🥤 Sugarcane Juice At Public School & Tofu Burgers 🍔
Today was a busy one, but I managed to snap a few pics of an afterschool sugarcane juice and some tofu burgers I made for the family.
🥤 Sugarcane Juice & Visa Woes 🛃
Today I managed to get an appointment at the US Embassy for an affidavit of single status paper, certified passport copies, and the rest of the packet they prepare to help an American citizen to get married here in Cambodia. I have a fake labor contract stating I earn $2,500 a month, the required (ridiculous) minimum income I am required to earn for the Cambodian government to consider me worthy of marrying the woman I am already married to.
Funny how we left the country to get married because Cambodia wouldn't let us, and now that we've returned as a married couple, Cambodia won't recognize our marriage, but will allow us to get re-married. If it weren't for the legal/visa reasons, I wouldn't require any bureaucrats to accept the love I have for my wife, but this is the way the world has been set up, so what can you do other than buy a sugarcane juice at public school and sip it until your problems disappear.
It's All About The Snacks 🍔
There's a bakery in the town where the girls go to school, and on the occasions where we have tofu at home and the bakery has hamburger buns, tofu burgers can happen. It's also one of the most delicious low effort meals we can make, and I haven't been getting enough sleep lately, so it was perfect timing for one of Monkey-B's favorite treats.
As usual with just about anything I cook, Monkey-B is first at the table because we share the same taste buds. She's recently learned why Tabasco sauce is so awesome and what dishes it brings to life. I always joke with her that if/when we get a USA visa, we'll visit the Tabasco factory in Louisiana. In other news, we're heading to Phnom Penh again soon to collect documents for our second bureaucratic marriage, a step that may assist with me getting a longterm visa for Cambodia.
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Wow that sucks that you have to go through this crap. When will the rocky weather end.
My mother and father got married in Thailand and when they got to Canada they had to do it again as well.
I hope you can get a good supply of sugar juice to numb the pain. Good luck with the rest of the hoops that you have to jump through.
Well, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Immigration were both total busts. There is no avoiding the fact that I must leave the country in less than 3 months. Immigration did assure me that I would have zero problems returning and obtaining an E-Visa again. They also said I could extend my one-month visa-on-arrival to a one-year, but left things a little unclear, looks like I will always have to be able to afford an international trip once a year. I was planning to go the USA anyhow, but was hoping to leave with my visa situation secured to avoid another family potential family separation, but it looks as though that's not possible.
When I visit the USA I am going to borrow a car and drive to the National Visa Center to demand answers from a real human as to why are case has been getting denied for over 4 years. I feel our US Immigration is hopeless at this point, but I want to be 100% sure both Cambodia and the USA aren't interested in offering us any longterm residency and family security.
If the US works out, we'd like to stay long enough for my Cambodian family to get acquainted with my 'Merican family, then use their green cards to relocate to a third country that is more welcoming, perhaps Albania or Georgia, but not sure yet. We feel it's best to probably give up dreams of owning land, sell it, and be prepared for a potentially forever transient life.
Strangely enough, Suriname was very welcoming, at least the government was, and all non-Surinamese folks living there. Monkey-B and I miss it a bit, but Srey-Yuu and Pov would never return again because of all the painful memories.
I could cry. What a shite show. Can you just cross the border to Thailand for a few days. There are so many expats there. I don't get why you're being put through the wringer. I wish for a solution to appear.
We're back from PP and I wasn't able to solve much in the end. I do have to leave, but I went to the Immigration Department to see if I would be allowed back in without a work permit, even if I only crossed into Thailand for a few minutes and returned, and they said it would be no problem. They also seemed to indicate I can renew my visa each year in-person at the Immigration Office for less than $100 and without needing a work permit. This will cost $500 less per year than the current way visa agents are made to sort me out here, so in a way I solved 5% of my problem.
Alright, may the sugarcane juice bless you with sweetness in life, including a cool visa treat.
Demand vegan tofu burger recipe pls. Lent is coming in about 2 weeks, may be a good idea for me to learn something new.
