Friday and Saturday we went to Battambang. I’ll post pictures later, but here are a few with Caesar of some of the places we went.

Everywhere we go with him kids love him.

Channy, our language teacher, is moving to Phnom Penh. We had our last lesson with her today.

Annika’s latest obsession – trying hot chocolate everywhere that has it.

When you finish working out at the gym, and it’s raining, but you still want nachos and you can talk your dad into almost anything, but he gets to take a photo!

After the art  contest, we went around the corner for lunch – actually second lunch.  The food just kept coming.  Eggs dishes, chicken dishes, pork dishes, beef dishes, vegetables, fruits, and lots of rice.

We have visited their home several times, each time out comes the food.   A family of 5, the father cuts hair in a shop in front of his house, the mom sells fried bananas near by, 2 teenage sons, who both left with us for a while to go to Siem Reap to learn some skills for trade (plumbing, electrical work, HVAC, tiling, etc), and one grandmother who cried when both of her grandsons left because she will miss them.

Six schools, 10+ judges, dozens of volunteers, and 100+ students took part in an art competition… “What Agriculture Means to You”

The winners, which both Annika and I had judged as best too.

Just found out that they won.

Demoing prior to art competition.

The principal spent a lot of time teaching and correcting some mistakes, which really paid off.

Winners with their bikes!

Presenting at the competition.

Second place school. The shortest girl is a very impressive presenter. She was coaching her teammates while they were presenting.

Third place school. These girls were so nervous when they first presented at their school, but spent a lot of time practicing and got third place.

The principal spent a lot of time teaching and correcting some mistakes, which really paid off.

Another dead well but working water filter.

Something you would never see in a US school. Sixth graders taking the husk off coconuts with a knife.

This is Da, a 10th grader who lives 45 minutes from home so he can go to high school and attend another program to teach him construction skills. He is also learning English and French.  Hard working young man.

After a few school visits, we again have some snacks at a local house.  Coconuts, sticky rice, and fried sweet dough.

I finished working at 5:00 AM on Saturday morning and decided to go out for a morning run.  This was the sky at 5:30, within a few minutes the purple color was gone but this a great way to start a weekend.

Annika made a stuff animal, she was getting bored.

We saw Yesterday at the movies. A movie full of Beatle songs.  Pretty good movie, especially if you like The Beatles

My new favorite fruit is gauva.

Our church moved to a new building last week.

Annika’s dinosaur

Another Gold Class movie

Ugly guava

No oven, so I made some pan brownies.

New church building

One of our friends here works with a NGO working with local schools. She is out of the country for a few months and asked us to take her place for that time.  We don’t really do any decision making, just making sure her group has a continued presence while she is away.  Part of our work is with a local, 6 school art contest for 6th graders.

We are helping organize it.  Getting prizes together, supplies for the big competition next week.  We been to a few schools and meetings. It’s an interesting experience seeing how things get done. Especially how important principals are here.  You can see the difference were some principals have higher standards than others.

The competition is judged by the art work and a short presentation. Annika and I, along with a representative from each school and a few others, will be judging.

Here are a few photos of some of the local school winners who will compete in the big contest next week.

The first 6 winners were all girls.

Some of the supplies we have shopped for. You get a lot of looks going through the store with 2 carts of noodles

A bio-sand water filter on the grounds of one of the schools.  Sadly, no longer in use.  I see this a lot here, and it’s a big problem. Wells don’t get the maintenance or small repairs they need. I have seen more no-longer-working wells/filters than working ones.  Maintenance is just as important as the initial installation.

I saw a man in Africa once put a lock on a well so it couldn’t be used because the village of about 100+ people wouldn’t pay a $6 maintenance fee.  I’m guessing the well cost the village from $500-1000, which was about 10% of the total cost (all values are estimates).  But he understood the value of ownership.  His teams number 1 job was inspection and maintenance.   Free wells get neglected. Wells that cost get protected, cleaned, fenced in so animals can’ break them.

We went to church at a small village church today.  First we went to really small village near Tonle Sap lake where the church is about a month old. Phaedra shared the story of Jonah with about 30 kids.

And Annika gave out candy to the class, and then found a dog.

We then went back to another church for snacks and lunch and church service.

This lady (Theresa if I remember correctly), a Chinese lady from Malaysia living in Cambodia who lived in New Jersey for almost 15 years, immediately grabbed Annika and took her on a tour around the church. Showed her some animals, plants, fruit trees, and talked to her for a while.  It’s rare that Annika enjoys talking with strangers (she is like her daddy), but she really liked her. She was such an energetic, honest, and friendly 73 year old.

Another great surprise snack. I can’t remember what it’s called, but its made of rice, sugar, beans.  Tasted like a thick skinned donut with a nutty filling. I had 4 

I didn’t get many pictures, but one thing you notice wherever you are in Cambodia is youth.  The median age of Cambodia is 25, compared to 38 in the US. Most of the church is ran by really young people.  There main pastor is a missionary from the Philippines, but other than that, a lot of hard working 20-somethings.

Annika got dressed up for a photo of her first day of school!  Grade 11!

She looked miserable in her first picture, and I said something to make her laugh her.

There are 15+ durian carts close to our house on Street 60.  We see buses of people stop everyday along the road and get durian.

Durian smells like someone put a lot of fresh, sweet fruit into a big pile, and then topped it with a lot of rotten fruit and manure.  Sometimes I can smell the sweet part and it will quickly change to rotten, and back and forth.

The ones we see here are typically between the size of a bowling ball and football.  Durian flavor is everywhere here. Chips, crackers, popcorn, gum, candy, ice cream, shakes.

Here is a picture of durian I grabbed from the internet.  A spiky fruit with pods on the inside.  It looks similar to jack fruit, but the inside is much different.

This is our durian. Doesn’t it look delicious?!!

The yellow outside is a thick, firm layer that has a bit of a sweet taste.  It’s not terrible.  Then you get the inside. The mushy middle is white, and has the texture of soft cream cheese  or lumpy custard… a boiled onion, a soft rotten apple.  The taste is shocking.

Phaedra tried it first and she didn’t like it. So then we got the phone out to take a picture of Annika trying it.  She made a audible gasp like she had been hit in the stomach – it never made it to her stomach, she spit it out.

“It tastes like completely rotten mushy onions.” —Andrew Zimmern, Host of Bizarre Foods

So then they decide to video me trying it. I took a bit of a big bite… Because surely Annika was being a dramatic teenager.  The initial taste is not bad, since you are tasting the outside fruit before you hit the burning, mushy, rotten, mouth coating, custard like inside.  My reaction was the same.

The taste lingers for a while as well…

Today we had lunch at Channy’s house with her family. She is our Khmai language teacher.

A lot of Khmai food starts with the same thought of “what is this?” and the next thing you know you’ve had 3 bowls of it.

Annika and I saw Spiderman today. It was only in the Gold section of the theater.  So for $9 each we got movie ticket, popcorn, 2 drinks each, a recliner, pillow, and blanket.   By far the most comfortable movie experience ever.  They even deliver the food and drinks to your chair.

Regular movie cost is $3 for 3D and $2 for non-3D.  Two drinks and 2 popcorn is $6. Not a bad deal.