Sometimes I giggle

I recently was speaking with a friend and said, "I 'bore' easily.  I like to always have the opportunity for a new adventure.  A chance to keep learning.  A challenge to stretch who I am. A problem to solve" Sometimes, though, when every moment becomes an adventure, it can be a bit exhausting.  It is nice to, every now and then, have something go according to plans.  Settling into a routine can provide space for other creative endeavors and the mind can rest.  But, for those moments when it just seems a bit too much, I try to remember to just giggle.  Life is a book, packed with a series of adventures, and some chapters are just more action packed than others.  Positive ripples...

Giggle moment #1

Some would likely classify me as a bit of an environmentalist.  I refuse to buy certain foods because they have too much packaging.  I bring my own take-out containers so I don't rely on the disposable kinds.  I may have brought a year's worth of paper with me to the USA to recycle on my recent trip because I had no reassurance it would be recycled here in Cambodia...  Anyhow, the fact that my recent hotel provided me with not one, but two toothbrushes (individually packaged to suffocate mother earth in their plastic-goodness) hurt the soul a little.  When they 'replenished' the toothbrushes, providing two more when they restocked the toilet paper, giggling was the best solution. Punching cinder block walls it not helpful. And, then I would need to use one of these to clean my blood out of the grout...   

Giggle Moment #2


I wish I could say I always giggle at traffic here.  Sending nothing but positive vibes into the universe, but, in reality, I usually curse like a sailor. When I am not the one navigating, I get lots of laughs out of the things I can see around me in traffic.  Note: most of these photographs are not from Phnom Penh but the provinces when I am on outreach or from the bus going from province to province.

Just your average minibus transporting people and goods from province to province.  I have yet to capture a photo of a really great one of these with people sitting on the stuff hanging out of the back.  Two years to accomplish that...

The people just ride on top of their goods in this arrangement...

Contrast in transport options.

These little engines are attached to just about any wheeled machine to transport crops, animals, people, and random things from place to place.  I, in my head, refer to them as chopper tractors, because they have the long handlebars like a chopper motorcycle...

You can transport your rice and your wife...

Or, the family dogs.

And, with this model, you have room for all the family's groceries.  I am guessing you have to make sure the weight balances out on either side or you could be in trouble...

Giggle Moment #3

Sometimes, I don't even have to leave my house to get in a good snicker. Well, this may be more of the universe chortling at me than me partaking in the uproar...


Giggle Moment #4

This past week, I had the chance to see this huge reclined Buddha.  This is at a wat well off the beaten tourist trail.  When you go to the wat here in Cambodia, you can light incense and make an offering, offer a prayer, pay your respects.  This past week, I stopped at a wat with a co-worker and she encouraged me to join in showing respect.  I observed and was following her lead, all under the watchful eye of an elderly monk.  I lit my incense and began to copy her posture (feeling very proud of what a well inculturated white girl I was).  That is about the time she pointed out I lit the wrong end of the incense...


Photo of the Week

And, following the tradition of my last blog, here are some of my favorite photos from the past week.

Sometimes you just happen to be in the right place, at the right time.  Monks on the bamboo bridge in Kampong Cham province.

A young deaf girl with her grandmother, mother, and family.  Grandma seemed thrilled her granddaughter will have the opportunity to get an education, even though she was born deaf.

Our field workers teaching a young woman the alphabet in Cambodian Sign Language.

You can read more about these adventures on the Deaf Development Programme blog (my alter-ego)