Well these last few days have been... interesting.
I'm so sorry I got so far behind.
Like I said, it's been interesting.
Thursday was wonderful, as always.
It was a pretty typical day, except for the fact that Srey Nang *yes, we've been calling her the wrong name* went with Sokhom to the village. Sokhom took several of the students as well, which depleted our numbers back at the homestead. Sarah only had 2 students and I had like 7 instead of 12. This, coupled with the cloudy day and afternoon rainstorm, was resulting in severe laziness from everyone involved.
We may have let them out a little early.
Don't tell.
Dinner was prepared for us by Chanty's wife and it was... interesting.
For the last half of our afternoon english class, the smell of fried fish was filling the school and Sarah and I were beyond thrilled. We are currently going through withdraws from the deep fried goodness found back home, so this smell was absolutely wonderful and actually quite nostalgic. It was bringing back memories of that time when we could drive to sonic and buy tator tots anytime of the day. Those were the days...
Anyways.
So we were looking forward to dinner.
Then we got our plate.
The fish was fully scaled.
Tail and head and all.
There were also some kind of fried bones on the plate.
Where was Srey Nang?
We had no idea how to eat any of this.
How was I supposed to fillet a fish?
...with a spoon?
We stared at it for a minute and then I attempted to figure it out. I grabbed my spoon and cut the fish down the middle. I scooped out some meat and took a bite.
Then I realized I had just eaten either the liver or stomach.
*Insert my appetite being lost here*
Thank goodness it was a small fish.
We picked it a part as much as we could and took a couple more bites.
We ate the meat off the mystery bones and then hid the uneaten fish under the bones. We then cleared our plates and rinsed them in the sink.
After our interesting dinner, Chanty drove us back to the hotel. On our way, we told him to tell his wife thank you again for making us dinner. He said it was no problem and then said:
"You are our family."
It was wonderful and I almost cried right there in that little white car.
Friday morning we woke up 5:00 and made it downstairs by 5:15. Selah and Srun came and picked us up at 5:30 and we headed out to the village. It was about a 2 hour drive and it was BEAUTIFUL. It didn't start getting beautiful until we got out of the city and into the countryside though. On the way out of town we had to go through a type of toll thing and then we entered the factory district. Trucks passed by that had beds full of people. They were basically standing on top of each other. These trucks would drop off the workers at their designated factory. There were also tons of workers walking to work. They all had on different colored polos in accordance with their factory. I can't even describe the sight. It was nearly inhumane.
Sarah and I took all of this in and once we had gotten out of the area, she leaned over and said "I'm never buying clothes again."
It was another slap in the face.
We've been getting a lot of those.
After we passed through the factory district we started to see more mountains and countryside. Rice fields were EVERYWHERE. They reached all the way to the mountains and there were huge palm trees scattered throughout the fields. I tried to snag pictures but I literally couldn't capture it all. It was breathtaking.
We'd recently watched "The Killing Fields" and so that made the drive a little different as well. It was hard to imagine that this country was once so broken and people were seeking refuge in those mountains. As we passed by abandoned temples or the remains of walls, I couldn't help but wonder if these structures had endured the heartbreak as well. Sokhom witnessed the killing fields first hand. I can't imagine coming back to a country that caused you so much pain. But here is, bringing his own people to Christ.
God has a plan far greater than our own, that's for sure.
Once we reached the village, we drove on narrow roads to the work site and then got out of the car. The area was surrounded by palm trees and banana trees. There was a small corn field to the right and a tarp set up as a temporary home for 2 construction workers. There seemed to be 2 building spots and we found out later that one was for the preacher's house and the larger one was for the actual church. Shortly after we arrived, Sokhom, his sister, and Srey Nang showed up and told us that the students had been dropped off on the main road to eat breakfast and then they were heading over. We helped unload all the ingredients for lunch and the students started to trickle in.
Sidenote:
I don't think I've been very clear when I've said students. Our original plan was to come and teach english and do VBS type stuff with children. Welll things have kind of changed and we teach the preaching students english everyday. Like I said before, I have 12 in my class and their ages range from 17-22 years old. We teach children in the evening for an hour. If I had been told that I wouldn't be working with kids all day, I may not have come... But now, I enjoy teaching the preaching students more than working with the kids. *Shh don't tell*
God has a plan far greater than our own, that's for sure.
So all that to say, when I refer to my students, I'm talking about my 12 boys that are all 17-22 and far more intelligent than I am. And yet, they call me teacher. A little intimidating, but they rock my socks.
Okay, back to Friday.
The boys got to work right away and Sarah and I just kind of stood around and visited with them. We felt bad about not helping but Sam Paul *pronounced Som Paul* told us that it was not a woman's job to participate in manual labor because women have no power. Woman are supposed to cook.
So shout out to all my guy friends, all your women's rights jokes? Yeah. It's real life over here. If you came over here and told those jokes, everyone would just be like "duh a woman belongs in the kitchen... now where is my sandwich?"
At one point La called me over and handed me the shovel jokingly and I tried to dig but kinda failed. They all had a good laugh and I went back to my overseeing job. Roth *pronounced kinda like Rote* called me the construction manager and I did not object.
At one point, Som Paul showed us how to fill the baskets with rocks. He told us that if "you try, you learn." So we tried and learned. But didn't keep that job for very long.
We spent the morning joking around with all the guys as they worked. La was wearing a toboggan type hat and at one point Roth began making fun of him: "We have a great honor today. We are in the presence of a great superstar." *he told us that superstars over here wear toboggans when they sing* It was so funny. I asked La if he was going to sing for us and Roth said he only sings on stage. We were laughing so hard. Chen and Pum climbed the palm trees and threw down coconuts for us to cut open and drink. It was not as sweet as I thought it would be. But with enough sugar in it, it was better.
