Milo cake

Sure, it looks a little volcanic.... market-bought sponge with milo and milk icing and a single leftover candle. Surprisingly, it tasted pretty good! Hope it was a Happy Birthday Phil!

Phoeurn starts tomorrow

Phoeurn is our new teacher/ translator. He will be working 30 hours a week, starting at 7:30am tomorrow. Phoeurn helped on a casual basis for 2 weeks in December-January when we had teams, sports camp and a whole bunch going on. He showed himself to be trustworthy, responsible, helpful and highly capable. In short: a valuable employee. I wanted him to come and work with us but I wasn't sure it was the right time so I didn't say anything.

Recently, Phoeurn called and asked if he could stop by for some help. I said no problem. He sat down in the office and asked me to check a cover letter he'd written to apply for a job with an NGO. I wanted him to apply for a job with us not them. But, again, I didn't say anything. I printed some info I found online, asked a hundred questions, gave a few tips about landing a job and read through his cover letter. A few days later Phoeurn sent me a message to say thanks for my help and to tell me he wasn't applying for the job because he didn't have the experience the position required. Immediately, I sent a text back: Well maybe you can come and work for us instead?!

Phoeurn starts tomorrow... and I'm glad I got to read his cover letter first!

a reminder

For anyone who wants to live with the poor,
practice some kind of incarnational lifestyle,
try to understand something of how our neighbours live,
a reminder:

There will be days when you are unwell.
Tired. Nauseous. Unable to shake a low-grade fever.
Count on times when you cannot manage a project,
visit the community, teach a class or coach a team.
Understand that there will be days when...
(if you are completely honest, but nobody is this honest)
...you will answer the question How Are You?
In just three words: I have diarrhea.

Poipet FC

Poipet has gone football crazy! The sports tournament over New Year was followed by the start of the 2010 soccer league in early January. We have eight Under 16s teams and seven Girls teams playing on two fields every Sunday afternoon from about 1pm to 5:30pm. It took a few weeks to build up the Girls teams. The first weekend we only had two teams ready to play. By week two there were four teams. Then suddenly, seven. (Yay!)

I coach a Girls team from one of the local public schools. We are Poipet FC. (Of course that’s short for Poipet Football Club….). Poipet FC is mostly Grade 7 kids and almost all of the players are fifteen or sixteen years old. These girls aren’t the poorest in Poipet but I still lost one who dropped out of Year 7 to go work in Thailand three weeks ago. Hopefully the rest can keep studying and playing soccer for the final four weeks in the league. It would be awesome if all 14 of them complete this school year. (That’s one of my prayers for them and something I intend to follow-up on…) I’m really enjoying getting to know the girls from Poipet FC, bumping into them around town, introducing them to an English school, talking about what they hope to do when they leave school and learning to speak in a firm voice when some of my naughty players need discipline!

A couple of weeks ago we had a round-robin girls tournament. After a tense penalty shoot out, Poipet FC won the final so we’re currently the number one team in our little comp! The win inspired many of the team members to train hard and keep improving. Training sessions are tomorrow & Saturday at 3pm at Poipet High School if you want to come check it out?! : )

kiss kiss

A couple of weeks ago I was meeting two Australian interns who have come to spend six weeks living and working in Poipet. It was their first time to Cambodia. I was hanging around the border area while the boys went through the various processing checkpoints. We kept in touch via text so I knew when to finish my iced coffee and come find them.

The final message I sent was something very dull: "k- meet you at the round about in 10 min"... but before I knew it I'd signed off and finished the text with "xx"'. Not exactly Poipet professionalism. Oops! (Way to make an impression!)

the 240

2:30pm Saturday February 6, 2010
Silom, Bangkok

What the heck was I doing walking around downtown with nothing other than a cap, T-shirt, running shorts, shoes.... and a plastic trophy?

My best explanation is that I was trying to keep it simple. I left the guesthouse just after 7am to jog to the park. I jogged to the park for the 240 minute charity run/ walk. Everything I had was in the storage room of the hotel: phone, credit card, flip flops, deodorant and the promise that there was "definitely no room for a second night's stay because we are fully booked."

It was a hot, humid day. (Sorry. You know that already. It's Bangkok.) I ran the circuit around the park for a couple of hours until I decided that even though I admired the speed and endurance of the few guys who had lapped me, I didn't particularly want squelching shoes, blisters the size of soccer balls or to be so sweat-soaked that I could have been mistaken for having wet my pants. So I walked a lap. Ran a few. Walked another lap. Ran some more. At the end of my weekend run I picked up a plastic trophy for completing the third largest number of laps around Lumpini Park out of all the half-hearted competitors who were stupid enough to step out of the air-con that morning.

I got back to the hotel and received a hand-written note from the team I'd travelled with the day before. The note informed me they'd be at the food court across the road for another 17 minutes. We had just enough time for a g'day & goodbye. Then I figured that while I was out I might as well try to find another guesthouse. The first place was full and the second place was too seedy to even think about entering, but the plastic trophy was a good talking point at every stop. After about 40 minutes, I found a backpackers and fished out 230B cash (i.e. US$6.93) from the tiny pocket in my running shorts to pay the full amount for one night's stay. No worries.

Maybe that's why I like running. It simplifies things for me. Shorts, a cap and a plastic trophy... enough : )