the beautimous pitcher plants...


night market in Sabah, Borneo.. best squid so far

at a rest stop on the way up the mountain..

sunset from the hut we stayed at before the summit climb

canopy walk up in Sabah Borneo


a beach that we found around the backside of an island off the coast of Borneo

the baby goats at a local ngo... the goat sucking my finger was named bobby joe

making our way back among the "king of the trees"

So, this is going to be a brief note. But I just wanted to add some pictures. The month of August was a wonderful break from the hot of Svay Rieng. Did some traveling around the Cambodia coast jetting out to Rabbit Island and enjoyed the amazing seafood. Venturing further up to Bokor Mtn. where we were put through the rinse cycle and felt coldness for the first time in a long while. After a breif stint in Phnom Penh we took off to Malaysia to hike Mt. Kinabalu and enjoy Kaula Lumpur for the last week before our meetings commenced back here in Cambodia.
Now, we are enduring two weeks of USAID powerpoints and valuable monitoring, reporting and evaluating information. The best is that we are finally making connections with the many NGOs in Phnom Penh. Many projects are being planned and teaching curriculum/schedules are in full swing. I am really excited to go back to site and start the school year charged with all these new ideas.

The bungalos on Rabbit Island off the coast of Cambodia

Here are some recent pictures.
In monsoon afternoon rains it is not uncommon for my nephew and I to take "mui tuks" outsides.
My cousin got dengue fever and while he was rehabilitating he was amused at watching me run around the farm trying to catch piglets.
A girl at the trafficked shelter I volunteer at. Sewing is one of the skills they learn.
Coming back from Phnom Penh a taxi driver had a craving for fried grasshoppers, so he took the whole tray. yum.
August is coming fast and should go fast. Have been buzzing back and forth from Bangkok for a root canal!!! Hopefully things will settle down soon.

the market in Svay Rieng
(the provincial town) about 10k from me


arguing over bets for an
illegal "cock fight" over Khmer New Year



my love, the jackfruit..
recently hacked off one of my aunt's trees

I am connected to the World!! My co-teacher (an ambitious history teacher turned English teacher b/c he knows the most English in the school) thought I was bored so he gave me a world wide broad band radio!! I'm not going to lie, things are pretty slow these days, waiting for books and supplies to find their way down from Phnom Penh, waiting for the rains to come, reading a ton of hemmingway and newsweek... with that busy of a schedule you would think a radio would be too much. After a whole day perusing the channels I was devastated that there was not a single snippit of the language I am most familiar with. I am pretty sure every dialect of chinese, korean, japanese, thai and cambodian was accounted for but at the end of the day I just gave up and cursed the cheap merchandise that it is. The next morning I flick on the volume in hopes of some non-kareoke khmer music. It takes me a minute to realize there is the beautiful sound of English coming through the speaker! BBC was on and I glued the tiny radio to my ear for the rest of the morning content with listening to floods in north-western Europe, the connection of African and Asian elephants and the NBA betting scandal. I really didn't care what news it was... I was informed!!! Now it is my constant companion I wake up to in the morning, you could call it my international lover. Listening to world news watching the village wake up and the night monsoon rains evaporate a warm cup of tea and the thought.. what am I going to do today?

Monkeys at a the Pagoda

My old house in Thbong Khmom, Kampong Cham

Happy 4th of July!! This date also commemorates my freedom in Cambodia- now I am able to travel outside of my province and explore the different areas and see where volunteer projects take me around the country of Cambodia. As of now volunteering in my province has been busy enough and I am trying to immerse myself in projects, picking up good friends and valuable information as I go. The school year is over for now, so my teaching obligations are on hold until October, but the school still has many projects that are in motion. The main one I am working on now is setting up an English library in our highschool with hopes that the English students will be able to tap into the resources and take advantage of the many books that will be donated to the school over the summer. I am constantly learning how things operate here and it is necessary to take things step by step.

The month of July doesn't hold a lot of exciting events so far. I am in the capitol, Phnom Penh, for a part at the US Embassy where I have been told there will be hamburgers and hot dogs... I am not getting my hopes up but it is definitely worth the trip up here. July has been interesting in that Dengue fever is on the rise here and so far 3 of our volunteers have fallin to the "bone crushing" virus. The rainy season is starting so it is not surprising misquitos have been reproducing like crazy and reaking havoc on our skin.