so i stayed at chantha's place the whole weekend...she has a house (the khmer equivalent of a townhouse) about a 15 minute moto ride from where i'm staying (there are some faster motos here, but for the most part, my guess is that most motos go about 20-30 mph...you do the math. but they're so fun to ride!! a bit dangerous, especially since i don't have a helmet, but fun! another one of the things i'm loving over here).

anyways, she picked me up saturday afternoon and took me to her place, then she took me to central market to look around and buy food for dinner. i only took one picture, but hopefully i'll go back there so i can show you guys what it's like...so for now, imagine a huge outdoor swap meet. there's a central building where they sell jewelry, and all around the building, there are stalls and stalls of everything and anything, with narrow walkways covered by tarps. (i know, i know, i need to take more pics and post 'em). so anyways, we walked around and went to the touristy section where they sell lotsa trinkets (didn't get anything tho...need to go back), then chantha took me to the food part...whoa. i walked in, but it was so crazy that chantha took me back out and told me to wait for her, which i actually did willingly. there were just a lot of people, a lot of vendors, and the walkways were very narrow and wet. (fyi, don't wear open-toed shoes when you go to the markets here...) so anyways, i actually didn't get a good look at the market there, but the next day, we went to another market (chantha and i share a passion for shopping), called olympic market, where they have a swap meet-like section indoors and also an outdoor food market. this time, chantha took me through a good portion of the latter, so i got a better sense of what that market was like. (unfortunately, since i had slept over, i only had my flip-flops...but the rule still applies.) lessee...where to start. yes, there were live poultry, and though we didn't buy any, chantha told me that if you want a bird, you point to it, and they kill it right there for you. (some of you might be familiar with this, but i've never seen this before, so...) anyways, she actually got fish for dinner...they keep the fish alive in an icebox filled with water, then they take a fish out for you and hit its head a coupla times, cut off its mouth, take out some of its guts, and put it in a plastic bag for you. the vendor didn't do a great job of crushing our fish's head (dunno if that's the way they're supposed to do it, but our fish was pretty active, so i don't think she was able to hit it very well), so afterwards, when we hit the swap meet area, our food bag jumped around a few times. it was a pretty large market, with lotsa things i had never seen before. once again, i didn't bring my camera, so no pics...sorry. i dunno...i also just feel like such a rude tourist taking pictures of these things...but i'll try to overcome that and post some up.

after dropping things off at chantha's place, we went to wat phnom, a pagoda that is also home to a number of monkeys. there's basically a park surrounding the pagoda, and the monkeys just live and hang out there. they're used to visitors, so a number of them walked within a foot of me while we were there. however, one time we were watching this monkey, a toddler ventured a little bit too close, and the monkey proceeded to grab his leg and take a bite. the kid's mother was close, so she pulled him away before too much damage was done (i don't think the monkey really meant to hurt him, 'cuz i don't think he broke skin), but the kid was understandably freaked out. on another occasion, a girl was thinking about throwing a lychee fruit to a group of monkeys, and another monkey came from behind and snatched it from her hand...sneaky. but they're so cute! chantha had a little bag of cookies, and she threw it to them unopened. we watched a monkey sit there and bite the bag, trying to get it open, eventually succeeding and looking very satisfied with himself.

afterwards, chantha took me to meet her in-laws, and they were so friendly and welcoming. chantha's husband actually passed away two years ago, but they're remained very close. they've invited us for dinner this weekend, and they asked me to spend the day with them.

i intended to spend one night at chantha's house, but i ended up staying the whole weekend and she drove us to work monday morning. we had a really good time talking and hanging out...chantha's such a sweet person! i can't get over how generous she's been to me...and everything's been "no problem." (for some reason, i think any khmer person who knows a little bit of english loves this phrase...phan bun and chantha use it frequently) i was actually able to share about my faith with her, but she already knew about certain things...she understood that a big difference between christianity and buddhism is that in buddhism, you get what you deserve...if you do something bad, you get something bad in return, you do something good, you get good things, whereas with christianity, you don't get what you deserve...the idea of grace. my feeling from our conversation was that she felt that it made more sense the buddhist way, but i tried to get across the idea that none of us are good enough...

yikes, this is another looooong blog...sorry! just one more general observation from my market experiences...i saw a good number of disabled beggars. some with what looked like congenital deformities, and others with amputated limbs...very sad to see. one that stuck out to me was a man with both arms amputated to the elbows and from what i could tell, if it's possible, the whole lower half of his body was amputated as well...from the waist-down. i've talked to some of you about how cambodia still has a problem with mines left over from a previous war. i also just read an article in the newspaper today about two separate incidents with farmers trying to clear their land and setting off leftover mines...9 dead. it's had an effect on their development...i think the government actually has an agency devoted to de-mining.