Sunday, July 26, 2009

Initial Reactions

Wow- my last post needs a bit of editing.

Our first night was spent in Phnom Penh. Thankfully the day was spent doing, for the most part, things that did not require much brain power. The jet lag has not been too bad but sometimes I find myself staring off into space for minutes at the time and having trouble compiling decent sentences. As soon as we arrived we checked in, used an internet cafe, and had lunch at a traditional Cambodian restaurant. The staff introduced themselves and we were each given a tube of Deet to keep the mosquitoes away. Dengue (Ding-gay) is in season right now and they (as well as myself) do not want to take any chances. When you have it you catch a high fever (102 F +) and it supposedly feels as though someone is crushing your bones or stabbing you all over your body. There also is a lovely hemorrhagic (sp?) version. Because of this I am religious about slathering myself in Deet twice a day. I find that it has to be better than the alternative.

After lunch a few of us, along with some current K2 volunteers, grabbed beers at the Foreign Correspondents Club before catching a boat ride on the Ton la Sap river. At this point my jet lag must have caught up with me as I spent most of the time sitting and gazing out over the river as well as getting the back story on my fellow Peace Corps Trainees.

There are 45 of us K3 (Kompuchea 3)Trainees - age ranges from 21 to 50+. There are 14 boys (3 are married) and 31 girls. All of them are wonderful and I am looking forward to learning Khmer and experiencing the culture with them.

Since Phnom Penh we have moved to Takeo City (about an hour and a half by bus south of Phnom Penh)to do some initial culture and language training before we move into our host family's respective houses on Tuesday, July 28. I am excited to move in with my family but also incredibly nervous as my language currently consists of hello, goodbye, sorry, my name is, I am from, and I feel happy/sad. After language training the staff and current volunteers demonstrated bucket showering, hand washing clothing, eating etiquette and using the toilet. The squat toilet demonstration made me laugh but only out over nervousness (not excitement). The Khmer people do not use toilet paper, they use a bucket of water and their hands. Apparently this is why, when eating food with their hands, they never use their left.

Tomorrow we continue with our education of the culture and Tuesday we head to our training villages where we will spend 6 days a week preparing ourselves to become volunteers. Which, if all goes well, I will become on September 24th. Permanent sites will decided upon sometime in September.

Overall the few days I've spent in Cambodia have been wonderful. Though I have really come to realize how much I stand out as an American and white person. Yesterday a few of us decided to go to the carnival in town to attend a concert of a popular Cambodian band. Everyone stared at us as we walked into the melee of people. No joke, it was as if we were in the mosh pit of a concert. For the solid two hundred yards of concert and carnival it was shoulder to shoulder, chest to back. People yelled "hello" to us from everywhere. At the time I thought that this may be what a famous person must feel like. Of course that was before a passing male grabbed my crotch and I realized that a famous person would have a body guard (or two) and would not be walking through a crowd of people, especially oone who did not speak their language.

It is about 8 pm now and the mosquitoes are starting to bite. There is an Ă„merican restaurant next door and I plan on eating a burger (!) before I settle into my rice only diet.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Phnom Penh and Orientation

This must be quick as i was just told that I have 5 minutes left at the internet cafe. Please excuse any typos or misspellings :P

Phnom Penh has been wonderful thus far. The Peace Corps staff is incredibl;y friendly and we were able to speak with some current vollunteers about there experience so far. All of them seem very excited to chare their experiences which bodes welll for a nice future here in Cambodia.

There was a bit of a snaffu with the flights. After arriving in Thailand we styayed at the Novohotel in bangkok for five hours. We arrived about two hours before boarding on july 24th only to find that 9 of our fellow Peace Corps trainees had been "mistakingly" been put on stand-by. We begged and pleaded with them for an hour but were not able to get them on our flight. Currently they are still at the Bangkok airport.

When we arrived in Phnom Penh we were greeted by the PC staff and current vollonteers. They had made us fans and signs to welcome us. After a brief picture taking opportunity (pictures will be on shortly... I promise) we jumped on the airconditioned coach to go to our hotel.

Tommorrow I will have orientation and will receive my cell phone and all of my shots :( Can't wait!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Orientation in San Francisco

As I am writing this I am probably half asleep as I could not sleep the last week before I arrived.

The plane from Seattle was late as there was a dangerously thick cloud cover hanging over SFO. When we arrived, two hours after our initial arrival time, my other PCT (Peace Corps Trainee) friend Meghan (who amazingly enough is also from Olympia) were surprised to find four other trainees like ourselves on the same flight. Apparently this group of Cambodia Peace Corps volunteers is disproportionately representative of the Pacific Northwest as about 7 or 8 of the 45 of us are from Seattle and the surrounding areas.

After stowing our bags in our room we had just enough time to run downstairs and get in line to register to become a Peace Corps Trainee. Our orientation began soon afterward with some wonderful ice breakers and a workshop on Peace Corps policies.
The whole orientation lasted about 4 or 5 hours. It definitely helped me with the fundamentals. Working as a Peace Corps is a commitment and comes with many rules.

We were all starving and decided to meet downstairs at 7:30pm (we are staying at the kabuki Hotel in Japan Town in San Fran... IT IS FABULOUS). I had been able to have some wonderfully awkward but funny conversations with some other trainees durring the day but was very grateful that we had the night to go out and get to know each other better.

Tomorrow we check out of the hotel around 7:30 am. Our flight to Tokyo leaves around 1:30pm. They expect that we will need to get on the plane as soon as we check our baggage around 11 am. For the next few days we will be flying. First to Tokyo, then Bangkok (where we will stay for five hours at hotel) and then Phnom Penh on Friday.

Staging (where we will receive our shots, further information on rules and policies, and other additional information) will take place in Takeo about an hour south of the Capital. I hope hope hope I will be able to post a blog our two during that time. Internet Cafes are common in provincial cities but may not be as accessible with our training schedule. I will try to post as much as possible.