The 12th of this month marked a month left of my Peace Corps journey!! What did I do to celebrate? I was curled up in the fetal position in a budget guesthouse in Phnom Penh and watching ridiculous movies like "She's Out of My League" and "2012".
On Monday I came down with a fever, chills, mind numbing headache, and sore eyes. At first I thought it wasn't that big of a deal because the fever was less than 102. Also I've been spending alot of time with young kids who are walking petri dishes of diseases and thought it was just a little something picked up from them. By Wednesday, though, I had developed a body rash and my appetite was nil so I made the call to our Peace Corps Medical Officer. Immediately I was whisked away to Phnom Penh to undergo the blood tests to determine if what I had was just a typical virus or it was the Big D - dengue.
What is dengue? It is a virus transmitted by infected mosquitoes and symptoms include "a fever, severe headache, severe pain behind the eyes, joint pain, muscle and bone pain, rash, and mild bleeding (e.g., nose or gums bleed, easy bruising)" (CDC). it is known asd "bone-break fever" because of the intesnse muscle and bone pain associated with the disease.
Luckily, my symptoms were not that bad (with the exception of an incredible headache). Every day for six days, I had to go into the Peace Corps Office to get blood drawn and have it tested to see what my white blood cell and blood platelet counts were. My white blood cells were low nearly everyday while the platelets were in the normal range. If the platelets get low then there is a chance of developing hemorrhagic dengue.
Over a week of having symptoms and hiding out in a hotel room in Phnom Penh, I finally got a clean bill of health today! I am looking forward to getting back to Svay Rieng and getting work done. I'll just need to be a bit more careful about mosquitoes once I get back. Now that I've had dengue once I am more susceptible to getting hemorrhagic dengue (the same as ordinary dengue except you bleed from orifices like your eyeballs etc.... think '28 Days Later').
Monday, June 13, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
A Case of the Dimples
Upon returning from up north for an engagement party, etc, I came home to my host sisters telling me a story about the sub-school director’s daughter. When I first came to site I had the opportunity to meet her before she left for Phnom Penh to study at a university there. I hadn’t seen her in over a year and so it was interesting that my sisters would want to talk about someone who, for the most part, was no longer around. What I remember of her was that she was a very pretty, smart, and confident young woman of 18. The story went like this: she went to a ‘beautician’ who said she could make her skin white. This young woman, like most women in Cambodia, let the ‘beautician’ put harsh chemicals all over her body. Apparently she felt the burning almost immediately. She is now in the hospital because her skin is literally falling off of her.
I recently read a NYT story about the increase of cosmetic surgery in China. And recently, Time magazine also wrote about the wave of popularity plastic surgery is seeing throughout Asia and highlights how the government of Thailand is even taking it upon themselves to “hawk” these medical procedures as tours. Not that this isn’t popular in America, just that in the US and Europe we have the benefit of certain controls that make these procedures a bit more safe than they would be otherwise.
“Elsewhere in Asia, this explosion of personal re-engineering is harder to document, because for every skilled and legitimate surgeon there seethes a swarm of shady pretenders”. - TIME Magazine: Changing Faces
It frightens me when I hear stories like that of my sub-school director’s daughter, or others, who choose to get a procedure done here because they feel “they need it” or in a foreigner’s case, because it is less expensive than at home.
In my ignorance, I really thought plastic surgery was something that people only with disposable incomes would even consider. One of my good friends at site, Nary, returned last month from Vietnam with a facemask on. I at first thought it was strange as she doesn’t usually wear one and so I asked her if she was sick. “No,” she replied,” I got dimples.”
Although Nary and her family are business owners they are not rich. So when she proceeded to tell me that she spent $1000 ($500 a dimple… a fortune here), I got a little angry. I got even angrier when she said that I should go get some for myself. For this I replied that I “liked my face already” to which her mother replied “Ooooh she thinks she is already beautiful.”
AAAH!
So I’ve now taken some time away from Nary and her family. It is not that I do not enjoy spending time with them it’s just that when I see what she has done to herself, and think about how much she spent, I get upset. As for the sub-school director’s daughter, she is still healing at the hospital. Her family says she may be able to leave in a week or so.
TIME Magazine: Changing Faces www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020805/story4.
Chinese Turn to Plastic Surgery in Growing Numbers
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/world/asia/24beijing.html
I recently read a NYT story about the increase of cosmetic surgery in China. And recently, Time magazine also wrote about the wave of popularity plastic surgery is seeing throughout Asia and highlights how the government of Thailand is even taking it upon themselves to “hawk” these medical procedures as tours. Not that this isn’t popular in America, just that in the US and Europe we have the benefit of certain controls that make these procedures a bit more safe than they would be otherwise.
“Elsewhere in Asia, this explosion of personal re-engineering is harder to document, because for every skilled and legitimate surgeon there seethes a swarm of shady pretenders”. - TIME Magazine: Changing Faces
It frightens me when I hear stories like that of my sub-school director’s daughter, or others, who choose to get a procedure done here because they feel “they need it” or in a foreigner’s case, because it is less expensive than at home.
