The Year in Board Games

Our family loves playing board games! We especially enjoy cooperative ones like Pandemic or The Fairy Game, though this year we didn’t play any pandemic. We had enough pandemic in real life. As we looked back over our photos from the last year I thought that I’d share some of the board games we’ve played….

Crystal’s Birthday in Lockdown

Yesterday we celebrated Crystal’s birthday in full lockdown. We’d been planning to go visit an elephant refuge in distant Mondulkiri province for her birthday but as the COVID-19 situation in country has worsened we had to abandon those plans. Then, when Phnom Penh went into full lockdown, it became clear that we’d need to celebrate…

COVID-19: Full Lockdown

By many metrics, Cambodia is still doing well during the pandemic but the situation is much worse than it was just two months ago. On Friday, we saw our highest increase of cases with almost 700 people diagnosed followed by almost 500 people on Saturday and another 300 people yesterday. These are not high numbers…

From Flower to Mango

Last year I shared the wonders of mango season with you. This year is a bit different. Our new house has two mango trees so it’s given us a closer perspective on the delicious fruit and it’s growth. It’s been a blessing to have mangos raining down on us during this latest COVID-19 outbreak. I…

Online Schooling Again

This is our fourth COVID-19 lockdown and I’ve think we’re finally getting this online schooling thing down. Charlotte is doing well on the individual attention but Catherine really misses her friends. They do, for the most part, get along really well. I don’t think I was this sweet to my siblings when I was their…

COVID-19 Update: The February 20th Incident

Three weeks ago Cambodia had the third lowest cases per million of COVID-19 in the world (after Laos and Vietnam). On February 20th, it was discovered that four Chinese people had bribed their guard to break quarantine earlier in the month and new cases began to be discovered at an alarming rate. From January 2020…

Chikungunya

On a Wednesday last month, Crystal felt terrible and had a red rash spreading across her. We thought she had Dengue but when we went to the Doctor they diagnosed her with Chikungunya. Symptoms Most people infected with chikungunya virus will develop some symptoms. Symptoms usually begin 3–7 days after being bitten by an infected…

Little Office Workers

The girls love visiting Pou Cheang, Sumo the cat, and Ramy at the office. But, over the last weeks, we’ve started to put them to work! Watering plants, cleaning, and shredding really old documents! (Don’t worry – we send the historic program documents to the archives in Akron, Pennsylvania.)

New Moto Driver

There’s a new moto driver in Phnom Penh! It’s Crystal! We had planned for me to teach her over Pchum Ben this year but – hopefully not a new tradition – I was sick again. But we took advantage of the quieter streets the last couple of weeks to begin practicing. She’s doing great! Her…

Sundried Fish

Last week, Charlotte and I walked out to buy some vegetable and fruit from a local stall. On the way we stopped to look at some cleaned and sliced fish that had been set out to dry in the sun. Since Charlotte found it interesting I thought that you might as well. I’ll see if…