Winter Break Shenanigans: New Year in Cambodia 2018

Winter break in Cambodia has been a mixture of busy and relaxing.

The kids got money from Grammy this December. They’ve been talking about learning ukulele, so it was the perfect time to get one. (It’s also a small enough instrument to fit in the luggage.)

We put a rear-facing car seat in the tuktuk. Sometimes she likes it and sometimes she screams. It’s a good thing to get used to.

The kids have been out of school for almost two weeks now. They enjoyed getting things like French toast for breakfast since we’re usually too busy for that (and it has too much sugar! Here, Ezra is licking the powdered sugar spoon.)

It wasn’t all sugar, though, Ben made this awesome supper of chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and asparagus one evening! Delicious!

We were able to take the kids to Kid City for the first time! The older ones loved Clip ‘n Climb and Zoe enjoyed Toddler Town.

We visited the “park” and since there were no play places, the kids invented their own. We enjoyed being in the green!

6 Years with Elias

It’s hard to believe that this guy....

Used to be this sweet little answered prayer!

For his 6th birthday, Talia and I filled ice cream cones with white vanilla cake batter and sprinkles!

His class was really excited to eat them.

Especially frosted with chocolate icing and sprinkles.

For home, Talia and I experimented with turning yellow cake batter (with sprinkles) into a tie-dye cake.

Elias loves all the colors, so sprinkles and tie-dye seemed appropriate.

It turned out fairly well!

Cutting into it was pretty impressive for him. His “wow!” made me smile.

It was really fun, we might have to do it again sometime.

We are thankful for six years with Elias. His stubbornness, silliness and sweetness are his defining marks. He has really taken off in reading this year! He loves his baby sister in the sweetest way. He has adjusted to school and not had any trouble going this year. He’s always teaching me new things he learned from Khmer class. We are glad he’s part of our family.

3 Recommended Restaurants for Families in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Part 1

LOT369

Lot369 is a little pricey compared to other restaurants in Phnom Penh, but by looking at their menu, you can see why. Some of that money goes into paying a fair wage, plus they offer foods that are hard-to-find in other restaurants. When compared to restaurants in the U.S., it is still extremely affordable. Here are some of the options:

Here is a coconut milk, turmeric latte from Lot369, as they were out of cashew milk. It's great to see non-caffeinated warm drinks available.
 
We saw the lemongrass and ginger kombucha; but there were several other flavors.

Lot369 has vegan, vegetarian, and gluten free options. They have an environmentally-sustainable mindset. They had re-usable coffee cups for sale if you wanted a drink to go, bamboo straws and recycled plates and cups. The furniture was made from pallets. We chose to eat in the upstairs room, because it was connected to......


The all-too-rare-in-Cambodia kid's playroom! It was amazing to sit and talk with Benjamin while the kids were enthralled with new-to-them toys for a good while. Going on dates in an international setting with kids can be tricky, so this was a great find! They have kids-eat-free day on Thursday, so we’ll have to try it again.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 KILIK



At Kilik bakery and cafe, you can buy the drink of your choice, averaging at $2 and receive two pastries free. In addition, they bring a free cup of iced/hot Jasmin tea. This means we can order two drinks for adults and one or two (they are BIG) for the kids to share, and get enough pastries for everyone! With the tea thrown in, it's a great deal. Our favorite pastries include chocolate croissants, apple bread, banana bread, berry filled pastries and cupcakes. They have recently started offering sandwiches as well, so we can get out of there with lunch for under $10. (That's insane with a family of 6). Plus, the staff is friendly and competent, and there is comfortable seating. Kilik also has an air-conditioned meeting room closed off  from the main seating area if you need that kind of space.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 CYCLO CAFE

 
The Cyclo cafe was an interesting place. They have several seating options, including an outside area up stairs.

It was almost part museum, part cafe. The boys enjoyed modeling the rickshaw. This is a really fancy rickshaw compared to the ones we see near the riverside that are often a beaten up red or green color, or like this one.

