Sunday, August 23, 2009

A Moto Hit and Run (and other short stories)

August 22nd 2009 started out as a wonderful day. The sun was shining and I had a really great lesson planned out for my last day of Practicum. I started the day as usual, had breakfast at a restaurant near the market, downed two coffees, and set off for school. School was great and my lesson went off without too many hitches. Myself and two other Peace Corps Trainees handed out the certificates of completion to the students (along with some delicious candy) and called it done. Don't get me wrong, I definitely believe that the six days of Practicum teaching are beneficial, but after leaving that classroom at noon on Saturay I couldn't be happier that it was over. Another Peace Corps trainee, Cooper, and I decided to forego the normal, safe backroad route to our host family's houses and to instead take the busy road so we could check if our friends were at the Tela (the blessed air-conditioned gas station) celebrating the end of a VERY long week.

Of course, me being who I am, I decided to ride ahead of Cooper. When I came to the intersection (about 100 meters or less away from the tela) and veered to the left WHAM!!! a Moto hit my almost straight on. Luckily I was not hurt in the slightet. Cooper has told me that after I was hit I alm ost immediately stood up and smiled.... I can not really remember what I did immediately follwing the crash. And, unfortunately, the Moto driver did not stay around for us to check if he had any major injuries. My bicycle was totalled and I had to take a tuk-tuk home that afternoon. I have since received a replacement bike that I will use until I am in my permanent site.

Permanent site placements will be announced on Tuesday, August 25th. As a health extension agent as well as English teacher the staff told me to expect a rural placement. I am both nervous and excited, overall just anxious, to know where I will be living the next two years. I am just hoping that I have electricity...and a comfortable home... and a nice Coteacher...and internet? Ha Ha Ha. I can dream :)

Since setting off for Cambodia a month ago I have noticed a few things:

1. Spiders no longer scare me
2. I will never be able to keep my feet or nails clean or my white clothes white
3. If an ant is crawling in my rice, I will attempt to pull it out but if I am unable to find the said ant, I will eat my rice anyway (ant and all).
4. Khmer people will smile at you but will not smile for cameras
5. I like Durian, but only in smoothies.

Life here has been going by fast. After we learn of our site placements we head off to Phnom Penh for a few days to met our Coteachers for a 2-3 day conference. On the last of our conference days all of the Peace Corps Trainees have been given the opportunity to attend the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. Hopefully it will be an interesting day at the tribunal.

If you are interested in writing me my address is:

PCT Kellee Keegan
Peace Corps (PST K3)
P.O. Box 2453, Phnom Penh 3, CAMBODIA

Think good thoughts for my site placement!

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Tramkok - And they call her Duh

My training village is Tramkok - a small but somewhat wealthy town about 12 kilometers outside of our hub site Takeo. Out K3 group is split between Tramkok and Traing and so on any given day I could only see about half (usually less) of my fellow Peace Corps Trainees. Tramkok is nice (or a bit better than Traing) because we have an air conditioned gas station that sells (gasp!) cold beverages, an internet cafe, and a tuk tuk stop. This becomes incredibly useful when we need to travel to our hubsite once a week for seminar and need to have the option of traveling by tuk tuk instead of riding our bicycles.

My family is still wonderful and I (finally) have a sense of who my family members are in my immediate family. With so many extended relatives and neighbors hanging around all the time it was quite impossible to tell who was who. I have three sisters, two brothers, a mother, and a father. I was a little bit confused about the whole father thing when I first moved in with my family though. It was not until yesterday that he showed up and I am almost afraid to ask where he has been as some Cambodian men have two lives (such as a wife and a mistress) and must (more often than not) live in different cities. I do not know what my family's situation is.. but I have yet to feel comfortable enough to ask them... especially while he is there.

