Jana and the Bats

On Friday, we had Jana and the whole YWAM team over for dinner. Jana did warn us that they could eat a fair amount of food, and let me tell you, they didn’t disappoint. We decided to have a big vat of chicken curry with sweet potatoes and corn on the cob.
Before the whole group showed up we needed to get some corn on the cob. Just around the corner from our house, there is a local guy who sells the corn on the cob from his corner vendor area. Well as it was nearly 5:30 pm and very dark at this point, by the time I showed up on the moto he was long gone. So now I had to try and find another guy who sold corn somewhere in the hustle and bustle of the market area which was about 1 km from our house. I got pretty lucky, as I came to the main road, there was a guy who was just starting to take his umbrella down from his portable corn vendor. However, as I approached, he let me know with both hands waving that the shop was closed for the evening. So for the next 20 minutes, I drove all around the area trying to identify a place that sold corn on the cob. I was having no such luck. As it always seems to go, I decided to go around this one back street that was very dark, when I could finally see a vendor.
I pulled up and she was happy to see me as she greeted me with that big warm(at the same time fatigued) Cambodian smile. I asked for 15 corn. She only gave me 10. When I asked for 5 more she simply said no, as she had no more to sell me. I paid $.25/ea. I thought that was a good deal. As our place is hard to find (Partially because there are 2 houses, in completely different areas with the identical street name and house number), I decided to call Jana and see if she wanted me to meet her at this one spot where I could then lead her group to our place. When I called, they were clearly heading for the wrong house location. For the next half hour(with the hot corn on the cob safely under my moto seat) I waited for them to get to my location before I could lead them to our place.
As I was waiting for Jana, I was sitting on my moto under the Red Anchor Beer Sign in front of the Long Beach Hotel (at 1 star hotel at best). I looked up and there was a small bat moving around me and going in and around the traffic. This bat was really starting to annoy me as he came at me a number of time. I was initially thinking the last thing I need right now is rabbies. Anyways, to my amazement the bat landed on the road. I couldn’t believe it as I thought it was going to get crushed by the oncoming motos. Through the moto headlights I saw that it started to crawl on the ground (Do Bats crawl?). When I suddenly realized that it was not a small bat at all, it was in fact a giant cockroach that was at least 5 inches long! Well I had to laugh and be slightly disturbed at the same time.
SIDEBAR: Speaking of a good laugh, on the way home from school one day this past week Stephanie noticed a live crab outside of our house. As we live very far from the ocean and away from any salt water, we all figured it had fallen out of someone’s street vendor cart. As we toyed with it, the crab was very strong, feisty, very hard shelled and about 4 inches in body diameter. Julia decided to rescue it and place it in a cup of water with some random table salt sprinkled in. Well with the commotion our family caused with the exciting crab, our neighbor (maybe trying to rescue the crab too) came out and told us that it was a fresh water crab from the reed filled lake behind us. Our neighbor went on to say that the crabs will start to come onto land and that it is a sign that the rainy season is over! Anyways, Julia did not place it in the salt water, actually she didn’t want to rescue it at all, but rather she placed it in the back courtyard area where she later admitted she didn’t know where it was (interestingly enough our neighbor's dog is back there). Now back to our original story….
We finally got Jana and the team to our place where we had a really nice evening talking to them and finding out about their ministry time in central Cambodia. I could tell the group had spent a lot of time together as they acted like brothers and sisters more than teammates. (That is a good thing by the way- they were all very close). As the team had a 9pm curfew the time was short but enjoyable. Some of them left with Mangos in hand and we wished them well as they were shortly off to Switzerland for debrief.
The next day we were off with a large group of people from Logos School to show them Marie Ens orphanage, hand out candy to the kids, give fruit to the grannies, and play with the kids. I will save that for another day. Some of the pics are from Les's grade 1 class and also from the orphanage visit. Blessings. Dean