In my ignorance, I really thought plastic surgery was something that people only with disposable incomes would even consider. One of my good friends at site, Nary, returned last month from Vietnam with a facemask on. I at first thought it was strange as she doesn’t usually wear one and so I asked her if she was sick. “No,” she replied,” I got dimples.”
Although Nary and her family are business owners they are not rich. So when she proceeded to tell me that she spent $1000 ($500 a dimple… a fortune here), I got a little angry. I got even angrier when she said that I should go get some for myself. For this I replied that I “liked my face already” to which her mother replied “Ooooh she thinks she is already beautiful.”
AAAH!
So I’ve now taken some time away from Nary and her family. It is not that I do not enjoy spending time with them it’s just that when I see what she has done to herself, and think about how much she spent, I get upset. As for the sub-school director’s daughter, she is still healing at the hospital. Her family says she may be able to leave in a week or so.
TIME Magazine: Changing Faces www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020805/story4.
Chinese Turn to Plastic Surgery in Growing Numbers
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/world/asia/24beijing.html
Monday, April 25, 2011
Back and forth and back and forth.
…is how the next few months will play out it seems. And my feelings about the whole thing
Currently I am writing from my site. I have been here for about a week since returning from Sumatra and now I’m planning on leaving again. Going – literally – across the country to attend a Peace Corps volunteer’s wedding to a Cambodian man. I really can’t wait:) It will be a bit difficult in the end considering that when I return next week and I will then need to help my GLOW girls host a workshop on leadership on the 5th and then -nearly immediately after-hold my 50th Anniversary “Clean-Up-The-Library” project on the 7th. Whew.
I will then attend our Close of Service conference from the 17th until the 20th. After that I will only need to teach until I start my externship at CCPCR (The Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children’s Rights) on May 30th. I will live and work there, in the provincial town for about a month. In July I will come back to site and say my goodbyes and then it will be off to Phnom Penh to meet my friends and finish all my paperwork. My Close of Service (COS) date is July 12th.
When I think about how much (or how little) time I have left I start to get very anxious and so I’m trying to take it all in stride…. And not really think about it. When I do I’m happy because I’ll be going home! But then I’m sad because I will be leaving Cambodia. But then I’m happy because I’ll have a washing machine and Starbucks. But then I’m sad because I don’t know if I’ll be able to find a job and the winter in PNW is very depressing in itself without being unemployed.
Anyways…....About Sumatraa!!!!!!
It is beautiful. And completely devoid of all those gap year kids and backpackers that crowd the nice places on mainland SE Asia.
When I initially bought my plane tickets to this (very large) Indonesian island I had no idea what to expect. What I knew about Indonesia could be summarized in less than ten words - them being - Muslim, tsunami, Bali, Barack Obama, rain forests, coffee, and Palm oil. Air Asia being awesome (although a huge pain in buying the tickets themselves) I was able to score round-trip tickets from Phnom Penh to Medan, Indonesia, for $130. And any plane ticket less than $75 each way is as good incentive as any for a vacation (also there were seven of us going on this trip so - no matter what - it would be a good time).
It was a whirl-wind trip. I still can't believe I was there for two weeks - it felt more like three days. So as to not bore you with the details, here are a few of the places we went and things we did/saw:
Medan: NOT A TOURIST town and could very well be the worst place I've ever traveled to... ever. It has the only airport in Northern Sumatra, so there was no escaping it's banality. It somewhat redeems itself in my eyes by having a Starbucks... but that is pretty much it.
Bukit Lawang: AWESOME. We stayed at the Ecolodge Hotel the first and last night and on the second went into the jungle. We trekked for the entire day - only stopping occasionally to eat and drink some water. Sometimes the trekking got a bit frightening as some parts of the hike were so steep I would say we were doing more rope climbing (although in this case the ropes were tree roots) than hiking. We hiked until we got to the campsite, a small place on the river, and refreshed ourselves by going swimming. That night it really POURED on us and, of course, my sleeping spot under the makeshift tarp tent had a hole in it. Eventually I was able to get some sleep and the next day we all did some more trekking along a ridge near our campsite. In the afternoon we packed up our (mostly wet) things and rafted back to town.
Berestagi: The next day we were off to see Berastagi and hike up a volcano! On our way there our helpful, and somewhat clingy, trek guide from Bukit Luwang came with us and so we wnded up stopping at a Crocodile Farm when we passed through Medan. It was a very sad place. The crocodiles had no room to move and were literally living stackee\d upon each other. There was a pond in the back of the place where some of the crocodiles were allowed to swim. One of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers paid to feed a crocodile a live duck. Still am on the fence about how I feel about the whole thing. A crocodile has to eat... right??
