Anna's gone and left us! :-(

Today marks a very sad day - Anna has flown the nest. For me she's been a massive part of my time here in Cambodia. She is such a happy, amazingly positive person and i know she'll be missed a lot. She was ready to move on though having spent over two years here. She's moving to pastures new, exciting adventures, and new experiences.

We have a new addition to the group though with Mirka's husband joining her - Drish seems to have settled in pretty quickly having only spent half a week in Cambodia - he's found a circle of drinking friends, is on the case with finding a house, and generally seems to love the lifestyle. I think everyone will appreciate having anothe boy around - they seem to be lacking a little.

Anyway, Anna, i will definitely keep in touch and i have no doubt that we will see each other at some point in the not too distant future. Have a fantastic well deserved holiday and let me know what happens with your job. Keep us posted with your news, good luck and enjoy whatever it is you end up doing. Big kisses, Mima x

The rains have started...

The rains are here, which i think for a lot of people is a great relief, they are late and means that a lot of farmers have started to think about emergency water pumping for their crops. Friday's downpours flooded the streets of Phnom Penh but i think that is pretty normal and people just adapt and get on with it. The nice thing though is that it will just rain late afternoon each day so the days are normally dry and sunny and you can get on and do all you need to do and then just make sure you're home in time for the storm! Last night i got caught coming home - it's amazing the amount of water that falls and how quickly the streets start to fill up!

The weekend was relatively quiet. We had a nice dinner on Saturday night - Anna-Miaj is leaving soon and cooked a typically Finnish meal. It was really lovely, fresh fish, mashed potato and lots of amazing mushrooms. The night continued at Pontoon for a few drinks - it's such a nice bar and a good place to people watch!

I spent Sunday afternoon at the orphanage. I bought them the game Twister - i wanted to buy something that they could understand pretty quickly and something that could have a whole heap of them playing at once. It worked really well and i was so impressed - they must have played for a good couple of hours. I think the last time i played Twister was on Christmas Day in Madagascar in 2002. A fair bit of alcohol was consumed and it was a lot of fun! There was no alcohol involved in this game but they seemed to enjoy it, which is the main thing. I sat and spoke to Pan (big Mama) that runs the orphanage. She's a lovely lady. She was once a journalist but during Khmer Rouge times was imprisoned as they thought she was involved with politics. She was in jail for a long time and lost a lot of her family. She decided whilst she was in jail that she wanted to try and help the children that would lose so much because of the war. There are going to be problems in 2008 as she may be forced to sell her property and she's not sure she will be able to afford something as big as she has now. It might mean she has to re-house the orphans. I don't think she really know how she will tackle this yet but it's a very real concern.

Theatre outing.

It was nice to walk out of the office yesterday evening and drive north to the Lakeside Orphanage - NACA. I had arranged to take the kids (32 in total) to Sovanna Phum theatre. This is a theatre that concentrates on Cambodian traditional dance and puppetry. It is well established and has good support and funding, it also runs a number of courses for national students to become professional performers in these arts. Most of the performers have been working at the theatre for over 5 years and it's become really popular with regular performances on Friday and Saturday nights. http://www.sovannaphum.org/english/index.html

I hired a small van, and arranged to take two of the work four wheel drives and Phalla (one of the ladies from work) also came with her car. We drove up in convoy, picked up my friend Johanna who had offered to help me out, we then headed to the orphanage.

I think the best sight of the night for me was getting there and seeing all the kids dressed up in their best clothes, they had all just taken showers and their hair had been neatly arranged, i'm sure by the "big" mama. They were so excited and proud to be going on an trip, it was really nice to be part of it all. I'd printed out number stickers and got everyone's names on paper, the last thing i wanted to do was lose one of them! They are all so well behaved that i didn't really think this was likely but i wanted to be sure.

