Frank got this volley net for the kids and ball whilst I was shopping for school supplies. We set it up to test it out, and all of a sudden it started absolutely bucking down, but we didn’t care, that made it so much more exciting (and refreshing!). The competition was intense, and the mud was growing thicker and more slippery by the minute. We played for a good hour, whilst the thunder and rain continued to pass over and the rest the kids and Borin watched (pa was even playing!). It was so much fun and I came home covered from head to toe with slashes of mud and drenched clothes. Mrs. Leng just laughed at me.

We don’t see papa much, but today he was out guns blazing (he even played volley ball with us and rode us home on the motor bike).

This one is a split donation, 100kg of rice from me, 100kg of rice from Frank and 50kg of rice from Emma. So for all my family playing at home, 2 of those bags are from you guys and a huge thank you again. This 250kg is to feed 17 growing children and 2 adults three meals a day of which are all predominately rice (rice soup from breakfast, rice and a very, very small amount of meat for dinner, maybe rice and rice and vegetables for dinner, or rice soup again). We guesstimated that this will feed them for the month after we leave when there are no volunteers coming until well into October. The rice bags became a bit of a play ground…

Here are the children this morning, looking fabulously well dressed for their morning class.

Last night I wanted to take Socheat out for dinner to thank her for all the motorbike rides, translations and help she has given me and Emma over the past week. Unfortunately Emma had a very difficult time getting back from Siem Reap, as dinner was meant to be from the two of us, but I was just thankful she got home safely, Socheat brought her brother and his shadow (Mrs. Leng’s son) along as well. They drove me about 5 minutes out of town down the main road to a very poplar restaurant amongst the locals, and one I had no hope of finding myself. I told them to order for me cause I wanted to taste their favourite Khmer foods. We got a delicious marinated beef dish with green tomatoes which you ate with a salt and pepper mix that you squeeze lime into and rice, a seafood dish which was their favourite (uncooked prawns), I was warned not to eat much cause it would make me sick cause my stomach isn’t like theirs… Which was fine by me, I tasted it and it was really quiet spicy (though my tolerance is getting better). And then we had a tong yum soup, think tom yum but less oily and much more fresh, which was filled with fish, lemongrass, herbs and mushrooms and was just spicy enough and was absolutely incredible! Topped off by a plate of pineapple, I took 4 people out, drinks included for $20 all together, now I could get use to that! And then I went into a food coma!