Cyclo cafe has many drinks around $2, and they are a good size, too. This was a framed Cambodian stringed instrument. it is similar to the one played here. In the bathroom, there were these sprouting seeds. They are similar to these avocado seed sprouts, but I couldn't tell if they were for sure. What's your best guess?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, if you are looking for a sustainable variety of food, great value, or a cultural experience, these places are a great place to take a break and recharge with family. We hope you try them and enjoy them as much as we have!

(This is not a sponsored post. We only share it because our first month in Cambodia, we pretty much lived off of peanut butter because we couldn't 1)find food, and 2)find our way back home from said food, and 3) it was frustrating to find affordable options that were good for a family of our size, hygienic and tasty.)

The Best Family Vehicle in Phnom Penh is a....

I’m really excited to have a family vehicle again! And, not a clunky car that can’t fit down narrow streets, but a tuktuk! (Here it was book character day at Ben’s school, which he took to mean wear-your-kandoora-from-Abu-Dhabi-day! You should have seen the looks he got from Cambodians wondering why the big guy in the tuktuk had on a dress.)

Three people fit in the back seat, then a middle seat flips down for three more, plus the driver. If you add in more fuel efficient and waaay cheaper than a car; no down side. Well, there may be just one downside: it’s a little top heavy, so you have to tackle inclines head-on rather than sideways. Ben has had multiple people trying to buy it from him already. One dude followed him home and walked around it when he parked in the driveway all the while talking in rapid Khmer. We still don’t know what he wanted. We highly recommend this type of vehicle for families in Cambodia.

The Moon Festival, or, Mid-Autumn Festival

Wednesday, October 4 2017 was the Moon Festival. Although this is typically a Chinese/Vietnamese celebration called Mid-Autumn Festival, many people in Cambodia have adopted it and I've only heard it called Moon Festival. "Who doesn't want another holiday to eat cake?" was the reason my neighbor gave me.

I noticed something new hanging over their door, but didn't know what it was until a few days later when the neighbor's daughter came out with something white in her hands. The neighborhood kids have been playing with pieces of Styrofoam lately, so I thought that's what she had. When she started to eat it, I hurried to ask her mom if it was Styrofoam. It turns out it was Moon Cake.

"Mid-Autumn was first celebrated as a festival during the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127). Like the emperors, ancient people believed worshipping the moon and eating together round a table would bring them good luck and happiness."

Suddenly, little things I had been seeing around town began to make more sense. In the little market near our house, there was a giant, circle cake with Chinese characters on top in front of a shrine in the back. (Compared to the entire giant pig at New Year, I thought that was quite tame.) My neighbor said the Moon Festival is a time when the family will get together and eat and then they wake up at midnight and say a prayer to the moon for health and wealth.

Another friend said that while there are many Chinese people in Cambodia who celebrate Chinese holidays, typically Vietnamese and Chinese celebrate the same holidays, while Thailand and Cambodia celebrate the same Buddhist holidays.

The Moon Festival was something I had never heard of before, so I thought I'd share it with you.

Greening our Space in a Cambodian Concrete Jungle

If you had asked for my thoughts on Cambodia before moving here, I would have told you about the movie I saw in school The Girl Who Spelled Freedom, about the generation I have heard retell experiences from the neighboring Vietnam war. My perception would have included poverty, war and jungles. When I arrived in Cambodia, even from the air looking down over the giant, muddy river and then Phnom Penh, I could tell some of my perceptions were wrong. Instead of jungle, miles and miles of corrugated tin in varying degrees of disrepair or opulence met my view. A myriad of electrical wires snaked between them. Phnom Penh is a concrete jungle for most people. The lucky have a yard, but most yards have been concreted in so they don't turn into a muddy mess during rainy season.

When our neighbor went to visit his sister in France, he brought back a surprise gift for the neighborhood, tulip bulbs! All of us who received them have potted them and have (as you can see above) sprouted. Hopefully, they will be blooming soon! Ben's boss gave him many shoots of the plant you see below:

Our neighbor gave me dried pieces of coconut husk. It's spongy and helps hold water for these little hanging plants. I lined the bottom and sides with it, and it does seem to retain water better.

