This afternoon on a road near Charlotte’s school I got a photo that illustrates the need for a single use plastics ban. I think this one speaks for itself.
Category: Daily life in Cambodia
គុយទាវ | Kuy Teav
Kuy Teav is a Cambodian rice noodle soup similar to but distinct from Vietnamese Phở. It’s a popular breakfast item across Southeast Asia – with local variants like Hủ Tiếu in Viet Nam, Kway Teow in Malaysia, and Kuai Tiao in Thailand. It’s usually made with pork stock. It uses different spices and rice noodles…
ផ្លែទៀប | Sugar Apple
Also known as the Custard Apple or Sweetsop, I thought for the longest time that this was Milk Fruit but it’s actually Custard Apple. In Khmer, it’s called ផ្លែទៀប (plae tieb). It’s a sweet fruit with a mild citrusy taste. It has many large seeds that are smooth and quite solid. The outer shell peels…
Cambodian Spice Pack
This morning at the local market I picked up two of what I call ‘Cambodian spice packs.’ In traditional rural life, villagers wouldn’t buy these ingredients but would have them growing in their yards. Life is a bit different in the city – though many homes still have these growing in pots – so they’re…
Three Languages, None Khmer
Yesterday morning at the local market in Phnom Penh a boy asked me, in English, “Do you speak Vietnamese?” I know maybe seven words of Vietnamese so I answered with, “Xin chào.” He responded in Chinese with, “Wo hen hao.” I have to thank the bookshop owner in Prey Veng for teaching me enough Chinese…
Rain and Privilege
There are many things I love about Cambodia and I hope to devote blog posts to the fruit, the present-ness of people, the eagerness to celebrate and many more things. But I have to start with the rain. It’s rainy season here. 6 months of nearly daily rains that sweep across the tin roofs of…
A Conversation with Charlotte
It has been a hard week but this talk with Charlotte is why it’s good that the girls are here. Growing up in Brazil shaped me, growing up here is shaping them. Charlotte: The doctor said that my leg might get cut off if there’s an infection. Me: Yes, but that probably won’t happen to…
Bike Injury
On Saturday last week, Charlotte and I had a lovely daddy-daughter outing around Phnom Penh. We stopped by the office on the way home to pick up a bike and, as the guard did some last minute maintenance on it, Charlotte took off her shoes. This is where I messed up – as we started…
The week of broken things
The last 5 days have been full of brokenness. It started last Friday. In my eagerness to set up the partner meeting, I moved a portion of the glass table by myself. My sweaty hands slipped and glass fell hard on my leg, cutting into my shin in two places, leaving spectacular bloody trails all…
Durian
The first time I had durian I was told, “it smells like hell but tastes like heaven.” Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. It tasted like a rotten sweet onion. This was in Ohio in the year leading up to my first cross cultural trip to Viet Nam. Because of that experience I avoided eating durian…