HoJ Ppenh Xmas 2008

and voila ... House of Joy (HoJ)  Phnom Penh greeted Advent 2008 in style. 

this is the 13th year of an annual HoJ tradition, the first time that “Joy”  in HoJ is not in any of the photos.  i watched the fun through the webcam but sorely missed being physically there.  

i bear the name from which HoJ took after.  but that’s incidental. milou, doc marissa and myself, who arrived in phnom penh months apart in 1995, formed its original core.  HoJ has become a composite of the different persons who came through its doors, stayed  (literally or in spirit),  bonded at different points for nearly a decade and a half. the bonds have been kept regardless of distance - indai carmela in argentina, maan in colombo, valerie in the states, chona and mommy su in afghanistan, nenette/ollie/tita babes in thailand, dhidak in north korea, wowie in manila, kristin in indonesia, etc. it operates in the spirit of inclusion, synergy and respect for the individual’s life options. it continues to be so. 

people oftentimes cant make out what HoJ is . a restaurant ? a bahay aliwan? an association ? its all and neither.  or maybe.

it may well be a restaurant indeed - it hosts church choir practices and feeds 25 plus persons every saturday.  and more. on week ends, anyone can drop by for meals (not just on week ends), mani-pedi, massages, endless “halhalan.” 

its also a bahay aliwan - mahjong, kantahan, sayawan, inuman . there were “crab nights”  in the early yearss.  for some time it boasted  one of the busiest week end bars in the city - nenette’s bar @hoj opens at 8 p,m. fridays and saturdays, on invitation only.    its usually-themed parties are legendary (hehehe, hosted in fact the first ever theme party in phnom penh in ‘98).  pinoy and expat old timers in phnom penh still remember to this day the philippine centennial presentation  (1998), which HoJ took the lead in organizing.  

its not a formal association but has a more or less regular “membership”   so much so that the phil embassy includes HoJ in its list of groups to consult alongside couples for christ, samapi (the filipino association), etc. as necessary, it serves as a drop-in shelter and  transient house, day care, dispensary, commissary, training ground for domestic staff.

it stimulates the mind and facilitates social service involvements - countless post prandial discussions on politics and development issues, the Move Out and Move On Gloria group in ppenh, support to kababayans in distress, and so on. 

whatever. HoJ is my heart. and i am so so blessed. 

deck the halls

Mike aka pinakadalisay blogged about the HoJ-Ppenh’s preparation for the advent season.  I could have created a link to his site but couldn’t for some reason. Hence, re-posting below.   

Yesterday I went to my friends’ house to participate in their annual Christmas tree trimming. It’s the third time that I had joined in this activity, which goes like this. It’s actually very simple. Days before, an inventory of Christmas decorations is done to plan the current year’s color theme. Then people are invited. They set up the tree and the rest of the materials. One household member usually takes the lead, the past years it has been Mz Oh. But since she’s now in the Gobi desert, fiercely trying to tan her mestiza complexion (hehe), Tito Gar has taken her place.

People like me come: our eagerness to help and to catch up with friends while working are only equaled (if not surpassed) by our anticipating on what good food awaits us. And before the day, afternoon, or evening is over, voila! the tree is done!

This year the usual suspects were present: Tita Lou, Tito Gar, Tita Sonia, Doc Marisa,Tita Purit, Lala, Bea, Alec, Tita Aviic, moi, and Badette — who was fashionably late.

But before the work started, we were first fed, HoJ style: Spaghetti with Bolognaise sauce, chicken lollipops, taco shells with beef strips and carrots & onions. Plus the ginataan for dessert was simply scrumptious! yummy!

