warning: steve thinks that this update is a dud and you can watch 'dances with wolves' in less time and get more out of it than reading this.
A long long time ago i was introduced to green curry. it was love at first bite. after a few months of the love affair i decided to try my luck at making some at home. after finding a recipe (these were the days before googling recipes) that seemed to fit the bill i headed off to the shop in adelaide to buy what i needed. well...what had seemed like a good idea earlier all of a sudden became a massive quest with ingredients like ganagal and coriander root. i ended up finding the ingredients at the market but only after lots of asking around. it turned out to be a pricey affair with me needing to buy a whole bunch of lemongrass instead of the two stems i needed and so on. needless to say - the relationship became too difficult to maintain. and so the tuna mornays and beef stroganoff continued. well...the other day i got a craving for some green tofu curry. so i ordered it at the cafe we had found along the river front. it took a while for them to cook it so levi and i had to head back home before it got dark on our bikes and steve promised to bring the curry back on the moto later. so the green curry craving was well and truly alive when steve arrived home....with a red BEEF curry. the waitress had failed to mentioned that there was no tofu and had taken it upon herself to change my order. so my craving now took a life of its own and i decided it was time to try to make a green curry again. 12 years after my first and only attempt i headed off to the kampot market. it could not have been easier. when i went to buy the lemongrass (that they have already chopped up finely) the lady also threw a couple of lime leaves into the bag..as well as a thumb of ginger and tumeric. (how did she know that i needed those too?) the coriander still had the roots intact (modern day miracle). coconut cream? sure, ill just grab some of the coconuts hanging right here in my garden. honestly..its as if the green curry evolved infront of me without any effort at all. all that to say - we will be eating a lot of them from now on.
come to think of it...our whole life seems to be evolving pretty much as smoothly as the green curry. this week it will be 3 months since we arrived in cambodia. not knowing where, what, when or how it was all going to take place. well, three months down the track we are well and truly submerged in it all. its been so ridiculously easy. this past month has had so many 'firsts' and it feels as if we are well and truly part of the kampot pulse (yes, there is one).
there is no way that i can truly do justice to what has been happening. of course i should try to do these updates more often but things are happening so quickly that its hard to keep track...AND by the end of the day im so ready to fall into bed that i dont have that extra oomph in me to right it all down.
but let me try.
the biggest thing that has taken place for me is this little non-profit business idea that was birthed while our friends josh and char came for a visit. well..maybe not birthed so much as 'conceived'. it started with char having a really nice indian style shirt that i wanted a copy of. i went to a local training center where after a bit of asking i was taken to a massive room full of looms. big, wooden structures with girls sitting there weaving beautiful silk and cotton fabric. all natural dyes and natural material. they invited me back to have a look at the silk worms that they raise there as well. besides the scarves for sale the items there didnt do anything for me and i felt really bad not buying more of their things. so so much effort...for these crap products. so as i rode my bike back i was thinking how great it would be to get some things made from the fabric that i know that my friends back home would like. josh and char, being josh and char got really excited about the idea and we spent pretty much the whole week they were here talking about how we could make it happen. in the meantime the fabric that i bought from the training center was transformed into a couple of beautiful tops that i wear ALL the time. we had a bit of fun coming up with a name for the label and josh came up with a winner with "here and there." since then ive discovered some second hand material at the markets. its in the poorest section of the market with most fruit and vegetables being placed on boards on top of wet mud. the ladies sit in their hammocks or cross legged on the boards chattering away to eachother. in amongst all of this there are piles of material that i rummage through. finding some fantastic stuff amongst a lot of acrylic crap. ive realised that again these random bits of material can be transformed into some funky stuff for people back home to wear. a few mornings a week i ride my bike into town and come back with the bike covered in bags. the biggest load yet was a bag in front basket. bag in back toddler seat. two bags on each handle bar and a bag hanging on each side of the toddler seat. it was the closest i got to feeling cambodian so far. i spent some time thinking through how i could actually make this little dream become reality. thinking the best option would probably be employing some girls to work here at home to insure that they were getting well treated and had a good work environment etc. i just dont want to take any risks that i would be supporting some sweat industry. WELL....i then happened to bump into a girl called Hannah. who comes from bernie in tasmania of all places. (think far far away). in a nutshell...hannah has set up a small little clothing business here in town with all profits going to a local community center that is just being created where they are helping kids with school work, encouraging young kids to come and play and do puzzles...and hopefully soon setting up a organic vegetable garden for the oldies to potter around in. hannahs dream is to also start a sewing center attached to the community center. so here is someone who has already gone ahead and done all the hard work and i can just tap into what shes already created. bingo! this means i can just focus on the fun stuff like digging through piles of material at the markets and asking people to let me borrow their funky clothes for a couple of days while i go and have them copied at the market.
