Hey guys,
Another awesome day in Battambang has come to a close. (Maybe this country map will help you visualize all these cities we have been talking about.) The Strongs drove us up to a mountain in the vicinity of the city. During the civil war with the Khmer Rouge the mountain was a fortified position with a clear view of the flat terrain surrounding it. Two artillery cannons still sit on the mountainside, silent guardians of an era past. The Khmer Rouge also used caves in the mountain as an execution site. Prisoners would be bound and bludgeoned into unconsciousness and dropped into a vertical opening and left dead or dying. A large number of bones remain in the caves but they have been collected and placed in protective memorial shrine type enclosures. It's a pretty gloomy and depressing place. All the temples and shrines that sit on the mountain don't help to alleviate the oppressive spiritual atmosphere.
On the way down from the caves and temples Doris saw a fruit stand selling starfruit. It was a rare sight and she was excited to be able to purchase some. She began talking to the seller and he said that there are a lot of trees at the base of the mountain that produce starfruit but he never eats them. He lifted his shirt to show Doris a string tied around his waist. The string was placed there by a witchdoctor and was supposed to ward off evil spirits or something like that. A person who has that type of a string tied around them can never take it off. This person then considers themselves part of the darkness and starfruit is not good for someone who is part of the (I am really excited to be able to use this phrase in a normal context) the dark side. Doris remarked later on how interesting it was that these people consider themselves in darkness yet they are ignorant of the gravity of their spiritual darkness.
After our trip we rushed back to town to get the two young lady agriculturalists on their bus back to Phnom Penh. Holly, the American, has to teach Sunday school and had to be back in time for that. Later we spent the early part of the afternoon at the Strong's house talking about the morninga tree project. If you want to know more about the moringa tree Trees For Life has a good website with lots of information. Some quick background on the Battambang Morninga project. Dave and Doris have been working hard to promote this surprisingly nutritious tree as a nutritional supplement for the general Khmer population (many of them are not getting the proper nutrients in their diet) as well as AIDS patients. There are several small orchards around the Battambang area on land owned by families who have taken an interest in Dave's work. For the first time the project has generated more moringa powder than they have sold. Dave is now looking into marketing options and partnerships with health food companies to create a regular demand for morninga and to spread awareness. The long term goal is to hand the project over to a local person but the Khmer are reluctant to take the weight of the responsibility unless a clear benefit is demonstrated. God willing the project will become self sustaining and someone will realize that they can make a couple hundred bucks a month just by running the thing.
Dave has also talked to the Ministry of Health here in Cambodia and they got really excited about moringa. Currently there are numerous health supplements that are imported from Thailand. The Ministry asked if Dave could produce a line of supplements based on morninga that could be produced locally. That's a bit beyond the capabilities of the project at this point but they also gave Dave permission to produce moringa capsules. So this afternoon on the living room floor of Dave Strong's house the first (probably the first) moringa capsules were manufactured in Cambodia. This was all done by hand with pre-made gelatin based capsules and a Cap-m-quik home capsule packer. A full dose of morninga for a day is about 20 grams. We were able to fit 400 milligrams into one capsule. If you have a general idea of how the metric system works (as weird as it is) you will soon come to the same conclusion that we did. To get a full dose of moringa every day one must take 50 capsules. We still wanted this capsule idea to work though since it would be an easy way for people to take moringa but no one would want to take 50 in a day. Dave decided that a 10 gram per day dose should be sufficient and maybe if we were able to pack 100 more milligrams into the capsules that would only mean... 20 capsules a day. That's still a lot of pill popping. I know some of you are thinking that you go through more Tylenol than that in a single afternoon... just kidding. So I don't think this capsule idea, as cool as it was, is going to take off.
Later in the afternoon we went back out to the field where we planted our rice experiment to take a look at it. There wasn't much change but the little 7 inch seedlings that we planted all seemed to be standing up straight with their vibrant green color intact. I guess that is a good thing. The family that owns the field was out there planting another section in the traditional way. They worked much faster than we did yesterday and the lady and her two daughters who were planting jokingly asked why three people are faster at planting rice than ten. Us foreign folk just don't know how to plant rice. Before we left the family invited us to stay for some roasted corn. They gathered a bunch of dry sticks, dead leaves, hay, and assorted garden waste; piled it up, threw on some corn, and lit the whole thing on fire. Even Dave was skeptical but after about 15 or 20 minutes we had delicious roasted corn. It was sweet with plenty of flavor, we didn't need butter or salt, which is good because I doubt we could not have easily gotten any even if we wanted to. It was an excellent appetizer for a dinner of tuna sandwiches and chaya at the Strong's house.
So Dave and Doris are really into eating tree leaves. Chaya is another tree that is high in nutrients. The tree produces leaves a bit smaller than your palm that look like a maple leaf but with five points on it. The high nutrient content and fast growth rate make it ideal for use as a food. The not so cool part about it is the cyanide content. Because of that the leaves need to be boiled for at least 5 minutes before being eaten, a bit longer if you want them to be nice and soft. They were actually pretty good, just boil them in plain water and add a dash of vinegar and they taste great. Even Emily, who is a total carnivore, liked them.
Anyway, Battambang has been great. Matthew, their five maybe six year old son is going through an energy overload phase running around, climbing on people, and talking a whole lot. Still as cute as ever though. Tomorrow we'll attend church and eat an early lunch and then jump on the 12 o'clock bus back to Phnom Penh. No resting there though. The next morning at 6:30 we leave on another bus headed to Kampong Saoum (or Sihanokvile as it is labeled on the map). We will spend three days there helping out with a Khmai Vietnamese youth camp. Sounds like fun but for the first time we won't be staying at a dorm, guesthouse, or hotel. I think we'll be in some sort of hut which is basically a thatched roof on four poles. We'll see. Not sure how much time we'll have to do email updates there so if you don't hear anything for a few days its OK. Pictures here. I think this update has reached a sufficient length. Until next time.
In Him,
Jonathan
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