Roof Rats and Rice Runs

Hola from the blogging world!! Life here in Cambodia continues to be humorous and unpredictable. Here are a few stories from our past week here:

The power frequently goes out in Cambodia, as well as in our neighborhood. This past week it's been horrible. We have been without power at least 4 hours each day, and in the heat of the afternoon when one would REALLY like to be running their fans...
We have a precious House Helper (which everyone foreign has here, because it is SO hard to cook, shop, and clean here). She can't be more than 18 years old, and she speaks minimal English. She cooks our dinner each night, but because the power is often out at around 5pm, she is sometimes unable to turn the rice cooker on. The other day I witnessed a hilarious incident. It was a Monday evening, and Brian was playing basketball at the school. The power was out, and it was SO hot in the house that I decided to take my book and a chair out onto the porch. Our dinner was hot and ready on the table, but the rice had to wait to be cooked until the power came back on.
Being that I was outside, I was unaware of when the power came back on...but apparently, it did. All of a sudden, our Helper (Srey-Mom is her name) came RUNNING over to our house. This was odd, because she had already left for the day. She ran past me without a word, and all I could think was that something was terribly wrong with the dinner she made, or....? I walked in the house to find her at the rice cooker, and she innocently said, "I HAVE to cook rice!" Precious. Even funnier that she thought I would not be able to figure it out on my own....


On a more negative note, I was awoken the other night by a noise that makes me sick- large creatures running around the roof tops above us. It was 3:40 am, and all I could figure is that we have rats. No big deal, right? They stay on the roof, we stay in the house, all is well. Not so much. Our ceiling is made up of cheap, warped, already broken/falling apart panels. The rats are running on top of those panels, NOT the roof. I sat in bed thinking the worst: the panels would be falling on us any second, rats, poops and all!! The rats sound BIG, and we have seen many by day here in Cambodia. Someone said they are the squirrels of Cambodia, which I kind of believe to be true. The rats don't let themselves be seen as much as squirrels back home, but there are definitely more rats here compared to squirrels at home.
Unfortunately, with the new development in our home, and the fact that no one will really see rats as a "problem" here....we are praying about finding somewhere else to live. Please pray with us, that God would provide us with a new (clean, pest free) home, or that He would take all the critters out so we can sleep peacefully.