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We have all been having trouble with terminology. Maybe I have started it. Sometimes I tell Jarrah to put her dirty clothes in the garbage bin instead of the dirty clothes basket. Sometimes I say get the broom instead of a knife - stuff like that. There must be some kind of vitamin to cure this problem. A word recall problem. Maybe I am developing a dementia of some kind. Who knows. The problem however is even developing in the kids. But related specifically to our location and what we call the places we frequent.
We have now moved into our fourth house since Ben and I got married. Our first house which Ben (and a carpenter named Eye) built was in a village called Kruel (pronounced Krill). Sadly we only lived there two and a half years. Then moved north about 120 km away and to a village called Jombok Paim in Rovieng. We built a smaller house and not as finished as our first house since we realised our living there may be short term. We ended up there for the next twelve years. So it was easy to keep the two places straight. Kruel and Rovieng. Fast forward to 2014 and April. We moved to the forest here in Songkom Thmey near a village called Ta Bos but much closer to a mountain called Phnom Tnout (or Sugar Palm Mountain). Now, here lies the problem. Since moving out here, I have had a recall problem and almost exclusively refer to our house in Rovieng as Kruel. But it doesn't stop there. When we first moved here we lived at the "Teis-an-a-kar" which means headquarters or office or something like that. This was the building Ben built for the Community Forest Headquarters and for our temporary house. From April through to just now - October 18 to be exact, that was our home. We then moved to our permanent home. While living at the Teis-an-a-kar we called where the house is, appropriately "the house site." Now that we have moved to "the house site" we are now calling our house, the house (I guess) and the Teis-an-a-kar, "the house site." Why I don't know. And we all do it. Ben. The kids. Not just me thankfully.

The Garden

We have been growing and trying to grow various green things in our garden. Some things work (like eggplant and pumpkin) and other things have not done so well with our sometimes negligent care (like the cucumbers). I brought back from Australia a bunch of seeds - lots of herbs that I want to use in my food and other miscellaneous stuff that my avid gardener mother gave me. So today before it got too hot, the family all trooped out to the garden and started working. The kids planted trakuen (or gas-zoon-u-et in Burmese or morning glory in English) and I planted cabbage, rocket, spinach and parsley. I was complaining to Ben that these seeds seem so small and my gardening efforts always seem to be for nought as nothing comes up, or little spindly things come up or bugs eat it or something happens. I am a pessimistic gardener. Well the first sign that my day was not going right was when halfway down the spinach row I realised I was planting on top of the rocket. It was only about 2 or 3 metres worth so I quickly corrected myself. Then I moved onto the parsley. I did a whole row of italian parsely imagining lovely tabouli salads in the future. At the end of that row I realised I had planted the whole row on top of my spinach. Ben made some smart comment about why my gardening efforts never work. Anyway, lets see what happens. We watered the rows and in 2 or 3 weeks we shall see what comes up. Fingers crossed. I better go out and water them every day too. What a lot of work!

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Been a while...

Lots to catch up on but the most exciting event has been moving into our house. We have a garden shower, a kitchen sink.. all with a view of our mountain...
More later.
Xx

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Lately

A couple of weeks ago we had a little storm. It was short and had a very windy start. Ben was at the house site and the girls and I were at home. As Ben was returning, his workers who had left earlier came back and told him the road was blocked. There must have been a micro burst in that spot and about 50+ metres of trail was covered by trees and vines the main culprit being a huge huge fig tree, which now lay on its side. The girth was about as tall or taller than Ben.
I shall insert a picture when I get some better internet.
The tree had pulled down all sorts of vines and other trees so the trail was indeed quite decimated. We are using one of the trees that fell for floor boards on our house so that is the only benefit of the blow down. They cleared a detour and also took a good couple of days to clear the road again.

Some local carpenters (from the village right by us) came to work with us on Monday to help us finish off the house-which-is-taking-forever. All that is left to do is some decking, flooring our bedroom, roofing our bedroom, a few odd wallboards around the house, finishing off the floor and walls in the girls room and then the bathroom odds and ends (plumbing etc.) - Oh, and the steps. So not really that much is needed before we can move in. They half finished the deck as of today and most of the floor to our bedroom. The roofing supports are up mostly on the bedroom too. And that is just two days of work.

The weather has dried up and the rains from June and July have abated - good at the moment for us but the rice and gardens of everyones are drying up which is not good-including our garden. So hopefully the weather will hold up for a little while but maybe just a few little rains would be appreciated.

Ben went and visited the Forestry Administration who we are working with for permissions and all that horrible red tape necessary. He had a long 4 hour meeting with the director for the province (who only had 10 minutes as he was going out the door). The guy has always been very supportive and helpful but just always busy and has much much bigger fish to fry or whatever you do. But it was a very useful meeting and some paper work which was buried was dug out from people's desks and put back together again. They are also working on a community forest (CF) ADRA's Jombok Hoas site. One village is planning on enclosing Jombok Haos within their CF and then ADRA will make a continued use agreement with the village. But another village which is actually really close to Jombok haos are fighting it because they want the forest free to claim and cut. They already had their own protected area demarked and have since sold it all off or cleared it all of any valuable timber. So now they are looking at the land that JBH is on and thinking that they should have rights to it. So there is a village meeting this week between the village, the Forestry Administration and the Community Forest Committee from the other village to hopefully iron out some of the issues. Ben is attending to clear up some of the rumors that have been circulating ("Ben said this.. Ben said that...")
So, our roll on the house will stop again.. hopefully this carpenters will come back next Sunday to keep on going and hopefully they don't get another job in the meantime.

