Chinese New Year - Part FIVE - Village Life

The last part of our Cambodia trip was spent at a nearby village. We spent a day helping out poor families in this village, harvesting rice, teaching English, and thatching roofs. They kept telling us that we were really helping, but we doubt it very much. If we did anything, it was providing some entertainment as these "dumb" (both literally and figuratively as we couldn't speak any Khmer) foreigners didn't know how to do anything. We had a great time and learned a lot - including enough Khmer to ask basic questions! We even got to taste PRAHOC, which is a fermented fish paste! We were so honoured to have villagers and kids welcome us. When we taught English at the local school, kids flocked from everywhere to meet us - we were definitely privileged and are amazed at how much they want to learn.

These are some of my favourite photos from the whole trip, so I'll only comment where needed.

VILLAGE SCENES:

The source of water - a "well"come addition to the village.

HARVESTING RICE:

See his tongue up his nose?
Harvesting short-term rice.

Normally, this woman would have to harvest the entire field

herself. It would take her three days.

We spent 2 hours and were

exhauasted.

Halfway done!


Harvested rice, drying in the sun.

WALKING TO SCHOOL:





This little girl was only 8, but she wanted to

learn so badly.

Days at ORTV coming in handy - all those songs from Kids'
Rallies suddenly came back into my head:

LUNCH TIME!

Kids in the village ride these adult-sized

bikes so that they can grow into them!

Rice drying outside in the sun.

These boys and their father were harvesting

honey from the hive in their yard.

Lunch at home

RANDOM PHOTO: A reservoir nearby - it was HAND DUG

in Angkor times!

Roof Thatching:

It's harder than it looks! Roof thatching is normally a woman's job, but we all pitched in to help re-thatch one of this family's buildings. It takes 200 of these sewn palm branches to cover the hut. In about 2 hours, I made 3, and Kris made 5. This lady can do all of them in a few days. It's amazing how ingenious humans can be with so little. Each section of roof is made by taking the spine of a palm branch, and covering it with individually folded leaves, then sewing it on with a "young" part of the palm branch. I'm not even good at sewing with thread, much less with a giant version of it! Kris was complimented many times on his roof thatching ability - a possible new career?

This is "milk fruit" - found only in Cambodia. The

fruit inside tastes like persimmons, but it contains

a juice that looks just like milk, and leaves a sticky

film around your mouth.

The man on the left is an uncle who came to watch, bemused at how

he, as a Cambodian, had no idea how to thatch a hut, yet all

these foreigners were doing it!

It was interesting to see how the father and the kids never

lifted a finger to help with this chore at all. They were content

to just sit and watch.

The father did make us some freshly roasted prahoc - fermented

fish paste (top right) into which we dipped fresh tamarind (the fruit

on the left)

Frolicking in the hay with the kids!