Good morning. I have just returned from my first Sunday morning run in a VERY long time, due in part to my accident injury, but mostly to my ability to procrastinate. The weather at 7 am was lovely, the sun was shining, nice breeze. I returned home to check the temp (28 in the house,) I killed a toonie-sized spider on the wall (with Raid, cuz I just can't squish anything that big!) and plugged in the Christmas tree lights!
If this all sounds fairly surreal to you, believe me, it certainly does to us as well! We've heard Abbotsford experienced 15 days of straight rain--we won't see much, if any, rain now for months! Just the hot Cambodian sun. Are you sick of Christmas carols being played in the mall yet? In a way, I would love that! We have to plug in our own. It's still very hard to think of this as the Christmas season, but practicing for Christmas concerts helps, singing to Christmas music helps, and putting up a tree helps. The kids are still excited to put it up and decorate, so now I guess it's official--Christmas is coming!
We are thankful in many ways for this past week. Many interesting things happened to us, one of which was a unique opportunity to meet a man named Ted Price, and be special guests at a Police Seminar Graduation. Let me back pedal a bit.
Any time the topic of Cambodia has come up in the past few years, as we were deciding to come, etc. the name of Ted and Alice Price would come up, as they had been on trips to Cambodia, they had connections with the people we knew in Lower Mainland, and there was some association with Seven Oaks. What I knew of them was they had a son who passed away untimely, and they had set up some scholarships in his name. Had never met them in Canada.
Dean emailed Ted and found out that Ted was in Cambodia. Ted invited us to this "Police graduation ceremony" and believe me, we had NO idea what that meant! We were given a time and place, stay for the dinner afterward, but truly we didn't know what it was all about. Worst for me was, "WHAT AM I GOING TO WEAR?" If it's very formal, the Khmer get VERY dressed up, and I wouldn't want to look like a foreigner out of the loop! ANyways, we took a good guess that nice work clothes would be Ok, Dean and I, and Actually Dan Hein got invited too, headed off THursday, to find Ted!
Here's what it was, and I'm so proud as a Canadian to report this to you. It was a Seminar on "The Investigation of Sexual Exploitation of Children and Human Trafficking" Organized by the the Canadian Police Chiefs International Service Agency and sponsored by Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Whew! The training was done by three uniformed police officers, two from the Toronto force, and one, our very own Tom McClusky, from the Vancouver police. The two Torontonians, were female, intentionally invited to promote gender equality among the Cambodian police involved in the training. So Ted Price was on of the main organizers of this seminar, as he is a retired Toronto officer/cheif? that has moved to the Abbotsford area. It was GREAT to meet him. He's a very interesting, passionate fellow, and it was funny that Canadians who live in the same city, meet in such a far away country!
So, talk about hob nobbing. I admit I am terrible at small talk and have a personal "laisse faire" towards those in power, as I see people all as the same. However, in Cambodian culture, the more high up in the government you are, the richer--these status things all matter, and you can get whatever you want based on who you know. When we arrived, (and there was another Canadian friend there, who we have actually met before, Kim, a CMA missionary now working in Siem Riep,) we were ushered straight to the front row. There was a high up General who we were introduced to, and the guest of absolute honor, was the DEPUTY COMMISSIONER in Cambodia. Don't remember his name, but we have pictures of him. Now, I can't quite describe this accurately, I think, but the speeches were all about the honor of being in this man's presence--he was given a special chair, and seated in front of everyone else. He had STARS, lots of them, (Think of the Wemmicks, those of you who know what I'm talking about!)on the sleeves of his uniform, and apparently this is a huge ranking.
The Seminar had trained the Cambodian officers in the said topic, and the whole thing looked like a small drop in a very big ocean, but a small drop none-the-less. The talk was very promising that the officers needed to go forth and capture the perpetrators of such heinous crimes. This is not the first of these types of seminars, and certainly won't be the last, but it was very promising to see and be a small part of, as we got to watch the ceremony.
