The MCC Cambodia team surprised us with a baby shower this afternoon. It was really lovely of them. It’s hard to be far away from parents, grandparents, and siblings as the due date draws near. Even though we’re well prepared. It’s still hard. So it was nice to feel love and support from our MCC…
Author: Charles
A boy named January
During my visit to Kratie in January 2023, I attended a village savings group meeting and meet a boy named January. Actually, he’s named មករា, Meakaraa, which is the Khmer word for January. Several community members told me that មករា was “not normal” and blamed his mother, Sophea, because she did not “did not take…
Catherine singing on the way to school
Catherine singing a song of her own creation on the way to school. ♪ We live in Cambodia right now! ♫
2023 YAMEN/IVEP Alumni Gathering
Every year (when there aren’t COVID-19 gathering restrictions) we host the Cambodian YAMEN and IVEP alumni at our home. This also includes the current SALT and YAMEN participants serving in Cambodia, as well as the outbound Cambodian IVEP/YAMEN participants who will be leaving in July. This isn’t just a social gathering – though it’s wonderful…
Catherine chasing birds
This last week we’ve been hosting the MCC DPRK (North Korea) Program Director, Stacy Nam. She came to join the team conducting the 5-year Program Review of MCC Cambodia & Myanmar and is acting as the Peer Reviewer. I’ll say more about the program review in future post. This post is just about a series…
Visiting Sros’ Farm Two Months Apart
In November 2022, I visited Ros Sros on a remote island upstream on the Mekong river in Kratie province. Sros is a poor farmer who lives in Damrae village who is following the climate resilient agricultural techniques she learned from MCC’s partner Cambodian Rural Development Team (CRDT). She has five children and also supports her…
Three Sisters on an island in Kratie province
In November 2022, I visited one of the MCC/Cambodian Rural Development Team project participants on a remote island in Sambour district, Kratie province. She is a poor farmer named Sopheat. She’s part of the local vegetable producer group and village savings bank. She had started a tremendous vegetable garden and I asked her why she…
Monitoring Visit to Kratie – January 2023
In January, I scheduled my backlog of blog posts from 2022 to publish once a day and then traveled out to Kratie province on a monitoring visit to the Rural Livelihoods and Social Cohesion in Interethnic Communities project. This was my third visit to the project villages in Sambour district, Kratie province – the first…
The Consequences of Fungal Adapation
For a long time – maybe two years already, maybe even longer – I’ve had some sinus issues; congestion, nasal drip, occasional sore threat. It got better, then worse, then better. I thought it might be related to the root canal I had, worried I had allergies, watched the air pollution levels, and fretted that…
Return to Monkey Island
Last month during our team visit to Prey Veng we spent a morning at Toul Baray Andet just outside of Prey Veng town. The last time we visited was in 2021 with that year’s YAMEN class. ‘Toul’ is a river delta word, it means ‘an elevated patch of land that is an island in the…