Names names names. I have been told that that there are only about 40 names used in Cambodia for the majority of the population. There could be as little as 10 names in Cambodia and I would still get my family member's ames wrong. For some reason.. on my first day when I asked my little sister what her name was she told me Keena (or what sounded like Keena). She has been the one that has helped me with everything - from setting up my mosquito net to practicing Khmer. For the last two weeks I have been calling her Keena and she has been responding to it. It was to my great surprise then, when my language teacher came to my house to find that her name was not Keena. Her name is Duh. How ironic is that?

So after that embarrassment I have decided to just call them all my little brother, big brother, little sister or older sister until I know, without a doubt, what their name is.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Training and some Epicurean Adventures

The last week and a half have been a whirlwind. I moved into my host family last Wednesday and they are wonderful. They do not speak English though ( there are a few exceptions as some of the younger family members have taken a year or two of English in school - I have only heard them say "hello" "goodbye" and "are you hungry?" however) and so I have become very good at pantomiming riding my bicycle, learning khmer, and asking questions like "Where does that Chicken lay it's eggs?". Needless to say they laugh at me a lot. They laugh at me when I sit down for dinner...when I try to speak Khmer and especially when I attempt to wash my clothes. Let me tell you it is quite embarrassing to wash your underwear in front of your entire Khmer family that you've known for only a few days. To them it does not seem to make a difference though as they helped me through the entire process (underwear and all). It has taken me (on average) an hour each time to do my laundry. 1 bucket and brush for washing + 1 bucket for rinsing + tons of elbow grease = my maytag for two years.

I have the deepest respect for my Khmer mother who washes the entire family's clothes by hand, makes all the meals, cleans the house, butchers the animals, and burns the rubbish. Maybe after two years here I will become like the Khmer... as it is though I am having a difficult time with some of the weasiest things .. like getting used to the bucket showers and squat toilets.

The bucket showers aren't that bad.. I take them twice a day.The bathroom is outside, connected to the kitchen, and consists of a tub full of water, a bucket, and the squat toilet. The only problem with the bucket showers is that the tub attracts the mosquitos and I have received a few bites on the bum while using it. The squat toilets are going to take a little bit longer to get used to. Yesterday I was using one and not really paying all that much attention. When I got up to throw the water in (to wash down the bad stuff) I noticed that I had missed! I desperately looked around to see if there was any way I could remedy the situation. Luckily it was a #1 and I just thew a bunch of water on it. Hopefully my family did not pay that much attention to the excessive amount of water around the toilet.

Food Food Food. It is amazing. I was so pumped to come here thinking that I would lose tons of weight. Ha. My family feeds me three HUGE meals a day. And all of the current volunteers have said they have gained weight since moving here. Terrific. Knowing this I was like.. "No big deal.. I will go running and continue to eat as much as I want". Ha Ha. There are a ton of feral dogs in Cambodia. Most of them are pretty small but they are all very very scary. On Monday I got up at 5 am, put on my running shorts and shoes and went outside. The first thing that happened was all of my family's dogs jumped on me (they have five). The second thing that happened to me was that my aunt came over and looked at me very questioningly .. like "Where in the h*** could you be going right now?" When I pantomimed running she laughed at me and then shoo'ed (sp?) me out to the street. That is when it got really scary. There are no street lights, speedlimits, or laws governing the roads at all. With the combination of feral dogs following me, motos driving as close as possible, and poop on the streets I decided it was time to turn around back to my house. You should have seen my aunt's face when I returned after a four minute run. She was laughing very hard. Quickly I took off my shoes and went up to my room to sleep for another hour.

The meals I receive at my host family's home always consists of rice, a soup, and some kind of chicken, beef, or pork dish. This is always follwed by some kind of desert such as fruit or fried bread. When I am not at my family's house though I go a little "crazy" with the food. There are so many different kinds of food here that we do not get back in the States .. specially fruit such as Dragonfuit, Mangosteen, Durians, Mien, etc. Some Cambodians also incorporate insects into their dishes. Apparently insects were not introduced until the Khmer Rouge time when food was very scarce. Since then they have really perfected the fried ant (called Ang-Krong here). The ants were spicy and crispy and all together not bad. I did not like their wings though as they tended to get stuck in my teeth.