles and took Andre, Andrea, and Me for a drive. We went and got some water – we haven’t had running water the last few days – and drove around Beira. We got to see some of the nicer parts of Beira – there are some beautiful parts of Beira. Then we went out for lunch at the beach – literally. (Side note: Beira means shore in Portuguese). The beach… I LOVE THE BEACH! My summer vacations as a child were spent at the beach and I still find the beach incredibly invigorating. I love it! We weren’t dressed for the beach – as you can see in the pictures – but we couldn’t resist taking our shoes off to feel the sand on our feet and wet our feet in the Indian Ocean. It was WONDERFUL!

Children

The kids here love having their picture taken. I swear you could entertain them for hours just by taking their pictures and showing them the camera after taking their pictures. They are sweet kids. It's hard to know how old the kids here are. Some of them are very small for their age, so it's virtually impossible to tell their age by their height and weight. Their language development also isn't a good indicator because they are learning both the local dialects and Portuguese simultaneously - plus the Portuguese here is so different from the Portuguese in Brazil that I'm not even sure whether or not adults are saying things correctly all the time. The other thing I noticed is that I rely a lot of kids clothes and toys back home to figure out their age - I can tell that a kids is 10 when he is interested in the same stuff and wearing the same clothes as other 10 year olds I know. Life here is so different.

Jet lag

Yesterday we arrived in Johannesburg at around 3:00 pm. We probably got to the place where we were staying at around 4:00 pm. I showered and freshened up and I decided that I wouldn’t allow myself to take any naps so that I would be tired when it was time to go to bed. I succeeded in keeping myself awake but by the time 10:00 pm rolled around I decided that I would get in my pajamas and go to bed. Of course, 10:00 pm in Johannesburg is 1:00 pm in Provo and … you guessed it … it was like taking a freaking nap and at midnight I woke up refreshed from my nap and ready to face the “rest of the day.” I tossed and turned for about an hour and then gave up and read until 4:30 in the morning. It probably took at least another 30 minutes to fall asleep after I put my book down and I had to be up at 6:00 am. I think I’m going on day 3 without more than 2 or 3 hours of continuous sleep – and it’s not even finals week!!!

We arrived in Beira, Mozambique today. Beira is interesting. It reminds me a bit of the small towns we would pass through while driving from Quito to Guayaquil. Yeah, it’s third world at its best! The place we are staying at is also interesting but it’ll work and compared to the other stuff around town it’s fantastic. I have my own clean sheets and towels. I have flip flops to wear around the house. We have plenty of bottled water. We have an air conditioner. We have a bathroom with running water (although we didn’t have water when we first got in because they had an accident with the pipes down the street but we have water now so I’ll be able to shower tonight). We have electricity the vast majority of the time – I’ve been told that the longest power outages last about 4 hours, but again I’ve dealt with worse. We also have a person who will be cleaning the house and washing our clothes, so it’s kind of like being on vacation with a maid (yeah, that’s making it sound a whole lot more glamorous than it is). I’ve only spotted one mosquito thus far and it wasn’t on my arm. In fact, it wasn’t even close to me, after all I pretty much bathe in mosquito repellent – I’ve decided it’s my perfume for this trip! We are getting settled in today. We fixed up our room a bit meaning that we put sheets on the bed and hung up some of our clothes. We also went out to exchange money. We currently get MTn 25 (the local currency – I would tell you what MTn stands for but I can’t spell it) for every US dollar. We also went grocery shopping and spent about MTn 1500.00 which equals about $60.00 and we got plenty of stuff to last us for a while. For those of you who are familiar, the supermarket was probably like one of more run down markets in the Nordeste. We tried to go earlier to today we couldn’t get the car to start. We tried hard – I even helped push the car to see if we could get it started but we failed miserably.

There is one other person staying here at the Care for Life facilities. He’s the nephew of the guy that we met in Provo from Care for Life (Joao) and he’s been here for 2 months and knows all the tricks to surviving here. It’s nice because we can ask him questions about anything.

Yeah, so that’s kind of the update. Oh, we also don’t always have internet connection here. So, if I don’t e-mail you daily – don’t freak out (mom) – it’s because the internet is down but it’ll be back in a few days and I’ll be sure to e-mail you then. I love all of you and miss you a ton!

P.S. Andrea (my travel companion) also has a blog and she has some pictures if you are interested its http://andreainfreakinafrica.blogspot.com/

5 feet 2 inches

This blog is for all of you tall people who like to tease me about my lack of “tallness” – yeah, you guys know who you are! Did you know that when you are 5’2” you can pretty much sit anywhere on a plane and be quite comfortable? Really, there is no need to request an aisle seat or much worse an emergency exit just so you can have leg room! Did you also know that the window seats are probably the most comfortable seats on really long flights? Yep, they are! You can put your pillow up by the window so you can lean up against it and rest more peacefully without having to worry about your head leaning on the stranger sitting next to you (the one who happens to enjoying the window seat) or having your head drop towards the aisle and having someone bump you as they walk past you. You also get to look out the window – which is fun when you are going some place you’ve never been – and you don’t have to be disturbed every time the person next to you wants to go to the bathroom. Did you also know that when you are 5’2” you can easily cross and uncross your legs while sitting on a plane? Yeah, easily! In fact, when you are 5’2” you can even sit cross legged on the seat or put your feet on the cushion and pull your legs up next to your chest. When you are 5’2” there are hundreds of ways to adjust in your seat which makes long flights much more pleasant. Best of all, when you are 5’2” you can stand up and I mean fully extended stand up not only in the aisle but while standing by your seat underneath the overhead compartment! So, when you guys mock me about my height or tease me about not being able to reach items that are stored up high, or when you guys hold things up high over your head so you can watch in amusement as I jump to try to reach whatever it is you are holding, just remember that traveling in cramped planes is much more comfortable for me than it is for any of you!

Anyway, I am currently at a “Guest House” (a.k.a. “Bed and Breakfast”) in Johannesburg. It is now 6:30 pm in Johannesburg and 10:30 am in Utah. My flights over here went smoothly – thanks to my height and some Benadryl which knocked me out during the 15 ½ hour flight from Washington D.C. to Johannesburg. Tomorrow (Thursday) morning we are going flying into Beira, Mozambique. Love you guys and miss you - Quel