The New York Times ran a piece this weekend on Battambang! Battambang is my provincial town and I have spent a lot of time there over the last year plus. Café Eden gets a brief mention in the article, this café, along with the owner Anna, has kept me sane, happy and well fed. I know I haven’t been the greatest at capturing my experience on film, so I recommend taking a look at the slideshow that accompanies the article.
Everyone here is very buys harvesting rice; people leave before the sun comes up and get back in time for dinner spending their entire day in the fields. There are tons of huge trucks barreling down my road at any given hour filled beyond capacity with 50 kilo bags of rice going to the mill for processing.
The other day I asked my host mom how many 50 kilo bags of rice she goes through in a year. She told me six, which is 300 kilos or roughly 660 POUNDS of rice…for four people, though I sincerely doubt I am responsible for any significant portion of the rice consumption. She then went on to tell me that 300 kilos is so little rice and usually a house goes through much more in a year. The phrase for eating in Khmer literally translates to “eat rice” and with roughly 200 pounds per person per year being eaten in my house alone it really helps you grasp the term “staple food.”
It’s been cold here! We had a pretty chilly few days at the beginning of last week and the mornings since have been cool enough for long sleeves and sometimes even a light sweater on my way to work. The weather coupled with the rice harvest has made for fewer patients coming in each day. Though it has been interesting, more women who were over working in Thailand have been coming in for ANC checkups. A lot of people from my district go over to Thailand to work for extended periods of times, months or even years. They are usually working in the rice or fruit fields over there. From time to time we get women who are further along in their pregnancy coming in for their first check up and usually they say they didn’t come sooner because they were working in Thailand and have come home to give birth.
Ginger (the kitten) has found himself an older brother. Sometime over the last two weeks Ginger made friends with a bigger black and white cat who has since taken up residence in our house. At first I felt guilty because this cat was clearly well fed and full grow and I was sure it had a home but nothing is keeping it from going home and it’s still here so I guess we have two mouse traps now!
And finally, happy birthday to Scott! Don’t worry, no embarrassing post dedicated to you this year but I can’t wait to celebrate next year!
Xoxo,
b
Battambang was an amazing place to visit. I learned so much in the short time I was there, with my favorite tour guide. Anna is a wonderful person, if you go, please say “hello” for me.