25?! WHAT?

So...it looks like i've crossed to the other side...the side of: the MID-twenties. And let's just leave it at that.

It's been exciting at Daughter's lately. Why? Well...let me tell you!

We had a lovely lady from the States who is a Physiotherapist, come to Daughters. She taught a class to the girls on Thursday dealing with stretching, stress release and posture building exercises. She also came and worked along side me in the clinic on Friday morning with girls who have been having issues with back, neck, wrist and pelvic pain. I learned a lot! (I know Rachel is learning to be an OT, but I really pretended it was you Rach in the clinic with me) She was generous and taught the staff also a bit about posture and relaxation stretches and left with us some great resources and aides. Thanks Marilynne! (spelling is probably wrong)

Daughter's also has been lucky to meet Joanna, a midwife from New Zealand. She's just arrived in Cambodia and is looking for a position dealing with pre-natal as well as post-natal women for possibly a long term position. Her and I have run some clinics together and I've been able to breathe easy when a girl comes with an issue involving her pregnancy b/c I can just turn to Joanna and say; "Please!". She's around my age and very very nice. We've had great talks about our philosophies in working WITH people in the world and she has a gentle yet strong passion for Pregnancy's! I'd like to say that she is my friend!

oh! Before I forget: July 1st, 2009; our date of re-entry into the Great White North!

RAINin'

It's been raining again!

In other news: I have lice, scabies, strange itchy patches on my legs that apparently look like Jellyfish stings and my tan is peeling off...sigh...

The Low Down, Berly-Kim style!

So...I'm about to attempt to make a long story short. Sometimes this is a wee bit difficult for this wee little girl. BUT. It must be done.

The ladies (Amber, Noemi, Sopeak, Eileen, Jaymie and myself) ventured up to a province in Cambodia called Mondulkiri for 4 nights. The Khmer New Year handed us a 5 day leave from work, and we happily accepted. (Just for your information: it is the year of the Cow. And we just ended the year of the Rat...i think things are looking up!)

We took a big Grey Hound looking bus, up to a town called Snuol. Now. Let me tell you about what made this bus ride one to remember:
I enter the bus. It's big and smelly and hot, right? Ok, so i get to my seat. I follow Jaymie, my seat buddy and look to the back of the bus. A Khmer lady takes notice of me and motions with insistance that i can sit down. So I say thankyou and turn to sit down. But just as I turn I feel a very, let's say, "gentle and lingering" stroke to my arm. I turn to see it's the Khmer lady. Then, she goes on to tell our lovely Khmer friend, Sopeak, that I look Chinese! Me! Kimmy Alice! I look Chinese!? What?!

It was halarious from afar. Maybe not closeup. I felt weirdly against this accusation. This woman's half baked daughter (approxiametly 25 years old) didn't have a seat. The bus was full. So she gets a plastic (Parkside Gospel Church looking chair) and sits in the isle. Guess where? Yup! Right beside her Chinese looking Canadian friend! Me! The WHOLE trip she stares at me. Rubs my arms, hands, legs, hair. She even tried to kiss me; twice!!

Then; which is actually quite funny but frustratingly annoying; she asks me my name. Now, just think about that for a second. My name is: Kim. How Chinese can you get!!! She was certain I was Chinese after that. Then, of course i try to get her off my Chinese looking back and i tell her my name ACTUALLY is: KimBERly. But all she hears is Kim Ly (pronounced Lee). Yup! I'm Kim Lee, the Chinese girl from Canada, with a nose ring and apparantly pimples.

So...the bus gets us to Snuol. Where we have to find a ride to Sen Monorom, the capital of Mondulkiri. One truck packed up to the sky with people/chickens/clothes/food and probably pigs, offers us to ride on the top of it all for 10 dollars each! For 1.5 hours? No thank you. We end up finding a "taxi". AKA a Toyota Camry driven by a man with only one good hand. Who has no shoes. No shirt. And apparantly...no problem...with taking us ladies to Sen Monorom. We had no forwarning into the state of the roads that would be ahead. It basically was a construction site the whole way, except no one was working....well, maybe one person was. A backhoe that had been called to push a pick up truck full of pigs after it got stuck in a rut. The sqweels were horendous!
Anyways....Mondulkiri was beautiful. The waterfalls were fun. The elephants were bumpy. The sleep talking lived on. And the return just as slow/sweaty/and murderously hot as the journey to Mondulkiri.

