Big City Stuff

When we began talking about our transition home, Brian said numerous times that he wanted to live in a bigger city then where we were living before we moved. In Cambodia, we lived in a bustling area. Motos flying down our streets at rapid speeds, vendors sauntering down the side of the road selling everything from rugs to BBQ'ed eggs. At night the roads cleared, people retired to their homes, then began their morning routines the next day at around 5 am.

I would often walk down the streets of Phnom Penh (when it wasn't as humid) to exercise. The smells, sounds, and sights were the things that big cities are made of: sidewalk restaurants open late, illuminated by a single light bulb; dust kicked up by the ox carts, pulling home goods for sale; exhaust and noise galore; and apartment homes stacked on top of each other. I got used to these big city things, although it used to be something I tried my hardest to stay away from. The sounds became music to my ears as I tried to sleep at night, and when we vacationed to quieter places, it felt foreign to me.

One week ago, we finally moved out of my Mom's home, which has been graciously housing us this past 3 months. We moved to a big city. We moved into an apartment. These two things are things I never wanted. Ever. Although I protested it in the past, I have LOVED these two factors in my life this past week! Tonight I took a long walk down a busy road in our busy city, and where the noises would have bothered me before, tonight they comforted me. As I walked under freeway over-pases, past buzzing cars, and through busy supermarket parking lots, I felt at home. The busy-ness of the past year in Asia, the crowded nature of living in the country's capital, all of this hit me in the forehead tonight, but here in California! It is interesting how you can come full circle after only a year of being in a place. Pictures to come of our new place as soon as we finish unpacking!

Dichotomy

dichotomy: noun
A division into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities.

This word comes to mind tonight as I sit and wrestle through my thoughts and feelings. The past few days have been hard; I feel as though I have hit a wall while trying to adjust to being home. A mere 10 weeks ago, all that was on my mind in Cambodia was coming home. "Everything will be so great, so normal," I thought. These past few days I have felt everything but great and normal. Tonight as I sat and thought about my depressed, lonely feelings these last few days, I realized I am living in a dichotomy.

Here in California, I am living a fast-paced life of wealth and ease. I am miserable because I feel like I have no purpose. In Cambodia, I lived a slow-paced life of poverty and daily trials...yet there, I felt full of purpose and drive. Why was I so naive in thinking my life at "home" would be so lovely and normal? I should have realized that, after living a year in a totally new environment, nothing would ever feel normal again.

It doesn't help that I don't have a job yet: I love what I do, and I love working with and being around kids. I want a job. I love teaching, and I want to keep it up. Regardless, I feel as if my purpose in teaching here will never feel like my purpose felt like in Cambodia. I know, I know. I need to find out what God's purpose for me is here, bloom where you are planted...right? I've always been good at that, but I still feel like my purpose here won't be as great, as needed, as fulfilling as knowing I could walk down my street and provide a meal for someone who hasn't had one in a week. Knowing I could give a homeless person a dollar that could feed them for 3 days. In telling someone about the love of Christ, and seeing the excitement in their eyes because they had never heard that news before...and knowing it could literally save their life.

Although the needs of the Cambodian people were overwhelming to me most of this past year, they were that way because they were new needs and ones that I felt unequipped to solve. I got used to the ease of meeting needs in Cambodia, and the needs were in your face on a daily basis: beggar children following you while riding your bike, a limbless man managing his way down the street, or a sick elderly person riding on the back of a moto with an iv drip connected to their arm. Whatever the need, it was readily able to be met.

Where all this is going? I have no idea. I just needed a place to write, vent, and get my feelings out. I need a job, and I need to feel like I live a meaningful life. Sitting around all day is driving me nuts!!!

Back to our Roots

We have officially been home 5 weeks now, and I think it is safe to say we are fully settled in: no more waking up at 3am and wanting to fall asleep at 4pm, no more jumpiness at birds (which move strangely like the rats we had in Cambodia), and no more suitcases full of things to unpack. We are overjoyed to be home, although we both have been truly missing Cambodia this past week. We have had a lot of neat experiences since we've been home: we have been on a short road trip to Yosemite and Fresno over 4th of July weekend, we have seen many friends and family we missed over the past year, we have taken nighttime summer bike rides, tried new recipes, gardened and played with dirt and plants, and we have delighted in the simplicities of life here in Los Gatos. I (Karie) am in my 4th week of summer school, and cooking with 80 kids each day has been a real blast! Brian is in his third week of school, and has his nose deep in the books each night. Here are some pictures of what we've been up to at home, as well as our new favorite summer recipe: Raspberry Lemon Iced Tea. Enjoy!

