La Sonya

RAW Impact's ute after I drove it through the mud. Not the same ute as the story. I'm not sure if I told you I have my Cambodian drivers license. I got it just in case I ever needed to drive the ute (that's Aussie for Utilitarian Vehicle, that's what they call anything that has a bed behind a cab.) and for driving my motor bike, if anyone asked me for it I'd be all clear. The time came in the first week of December for me to put it to good use. Being the only RAW Impact staff to actually know how to drive on the right hand side of the road I think I'm most qualified to drive. . . but that's not really my point because honestly, HAVE YOU SEEN PHNOM PENH TRAFFIC?! No thanks. No way José. Last week while I was working with a team at one of our partnering projects in Kampong Speu they needed someone to go get another bag or two of cement. Blake was leading the build and Brett was working on office work so I got chosen to go. I accepted the challange and

Here's some pictures from the last month in Cambo. I need to work harder at posting updates!  Enjoy. Chma (cat) at the hotel in Siem Reap Me and Brett on the last build day with our team from Brisbane State High School. The dirt road leading out to Koki, a village we work in. This village is in the red zone for the UN. It's the edge of survival. The house we built with BSHS. The grandma has lived through a lot and we were honored to help her get her first house and out of living under a tarp since her old one blew over.  A pretty lady just after getting her hair and makeup done at a local beauty spot in Kratié I see this billboard all the time and I'm not a big fan. A sweet girl in Koki who helped me move lunch to the community center. Pidow and I at the home she helps run called Jumpah. She's a gem and helped me a lot with my Khmer.  A little cafe near Jumpah where I went in the middle of the day to take a break and hav

Okay, so this is a bit late but better late than never, right? For my Thanksgiving tradition I have composed a list of 100 things I am thankful for. Here it is in no particular order: Cambodia Australian slang Adventure Purpose Family who support my life choices even if they think I'm crazy Mom  Dad and Deli Fifer, my kaka Andrea Rachel BurlyKim Xelxi messages from friends and family Gertie the Green Slug Khmer Donuts Khunara/Ra RAW Impact Cold weather Warm weather Rain Free Wifi and cheap data plans Tuk tuks Hope God Love Travel Music My flatmates Joma coffee in the morning with Brett and Jay (and whoever else comes) Khmer iced coffee Team trips  Outdoors Church Community Curly hair Sunrise Quite mornings English The corner restaurant Hanging out with the Family Kitten's Puppies!! Good office days Air con Fun bed sheets Line drying my clothes My porch garden Growing and learning Mexican food Trees Angkor Wat Running My

I go to bed without running through a million scenarios in my head about school board meetings, teachers meetings, parents, students, lesson plans or any other million things. I have HEAPS of free time on Sunday and by HEAPS I mean all day. I don't have to go to the school, write lesson plans, grade papers or brainstorm ways to recruit more students.  I go into work at 8:15 am everyday. I leave work at 5 pm everyday. I am not having to "be on" all the time.  I don't have to wear a million different hats. I don't feel terribly inadequate, overwhelmed, stuck or like a fake.  I still get to teach, brainstorm ways to teach concepts and ideas to students. I bicycle to and from work most days (motor bike on days when I go to the village). I don't have to shmooze or woo people to donate, volunteer, like me, like the school, or even care about anything when I am at church. But mainly I have so much free time on Sunday. Time to ex

I found myself looking for all my extra courage today. I've graduated from the little moped bike to the one Kerry has been using. It's a manual bike. It's roughly the same size as the black moped bike, only it rides much different. I have to pay attention to the gears and shift up and down with my left foot. I have to break with my right food as well as my right hand all the while remembering the throttle in the same hand. I have to look around for drivers, pot holes and landmarks to know where to turn. The thing is, it's hard. I enjoy being pushed to grow and learn. I often volunteer for new things. I like learning languages, leading groups of people and being the first to try something. This however is pushing me a lot. I want to stay in my comfortable zone of push bike. It's hard going out to the village on my own. I have a great coach here in Phnom Penh but he can't do it for me, he can't ride me out there. I am having to summon up all my courage and

*typical oozy Sonya happy gushing ahead* Hi guys! Can we talk for a moment about things I love about living here in Phnom Penh?  My neighborhood . We might have a large populous of westerners but it's the best little neighborhood in all of Toul Tom Poung (that's the name of this area of Phnom Penh.)  Royal Mart . It's owned by our land lord but it's got the best prices. I save almost a dollar on my muesli. I can dash down to the corner grab soy milk and dash back up my stairs all during a commercial break.  Plus they all know me now and we swap smiles and small Khmer greetings.  T he Russian Market.  This is where I can go get my fresh veggies and dried goods. I have my regular stalls that I visit. We're friends and getting good at communicating. I can also stop by and pick up some comfy clothes that are made local. I'll take another blog to talk about this place in depth. Joma . I stop most mornings before work to hang out with a few other coworke

We recently had an office worship talk about all of us being different parts of the body of Christ. Brett, who gave the talk, focused on how we all have different skill sets and attributes that contribute to the smooth functioning of RAW Impact. The verses are found in 1 Corinthians 12 . To bring it all home and make it personal he had us write our name on a piece of paper and that paper got passed around with all of us taking turns writing something we see as an attribute or a word to describe their unique skill set and what they bring to the team etc. As a words of affirmation-love language person I loved the worship exercise. It was, however, a bit uncomfortable when at the end the person to the left read aloud the list of words used to describe me. Only because sometimes. . . okay, always. . .I find it hard to be the focus of a room full of compliments. I don't mind being the focus of attention when I am calling the attention, just not when I don't have control and it'

