December Happenings: Wrapping up 2016

2016 is drawing to a close and, though we are on "winter" break, it doesn't really feel like winter here, though it is cooler. The rainy season is mostly over, with only an occasional outburst and the weather is low 80s and high 90s each day.

We tried a traditional Khmer restaurant because of their excellent prices the other day. It reminded us a lot of Abu Dhabi's traditional way of eating: dense cushions on the floor with really low tables. Of course, I doubt these cushions were filled with camel hair, like in the Middle East. (I'm not sure how Cambodians in their third trimester comfortably sit that low!) The drink was jasmine flower tea and we had a chicken curry with rice and a beef soup with a dominant kafir lime flavor in the broth. The menu included things like frog, snake head fish and other things.

The kids have been playing with a neighborhood cat since it was a tiny kitten. I think Talia especially has it almost tamed. It belongs to a neighborhood store, so we don't care for it, but it's the perfect pet for expat children: you get to love it but not worry about it if you have to leave or pay for the medical/food and other expenses.

The kids were really excited to open presents from their teachers at school. We hardly ever buy candy, so finding chocolate was very exciting.

We've been chopping it up a little at a time and using it in recipes to make it last longer. Talia made chocolate chunk, oatmeal cookies with part of it.

I'm at almost 35 weeks with our little girl on the way. We are all getting really excited to meet her next month. Looking back at all of the changes that have come from moving from Mexico to Cambodia and the new cultures and challenges associated with that, we are content to close this year feeling it is stuffed as full as it could be. And, as 2016 comes to a close, we already have a lot to look forward to in the New Year!

Animal Hugs

Talia loves animals. Besides the myriad of mostly wild cats, couple of parrots and lizards in Ruwais, there weren't many animals around for her to have a close experience with. Since we've been in the States she has used every opportunity possible to hug every animal she finds:

 

Like this duck...

 

Or this cat...

 

or this chicken.

Her dream right now is to grow up and be a doctor who lives on a farm with a lot of animals. We sure love this girl and her tender heart towards other creatures.

Seen in Abu Dhabi 31: Rescue Animals

 

Above: It was a rescued animal type of day: We saw the gas station attendants had rescued this bird from their parking lot and friends had found the kitten looking for food in the trash. The kitten was blinded from eye infection, had worms, fleas and a tail injury. It later died in the rescuer's arms.

There is a problem with an abundance of cats in Ruwais. Though it is supposedly illegal to feed or house them as pets, it still happens. Trash is removed twice a day by city maintenance, partly as a cautionary measure against feeding them or other pests, but they hunt through the trash cans at night and some leave food out for them. This leaves a lot of kittens wandering the streets throughout the year and the ones who make it to adulthood wandering everywhere and entering any house with the door left cracked open in search of food. 

There is no shelter or vet in Ruwais. The nearest is in Abu Dhabi a good 2.5-3 hour drive away. If anyone felt like starting an animal program out here, it would fulfill a desperate need.

Pet Moths

Talia keeps wishing for a pet, especially a horse, but since that's not possible right now, she's been befriending every moth that she sees in the house. 
One day, she had one sitting on her hand and she was talking about how beautiful it was... and then it flew into the bug zapper (because there are so many mosquitoes lately) and she cried: "I loved it and it had died like Uncle L!" I'm not sure how much of that was drama and how much of it was real. Ben tried to be sympathetic, but he couldn't help laughing at the same time just because of the sheer amount of drama in her voice.

For now, we just share our friend's pets. Cats are super abundant and wild here, there is always 4 or 5 sitting outside around our garden, on the walls, in the trash cans or around the gates. They're constantly caterwauling at night making all sorts of interesting music. They're also always reproducing, so the most popular pet seems to be the kittens. (That might be because the dogs are likely to get eaten. Seriously.)

Some people have fish, the fashionable Emirati's have things like lions, tigers and cheetahs, and there are things like foxes at the animal markets (a place many people find cruel and are trying to change.) 

A pet that surprised me were the parrots caught wild here who were eating the sunflower seeds from a friend's sunflowers. Her husband is a capable trapper and was able to catch them. I've never seen wild parrots here, (though I thought there was one in the neighbor's mango tree.) The kids were excited to see the birds here, but I'm not so sure the birds were excited to see them.

I'm not sure that we'll ever get a pet here, since we don't have long term plans to stay and it doesn't make sense if we are just going to leave. It's also difficult to know what to do with one if we have to go to the city or travel home on vacation... but one day, maybe, we will settle in a place where a pet can thrive and who knows? Maybe Talia will get a horse some day.







Then again, we did wake up to this in our garden yesterday morning... maybe we can just have wild, outside pets for now.