It's amazing how much of a difference tiny, green, growing things can make! Looking at the plants in the stark contrast of their concrete environment makes me happy. Our landlords have more growing on the balcony above, but we have added these plants in the main area where we see them the most.

Plant therapy! It's a real thing.

Things I Have Learned From My Neighbors; the Essential Khmer Words

I'm very thankful that a neighbor moved in that is bilingual. It has opened up a completely new world. In hindsight, it would have been better to take a few courses in Khmer, even if we are here for only two years, and life was so overwhelming, and we were trying to pay for the baby... so I'm not sure how well it would have gone. It's a proven fact that the brain does not retain knowledge like it should when you are in "survival" mode, and I was definitely in survival mode when we arrived. However, I would recommend taking language courses if you can! 

Our neighbor has taught me several things about Khmer culture lately. I thought I'd share a few with you.

-When a woman gives birth, they take the leaves from the turmeric plant and make something like a tea with it. Then, it is rubbed all over the woman's skin to restore health and vitality.

-Cradle cap in Khmer is translated "water buffalo poop." She laughingly explained it comes from the old times when people would jokingly say that the mom had left the baby unattended and a water buffalo had pooped on his head. She also said doctors don't recommend scrubbing cradle cap off of a baby's head because it is so delicate.

-Turmeric leaves are really big! The ones she showed me looked like the banana leaves you would use to wrap a Khmer version of a tamale. These leaves are chopped very fine and used to season... frog! This was the example she gave me, but I'm sure there are other dishes, too.

As Talia is homeschooling this year, she offered to teach her a simple Khmer lesson in the afternoons. Talia writes down the transliterated words next to the English and then comes home and teaches me. It's amazing how many words you can pick up from daily life but once you've gotten used to that and are in the frame of mind to learn, it is also amazing how helpful it is to learn more words to integrate with daily life from a bilingual person.

(The boys have started back to school too. Elias takes Khmer at school this year.)

Some must-know words in my opinion are these:

ah-nee-man: how much?
sadam: right (for giving directions in a tuk tuk)
schvey: left
soo-sah-day- good day

Then the numbers to 10 which you will notice are worded on a base 5 pattern:
muy- 1
pee- 2
buy- 3
buon- 4
pram- 5
pram muy- (5+1) 6
pram pee- (5+2) 7
pram buy-(5+3) 8
pram buon-(5+4) 9
dap-10

-One of the first things I like to know about someone is their name. The neighbor explained that here, it's different: people often call others as "mother of -----" using the child's name as an indicator. This reminds me of Abu Dhabi where Ben's students called him "Abu Ilyas" or "father of Elias." She said sometimes people don't learn the names of their neighbors until there's a big wedding and they go door to door finding out names for the invitations!

Who knows what we'll learn next!

How to get a Cambodian birth certificate after a home birth

Hi all, this is Benjamin popping in talking about the baby popping out.  Dad joke there.

Having gone through getting a baby registered outside the US before in a somewhat more..organized..country (UAE), I knew it could be done, but HOW was the question.  

First, I asked around after we got here because all the old online advice basically said “Go to Thailand” - I figured babies were born here all the time, no big deal.  The wrench in the works was that the midwife was coming and we’d be having a homebirth.  After talking with some people who I thought had connections, (and perhaps do, in areas not related to homebirth,) my mind was at ease.  Have the baby, then deal with the paperwork.

I was told “easy - just go to Calmette Hospital after the baby is born and they will issue you a certificate, even if the baby is born at home.”  Let me tell you folks, this is NOT the case.  My wife and the midwife showed up with me and we carried that baby all over the hospital right up to the director’s office and the answer was always a look of utter confusion and resounding "NO."  While we were waiting, I decided to call the US Embassy line, as I was a bit flummoxed.  In hindsight, maybe we should have done that before :)  A quick call cleared it all up - Calmette was not the place to be.  I’ll never forget the look on director’s assistant’s face when she came back out in the hall for what had to be the fifth time, expecting me to argue with her yet again, only to have me thanking her for her time and wishing her a nice day.