Oh gardening, how I missed thee!

The joys of picnics in the park and self timers.

Brian with the big rocks in Yosemite.

Yosemite Valley and my Mom

Leaving Yosemite National Park-the view from Glacier Point.

Hiking the Vernal Falls trail: we saw 2 rattlesnakes, a centipede, deer, and coyotes!

:: Raspberry Lemon Iced Tea ::

6 raspberry flavored tea bags
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup of sugar
8 cups of water

1.) Look out your window to see if you have a lemon tree, like this one! If so, pick 2-3 lemons off and juice them. If not, go buy lemons at the store.




2.) Boil 8 cups of water. Turn off the heat, put the tea bags in, and let steep for 1 hour.



3.) After it has sat, put the tea into your desired container (pitcher, etc.). Stir in the sugar until dissolved.

4.) Stir in the lemon juice. Allow to cool completely in the fridge until you serve it. Add a fresh slice of lemon to each glass of tea poured. Enjoy!

: : Home : :

Well yet again we have failed to update our blog in a timely manner. We appreciate your forgiveness :o) The last few weeks in Cambodia were hectic: boxing things up, cleaning all the nooks and crannies, finishing up school, doing report cards, packing and re-packing suitcases, spending time with good friends, closing bank accounts, making the "last trips" to local markets, etc. We finished well, although it was hard to close out one stage of life while anticipating the next one. It was my prayer to keep my "head in the game" until the end, not neglecting any part of Cambodia or our life there. We both were anxious to leave and travel to Japan, then home....however, we thoroughly enjoyed our last days where God had us.

Once we left Cambodia, we boarded a short flight to Bangkok. We met up with friends there, and had dinner in the city. We were taken back to the airport where we spent a sleep-less night, then boarded a plane to Japan at 6:50am the next morning. After an easy 6 hour flight, we landed in a place surrounded with more green then we'd seen all year. Japan was amazing!!! We re-enjoyed simple pleasures: walking on sidewalks with flat paths, smelling the ocean air, being COLD, wearing jeans and sweatshirts, eating street food that we didn't need to be concerned about, and public transportation. We stayed in Tokyo 1 night and walked around that part of the city. Next, we stayed 3,000 feet up in a mountain town called Hakone for 2 nights, and fell in love with the peacefulness and the scenery there. We spent our last night in a hotel near the airport, and enjoyed sleeping in and having a hot shower. All of our tuk-tuk, train, car, airplane, shuttle, and bus transportation had gone very smoothly up to this point.

When we boarded the flight in Tokyo, we were excited. See, we were flying on stand-by passes and were unsure if we would get on the flight in the first place. This was our LAST leg of a packed 4 days of traveling, and once this leg ended, we would finally be HOME. We were so lucky to get to sit in Business Class (1 step down from First) and we were enjoying the leg room and menu choices for the 9 hour flight. After sitting in the plane for 30 minutes past our scheduled departure, an announcement came over the loud speaker: "We are having some maintenance issues that will soon be resolved, we should be leaving shortly." We didn't care- we were in nice seats and were ready to try and sleep for the flight. Two hours went by, and the flight crew began pulling first class passengers off the plane; we knew something was wrong. All passengers with connecting flights began to be rerouted on to other flights, and we still sat. We were told by one of the flight attendants that we needed to stay seated even though the entire 747 plane would be asked to get off. We had no clue what was happening! Passengers were leaving, and as it turns out, the captain allowed all stand-by and employee passengers to stay on the flight. The problem? Five out of fourteen toilets were broken. They were going to just take the plane back to SF without anyone on it, but the captain knew the trouble it would cause the stand-bys. We were beyond blessed and extremely thankful that he was gracious enough to allow us to stay. Finally, after a total of 4 hours waiting on the plane in Tokyo, we successfully pulled out and took off for San Francisco. On a 747 plane that was originally 80% full, it was just us, an entire flight crew, and 20 passengers. We were so privileged to be given the seats on the plane and the chance to get home....especially after a long year of being gone.

