It doesn't usually phase me when Srey Mao, one of the Cambodian girls I live with, calls for Brittany and I because it is usually to joke around with us. So when she called for Brittany, I calmly sat eating my breakfast, thinking very little of it. But when Brittany said my name multiple times with a bit of urgency, I thought I should go see what they were looking at.
As I left the back door, I walked into a cloud of smoke. An apartment downstairs from ours was on fire.
The church I work with rents two of the eight apartments in a building...one downstairs for the boys and one upstairs for the girls. The one on fire was directly next to the boys dorm...although at first I was told that it was the boys dorm that was on fire. There was a rather large crowd forming outside and many of them trying to throw buckets of water on the flames. One of the guys from our class happened to be there and he was tossing water in using only his cupped hands. Only a few of the girls in our dorm were home at the time, but those few were frantically running through the house, grabbing all of their belongings they could handle and taking them outside...mostly clothes and school books. Srey Mao was actually trying to throw her mattress over the side of the balcony so as to not have the hassle of running it down the stairs.
There is always the question asked: What would you take if your house was on fire. The most common response at home seems to be to grab your photo albums and major memory things you can't replace. Well, I don't have that kind of stuff here in Cambodia. So the answer for me yesterday was: computer, iPod, phones, any chargers for the few electronics I have, my journals, Bible, wallet, three shirts and two pairs of pants. I was just packing those few things in my back pack and was going to leave...and I was rather calmly doing so, I might add. Sure, I knew that the apartment downstairs was on fire, and I know the seriousness of it, but at no point was I worried or afraid. The girls were still running in and out for their stuff so I figured I was ok. But I was feeling kinda foolish packing this bag to begin with.
Finally Brittany came up and contemplated packing a bag herself, but only because we both started to feel the frenzy of our roommates. It didn't take long for them to put out the flames and we both ended up going downstairs to join the crowd, trying to figure out what was going on now, leaving all our belongings upstairs. If I had felt there was a more of a threat to our house, I would have been throwing my stuff in bags and tossing it over the side of the balcony with Srey Mao's mattress (which we stopped her from doing since the fire was already out at that point, but she was on a roll).
The fire didn't spread and was relatively contained to just the one room where it started. We're not really sure yet what actually stared the fire. Those that live in the house will have to replace a few things, mostly clothes, but no one was hurt. Thank God. Please continue to pray for protection.