Here's some photos:

Me at a little lunch spot after riding the elephants. The guide, who looks more like a jungle man, picked these flowers for us.

The Sen Monorom Waterfalls. These are not the largest waterfalls in the region but due to the dry season the water was not as spectacular. Jaymie and I tried our hardest to jump off the side but found too many 'others' much too worried...Me with a cashew nut in my hand and the sun in my eyes. A sour fruit grows above the nut on the tree.


My face was dirty after a day of treking, waterfall swimming, and fast truck riding! Yup! I had fun!
The group shot; L to R: Noemi, me, Eileen, Amber, Sopeak and Jaymie on the end.

(All photos taken by Jaymie Friesen)
To view my complete Facebook photo album of Mondulkiri just follow this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=238403&id=888480267&l=e70c6cc760

Mondulkiri

E. and I returned safely this afternoon from our excursion North East, near the Vietnamese Border to the province Mondulkiri....

Stay tuned for pics and stories....elephants, fast truck rides, coffee plantations, pig trucks, pickled scorpions, gigantic iguanas and sleep talking....

The Ragamuffin Gospel by: Brennan Manning

Lately I've been contemplating this idea of Grace. And I will be the first to say that I need it and also the first to say; i don't believe it...

Here's an exert from the book that's brought Jesus back to me and showed me that there's no other God I could love. A God who comes to love....ALWAYS!

"The Ragamuffin Gospel was written with a specific reading audience in mind. This book is not for the super-spiritual. It is not for muscular Christians who have made John Wayne and not Jesus their hero. It is not for academicians who would imprison Jesus in the ivory tower of exegesis. It is not for noisy, feel-good folks who manipulate Christianity into a naked appeal to emotion. It is not for hooded mystics who want magic in their religion. It is not for Alleluia Christians who live only on the mountaintop and have never visited the valley of desolation. It is not for the fearless and tearless. It is not for red-hot zealots who boast with the rich young ruler of the gospels: "All these commandments I have kept from my youth." It is not for the complacent, hoisting over their shoulder a tote-bag of honors, diplomas and good works actually believing they have it made. It is not for legalists who would rather surrender control of their souls to rules than run the risk of living in union with Jesus….

The Ragamuffin Gospel was written for the bedraggled, beat-up, and burnt-out. It is for the sorely burdened who are still shifting the heavy suitcase from one hand to the other. It is for the wobbly and weak-kneed who know they don’t have it altogether and are too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace. It is for inconsistent, unsteady disciples whose cheese is falling off their cracker. It is for poor, weak, sinful men and women with hereditary faults and limited talents. It is for earthen vessels who shuffle along on feet of clay. It is for the bent and the bruised who feel that their lives are a grave disappointment to God. It is for smart people who know they are stupid and honest disciples who admit they are scalawags."

WOW!

Did someone say lice?!

Today I de-loused my Canadian friend, Jaymie.

Yes, I believe I've hit my low; I now find myself picking nitts from friend's heads in my spare time...maybe all those years of lice in Elementary school have paid off....i doubt it...

Things I'm thinking about:

1. Khmer new year is this next week and E. and I are heading north to Mondulkiri province to go for a jungle trek on an elephant! Super excited!

2. I feel ashamed of my re-kindled addiction to American Idol...

3. I've decided India is waiting for me...

4. My dad's cow gave birth to a two headed calf...as you can imagine...i tell EVERYONE!!

Millie!!

My Grandma Foster, at the ripe age 93 (i think) years, died peacefully in Dauphin, Manitoba, CANADA on March 30th, 2009 at lunch time.

Her body was struggling with Congestive Heart Failure and she finally was able to let go.

I am saddened that I can't be there with my family and cousins, but I am thinking of you all as you plan for the funeral and the social gatherings...

I am sending a little something for Rachel to read at the funeral. Just some memories.

I love you Grandma and I know you are peaceful. Thank you for loving me with your gentle and simple love.
Love your, Kimmy Alice.