soooo...(oh man there is so much to say) after a bit of chatting with hannah...its looking like the best thing to do at this stage is employ two more women (she already has two) and set them up in our house since there is no room in the little corner she rents in town. i will lock them in (not in the house but in a contract) for six months for now. see how much we can create in that time. then...when we go back to oz for a month in march/april we will take as much as we can with us and have a massive launch for "here and there". at this stage it looks like we will have a launch in adelaide...and a prelaunch in geelong. (never underestimate the power of visionary women!) then once i get feedback from people about the clothes we can decide whether this is worth pursuing as a full on business...or if we just keep it to one off events around the place. (ive just found out that shipping from thailand is really cheap which means ebay could be an option as well). the best part of it all is that it would hopefully generate enough money that we could really make a difference with some of the work thats going on here improving the lives of so many people with massive needs. and it would also generate some work for women here who might not be able to find work thats flexible or in a loving environment. oh man..i could write so much more but this will have to do for now.
the other thing thats been a big part of the last month is the build up to the wedding three doors down. we were invited to come along without knowing either the groom or bride...or their families. as it turns out though we have basically been adopted by the row of houses surrounding us. everyone is related to some degree to our landlady so its practically assumed that we need to be part of the festivities. along with that our little goodwill ambassador (Time, definately NOT ocea) has won the hearts of our neighbours in her daily outings that we can pretty much ride on her popularity wave.
a week before the wedding my friend convinced me that i should have an outfit made (how did she know that i was going to use that as my excuse for not going?) so that i could look the part. off i went to the markets to be measured up by the women who by now know me and my miming skills quite well. nothing quite like (except maybe a public papsmear) standing in the middle of a market aisle getting every body part measured as a group of onlookers crowd around. once the measuring was done i tried to explain that i wanted them to deliver the outfit to our house since i wouldnt have a chance to return to the market on time. eventhough this had already happened by now a few times they couldnt quite understand my acting abilities. well, lo and behold, Levi says. "mum, let me tell them." and sure enough. out he comes with a couple of sentences in fluent khmer. and they all nod their heads and motion to me that they understand. i swear i was about to faint right there on the spot! i had NO idea that Levi knew that much khmer!!! how did he go from not being able to say goodmorning a couple of months ago...to being able to explain that he wanted some clothes delivered to our house?? i ofcourse had to embarrass him right there on the spot and bow down before him and worship my new hero.
on the day of the wedding my friend Any (its her cousin by the way that was getting married) and i headed into town to have our glamour session. two hours later i had my hair in a semi-beehive and a face that could rival any tv evangelist's wife. by the time we got back to our house the wedding was in full swing and the road transformed to a small scale festival including a lady selling balloons and trinkets. once i introduced myself to the family and convinced them i was in fact still veronica...we headed down the road to join the festivities. the massive marquee was filled with hundreds of people devouring so much food and drink. on stage was the trashiest group of girls wearing skimpy little outfits, singing love songs while thrusting their pelvises up and down. of course my girls were smitten by it all and very quickly learned a few extra dance moves to incorporate to their routines. we found a table at the back where we naively thought that the music might not reach as well. thankfully some new friends joined us as well as Any and Davy (another girl we made friends with from the guest house).
all in all it was a great night. everyone was so excited to see us there. touched that we had made an obvious effort in the wardrobe apartment. a few things worth mentioning are:
- people lining up to have their photos taken with Time and Ocea as if they were with mickey mouse at disney world.
-the bride managing to change her outfit three times in the few hours we were there.
-the cameramen so obviously directing the whole wedding and not allowing the bride and groom any chance to just be in a neutral pose.
-the melting pig head displayed at the back of all the formal photos taken that made me gag when walking past.
-neshica letting her hair loose and dancing away until i realise that she had generated quite a crowd of young men watching her.
i must say ...the highlight being the moment the ten tiered cake was cut and EVERYONE burst out singing "happy birthday to you!"
i was also pleasantly surprised to see that the groom looked more afraid than the bride (ive been reading too many books about cambodian women lately) and she didnt have that 'lamb to the slaughter' look about her.
okay..so i need to finish here for tonight...but im going to try to get it finished tomorrow night so im properly up to date.