To my dearest kids at OACS, Today was the first day of school at SALT School, that's the school where I am helping teach the teachers. The students were all nervous and excited and the teachers busy and tired. It reminded me of all our first days of school together. In fact, it made me think about each and everyone of you. So I decided to write you all a letter to say hello. So here we go, HELLO!!!! I have now been in Cambodia for over a month! Which means you have all been in school for over a month! I left America the same week you started school! My flight over here was very long. I left San Francisco at a little past midnight on a Tuesday and I arrived in Cambodia on Thursday afternoon! Two very long plane rides!! I live in the capital city of Cambodia called Phnom Penh (the h's are not really pronounced so it sounds more like Pnom Pen). It is a very busy city! The streets are almost always busy during the day but at night it gets quiet again. I live in an apartment o

Two weeks ago I joined my first RAW team trip as the second logistics leader. Which basically means I was the person who helped make sure everything ran smoothly, from the tuk tuk drivers to the food service at the Titanic. I learned quickly and had great teachers. Here's a rundown of the two weeks the year 10 students (that's Sophomores to us Americans) had while here. Day 1 Group arrive at airport dazed and confused :) Shove all luggage into bus and pile in tuk tuk Take the group on their first adventure to the hotel via busy, crazy roads. Let them settle in for a couple hours Go to fancy restaurant on the river front called Titanic (luckily there are no icebergs in Cambodia. . . ) Day 2 Embrace and understand the cultural day Visit RAW Impact offices and learn what we do on a daily basis Visit SheRescue office and learn about human trafficking and the journey Cambodia has been on to eliminate sex trafficking. Visit S21 also called Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum , t

My good friend Jacqui emailed me some questions the other week. I answered them and we figured she might not be the only one to wonder about these things so here they are for general consumption. If you have any questions please feel free to email them all to me and I'll peck away at them and share them with you and anyone else who would like to read them. It's fun to answer questions en mass. Enjoy! Here's my crack at your questions: Were you making some sort of carrot stew?  No. I should have moved those carrots because they were my flat mates. She was cleaning them. We put veggies in water and vinegar to help clean them. She has gotten food poisoning a LOT. Not me, my stomach is steel. . . except with milk. I've been having some issues with milk. boo. What local food are you learning to love/hate?   I am LOVING this mushroom/tofu dish from the corner restaurant that we all hang out at a lot in the evenings. The guys here don't ever cook and it's

The person I look up to the most in the history of existence is Jesus. I have so much to learn about relationships from him. These are three of the best things I've learned so far. 1. Forget the stereotypes. 2. It's okay to be in the moment with someone. 3. Take time to connect with people. The first I learned from the story of the woman at the well. You can find it in John 4. There are a few things to note about this story. She was a Samaritan woman. Jesus was Jewish and as a cultural rule they were not aloud to be friendly, Samaritans and Jews hadn't been getting along for a looooong time. She was also a she. As it still can be in the Middle East a man is not allowed to talk to a woman who was not a sister, mother or wife in public. These things didn't stop Jesus. The last thing to point out is she was getting water at the hottest time of they day. Water is normally gotten in the morning and in the evening. She must have been avoiding people in order to go at no

Today was a milestone.  It might not seem like much but it is. Since getting my bike this week I've been working on getting a lay of the land and it's been an adventure of turning around, going the long way and discovering places on the other side of stinky river, the large drainage "river" that runs through our part of the city. Taken on the way back. Today was a big day because I rode my green bike (we're still working on a name) to church. Brett , our very own triathlete coach at RAW Impact , volunteered to help me figure out a way to bike to church without going on the main roads and definitely avoiding the over pass, who wants to bike up the ONE hill in Phnom Penh? Not me, that's who. So at 9 am we started off. Me on my cute green bike with a basket and cover and Brett on his very fancy professional gear bike with clip in shoes. Our route turned out to be fairly straight forward. . . for Brett. After our almost 5 miles/37 min bike ride we were there

Would you believe it? I am still having trouble believing I get to live here in Cambodia. I am settling in to a life in Phnom Penh. It seems natural and normal, which is funny because how many people do you know that get to help build a bamboo house, encourage teachers, learn Khmer, hang out with people and call it a living?! Right?! Who? ME! That's who. I feel even more settled in because I just bought my bicycle or as the Aussies say, "push bike". (DOn't worry I am dedicating a whole blog to the new bike!) I'm working on settling in the apartment too. I've bought some spices and little things to hold the garlic and ginger. I am eyeballing a rice cooker and I've just made a pot of beans. I live here. Today was an office day and since I didn't get the chance to make my beans yesterday (Sunday) I went on an adventure to find a restaurant around the office that had vegetarian food. It was a quite successful adventure too! I found a place where I ca

Kids playing in the Mekong river. It's been raising heaps everyday.  Sunrise from the ferry. We were waiting for the school kids to cross so we could go on our epic field trip! Sunset after a storm rolled through.  Village road. Storm rolling in seen from the back porch. This tool has a funny Aussie name. . . I wish I could remember it.  Morning sitting on the front porch. Great view. . . 

So this last week was a blast. Getting to work on the first house for the  Every Piece Matters project  (EPM), starting to get to know people at our partner school, SALT and the rain mixed with the dirt --topped off with dirt bikes. Best week ever. (Granted it was also my first week here so there wasn't much to top) I've posted several pictures of me going somewhere on a dirt bike and not much about what I'm doing once I get there. So here is a tiny update. One of the schools we are a part of is in the same village as our EPM houses. So I've been able to catch a ride this week with the group that was going out to build. We had more people than normal out on the site because of a couple from Oz being here to help build the first home. I actually went out to build twice this week and had a blast. I learned the Aussie words for some tools and got to work on the flooring for the house. In fact, here's an update video of the house: It was filmed on a day t