Saturdays
Saturdays are usually pretty laid back. For the past few weeks I've been working in the lab on Saturdays. Not all work of course. Sometimes I'd just be checking my e-mail, surfing the net while trying to kill the annoying mosquitoes with the cool mozzy bat. Sometimes I'd do some water testing if there're a lot of samples to process or do some experiment in the lab or something.. Last Saturday Mickey was running the AA (atomic absorption) machine to analyze for Arsenic and I decided to just stick around and help and learn. We did more than 40 samples, which made Mickey really happy. The AA machine hadn't been working so well and this was probably one of the first time that it did so well. The bad news was... just when I felt confident enough to run the AA by myself, it bailed on me.. Half way through calibration, I saw sparks coming from somewhere under the machine and I smelled smoke. Needless to say, I was shocked, so I turned off everything. I thought, "oh no, what have I done?? Did I do something wrong and blew the equipment?? This is one of the most expensive piece of equipment in this lab. Even though it is old and second hand. Feeling somewhat guilty, I told Mickey and he came in
to look at it. The good news was, it seemed like it was the UPS system feeding the furnace of AA machine that got burned. I really hope so.... So now we just have to spend a few hundred bucks fixing the UPS instead of thousands of dollars for AA...
So anyway, as I was saying... Saturdays are... pretty free and easy. Sometimes we'd go to town if there teams are here. We'd bring them out to do something fun or interesting, like visiting the market, going to the hair shop, river cruise on Mekong River, or for the newcomers, we'd bring them to the Killing Field and Touls Sleng. Which is what happened today. A group of high-schoolers came from Springdale for about 10 days.
The usual routine for Saturday evenings is USA Donuts. Mickey is a creature of habit so if there's no special plan, dinner on Saturdays is always at this place in town called USA Donuts. It's near Central Market (Phsaa Thmay). Lately though, Mickey found this place which we call it the Chinese Noodle shop. The boss is this Chinese lady who doesn't seem to speak much Khmer at all. She relies on her workers to translate for her. It's basically Chinese ramen. Just about everyone's impressed with how they make the noodles. The pulling and twisting action of the noodles. And for the price you pay, the noodles are surprisingly tasty.. Each bowl is like US$1. So sometimes we'll go to the chinese noodle shop if the mood is right.
Oh, sometimes on Saturday mornings I'd clean my bicycle, or clean my Crocs.. And I feel up to it, I'd clean my house. Even though I have someone clean my house twice a week, it still get pretty dusty. Of course, since I don't usually clean it except sweeping of the floor. It's amazing how dusty Cambodia is....
Sundays
Ah... Sundays.. Breakfast as usual, although not as early as weekdays. After breakfast I'd usually attend the Khmer house church at 9a. Even though I still don't understand what they're saying most of the time, I think it's good to just be with them.
So, what is Sunday service like at Khmer house church? Well, they'd usually start off with the traditional Khmer greeting, "cum riep sue" with the two hands together, much like the Thais. Then they'd sing a song, all in Khmer, of course. I still haven't gotten round to get the lyrics down so I can sing with them too. After that is usually a time of sharing or prayer reqeust or thanksgiving. I can't remember if they do the memory verse before or after. But yes, every week, they have a memory verse and everyone is free to recite the memory verse of the week. Before sharing of a bible passage, they'd sing another song. The leader who shares about the bible passage is Bu Dee, Ming Supian's husband. I think he's taken over after Suen, the previous leader, passed away. Suen is Bu Dee's brother in law. After the sermon, it's bible story time. Pii Ruen or someone will read from a Khmer bible story book. At the end of the service, they'd sing a song for offering.
After Khmer church, there's English church at about 10:30a. English church is also a house church, at Mickey's house. Format is similar to Khmer church. Church is comprised of Mickey's family and all other Christian volunteers. The format is much simpler. We'd start off with a series of songs. Whoever has a song will lead the group to sing the song. Generally we sing in acapella, but sometimes we have visitors who'd play the guitar as accompaniment. After songs is a time of prayer request and thanksgiving. Whoever feels moved to pray would pray and Mickey would end the prayer. Following the prayer is a time of studying the scriptures. We have been doing the book of Matthew for the past few months. Mickey generally starts off by sharing what he has learned from the scriptures after which he'll open the time for anyone to share what he or she has learned. Church ends usually with Zay (short for Isaiah, Mickey's son) leading us with any song that he has in mind.
After church, we'd usually head to THE noodle shop for lunch. This noodle shop is not the same as the Chinese noodle shop. It's located in town, and the food is cheap and good. My personal favourite is "Loc Lak" (rice with pan fried beef cubes and some excellent sauce; salt and pepper and you squeeze some lime juice on it) and the stir-fried noodles. Why do they start calling it THE noodle shop? Because they sell noodles and I guess it's easy to call it that way. Hahaha... There's actually a Chinese name for it.
After lunch, we usually head to Lucky, our favourite supermarket, not just to buy groceries and other necessities but also to use its washrooms since they're nice and clean! These days I've been buying more and more snacks, to eat in the lab and to share with my fellow colleagues. I also use the snacks to keep my TOEFL class awake. It's just difficult to stay awake after lunch... Let's see, after Lucky is The Market! Phsaa Tul Tumpou or Russian Market. After going there so many times, week after week, you'd think that I'd be bored, but it's not that bad. I still have fun every week. Sometimes when I don't need anything I'd just wander around... Russian Market is where we get our dose of DVDs and CDs. So far I have not seen any place that sells genuine movie DVDs or CDs so I guess this would have to do. Surprisingly, I haven't bought that many movies. In my 3-month stay, I've only bought about 10 movies. Haven't bought any TV serials so far which I'm quite glad. There's just not that much time to watch movies. I haven't even come close to finish watching the drama series I brought from Singapore! Most of the time, I'd watch movies with the volunteers in the lab on computer with projector. There's something comforting about watching documentaries with a group of people. Planet Earth is the favourite series. Just about everyone buys a copy of the series when they're here.
After the market it'd be time to head back to the village. Dinner is usually at Mickey and it used to be sandwiches, but after Michal (Mickey's eldest) started making chilies, we've switched to having chilies for dinner on Sunday nights. This version of chilies is similar to spaghettis, but with beans and chilli powder. Sometimes after dinner we'd watch an episode of Planet Earth or some movies.
Well, I think that's about sums up my typical week in the village.