Funny, in some of the speeches, the speakers were referring to the supporters of this function, which included Unicef and World Vision. The hand gestures fell to us white folk sitting in this front row, which really gave the impression that we were from those NGO's! The cameras started flashing on us. Sorry, we're just Canadians, teachers at Logos. Nothing special. haha. We did actually have to explain that to the Toronto officer. For those of you who know, Dean played football in Abbotsford with Casey Vinet, the Abbotsford Police spokesperson (you see his name and face in the paper all the time) so he dropped the name with the Tom McClusky, and he knew him. It's all about names and connections out here, but it is cool to "know" someone who "knows" someone else back in the home country. When I asked Tom if he knew Brian McConaghy of Ratanak, he definitely had worked with him in the past and had just met him for lunch! (Brian is still in country!) AND he had had lunch with Paul Brandt! That was not so impressive to us, cuz we'd already met Paul last Sunday! haha
So, I've rattled on long enough about this affair, but it really was neat to see. I was proud to be Canadian and see this sponsorship happening, and proud for the Cambodian force--good to see them, all ages, all genders, actually caring and wanting to do something about this issue. The "Charge D'Affairs" from the Canadian Embassy in Bangkok was there, so we got to talk to him and discuss certain topics. (Again, Dean and Dan are pros at this.) I enjoyed having dinner with Kim and getting to know her and her ministry a little better.
The food, wow, that's all I gotta say. Wedding type food that you do not find that much around here, unless you're at a posh function like this. It was delicious! AND it happened to land on American Thanksgiving! Something we found rather ironic and funny. It's great being international, cuz you have excuses to celebrate nearly everybody's holidays!
To be honest, I was hoping at this ceremony, I would actually meet the "bad cop" that pulled me over the day before. You know, I just get so mad. I'm in the car with a fellow staff member, Nekru Chantorn, who is, of course, Khmer. We're running an errand during the day to look for library shelving and I wanted a translator with me. I enter an intersection, legitimately, on a green light, but cannot get through it because of all the people turning in front of me. Yes, I have a green light to go forward, but cannot do this because people are cutting me off. The light turns read. Now, here are my options:
a) Stop at the red, sit there in the middle of the intersection and block traffic coming from the other direction. (people wouldn't find this so weird, they would just drive around me)
or b) Clear the intersection once the traffic moves, so that the opposing traffic can get through.
What makes sense to you? In Cambodia, I got pulled over for going through a red light.
Here's the big problem--I had a Khmer speaker in the car. Right away the cop starts talking to her, and I'm trying to tell him to talk to me, as I'm the driver. She's telling me to give him money--I'm not planning on doing that, because it's all just corruption and I didn't do anything wrong. I'm always ready to argue with the police, because they have no actual authority to get money from you, except by demanding it, extorting it. (it's pathetic and sad, really.) Chantorn tells me they can conviscate my car and I can tell she's uncomfortable, and I don't want to embarass her in front of her country's police, but I am NOT paying this guy anything and I will argue it to the end. They can't take my car--they have absolutely no means to do it. With the difficulty of having Chantorn in the car, I pull out $1. He wants $5. Chantorn negotiates half of that, so I take out another $1 and a fistful of riels--he refuses the riels (too much hassle) and takes my $2 and I can go. I'm just so ticked off. See, it's not about me breaking the law, it's just about money. Takes me a long time to cool off. They shouldn't treat anyone this way, let alone considerate foreigner drivers, who obey every traffic law they can possibly figure out!!!
(Maybe I'm still mad--ha ha, sounds like it.)
So, that's the story of the contrasts in Cambodia: Good cops, bad cops. Very rich people, decidedly poor people. Christmas in the heat of the "summer."
Our family is well. Please pray for my maternal Grandfather, Alf Papson, as he may wait for up to 6 months for a bed in a nursing home, and will have to stay in the hospital for that time. Things do not look good for him, and it is difficult for everyone. Gram is doing Ok on her own. At least there is alot for her to do in the assisted living home she lives in.
Also, our friends had their baby in Bangkok. Kara and Darryl Dedert are the proud parents of a fourth child, a son, named Calvin. A first MRI has shown there is some calcification in the baby's brain and more tests are to come. I have no hot clue what this means now or in the long run, I don't think it's good, but join with us in praying what Darryl has asked for, "that these tests results will be to the glory of God."
Thanks for reading. Love yous all.
L
:)
