My first receipt

Tuesday was day 1 of the Handicap International sponsored regional conference on victim assistance.  Representatives from the government and civil society sector in Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Nepal, gathered at Don Chan Palace to discuss and inform each other on VA initiatives in their respective countries.  The goal of the workshop was to create exchange opportunities regionally and find out how other organizations support their programming.  

I'm not going to bore all of you with the intricacies of the presentations, but the morning was focused on legal obligations to victims through treaties (which the US has not signed off on), and the history of conventions regarding cluster munitions. The presenters used a plethora of acronyms that are only all too familiar in the VA NGO world (and that Kiki never understands when I try to tell her about my day). During coffee breaks and at lunch, I was able to meet and interact with people from all over the region, hearing about what they do and how they ended up where they are today.  All very interesting.  

The conference ended and I paid a visit to the veggie stall lady who resides near Kung's.  With Thanksgiving only two days away, it was time to start cooking! As I was serving pumpkin chili as a main dish, I thought it would be best to let it sit for a day before serving, so fingers crossed that she had a pumpkin, I biked over.  Luckily she had one left and after cutting it for me, bagged it with my other groceries (almost 6 kilos!) and placed it in my bike basket.  I was shocked when I received a receipt for my purchase.  A whopping 42,000K ($5.25) bill written on the back of a cigarette packaging box.  I'm keeping it for laughs.

Receipt from Veggies:
2 Kilos of tomatoes: 16,000K
10 bulbs of garlic cloves: 5,000K
1 Pumpkin, quartered: 10,000K
5 eggplants: 8,000K
Bunches of cilantro, parley and dill: 3,000K
4 onions: 5,000K

I returned home and started cooking before Kiki came over to bless me with her vegan chili cooking wisdom.  A couple hours later, with chili simmering on the stove, I nestled up exhausted with Sok, who quickly fell asleep, tongue dangling, on my lap.  It's so hard to hate her sometimes when she's just too darn cute!!!

Sok after a long night slaving away in the kitchen