Day 3

Back to the trip journal...

Day 3 was our first Sunday in Cambodia. We tracked down an LDS branch very near our hotel and the "LDS kids" went to church. I already told the story about the Vietnamese branch and how I bore my testimony while a missionary from Layton translated for me. What a cool experience.

After church we had to rush back to our hotel because we had our first business visit. We were going to the rice fields to eat lunch with the farmers and see how they are learning this new way of farming rice. The LDS church is partnered with an NGO in Cambodia called CEDAC and they are there teaching these rice farmers how to double their rice production.

On the way out to the fields we stopped at these road side markets and bought bread and fruit for the farmers and us to all eat together. We saw some pretty interesting food dishes, it started out with the usual dead fish hung from hooks and in bowls of water, then went to the dog head, etc. I have pictures but I decided not to share...

After that we got to the fields and the farmers had this big hut that was on stilts that they laid out these mats in and we all sat in there and ate. Then we got to ask them questions about farming and then someone asked them if they had any questions for us. The only thing they asked us about was farming in America, which most of us (myself included) had no idea about. But we had some laughs about the fact that they only could think to ask us questions about farming...

Most of the farmers that were at our lunch were women and when we asked where the men were, the women said they were in the fields because the women wanted to see the people from America... they were so funny. When we would take a picture of them and then show them it on the digital camera they thought it was the funniest thing they had ever seen.

Here is our lunch spread. We had to eat sitting on our legs tucked under us because our guide told us to show them the bottom of our feet was disrespectful. This picture does not do this justice but it is about 125 degrees in this hut.

This was a little boy at the lunch who was sooo cute. He kept playing games with the guys and we all wanted to just scoop him up and take him home.

Here is a group picture we took with the rice farmers. Is it that obvious who the Americans are??

Here are some of the people there who were waving goodbye to us. Did I mention that everywhere we went we took candy and little toys for the kids. We were like the President of the US over there, we had such a big following every where we went. Can you see how happy these people are? It always amazed me to see the smiles on their faces.

Okay, one last picture. This is a van passing our very large tour bus on the way to the rice fields. This is such a common thing to see in Cambodia, a van full of adults and about 10 kids sitting on top. Now this is a very bumpy dirt road that we are driving on. Anyone want to throw their kids up on their car sometime??

And now one last story. After we got back from the rice fields we were exhausted and really hot so a couple of us decided to go get a massage. You can get a one-hour massage on every street corner in Phnom Pen for about $12. So Blake (my trip buddy) and I went to a place and got our massages. Well when I got out from the room he was sitting in the waiting room looking like he was going to cry. He jumped up and ran out and I followed and asked him what was wrong. He said that he was "violated" during the massage and got so freaked out that he jumped up and told the lady he had to go... mind you I am in the other room and he has to wait for me... guess he didn't really think that all the way through. Now he wouldn't tell me details but I could imagine what kind of massage a guy gets on a street corner in Cambodia...

Word about his incident spread quickly and soon we were all laughing because it is always the guy who is the most tramatized about this stuff that these things happen to, isn't it? Poor Blakey Poo (that is his real nickname).

Ok, one more story.. So after the massage "incident" Blake and I decide to just head out of the hotel and find something cool to eat for dinner. We find this Thai restaurant that is outside and you eat under all these cool plants. Am I getting the point across, it was cool. So we go in and order and get our food and just as we start eating the sister missionaries that we met that morning walk by. Blake (who is a return missionary himself) runs out and is like ,"hey sister missionaries, how are you, do you want to come in, we will buy you dinner."

They are very nice and say hi to us but say they have to get home. Now it is like 6:00 in the evening and Blake is saying to me, gee that is weird why do you think the missionaries have to be home by 6:00pm. And I am looking at him like, uh. really? And I say "Blake you just invited the sister missionaries to come eat at this restaurant with us on Sunday night..."

He was mortified. He wanted to scour the city looking for them to apologize then explain why we had to eat out on Sunday, as if they were thinking "Why didn't they plan ahead and buy some extra food on Saturday to eat on Sunday?" No one in Cambodia has a fridge...

Anyway I had another pretty good laugh, at some else's expense (the best kind of laugh).