The Blue Pumpkin

I went to lunch with Val on that Monday. We met up at the Blue Pumpkin, which is a lavishly expensive Western style restaurant, but she suggested we go elsewhere to eat. I told her it was nice to meet someone on the same level as me. (Cheap.) So, we ate at another out-of-the way place down a sidestreet. And we talked and talked and talked. 

                      Upstairs at the Blue Pumpkin, comfortable seating is provided with free internet.

 Fancy Western Food and Western Prices in case you feel home-sick for your favourite Western fare.

 (These are borrowed photos because, regretfully, I did NOT bring my CAMERA with me to Cambodia!)

 Although this became our place to meet (though, not to eat!) I often couldn't FIND it on the taxi motor-cycle! A couple of times, the taxi driver kept driving around the block while I insisted, "You know, the place Westerners hang out!" The outside of the restaurant tends to blend in with its surroundings.

 She told me how she’d been a missionary to Thailand years ago and then she and her husband had come into Cambodia. They had made the decision to come back here and she had gone ahead of her husband. Her mother was sick in the hospital at the time so they were going to plan a trip back to Australia. Then she got a phone call. She thought it was the message that her mom had died, but instead, she was told that her husband had died! He’d dropped dead in Thailand of a heart attack! But, Val said that the Lord poured his grace down on her at that time so that she was on a constant high.

Now she has ten Cambodian boys from the village living in her huge house that is sponsored miraculously by a man in Australia who is paying expenses plus one meal a day.

The Joy of Teaching!

By the time class was over, it was dark outside and the streets were not properly lit. Mr. Kosal drove me to my room on his motorcycle with my guitar on my lap. 

Back at my room, I fell asleep a bit until a knock at the door woke me up. It was the landlady. She stuck her head in, taking inventory of my mess. (I’d unpacked and scattered.) Then mentioned that she could let me have a table. I asked for a pillow and she brought a very lovely, new-looking fluffy one in.   

She was insistent that I go and get myself some dinner, so I went to buy water. The little old lady at the stand beside the rooms had an insulated cold box full of beer, and when she opened it and handed me a beer, I instinctively accepted it. It was cold and I was thirsty. I also bought some water and went back inside. It was dark and the streets were not well lit.

 

I slept well, although the bed was hard as a rock.

Next day, there was no school, so decided to get out and look for breakfast. I went to the market but couldn’t find a coffee. Then, I walked past my school and over an overpass toward what I thought was the centre of town. As I was walking, a motorcycle taxi pulled up to offer me a ride. He wanted 20,000 Riel. I insisted that I only had 18,000. He said that was enough. (Sure it was! That was equal to $5 when he should have been charging $1!) 

Note: In Cambodia, the going rate for a tuk-tuk is $2, but a motorbike taxi is only $1.

I discovered later that the reason my card wouldn't extract money from the ATM was because someone had stolen my money out of my account!

Note: NEVER go to your bank online at an Internet Cafe in Cambodia! I'm pretty sure that's where my account was compromised. After changing my online password, it hasn't happened again.

Mr. Tayly called to invite me to a Chinese New Year’s party at the school. He came to pick me up, bringing a carton of bottled water into my quarter kitchen.

At the party, we sat on little plastic stools at a low table and used our fingers to eat chicken, rice, fish and fruit. There was lots of beer. I sat between Soda (a young lady with glasses on) and Phearmon. 

Now Phearmon, as it turns out, is a born-again Christian, who, at the moment is a little wavering in faith and having doubts. However, when I told him that I came to Cambodia to win souls, he lit up like a Christmas tree. I asked him if he could help me and he said, “Yes!” Then he went on to tell me a bit about himself. He said he used to get up at 4 am in the morning to pray for his country and read the Bible. He won souls to the Lord and had a following of young men that were living together with him at a church. But, when the pastor left, the replacement pastor asked them all to move out. 

Since they were students, they had no place to stay, so they went to another church. Then they all had to move out of there and so they found another place together. He said he had lots of miracles God did for him that he wanted to tell me about later. He also asked if I knew where he could take a work-shop to learn how to serve God. 

He said he believed God wanted to use him again some day. I told him, “Today is the day!”

After eating and drinking a couple of beers, Phearmon took me home on his motorcycle. We agreed to meet up the following day for breakfast. Since the next day was a Sunday, he said he would also take me to church.