I have been working .. trying to work ... on some ADRA work over the last couple of weeks. Slowly putting together a proposal. Meaning kids are free to school themselves.. or not. Jarrah just brought me up some edible leaves... so they are learning survival skills. They walk to the garden and pick veges. They just had their bath at the creek. They have their new puppy, Mikey to keep them playing. I think they are having fun. Amelie baked bread the other day. Jarrah made up a recipe for pancakes - 'pleasure pancakes' she named them - basically flour, baking powder, salt and water. They don't taste bad at all. And Amelie and I have gone on runs for the last three mornings. They were not very long runs, but long enough for people who are not fit. The three legged Mikey followed us the first two days but this morning he made it as far as the creek (20m) and turned home.

Another thing I did lately.. I made my own laundry detergent. I had been importing this wonderful, natural powder from the US called Charlie's soap. It was only about $13 for 1kg which lasted me about 6 months at 1 tablespoon a load as recommended. Way cheaper than the junk that they use here with all its chemicals and not too impossible to throw in our suitcases. However are trips to the US are getting fewer and fewer so I thought I needed to find a more sustainable source of good cheap and natural powder. i had found a recipe of some detergent and a lady had written up how to make it and where to source the borax and baking soda in the labyrinth of Orussey Market in Phnom Penh. for $1, I made up about enough for ten or fifteen loads. It smells good and seems to be doing the trick. Nothing in my opinion can get our stains out of our clothes and I am lazy to spot wash absolutely everything - stains don't come out but they never did with anything I use - so I am quite happy with my home made detergent. Next to try is some home make liquid hand wash and then I need to tackle soap.

So we are still alive and life is good at the moment. I am approaching this life at present as an attempt at homesteading and living off the land. Need too see how much our grocery shopping can go down as we get ourselves more and more set up. Only when we get a cow however will we be happy as we all love our dairy. I did just read a book on stopping sugar so that should be one item less to buy (The Year of No Sugar by Eve O Schwab) .. a good book by the way. We should all stop this little additive if we want to be healthy.
I digress here from ending this post. I shall end here! Now! And get back (or start!) my computer work for the day. Oh, it is 5pm.. maybe I'lll get to it tomorrow. Sorry Ann!

posted from Bloggeroid

Ben's Shoes

These are the shoes Ben is wearing at present... actually these are the mates of the shoes since these are kind-a worn. So he is wearing non- matching shoes which in this country they liken to hooking up you cart to a cow and a buffalo. In Phnom Penh we can repair them fairly cheaply but perhaps these are just a bit gone.,

posted from Bloggeroid

Giant Black Squirrel

This little guy here is not so little.  He is resident just outside the office here and regularly visits the trees nearby.  These shots were taken by sitting at our school desk as he came down to investigate the something - bugs or leaves in the tree just outside our window.  He seems to be not too wary of us - which is good for now but hopefully won't cause him grief later.  He makes this amazing shooting sound when alarmed which our visiting Australian friends likened to the laser guns from Star Wars.  Due to interruptions like this.. our school day becomes very fragmented as I must get out the camera so regularly.  Ahhh, we can learn from our books later - this life is more fun.

The Mundane

I need to give an update on the latrine project progress but will wait for Ben to give me some finer details. The boys left the village last week and our life has gone back to normal...as normal as is normal for us. Our workers at the forest had left a few days earlier to go work on their rice and so we were able to have some down time for a few days - just us.

The rains were still falling. The creek was up, and so when Ben travelled back from the village he walked in. So, no truck...just our trusty little Honda MD to get around on.

We had a couple of days of little projects.. putting conduit on the wires at the office, putting more gravel on the path. Then we started working on the floor boards at our house. As he was straightening some boards, Ben took a step back onto a board that was not placed properly. It flipped and he found himself going down. Catching himself on the floor joists (is that the right term?) He managed to slam his ribs against the wood. Without an xray he is pretty certain he broke a couple of ribs. Hopefully this is our "accident of the year."

So now Ben is now up and about... moto-ed out to the village yesterday to make a trip to Rovieng to pick up more stuff and importantly, two workers: our old guard, Ung; and Reth, another good guy. Ben still can't or rather shouldn't be doing much..lifting and stuff like that! Fun!

The girls have been dragging their dogs out on morning walks lately. Yesterday they went up the road to a sandy bit and built a virtual city in the sand complete with gardens and fairgrounds and houses and barns. Quite elaborate.

I have noticed that being outside has amazing effects on how well they play together, and just how whiney they are. Jarrah is the master or rather mistress of the whine. When I can somehow convince her to go outside she forgets her troubles and finds something else to focus her energies on. It is incredible the transformation that takes place. A good thing we have lots of outside and lots of nature here.

One other exciting item to mention: Amelie was finishing up her schoolwork late-ish about 6 just before dark and just out the window she noticed a troop of mavaques settling in for the night. She saw babies and adults. By the time Jarrah and i got there, we only saw a couple: one shuffling down a tree; and another staring at us. Quite exciting to see the wildlife becoming less afraid and moving in closer to us.

That is life at present for us.

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