There is no way to refuse a sugarcane juice, it's a great pacifier. Tofu burger recipe is very simple, just carefully try to cut a tofu square in half, deep-fry it, then put it in between buns. The secret to tastiness is in the preparation, toasting the buns makes a huge difference, more flavor, and of course the condiments. We like fresh cucumber, onion, capers, olives, lettuce if possible, mustard, ketchup and hot sauce.
Without condiments and accessories, tofu burgers would taste about the same as eating a shoe 😆.
Never eaten a shoe before, but I will try to remind myself tofu and burger bun without condiments taste like shoe 🤘
Sounds like Cambodia has a very complex bureaucratic procedure to get married, I guess they want to lure in more wealth to the country through those who want to marry someone from Cambodia, would it be the same for a woman who wants to marry with someone from Cambodia or is it just a requirement for the men? Sugar cane is great, been sometime without having some, down here they use it to make a natural wine, very strong 🤢, thx for sharing ✌️
Funny, it's much easier for a foreign woman to marry a Cambodian man, no minimum income required. It shows that Cambodian men make the laws here, and they obsess over marrying a foreign woman, but yet don't want to see their own women married off to foreign men. It's very xenophobic and sexist, but then again, so is the culture of this country, so I guess it's appropriate.
Wow, I have never heard of sugarcane wine, that's interesting. Here it's more common to make wine from palm fruit juice. It's hardly wine, but it starts fermenting as soon as it's collected, and by the time it can be sold it's already a bit alcoholic.
Wow, this is nice.I used to sip the juice of sugarcane when I was a child. Now I know this could make into juice and sell in the market. Thanks for this wonderful idea sr.
It's very common here, motos have sidecars with sugarcane presses on them, and it's hard to travel more than 5 minutes in Cambodia without seeing sugarcane juice for sell.
Problem after problem. When you just want to be with the woman you love so do something about it. But then another problem arise. What's wrong with them. Good thing there's a solution into it. If only they allowed it the first time you tried, then for sure you don't have this problem right now. Aigooo.
Anyways, Monkey B is enjoying her Tofu Burger so much, that would be good partnered with sugarcane juice with a lot of ice.
Governments in my experience rarely do anything for the good of the people. It is so frustrating, but there is little we can do if no other countries are willing to take us in. My wife told me the other day she no longer wants to live in Cambodia because she fears we will never have more than 6 months to a year of peace.
I also feel like I am ashamed to hold my American passport. I think I would be a happy man to die with citizenship to a country that actually wants to let my family and I live there. I lived in Albania once for about 4 months, and I fell in love with the place. It's more affordable than Cambodia, the people are very intellectual, it's beautiful, and I think it may be our future home. Monkey-B just likes to eat airplane food and fly, so she doesn't care where we end up as long as she gets to sit in a plane 😅.
The most important foundation in marriage between a couple in Cambodia is Civilization ,the most important thing in Cambodia is to prove in Cambodia because your wife is Cambodian, therefore, legal marriage in other countries is not as important as in Cambodia, good luck for your family.
I disagree, nearly all other countries of the world accept foreign marriage certificates. The reason Cambodia doesn't accept foreign marriage certificates is because of corruption, because if they refuse to accept foreign marriages, they can charge whatever price they want, in my case $1,200 USD. Cambodia is just so full of racism and xenophobia now, and the laws reflect it very much. It will never change unless Cambodian citizens realize how stupid many of the laws here are.
I've never heard of drinking sugarcane juice. Here in The Deep South, we just boil it down to make molasses! As a child, I remember visiting one farm where the guy used a machete to harvest sugarcane that grew beside the creek on his property. He had an old-timey press like they used back in the 1800s, which he built himself, powered by one of his mules. He boiled the juice over an open fire and explained the process to us children, and how two or three boilings were required to reach the desired sweetness and consistency. It was such a great educational experience, and gave me a real appreciation for molasses and the pioneers who devised the methods to make it possible for us to enjoy today!
I grew up around sorghum, which I thought was sugarcane for a very long time. The plants look very similar, but sorghum is used to make molasses. I have read online that once upon a time sorghum juice was a popular treat, so now I want to try it.
They still make sugar over a fire here, but the preferred source is palm fruit instead of sugarcane.