A long long time ago i was introduced to green curry. it was love at first bite. after a few months of the love affair i decided to try my luck at making some at home. after finding a recipe (these were the days before googling recipes) that seemed to fit the bill i headed off to the shop in adelaide to buy what i needed. well...what had seemed like a good idea earlier all of a sudden became a massive quest with ingredients like ganagal and coriander root. i ended up finding the ingredients at the market but only after lots of asking around. it turned out to be a pricey affair with me needing to buy a whole bunch of lemongrass instead of the two stems i needed and so on. needless to say - the relationship became too difficult to maintain. and so the tuna mornays and beef stroganoff continued. well...the other day i got a craving for some green tofu curry. so i ordered it at the cafe we had found along the river front. it took a while for them to cook it so levi and i had to head back home before it got dark on our bikes and steve promised to bring the curry back on the moto later. so the green curry craving was well and truly alive when steve arrived home....with a red BEEF curry. the waitress had failed to mentioned that there was no tofu and had taken it upon herself to change my order. so my craving now took a life of its own and i decided it was time to try to make a green curry again. 12 years after my first and only attempt i headed off to the kampot market. it could not have been easier. when i went to buy the lemongrass (that they have already chopped up finely) the lady also threw a couple of lime leaves into the bag..as well as a thumb of ginger and tumeric. (how did she know that i needed those too?) the coriander still had the roots intact (modern day miracle). coconut cream? sure, ill just grab some of the coconuts hanging right here in my garden. honestly..its as if the green curry evolved infront of me without any effort at all. all that to say - we will be eating a lot of them from now on.
come to think of it...our whole life seems to be evolving pretty much as smoothly as the green curry. this week it will be 3 months since we arrived in cambodia. not knowing where, what, when or how it was all going to take place. well, three months down the track we are well and truly submerged in it all. its been so ridiculously easy. this past month has had so many 'firsts' and it feels as if we are well and truly part of the kampot pulse (yes, there is one).
there is no way that i can truly do justice to what has been happening. of course i should try to do these updates more often but things are happening so quickly that its hard to keep track...AND by the end of the day im so ready to fall into bed that i dont have that extra oomph in me to right it all down.
but let me try.
the biggest thing that has taken place for me is this little non-profit business idea that was birthed while our friends josh and char came for a visit. well..maybe not birthed so much as 'conceived'. it started with char having a really nice indian style shirt that i wanted a copy of. i went to a local training center where after a bit of asking i was taken to a massive room full of looms. big, wooden structures with girls sitting there weaving beautiful silk and cotton fabric. all natural dyes and natural material. they invited me back to have a look at the silk worms that they raise there as well. besides the scarves for sale the items there didnt do anything for me and i felt really bad not buying more of their things. so so much effort...for these crap products. so as i rode my bike back i was thinking how great it would be to get some things made from the fabric that i know that my friends back home would like. josh and char, being josh and char got really excited about the idea and we spent pretty much the whole week they were here talking about how we could make it happen. in the meantime the fabric that i bought from the training center was transformed into a couple of beautiful tops that i wear ALL the time. we had a bit of fun coming up with a name for the label and josh came up with a winner with "here and there." since then ive discovered some second hand material at the markets. its in the poorest section of the market with most fruit and vegetables being placed on boards on top of wet mud. the ladies sit in their hammocks or cross legged on the boards chattering away to eachother. in amongst all of this there are piles of material that i rummage through. finding some fantastic stuff amongst a lot of acrylic crap. ive realised that again these random bits of material can be transformed into some funky stuff for people back home to wear. a few mornings a week i ride my bike into town and come back with the bike covered in bags. the biggest load yet was a bag in front basket. bag in back toddler seat. two bags on each handle bar and a bag hanging on each side of the toddler seat. it was the closest i got to feeling cambodian so far. i spent some time thinking through how i could actually make this little dream become reality. thinking the best option would probably be employing some girls to work here at home to insure that they were getting well treated and had a good work environment etc. i just dont want to take any risks that i would be supporting some sweat industry. WELL....i then happened to bump into a girl called Hannah. who comes from bernie in tasmania of all places. (think far far away). in a nutshell...hannah has set up a small little clothing business here in town with all profits going to a local community center that is just being created where they are helping kids with school work, encouraging young kids to come and play and do puzzles...and hopefully soon setting up a organic vegetable garden for the oldies to potter around in. hannahs dream is to also start a sewing center attached to the community center. so here is someone who has already gone ahead and done all the hard work and i can just tap into what shes already created. bingo! this means i can just focus on the fun stuff like digging through piles of material at the markets and asking people to let me borrow their funky clothes for a couple of days while i go and have them copied at the market.
