Where to begin?

So much has happened that I can’t believe it’s only been a week and a half since we got here! I certainly won’t bore you with all the details, but here’s what we’ve been up to:

We spent a few days as tourists in Phnom Penh, eating lots of good food (including tarantulas!), and visiting the royal palace and other attractions. We spent two mornings at Toul Sleng Genocide Museum and the Killing Fields. Together with Vietnam’s War Remnant Museum, these somber sites were a chilling reminder of the horrendous costs of human hatred. It was heartbreaking to realize the extent of the devastation that arose from the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the war in Vietnam; the impacts of these events are still evident today. 

 Skulls piled in a memorial at the Killing Fields

But why was I in Vietnam, you ask? When we came to Cambodia, we were unable to obtain NGO visas. So, unfortunately (or not!), we HAD to take a weekend border-run trip to Ho Chi Minh City. It was certainly a hardship, but I managed to eat lots of good Vietnamese food to make up for it! 

 For Miriam: look who I ate in Vietnam!

We’ve also been struggling to learn Khmer, with three hours of language training every day. The language has sounds that I didn’t know mouths could produce! We’ve been practicing on children at a school near the language centre, and have gotten used to people laughing at us as we slowly, painstakingly, produce the approximately correct sounds to ask them how they are doing or how they got to school.

Today’s language class was particularly exciting, as Andrea and I got to ride an elephant! I felt kind of bad for the 50-year-old pachyderm (the only one in Phmom Penh, apparently)…but it was fun to lurch around the temple on his back.

 Yes. It is pooping.

Jim reap leer!