old news made new - Battambang

Battambang is old news, I have written lots about it over the last few years and I thought there is nothing more to write. It is not true, Battambang has changed, people changed, friends changed, babies borned. Some of the friends have left and UniED moved to a new and better building. The old UniEd has been converted to a Baha'i Center. It is under renovation now and it has all the new facilities, more rooms and impressive bath areas and toilets.

As for my life here, it is super duper NORMAL..... I am sure none of you can imagine type of normality. We have TV but no ASTRO, no THEATER, have plenty of DVD but no DVD PLAYER, so we hide inside the mosquito net and watch Heroes on the laptop (each one has one).

I need not have to apply mosturizer or sun block (between pigmentation and sticky face, I choose pigmentation) on my face or body because my face produce natural oil, my body is sticky all day and all night long. I kept thinking of the song Ti-Jin used to sing "mopiko.... itchy here and itchy there".

Prema's house is never short of visitors. Ridvan Kang left on the 11th and Lee Lee left on the 13th. Kim Poh and Dylane are still around and they are leaving on the 27th. We each pay 75cent for lunch and since there are 7 of us, each of us take one day to cook dinner. 14,000 Riel (RM 14/) is the minimum one spends on dinner and the price of one kg of chicken is 12,000/ Riel. That's why I said in my facebook that we eat mostly vegetables and each may have a small piece of meat each meal.

If you ask me whether I enjoy staying here, the answer is YES. From being alone in KL, I have a few teenagers around me, they are very lovable. We play boardgames, Melvene from Philippines first learnt to play UNO, I learnt how to play CATAN, we have many wonderful nights playing games. It is hard for me to choose because at the same time, I miss my sisters and the social life, tea with the ladies every Monday, lunch with sisters, movies by myself, window shopping and plays at the theater.

Here I meet a new generation of humankind, they are simple, make do with little that they have, eager to learn new things, new mindset and have one common idea, one common goal. They devote their time in empowering themselves and others in their village and I always wonder how come they have so little and yet they are so happy. Looking at our youngsters at home, they have everything and yet they keep saying they are bored !

Prema's school has no fanciful furniture, tables made by Phin, one of the teachers. All the toys are donated by friends in KL and Singapore (barbie dolls without clothes). We spent one whole afternoon beautifying the classroom on Saturday with cheap wood and coloured tapes. I realized that Prema is a good carpenter, she saw the wood and made a beautiful wooden shade holder. (see photo attached). My contribution was a plate of "cucur kodok" and tea and ran around passing wood and tapes.

To be continued........

Prema fixing the shade stand.
This is how it looks like after fixing.

We are all busy beautifying the classroom.

I can't believe Prema made this !

Proud Prema with Phin helping her to fix the stand


Most of the furniture are made by Phin.

My only worry (other than the mosquitoes & the heat) is the flood. The flood came right into the class room and I had the first hand experience cleaning it.

A game of CATAN after dinner.

Kids in the school are asked to suggest and write how they should behave in class in a consultative manner.
Nabil just turned three and he is so friendly and sharing. This morning I saw him sharing his little piece of "kueh" with all his classmate and in the end he got just a tiny piece for himself.
Ridvan Kang from Sabah and a few friends from Malaysia and China were here to attend PSA class (preparation for social action).this is what I mean by special generation of humankind.

Teaching math to preschool kids