There was so much laughter and at one point one student asked if another student was okay. He responded with a "I am happy!"
Music to my ears.
It was time for a break and of course they made fun of Sarah and I because we always give them a 15 minute break after an hour of english. So they immediately started making fun of our sayings:
"Let's take a break!"
"15 minutes?"
"Who's going to pray?"
It was hilarious.
We're making friends and it's a beautiful thing.
Pretty soon our lunch of soup and rice and *for some students* ramen noodles was ready. The mats were laid out under the tarp and we all sat down and shared the meal together. It was so wonderful to be sitting on the ground with everyone.
After lunch, everyone wanted to take a nap and so we just sat and talked with the people that were still awake. Soon, people started to slowly wake up and a hunt was arranged. We joined several students and went out into the little grove of banana trees. They were digging up scorpion and cricket *not your typical black cricket* holes in hopes of finding them, capturing them, and frying them.
No thanks.
But it was fun following them around and being a part of the excitement.
Then it was time for Sarah and I to go back to the hotel. We were sad about leaving but there wasn't much for us to do so we agreed to be taken back by Selah and Liq. We said our goodbyes and headed out.
This is were it started to go downhill.
A list of factors began to form that were all contributing to a not very comfortable Cassie.
The air wasn't turned on in the car because they don't get hot here.
I was sitting in the back.
I slowly began to realize that I hadn't had enough water to drink that day and so my mouth was extremely dry.
I couldn't stay awake.
It was a 2 hour drive.
Somehow we survived and made it back to the hotel. We sat in the lobby for a minute and the fan blowing directly on us helped some. But once we got back upstairs I could not stay awake at all. I slept for 3 hours and was still exhausted. When I did wake up, I was extremely sick to my stomach. Sarah called Sokhom and told him that we were very tired and that we would jut eat dinner at the hotel and then go to bed. I decided to take a shower and then get into bed. Sarah tried to take a shower but then felt like she was going to pass out, so she decided to skip out on one and just head to bed as well. She soon felt better and we said goodnight.
Oh.
But the night had just begun.
8:00 rolled around and I threw up.
9:00 rolled around and I threw up.
10:00 rolled around and I threw up.
11:11 make a wish? Yeah. I threw up again.
12:00? Yup you guessed it. I threw up.
1:00.. Yes. I did throw up, how did you know?
Let's talk about Sarah and vomit for a second.
She has a phobia y'all.
It's so real.
She's been vomit free since '93.
I'm kidding about that last statement. She was born in '94 but I just really like that quote. It's from one of my favorite tv shows.
...I miss Netflix.
Anyways.
She was such a trooper and just kept her headphones in her ears all night. She kept checking on me and making sure I was taking sips of water so I wouldn't die. She even gave me extra covers when I got the chills and I was shaking the whole bed.
Love her.
We were able to sleep from about 1-5 and we both woke up and made sure the other one was alive. Sarah called Sokhom and told him what happened. He was extremely worried and said he was going to send over Tolah and Selah *the doctors* to check on me.
Tolah showed up with Cham Nan and Liq, It was a little bit awkward and kinda felt like they were visiting me on my death bed. But Tolah gave me packages of 3 different pills and told me to take them before I ate twice a day. Well. Here's the thing Tolah. I'm not eating. because I can't.
But we said thank you and they left.
We decided to venture downstairs because I wanted to call my parents.
It's the worst to be sick and a million miles away.
I facetimed my parents and we chatted about my near death experience. Sarah went into the mini mart downstairs in search of some cracker type substance for me to eat with my medicine. The hunt resulted in the discovery of some, no not crackers, but Graduates. You know those Gerber puff things that you feed to babies that are crawling. Yeah. Banana flavored.
But hey. It worked for the time being.
So we headed back upstairs with some 7-Up and a bottle of graduates.
I'm not sure what it was, but the medicine that they gave me knocked me out. I rested the rest of the day and Sarah was a saint. She took care of me wonderfully. Tolah and Cham Nan came back at around 3 and brought me more medicine for my headache and fever. They took Sarah to the supermarket where she bought bananas, water, and Ritz crackers. Hooray for American food! She came back an hour later and we continued to rest and sleep.
I broke my fever and took a shower. I felt a million times better. Sarah called Sokhom and gave him an update. He asked about church and just told us to call him around 6 am and let him know if we were planning on going.
We both slept all the way through the night and completely vomit free.
HALLELUJAH.
We called Sokhom at about 6:05 and after much deliberation. I felt so much better and wanted to get out, but we knew that rest was the best thing since I have a week of teaching ahead of me.
So here we are.
It's 2:16 pm on a Sunday afternoon and Sarah and I are still in our pajamas in bed.
I've eaten 2 sleeves of crackers *with some of Sarah's help* and had a ton of water. We had plans with Natalie to explore the city this afternoon and eat dinner together, but we had to call and cancel. She completely understood and we're planning on doing it on another day.
We got a little behind in our reading of Jesus Calling, but we caught up this morning. All the readings discussed praising God in trials, realizing we don't have to be held prisoner to time, remembering we are weak and can only handle life in 24-hour segments, and that God is looking for persistence (rather than perfection) in our walk with him.
Amen right?
Chanty said we were family, but now I absolutely feel like family.
We are so cared for here.
So here I am, praising God for vomit.
Love you all to the moon and back,
Cassie
Ps We don't know what made me sick. it could have been the water I had in the village or the small amount of ice I had in my water at lunch or maybe it was the food or the cocoanut or maybe it was a stomach bug or dehydration or heat exhaustion.. the list could go on. We'll probably never know. The point is that I am better and ready for the week. Hooray for being healed!
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