Cambodian Countryside

Sunday, we took a ride out to the Cambodian Countryside to visit the home village of one of the boys at the orphanage. His name is Makarah and he's actually a 19 year old student with no where else to live. He is studying English in Phnom Penh and decided he wanted to visit his sister out in the country and invited us along for the ride. Basically, that meant we would pay for the taxi and food to bring to his family. Totally worth it for us. With only 87 km to the village how hard could this be???

Everything started out great. Stephanie, Makarah, two girls from the orphanage, and me squeezed in to a taxi. The taxi was a bit old, had basic functional air con, but other than that none on the gauges on the dash seemed to work. We head out on a main, relatively well maintained road and traveled at a speedy clip for about an hour. Suddenly we came to a halt. There was some demonstration going on that caused traffic to completely stop. Of course, the car began to overheat "A/C"was turned off and we sat in the swealtering heat. After about 30 minutes, our driver decided to take a detour. The detour was a challenge. The roads were dirt and rock and cut through farm land.
We were behind a Toyota Rav4 that was struggling so you can imagine how well the little Toyota Camry we were in was doing. The bottom of the car was scraping the dirt and the gas gauge was stuck on 1/4 tank so we had no idea how much longer until we stalled out in the middle of no where. All I could imagine was breaking down in the middle of no where and having to walk to the closest civilized area in the hot hot heat - not the most pleasant thought. But thankfully, about an hour and half later, we came to the main road and were once again on our way to the village. The car was making some odd noises but the air con was back to blowing relatively not hot air. After another hour and we arrived to the village.

Before we went to Makarah's sister's house, we stopped at market and picked up dried fish, watermelon, pineapple, and bananas. The house was way nicer than we expected.


Almost new, very clean, tv, radio, running water, etc. The family prepared a feast with the food we brought.


We were brave and tried just about everything. I was a little wary about some of the condiments as they were made with local water (which is not to be consumed by delicate Americans). But, Makarah dumped some on my rice and out of the desire to please the family, I was forced to eat it all. A bit fishy tasting but I got it down. I mostly ate the fresh fruit and that seemed to be good enough.

We stayed in the village til 4 then got back in the taxi to head back to Phnom Pehn. The ride home only took 90 minutes (way better than the 3 1/2 hours it took to get out there). Of course I slept most of the way - me and moving vehicles - just knocks me out like a baby! All in all it was an awesome adventure to spend time with a Cambodian family in their home, eating their food, and Makarah was absolutely beaming with pride :-)

Today, I am going to go to the Center (aka orphanage) to teach a class this afternoon. Maybe art or English. I'm not sure yet. I'm just going to wing it and see what happens. Details (and hopefully pictures) to follow!

Love,
Michele