Next week, I’ll pay attention to my own Christmas tree. I’m wondering how to do it now, but my friends will surely be helping me to complete the task of decorating. And of course, I will chronicle it here.

my dating profile

it seems silly but fun.  i’ve succumbed.  blame it on mike (joke hehehe). 

minus ten with the camels and the soap that did not get to bubble

one might typically think of icy white and gloom in a sub zero temperature.  not necessarily so in Mongolia’s Gobi region, where precipitation is low ergo snowfall is almost nil, where the sky remains blue and the golden sun shining.  

so it was in the past six days in Uliziit district when the the gender focal persons of the swiss agency for development and cooperation (sdc) traversed hundreds of kilometers of the gobi desert,

inter-acted with herders,crawled in a cave with hopes of being reborn,

had a photo op in one of the most gorgeous mountain cliffs,

tried their hands at milking and herding the camels,

drank gallons of camel milk and camel vodka,

waltzed with the locals and allowed to be impressed by the richness of the local culture,  

squinted at soaring hawks and falcons, marveled at a herd of a thousand racing gazelles, bonded in the confines of the gers and in nightly discourses over beer and vodka.

the Gobi Desert, one of the world’s great deserts, covers much of the southern part of Mongolia. unlike the Sahara, the Gobi has fewer sand dunes and is a barren expanse of gravel plains and rocky outcrops. temperatures reach +40° C. in summer, and -40 in winter.  rain comes once every two or three years in some areas. the Great Gobi National Park is one of the world’s largest biospheres,  an area larger than Switzerland. the Gobi is home to the last remaining wild bacterian (two-humped) camels, wild ass, and a small population of Gobi bears, the only desert-inhabiting bears.

on touristy excursion though we weren’t.  the fun came with the serious business of ” genderising” the sdc projects. the green gold project in dundgobi aimag (province), that help herders better manage pasture areas, was our laboratory.    we talked to men and women members of pasture users’ groups, illustrated the information collected in sex disaggregated time use clocks, income-expenditure pie charts and mobility spider diagrams. in all the workshop went extremely well.

average temperature while we were there was minus ten celcius. properly bundled up it would have been tolerable. we were billeted in a special ger (tent house). as gers would have, a chimney stove  stood in the middle which the caretaker regularly stoked to ensure that we were warm and toasty.  

it was a challenge however being out in the open with the camels. the whistling wind made the cold colder.  didnt faze the animals and the residents but made my eyes water, talking of which water being a precious commodity in the desert, none of us bathed for the entire six days.  made do with wet wipes. 

the ger/guesthouse compound had a pit toilet but did not have a bathroom.  the only water that i ever touched was bottled water to drink and brush my teeth with.  so it was that my soap did not get to bubble. 

uhm not quite. the district officials organized a party and cultural show for us on our fourth night.  vanities intact, we at least managed to wash our hair  and prettify ourselves for the dance. 

such inconveniences are a trifling compared to the privilege of being in the place -  sharing life for a brief moment with the desert nomads and being humbled by the splendour of God’s creations.  the stink of the pit toilet somehow was overpowered by the awe of watching the sun rise or gazing at the gazillion stars that spoke to one’s heart in the still desert night. 

learning a new dance

i‘ve been blogging about my  angsts in leaving the comfortable and adjusting to the unfamiliar -  as in, thirteen years of a pampered life in the midst of well bonded friends and a strong support system  in cambodia, to one of  ” being by my lonesome”  in mongolia. 

coping with mongolia’s below zero temperature is a challenge, but not as much as the solitude.  as with the different work ethics and office dynamics, the scarceness of ampalaya, the total absence of fresh sea fish and even oyunaa my cleaner.

things have improved some in the work front and seems to be getting better albeit rather too slow.   not quite in other aspects. oyunaa hasn’t learned to draw back the curtains and position the shower head the way i want them.  i still have to pick things up - a cleaning rag here, a bottle of cleaning liquid there - after she leaves.  shallow and petty but pisses me off like major.  

running on five months down in this land of the nomads and vastness eternal, i’ve come to realize that, to paraphrase someone, altough life is not always the party that we hope it would be, what the heck …  i should not lose my rhythm but continue dancing.  and learn how to dance with a different groove….