soooo...(oh man there is so much to say) after a bit of chatting with hannah...its looking like the best thing to do at this stage is employ two more women (she already has two) and set them up in our house since there is no room in the little corner she rents in town. i will lock them in (not in the house but in a contract) for six months for now. see how much we can create in that time. then...when we go back to oz for a month in march/april we will take as much as we can with us and have a massive launch for "here and there". at this stage it looks like we will have a launch in adelaide...and a prelaunch in geelong. (never underestimate the power of visionary women!) then once i get feedback from people about the clothes we can decide whether this is worth pursuing as a full on business...or if we just keep it to one off events around the place. (ive just found out that shipping from thailand is really cheap which means ebay could be an option as well). the best part of it all is that it would hopefully generate enough money that we could really make a difference with some of the work thats going on here improving the lives of so many people with massive needs. and it would also generate some work for women here who might not be able to find work thats flexible or in a loving environment. oh man..i could write so much more but this will have to do for now.
the other thing thats been a big part of the last month is the build up to the wedding three doors down. we were invited to come along without knowing either the groom or bride...or their families. as it turns out though we have basically been adopted by the row of houses surrounding us. everyone is related to some degree to our landlady so its practically assumed that we need to be part of the festivities. along with that our little goodwill ambassador (Time, definately NOT ocea) has won the hearts of our neighbours in her daily outings that we can pretty much ride on her popularity wave.
a week before the wedding my friend convinced me that i should have an outfit made (how did she know that i was going to use that as my excuse for not going?) so that i could look the part. off i went to the markets to be measured up by the women who by now know me and my miming skills quite well. nothing quite like (except maybe a public papsmear) standing in the middle of a market aisle getting every body part measured as a group of onlookers crowd around. once the measuring was done i tried to explain that i wanted them to deliver the outfit to our house since i wouldnt have a chance to return to the market on time. eventhough this had already happened by now a few times they couldnt quite understand my acting abilities. well, lo and behold, Levi says. "mum, let me tell them." and sure enough. out he comes with a couple of sentences in fluent khmer. and they all nod their heads and motion to me that they understand. i swear i was about to faint right there on the spot! i had NO idea that Levi knew that much khmer!!! how did he go from not being able to say goodmorning a couple of months ago...to being able to explain that he wanted some clothes delivered to our house?? i ofcourse had to embarrass him right there on the spot and bow down before him and worship my new hero.
on the day of the wedding my friend Any (its her cousin by the way that was getting married) and i headed into town to have our glamour session. two hours later i had my hair in a semi-beehive and a face that could rival any tv evangelist's wife. by the time we got back to our house the wedding was in full swing and the road transformed to a small scale festival including a lady selling balloons and trinkets. once i introduced myself to the family and convinced them i was in fact still veronica...we headed down the road to join the festivities. the massive marquee was filled with hundreds of people devouring so much food and drink. on stage was the trashiest group of girls wearing skimpy little outfits, singing love songs while thrusting their pelvises up and down. of course my girls were smitten by it all and very quickly learned a few extra dance moves to incorporate to their routines. we found a table at the back where we naively thought that the music might not reach as well. thankfully some new friends joined us as well as Any and Davy (another girl we made friends with from the guest house).
all in all it was a great night. everyone was so excited to see us there. touched that we had made an obvious effort in the wardrobe apartment. a few things worth mentioning are:
- people lining up to have their photos taken with Time and Ocea as if they were with mickey mouse at disney world.
-the bride managing to change her outfit three times in the few hours we were there.
-the cameramen so obviously directing the whole wedding and not allowing the bride and groom any chance to just be in a neutral pose.
-the melting pig head displayed at the back of all the formal photos taken that made me gag when walking past.
-neshica letting her hair loose and dancing away until i realise that she had generated quite a crowd of young men watching her.
i must say ...the highlight being the moment the ten tiered cake was cut and EVERYONE burst out singing "happy birthday to you!"
i was also pleasantly surprised to see that the groom looked more afraid than the bride (ive been reading too many books about cambodian women lately) and she didnt have that 'lamb to the slaughter' look about her.
okay..so i need to finish here for tonight...but im going to try to get it finished tomorrow night so im properly up to date.
No comments:
Post a Comment