ter  mite –

Any of numerous pale-colored, usually soft-bodied social insects of the order Isoptera that live mostly in warm regions and many species of which feed on wood, often destroying trees and wooden structures. Also called white ant .

I think this  dictionary entry is WAAAYYY too mild of a description.  Plus I also think it is incorrect.  We have found that termites even like to eat waxy crayons!

We have returned from the States and after a first week of trying to recover from jet lag, Mark got school back on schedule as best he could.  But by the end of the first day, we found a terrible termite calamity.

In our main built-in cupboards in School of the Nations, termites have attacked.  We know they weren’t there when we left, but we have no idea when they moved in.  By the time Mark discovered them, they had eaten the entire wooden supports of the interior shelves.  Only the laminate material was supporting the weight of the materials.

But  the WORSE thing of all is the damage that they wrecked on the materials in the cupboards:

ALL but one of our excellent Scholastic Dictionaries were eaten…

All our extra NiRV Bibles that we had been collecting slowly but surely through donations…

The ENTIRE library of Khmer Christian Children’s writings…  EVERY Single one…destroyed…

Most of the box puzzles…

An entire box of donated Awana material…

All of our English Conversation material that we had copied for use this quarter…

Then also in the bottom cabinet where we had some art supplies stored we found:

ALL the sketch books…totally eaten

17 boxes of Crayola crayons eaten ( I hadn’t bought any Crayons in the States because we had this supply all ready to go)

All the paintbrushes eaten and just the little metal tips left that hold the bristles in!!!

All of these supplies were brought from the US and we used them and relied on them a great deal.  It was enough to make us want to just sit down in the middle of the floor and cry.  But the floor was wet with insecticide so we couldn’t sit there.  (trying to lol…)

If that wasn’t exciting enough for our first week back…the situation with crime and break ins have continued this week.  We live directly across the street from the “village chief.”  This Wednesday at 12 30 PM, his family had just finished lunch and were asleep in the house resting during rest time when they heard thieves at the back of the house.

The thief was dangling from something at the back and was patiently cutting away metal bars and supports of the fencing around and on the windows.    Thieves are doing this all over town.  They do this as a first step and sell the metal to recyclers because scrap metal is getting such a good price.  Then they come back later and go into the actual house to rob from the belongings.  But the brazen nature of this!  In the middle of the day…while the family was in the house resting…Golly Bob!

However, the week has ended on a more cheerful note.  Today was the first day of soccer with the Phnom Penh Soccer League.  Last year we were very blessed when the children of Bykota House were invited to participate since their English skills were so good.  So we had 11 very happy soccer players.  Bee, Mary, and Madeline were excited too because they love playing on the sidelines while soccer is playing.  As a side note…if this is something that a reader or someone you may know might be interested in sponsoring since it is certainly an extracurricular event…our expected costs for soccer this year is $400 ($200 for fees, $150 for new cleats for those whose feet are growing and $50 for the toll fees and transportation costs to get there)…see our website for details on how to give if this is something you are interested in.

Breathing in, breathing out,

Rhonda