Basically, we had to have the following things:

1 - Get an affidavit from the midwife (or other witness) saying the baby was born at home, what time, etc. with signature and thumbprint (they do that for everything here).  If the baby is born at a hospital, this part is unnecessary and makes #2 easier.  Everything else is the same.

2 - Take that to the sangkat (local commune) office to issue a local birth certificate.  This has to be done before baby is 30 days old.  I went with the baby and midwife and had a Khmer friend on standby who I could call to translate. That turned out to be highly necessary.  Ultimately I paid $30 to the officer at the sangkat with no receipt. I’ll let you figure out what that means.

3 - Get that birth certificate translated officially from Ministry of Foreign Affairs (I think) into English - we got several copies.  Cost about $15 - had a friend at work who knew someone there.  Relationships are super important here!

4 - Show up at US Embassy to make sure documents were all in order - then have them issue an actual appointment date.

5 - Have the appointment at US Embassy, pay for CRBA and passport - $210, I believe

6 - Get US passport about two weeks later

7 - Apply for exit visa for baby (valid for 7 days and has to be done before baby is 90 days old) - about $75.  We used Rosato Travel for these last few steps - very professional and they have great English.  http://www.rosato.asia/ They can probably arrange the translations, as well, but I didn’t need them by then.

8 - Leave country with baby and come back on same day - we ended up finding an agency to arrange #7 and take passport to border to do it for us - $180 but way cheaper than a flight and a lot less hassle.  Included initial 30-day visa which is $35 normally.

9 - Initial visa good for 30 days - renew again for one year ($295) and breathe huge sigh of relief!

These are the general steps for registering a baby.  A hospital birth would be cheaper and easier but wouldn’t change the process much.  I would definitely call your embassy to see what they require but it did all work out with not too much hassle.  Having 4 kids and dealing with several developing countries has increased my patience a lot, so if you’re a first-time parent, maybe get all the facts in order well in advance.  Getting everything done within the 90-day window is kind of tight but we did it...barely.  The only penalty is a $10-per-day fine, but nothing like deportation (probably).  And if you’re reading this, congrats on the baby!

Mondulkiri, Cambodia: Part 2.5 The Coffee Plantation and Pizza

While we were in Mondulkiri, Cambodia at Nature Lodge, we went exploring nearby places. One that wasn't a waterfall was this coffee plantation (video here.) We didn't even find it on purpose, but Ezra had to stop to use the restroom and Elias was carsick so I took them both with me and we went exploring (as the bathroom was hidden down a windy trail around beautiful trees.

Some of the large plants had green berries on them that I thought might be coffee...

Down one trail, hidden in the trees, we came across a two story water slide. We didn't know what it was until we got to the top and saw...

that the slide went all the way down to the lake!

 There were also banana trees:

And what I think is jackfruit now, but I called durian, trees:

Elias thought their horizontal branches that went all the way to the top looked like a great bench!

The lake didn't look very big, but it had been channeled under the road, and into sluices to irrigate the coffee plantation.

This tree with the red leaves was one the boys found interesting, but I don't know what it is called:

And this hosta-looking plant that got super tall was cool:

It was nice to be surrounded by nature and hiking through trees rather than concrete buildings and whirring traffic.

We even found a cabin on our hike back up to the van.

The day after this we met our new friends and had more fun playing around Nature Lodge than going on more explorations. However, we did find an awesome pizza place out on a dirt road called Mondulkiri Pizza. The guy who owned it had previously worked in Phnom Penh making pizza. The restaurant went under new management and they changed all of the recipes to inferior ones in his opinion. He moved up to Mondulkiri and opened his own restaurant, got married and started his family there. He liked the more natural environment and pace of the place. We didn't blame him, and his pizza was incredible. I highly recommend you check out Mondulkiri Pizza if you ever go that way.

The pizza place had a spacious lawn and a lazy river flowing through the back yard. After lunch the kids went exploring the grounds and the owner mixed a little flour and water to make a simple dough bait and made a bamboo fishing rod from scratch. The kids loved it!