We arrived 4 hours late into SF on June 4th...our 4 year anniversary! We are so glad to be home. We have enjoyed a great weekend full of family and friends, excellent healthy food, walks to town, having "Christmas" as we find the things we left behind for a year, and figuring out what our new life here will look like. Brian has started putting his name out there to do computer work, and I am pursuing a teaching job for the fall. We will continue to update this blog, but with a new flare: life back in California! We thoroughly appreciate your prayers, thoughts, comments, encouragements, and friendships. We would love to get together with you, so please don't hesitate to call or email us!

Life

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

This sums up our journey here. We wish that we could have taken both paths, but God has sent us down the one less traveled by, and that HAS made all the difference.

Long Weeks and Coffee

We have this week off of work. We are finding it an interesting phenomenon. We have not had time off of work for a long time. I am not sure what to do with myself. We have a lot to do I suppose, getting ready for leaving, and packing up classrooms and whatnot. We have been sitting at the local coffee shop a lot lately, doing just random things. Trying not to work to hard. I have been actually pro actively trying to not do any work. I have my grades done, and I do not have a classroom to pack up. I was going to upload a random video on here, but it actually turn out to be quite large; something like 100MB. Normally that would be fine, but here that would take me like 2 days to upload or something. It's not that cool of a video for me to spend two days trying to upload it. If you are really interested send me an email and I will send it to you in a couple weeks, when we are back to fast internet.

The countdown is almost over - we leave Cambodia for good in about 18 days. We are heading out to an orphanage tomorrow, just to hang out with some of the kids and whatnot. We are sitting at this coffee shop where we literally have like 3 people who work here standing right by us, kind of annoying. I think they think that it would be rude if they did not stand right next to us - just in case we need something. Whats funny about that is the fact that when I go to Fry's I just like to wander the aisles, by myself...no people following me around. And on top of that when I do decide that I want to get something, or I need some help, I unable to find anyone! I much prefer being left alone, then pestered.

Nothing really profound to say, we are just working hard and trying to get things all in order for out long journey back home.

Your homework: Listen to Caedmon's Calls' album called Overdressed. It's unbelievable.

My Daily Muse

Well, my promise to write more frequently has been forgotten, and here I am updating our blog almost 1 month after the last post. It makes me sick, but we have literally been too busy to even think about blogging. Here are some highlights of our last 3 weeks: Karie turned 28, and had 4 full days of birthday celebrations; we have encountered more rainy afternoon storms, some bringing rain as deep as our mid-calf; we have officially changed our countdown to days rather than weeks (which we are currently at 22 days); Brian has become more and more sick of being here, and has resulted in wanting to go out every night with friends to get his mind off the fact that YES, we are STILL here; we have subliminally changed our diet to try to get rid of all Asian food, and supplement it with as much "western food" that we can find (sandwiches, egg breakfasts, chips, etc.); we have begun cleaning, organizing, selling, and getting rid of things at school and at home; we have begun packing; we are experiencing many favorites in this city, and realizing they will be the last time we do them; we are spending as much time with our friends here as possible; and last but not least, we are continuously thinking and praying about our return home. WE ARE SO EXCITED TO SEE YOU ALL.

Here in Cambodia, as you can imagine, life has become very normal. After all, we've been here almost a year now. Things that you might think are surprising and silly might still affect us that way, but we have learned to ignore them and move on. These things still capture Karie's eye, and she loves to try to catch these things on camera. She has begun going all over the city video taping all sorts of things. Below are some images that we enjoy on a continual basis, but that still amuse our hearts and eyes. We hope you enjoy these things, our daily musings here in Cambodia.

Monks are a colorful part of the scenery around here; always dressed in orange, and usually are spotted asking for offerings or praying a blessing over people.

No explanation really needed here: just a part of daily life. This does NOT factor in the high humidity factor, however.

Horribly translated and ridiculously hilarious signs add brightness to daily life. This is posted in a new frozen yogurt shop, large and bold and on the wall. My fav is #6. CLASSIC.