Friday, November 27, 2009

Old news made new ..... Battambang Part 2

I have been here for 3 weeks and cannot imagine how I did it! I told myself long ago that I will never come and settle down in Cambodia and here I am and will be here for another one and a half months. I have to go back and get ready for Chinese New Year.

Each time I left Battambang I complain about the life here but I am back again and again, year after year!

Now that Prema is more involved in the Junior Youth Programme and she is away most of the time, I have agreed to stay here and help out in her school. Suprisingly, I do not find the music too loud, the mosquitoes too irritating and the millions of insect annoying! (sorry, all the above still annoys me like crazy but I have learned to live with it). I think all this is because I have decided in my mind that I have to do it and I BETTER be gracious about it.

Let's see what have I done in these three weeks. I read Dan Brown's latest book "The Lost Symbols". In fact, I had stopped reading long ago.... since I found my new hobbies, farming and scrabble on facebook. But as all of us know, things happen always for a reason, My laptop decided to act out on me thus allowing me to finish the book. I have learnt a lot of things from this book, best of all it decribed my state of mind and how just by changing the mindset, one can move and alter the universe and of course your surrounding. Not that I don't know this, I have known it all along as a Baha'i but let's face it, the Baha'i writings are not as interesting as Dan Brown's books.

Everyone agreed that the Guardian's book is difficult to read, it is very intellectual and I know that it is not for me. The day I arrived, Prema gave me "God Passes By" and encouraged me to read that. Till now it is still laying there and unopened. Once I was away from facebook but I left the computer on, a friend tried to chat with me and found me not responding and this is what she said in the chat box " I think she has gone farming somewhere".

One morning I look into the mirror , I saw an old, dark Cambodian lady staring at me and I could not believe my eyes, IT MUST BE THE MIRROR, NOT ME ! But sorry to tell you, it was ME ! The woman inside the mirror looks more like Snow White's step mother when she drank the potion! I wanted to cry but it's okay.

Ti Jin is sitting beside me now, reading my blog as I am typing it and we are getting along very well SO FAR ! He asked if he had quarreled with me often and he could not remember he was rude at any time of his long long life but his long life is only 10 years anyway. We had long discussions often and I really enjoy his company. He is more intellectual than a lot of kids his age and he knows lots of things like what is good and what is bad and the choices he can make.
Thanks to Lani and Andrew, they brought him up well.