We walked around the corner to the vehicles and then was amazed (in my naive western head) to find that the kids didn't want to get into the air conditioned trucks - they were too cold! This is so hard to imagine for us foreigners that are always trying to escape the heat, but for them never being in air conditioning you can appreciate that it wouldn't feel very nice. We got past this - it wasn't really a big deal. We headed off with lots of excited children and adults.

We found the theatre, the kids lined up and we filed in! Thursday nights are rehearsal nights, which is why it was ok for us to take 30 odd children, the theatre had saved a whole lot of seating for us and the kids sat in eager anticipation. Initially i was a bit worried that with it just being rehearsal there wouldn't be enough going on to keep the kids engaged. But actually i think it might have been the opposite. There was a lot going on and the theatre Director was continually guiding the performers and correcting what they were doing and how they were doing it. The kids get daily traditional dance lessons so i think they were fascinated to see the professionals but also to hear what the theatre teachers were telling them to do. I'd look around and the kids would be watching and practising the moves as they were watching.

The shadow puppetry was a definite hit, its something they might not have seen on that scale before, it's all very simple with a white light shining onto a big piece of white cloth but the affects are great.

After about an hour and a half we decided it was time to go. I think they had a good time but my big regret is not being able to speak Khmer, it's not an easy language to learn but i haven't made any progress, or effort if i'm honest! I will have to try and put some time into it as it's so hard to interact with the kids and really understand what they are thinking without speaking their language. If i can save some money i would love take them to see a full show at the theatre, maybe in a month or so. It'd be nice for them to see the final result of the effort that the performers were putting into their rehearsals. We shall see...

More photos http://picasaweb.google.com/JStancombe/SovannaPhumVisit

Happy Birthday Jo!

My little mate Jo in Melbourne turns 30 today! Wooo hooo - over the hill! Just joking hon, of course you're not, the thirties are the best years of our lives aren't they? Mmm i hope so. She's currently enjoying a romantic weekend with Will - wisked off and loving it i'm sure. I was a good girl and sent her some flowers on Friday - nice when they actually look like they're meant to. Have fun hon and let me know how your weekend was. Lots of love. x

Hot days and nights in Cambodia...

I've had a busy week at work. Things aren't going as well as hoped and it seems that a lot of things are out of my hands, which i don't really like. I'm depending on others to sort things out and i can have very little influence.

I had a relaxing weekend. I tried to visit a few places in town that i hadn't been to before. I also did the usual massage, pool, dinner combination. Wig is leaving Cambodia today to head back to Denmark for 3 months. Annette is due in a few weeks time and they will just be able to enjoy cooler weather and holiday time before returning here.

I went to the orphanage on Sunday afternoon and had a really nice time. I had a good chat to one of the guys that works there and arranged to take the kids (31 of them!) to the theatre on Thursday night. They are taught traditional Khmer dancing and really enjoy putting on shows so i hope seeing a few professionals at work will be really inspiring. They were so excited when they were told about it - none of the them have been before. I just need to devise some method of keeping track of them all - it wouldn't be great if i lost one!

The weather has been so hot the last few days, i think the rains should have really started and in some ways it'd be good if they did as it might cool things down a little. I'm now happily living at Wig and Annette's place. A nice garden and two sofas - bliss.

Meg Birthday Photos

It's amazing really, even though i don't see Meg very often, in fact i've actually only been able to spend two blocks of time with her since she was born, I feel extremely attached. I think maybe just from photos and stories and the fact that i know she is my niece. At least this year i will see her in August and again in December.

She had a wonderful first birthday last weekend, and a wonderful party. She's now in her second year - wow! She seemed to like the dinosaur i sent her, although it was of course one of many lovely toys, hopefully it will become a favourite though.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEG!

My niece turns one this weekend - she's having a big party to celebrate and i'm not going to be there! I will be thinking of her though and i hope that i won't miss too many of her birthdays in the future.

I'm off to Hanoi this weekend to meet up with Michiel. I have Monday off work so am really looking forward to a little break and some recovery time to get over this cold that has dragged on all week.

I'll hopefully have some nice photos next week...