The next day, we went for breakfast at the market. Thinking it would be cheap, I ordered chicken rice, but apparently, chicken here is $20 per kilo, bought from the local farmers. And our breakfast cost $2. The way they make change is with riel in the hundreds. (That’s pennies.) 

A Jim Carrie movie was blaring at the restaurant in Cambodian. Quite annoying. A few dogs were grubbing up food from under the tables and one of them had one white eye. Then a blind man, holding a baby stood in front of me so that the baby was touching me. He couldn’t see me, obviously. After I touched its little hand, I realized the baby was sick, so backed off a bit.

We headed off to church which seemed a long way away. It was in an upper room and we sat on metal folding chairs on the back row. A young man handed me an Ipod of sorts with earphones so that I could hear the translation in English. But, there was a nasty buzzing in the earphones which made it difficult to hear the soft spoken translator who was sitting on the floor across from us.

While Phearmon was away from his seat, a lady in front of me motioned for me to sit beside her. Her name was Val and she was from Australia. She said she felt a connection with me. So we agreed to meet up for breakfast on Monday morning

After I bought a kettle and got dropped off, I went upstairs to eat lunch with the landlady and a couple of her friends and daughters. They had a cute little puppy hanging around outside the doorway. I met her son, Panal and told him I’d teach him guitar. So we decided to start next Sunday.

Then I went out to find somewhere to get online. This is when the next battle came on in full swing. The clerk at the Angkor Inn agreed to let me use their internet. When I checked my bank account balance, it didn’t register with me that there was money missing –until I got home! Then, I realized that over $85 had vanished!

The thought came to me that it could have happened at the Internet Café next to the school! The reason I believed that was that the withdrawal was made on the same day I'd been to my bank online at that location.

It dawned on me that I had brazenly declared to the head master that I didn’t want to worship money. Me and my big mouth. I guess the devil wanted to see if I really meant what I said.

A Job and a Room in Two Days!

The phone rang at 6:45 am with Lam on the other end saying he had found the room but it needed cleaning and that he would come to see me at one o’clock. Fine. I leisurely started my day, then went downstairs to get some hot water, chatting with a couple of lady visitors who are teaching English in China. Then, before noon, Lam called again, saying he was on his way over to get me.

We loaded up the luggage and went off to see the room. He casually explained that the room was $90 per month. Of course, I shuddered and protested that I was only willing to pay $50.

“But you said that the other room was $150 at the school.”

“Right, but I was thinking in Malaysian dollars, not American dollars. We call the ringgit dollars sometimes and I got confused. So, the other room is only $50 per month.”

Then suddenly, after a phone call, the price of his friend’s room went down. Lam tried to make it sound like it was “another” room. So we went to see it.

It was up a flight and a half of stairs but it was just a square room with a bed in it and the walls were all scruffy, plastered here and there with Disney stickers, which were a bit of a turn-off. Out in the hallway was a pile of garbage and dirt that had apparently just been removed from the vacant room and the smell all around was a bit disconcerting. So, I said I’d think about it.

After Lam dropped me and my luggage off at the school, I took a walk in the area. It’s really third world. The roads are not paved in most of the streets. It’s just loose sandy, pink dirt. The dirt coats everything so that the world looks like a dust painting. 

Back at the school, I was set on a motorcycle with Mr. Tayly and driven up and down the dusty roads, stopping at rooms until we came to a very nice, brand new room with a brand new bathroom and even a little area that passes for a quarter of a kitchen, with a counter, lower built-in cupboard and a sink. Even the fan was brand new and the bed had a thick solid mattress on it.

The lady wanted $60 and would not go down to $50. But that was understandable. They had obviously invested in this room. The entrance door was solid wood with European style handles and another door at the little kitchen area was the same. There was a screen on the kitchen area window. The toilet was so new that there was a sticker on it and clear plastic still covering the flush handle.

My first business was to withdraw money from my account. I knew there was plenty in there or on its way in. But, the bank machine refused to give it to me! The next one also refused and the next. There were no banks in the area with Interac and without that, I could not withdraw my money. It was so discouraging. But, in the end, Mr. Tayly cheerfully offered to lend me the money and he went directly to the landlady and paid for the room. I was humiliated. (Apparently it was time for a humbling.)

“What would they think of me now? Will they think I’m lying about having any money in my account? Will they think that I’m desperate for a place to live that I brought all my luggage to their school?” And on and on. 

