Animals for all seasons

Hi All

Sorry about the break in blogging, i spent last weekend in the lovely speu and the net has been down in the office all this week (till now of course :). The w/e in the speu was ok. Pretty much just read, watched dvds and ate. The most exciting excursion i had was to the market to buy some food. Next w/e in the speu i will explore the rice paddies and river. I am getting better at buying food at market but the next hurdle is ordering food at a restaurant by my self (where i cant point at things in absence of words). All in good time.

In fact yesterday i was very proud of myself, successfully buying some bread rolls then wandering into the market to buy some pork. The meat in the market is pretty much just slabs of meat sitting on a table. Whilst its not exactly refigerated meat at coles, i think its relatively safe and not so disgusting to buy as i thought it would be. I slipped up in not knowing what the khmer word for 'gram'was and cheated by just saying gram, which of course didnt work (the woman thought i wanted to buy 200kg of pork). A lot of pointing later i eventually got my pork.

It's actually cheaper to buy your meal from a stall than to cook it yourself but a mix of the two is good. I have been going to the meat on a stick stall near my house where there are lots of unidentified things on sticks. The chicken is great, the whole fish on a stick is awful.

Speaking of food, WFP is in a bit of a pickle as we have almost run out of it (food not pickles that is). As a result all TB, HIV and school feeding have been cancelled until someone donates money (hint hint AusAID). We will continue the food-for-work so the next few months might be a little quiet apart from doing pre work measurements for roads, ponds and dikes.

On to dogs, the link to food? Well Thierry told me that one of the innocuous looking houses near the market had dog on a spit. Cambodians like to say that only Vietnamese eat dogs but i think its their dirty little secret. I will try and get you a photo. One dog that isnt being eaten is my land lady's dog christened 'Little Man' by Brian the American. So cute and i bought some dog treats from Phomn Penh to buy his love. How he hasn't been eaten by the other mangy dogs in the neighbourhood i have no idea!

To buy chicken in the market here is to buy the whole chicken...might give that a miss :) But i do have three lovely roosters that strut around the yard of the office. I have named them Natella, Latrina and Keisha in honour of the Bromwell High girls (yes i know they are male chickens). Every afternoon Latrina and Keisha face off outside my window and stare at eachother for one minute then one looks away and the other one attacks. Poor man's cock fighting!

My house has been painted and looks quite nice so i might have to take some more photos. I might even do a video on my camera and see if i can put it on youtube.

Had a workplanning meeting today which was interesting. Everyone applauded after each of our objectives/outcomes/activities/indicators was filled in which meant a lot of clapping. It reminded me of everytime i drink with these guys you have to say cheers maybe 20 or 30 times! Also found out some of the staff speak russian as they were given scholarships to Soviet Union during the time of the Vietnamese occupation. Nyet Problemski.
So off to PPN tomorrow evening for my 6 dollar a night room.

Bye :)