Tuktuktuktuktuktuktuk................(Kit)

A gift shop at the Killing Fields.Tickets to get in. Tour groups cackling with unrestrained howls of laughter. Human skulls piled into a dusty and poorly maintained memorial. Clothing of the victims still evident, still locked in the ground until the next big storm. Footprints on the clothes where visitors just trod over them. And butterflies everywhere. Butterflies!!

Forty-five minutes by tuktuk there (we hired three of them), and another forty five minutes back. A hot, dusty, loud trip. Impoverished people in ugly huts at the roadside - eating, sleeping, trying to make a living. Bottles (pop bottles, water bottles, etc.) filled with fuel for the thousands of mopeds on the roads. Drivers stop and buy a liter or less, fill 'er up, drive on. Next to the gas sellers are other businesses, including the welder who wears sunglasses instead of safety glasses. Sparks fly everyhwere - and those gas containers just a few feet away....

A quick lunch near the market, and then into a hot, dark steamy market. Movies, scarves, jewelry, vegetables. fruit, everything.....

Back to the hotel for the fortieth shower of the day, and then out for a wonderful meal. Marvellous Cambodian food with a lovely family. It was great being in a real Cambodian home, a home with parents, adorable healthy kids, conversation. Svay Pak was a million miles away.

By and large we are all feeling reasonably well. We're tired, though. Trying to cram everything into our days off before we hurl ourselves into another week of work was perhaps impractical, but I was part of those decisions, and if I could do today over again, I wouldn't change a thing.

Combine the fatigue with confusion and agony at the Killing Fields, excitement of finally getting in to a market, pleasure at being with the lovely family with whom we spent the evening.....our Cambodia experience is certainly multi layered .

We're half finished our time here. We've talked a lot about the fact that we did not so much 'come' to Cambodia, as we were 'brought'. We still look to God for guidance, for wisdom, for understanding as we try to serve him in an orphaned complex country, a country He dearly loves. Cambodia is calling my heart too.