Once upon a time there was a rat. His name was Bilbo Pete. For while, he led a good life. He minded his own business and let others do the same. But then he got greedy. Bilbo Pete broke bad, and started stealing things. At first he was subtle about it. One day, he went too far. He stole items of value. Their owner thought she was just losing things, until one night, she heard a noise. She awoke, grabbed her handy flashlight, peeked out from under her mosquito net, and saw her toothbrush moving toward a hole in the floor. She rescued the toothbrush, and declared war on Bilbo Pete. For a few weeks, he behaved himself. But last night, he was emboldened once again. She was aroused from sleep by the pattering of feet upon her bed. Bilbo Pete had returned. She hit him, which sent him flying to the other side of the bed. He ran to the top of the mosquito net, where he was beaten with a bottle of baby powder. That was the last time I saw Bilbo Pete. Although he is sure to be back.

In other news, I spent yesterday afternoon doing yard work. It was nice to do some sort of labor, as people seem afraid to let me do anything that requires exertion. Well, they didn’t exactly let me do yard work, I sort of took the hoe-like instrument from my friend and told her to get another. They were so amazed to see a foreigner doing work that they even took pictures. We were clearing the front yard of the NGO, they are preparing for a big festival. The NGO is run by Khmer people, it’s called Bright Future. They do a lot of agriculture and health work. A lot of my students hang out there. And the staff are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. The festival is a pretty big deal. So we had to rid the yard of grass. Yes, grass. Here, grass is bad. Yards are to be covered in dirt. This makes sense when you realize they can’t have grass because they have no lawn mowers. This realization took me about a month. Anyway, it felt really good to do something that yielded visible results. Whenever I am given a task that requires the destruction of things, such as grass, I attack with a vengeance. I am proud to say that the area I was assigned is completely void of all vegetation.

As of this writing I have been a volunteer for two months. Wow. That was fast. The year is almost over, and people back home are celebrating Christmas. I miss winter. I miss wearing hoodies and warm paja,as, and having to convince myself to leave a warm bed and go into the cold of the outside world. We have had winter, of sorts. It got down to about 68 degrees for a week and everyone nearly died. I laughed a lot that week. But here I sit, at the computer lab in Battambang, sweating once more. I received many Christmas and Thanksgiving cards. Thanks so much! Love and miss as always.