Small Things Continued....

Vol.111908

BYE BYE SOBSTER
So our host mother is a nurse at the hospital. Sometimes she sees patients at her house for minor things. Tonight a sister and her younger toddler brother came by for his second round of shots. I tried to say hello, but you could tell he was pretty shy, or scared; or both. Anyways – after his shots he started sobbing and crying (to be expected). I tried to kind of cheer him up, but he wouldn’t break sobs. Then his sister put him on the back of his bike (children even of small ages have amazing balance I’ve noticed. They ride on the back of bicycles without holding on and they’re not even strapped in at all. It’s amazing). Anyhow- he was in the middle of crying and sobbing, and then I said, “bye bye!!” – and he stopped and in the most perfect clear voice said back to me, “bye bye!” and immediately thereafter started sobbing again. It was pretty darn cute, so I did it again, and again he stopped his sobs to squeeze out a perfectly clear “bye bye!” and started sobbing again. I felt bad for the lil’ guy – but sometimes, as always- you have to wonder how much of a toddler’s cry is because they truly are hurting and how much of it is for show. I’ll try and befriend him more if he comes again.

VINEGAR
So I asked my co-teacher the other day how to say ‘vinegar’ in khmer. He told me. Then he asked me if I was going to cook with it. Because if I was going to cook with it, “maybe not so good. Maybe it’s better if you use lime.” I said, “Oh yea? Why’s that?” He said, “Maybe the vinegar makes your stomach ache.” I said “Oh.” Yet another thing I decided not to discuss into detail with him. If you haven’t seen my other posts, my co-teacher has put the ka-bosh on a few other items that I shouldn’t be eating. Kind of funny. I’m glad I can take it in stride. I later mentioned that I wanted to use it to clean with, as in America, sometimes we use it to clean things. He seemed okay with that.

WHAT I WOULD GIVE …
Oh man, what I would give for some fresh baked brownies from the box. I don’t know what made me think of them at this moment, but boy does that sound good. I remember one time in college my roommate Kari and I were up studying late, and at about 1am – we decided to make a run to the 24hr grocery store just to get some brownies. We baked them up, sat down with large glasses of milk and sat and enjoyed every warm, chewy, sweet and savory piece. Man that’d be so good right now.