. . Yes, it was very humiliating. Yet it didn’t even seem to phase Mr. Tayly in the least. He smiled calmly and shrugged his shoulders, even squeezed my arm.

Teaching was fun! I was having too much fun. The students were all teens, my favourite. And lively. So, the two hours flew by and I was almost sad to see it pass. I was really having a great time. 

I had been in Cambodia for only two days and already had a place to live and a teaching job!

Electric City

Well, there is no Electric City. It's electricity. The stress is on the third syllable, silly.

There also was no electricity until 10 pm that night. When it returned, there was a shout of rejoicing and the wonderful sound of humming fans!

The next morning, I awoke to the nagging feeling that the taxi driver, whose name was Lam, was coming to take me on a tour. Although I strictly could not afford it, in the end, I decided that I had to go. But, I also decided to ask him to take me to schools instead of temples, which he did.

I couldn't help but notice that the young taxi driver had fiercely dark hair, somewhat like raven feathers and high, round cheek-bones. When he spoke, it sounded like he was under water.

We went to three schools and each one seemed unimpressed with the idea of a foreigner offering to work for them. They told me to send my CV by email to the school and wait for a call, etc. It seemed like a long, drawn-out process. So, I asked Lam if there was somewhere he wanted to take me. He suggested the Wat but then he mentioned it cost another $20 for the entrance fee! So, he asked, “Do you want to see the Killing Fields?”

Admittedly, it sounded a little more intriguing, history-wise and all that. So, we went.

It was an acre of land with buildings on it, one of which was a temple (of course) and in a show case, there were skulls stacked up on top of bones! In glass cases, there were old historical pictures and writing about the Khmer Rouge with guides alongside them, explaining things to their groups of tourists. 

Boring. I got back in the car.

“Let’s just go back,” I said.

“You wanna go to one more school?” Lam suggested.

“Ok.”

The next school was cute. They ushered me in and I was face-to-face with the Head Master. He seemed very pleased to see me, but hesitant about offering me the price because it was rather low. He hemmed and hawed a little and in the end he said that the director might agree to paying me $5 per hour. I self-righteously declared that I didn’t want to worship money and that it wasn’t the most important thing. Then, when the director offered me $8 for two hours per day, I upped him to $9. Ha. (Hypocrite that I am.) 

He rolled his eyes to the ceiling a bit and pretended to squirm, then agreed. (He just brought the price down one dollar! Sneaky. I guess they learn how to barter early on in life.)

“Can you start tomorrow?” was the next question.

“Sure.”
Worldbridge International School

 There are two separate buildings directly across the street from each other. This is the building that houses the computer lab and offices with more classrooms upstairs.

 This building houses classrooms and this is where my classroom was. (It's still there, but I'm not.)
(I kept photos in the original size because they get blurry when enlarged.)

Then I asked whether I could bring my luggage and put it at the school after I moved out of the guest house because I needed to look for a room nearby the school. They agreed to that.

Lam drove me back to the guest house. I paid him and thanked him for helping me to find a job. Then, I realized that, if I hadn’t taken that step of faith of paying him, I never would have gotten a job so soon. In fact, it was his idea to go to the last school when I was ready to give up.

When I got back to my room, I went online and discovered that I had a new online assignment from Elance and that they’d paid me up to date. Thank God! Now, I had a job and money!

It seemed that I was now on the other side of the knot-hole. I laughed at myself  that, after all the squeezing I'd been through, I was now just going to get puffed up back to normal. Somehow, I knew that I hadn’t yet passed all  the exams. There were more to come.

Nevertheless, I was ecstatic. The door to Cambodia was wedged open and my foot was solidly lodged inside. This was a great improvement on my former situation. I had figured that I had enough funds to last me three days! Then it was all over for me unless God did a miracle. 

But, of course, He did! In fact, He did chains of miracles.

That evening, I received a phone call from Mr. Kosal at the school, asking if I was coming in today with my luggage. I explained that I would come the next afternoon as I still had one more night at the guest house. 

A moment later, the phone rang again and this time it was Mr. Tayly. He asked me where I was. I said I was at the guest house and he said, “Good-bye.” I said, “Oh, you’re saying good-bye, now?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Ok. Good-bye.” And we hung up. Funny people.

That night, I fell asleep in the knowledge that God was in complete control. It was exciting to wait and see what else he had up His sleeve.