Finally we got to our hotel, the International, and called it a night. The next day we were up and out early to hike up the volcano and hit up the hot springs. It was a really nice hike and mush less tiring than the trekking. The place smelled like sulfur, but we were all able to get a few good pictures out of the whole deal.
Lake Toba: The bonus about traveling in a group of 7 (or one of them) is that you get to take private transportation everywhere. So, after we gloriously triumphed in Berastagi, we piled in our third rented van and headed to Lake Toba, the largest crater lake in the world. We were actually going to stay on an island, Samosir Island, on the lake ( an island on an island...).
This was our most relaxing leg of our trip and nearly me favorite. We biked around the island a lot, swam, and played tons of Scrabble. We also discovered a place called Tabo that has beautiful bungalows, a bakery, and I really good buffet breakfast. We didn't stay there (we stayed at Carolina) but we did partake of their delicious baked goods and home roasted (and grown!) coffee.
On the 14th I was back in Cambodia and dreaming of Sumatra. If another chance comes up, I will definitely go back :)
If you want to read more about our Sumatra trip my friends were a bit more thorough... AND posted pictures... on their blogs.
Jen and Nathan's blog http://cambodiandays.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/sumatra-jungles-volcanoes-and-cannibals/
Cooper's tenthingsithink.com
Jacq's at jacqincambodia.blogspot.com
Kristin's at kristinincambodia.blogspot.com
and Jeremy's at http://dispatchesfromdeltas.com/.
Currently I am writing from my site. I have been here for about a week since returning from Sumatra and now I’m planning on leaving again. Going – literally – across the country to attend a Peace Corps volunteer’s wedding to a Cambodian man. I really can’t wait:) It will be a bit difficult in the end considering that when I return next week and I will then need to help my GLOW girls host a workshop on leadership on the 5th and then -nearly immediately after-hold my 50th Anniversary “Clean-Up-The-Library” project on the 7th. Whew.
I will then attend our Close of Service conference from the 17th until the 20th. After that I will only need to teach until I start my externship at CCPCR (The Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children’s Rights) on May 30th. I will live and work there, in the provincial town for about a month. In July I will come back to site and say my goodbyes and then it will be off to Phnom Penh to meet my friends and finish all my paperwork. My Close of Service (COS) date is July 12th.
When I think about how much (or how little) time I have left I start to get very anxious and so I’m trying to take it all in stride…. And not really think about it. When I do I’m happy because I’ll be going home! But then I’m sad because I will be leaving Cambodia. But then I’m happy because I’ll have a washing machine and Starbucks. But then I’m sad because I don’t know if I’ll be able to find a job and the winter in PNW is very depressing in itself without being unemployed.
Anyways…....About Sumatraa!!!!!!
It is beautiful. And completely devoid of all those gap year kids and backpackers that crowd the nice places on mainland SE Asia.
When I initially bought my plane tickets to this (very large) Indonesian island I had no idea what to expect. What I knew about Indonesia could be summarized in less than ten words - them being - Muslim, tsunami, Bali, Barack Obama, rain forests, coffee, and Palm oil. Air Asia being awesome (although a huge pain in buying the tickets themselves) I was able to score round-trip tickets from Phnom Penh to Medan, Indonesia, for $130. And any plane ticket less than $75 each way is as good incentive as any for a vacation (also there were seven of us going on this trip so - no matter what - it would be a good time).
It was a whirl-wind trip. I still can't believe I was there for two weeks - it felt more like three days. So as to not bore you with the details, here are a few of the places we went and things we did/saw:
Medan: NOT A TOURIST town and could very well be the worst place I've ever traveled to... ever. It has the only airport in Northern Sumatra, so there was no escaping it's banality. It somewhat redeems itself in my eyes by having a Starbucks... but that is pretty much it.
Bukit Lawang: AWESOME. We stayed at the Ecolodge Hotel the first and last night and on the second went into the jungle. We trekked for the entire day - only stopping occasionally to eat and drink some water. Sometimes the trekking got a bit frightening as some parts of the hike were so steep I would say we were doing more rope climbing (although in this case the ropes were tree roots) than hiking. We hiked until we got to the campsite, a small place on the river, and refreshed ourselves by going swimming. That night it really POURED on us and, of course, my sleeping spot under the makeshift tarp tent had a hole in it. Eventually I was able to get some sleep and the next day we all did some more trekking along a ridge near our campsite. In the afternoon we packed up our (mostly wet) things and rafted back to town.
Berestagi: The next day we were off to see Berastagi and hike up a volcano! On our way there our helpful, and somewhat clingy, trek guide from Bukit Luwang came with us and so we wnded up stopping at a Crocodile Farm when we passed through Medan. It was a very sad place. The crocodiles had no room to move and were literally living stackee\d upon each other. There was a pond in the back of the place where some of the crocodiles were allowed to swim. One of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers paid to feed a crocodile a live duck. Still am on the fence about how I feel about the whole thing. A crocodile has to eat... right??
Finally we got to our hotel, the International, and called it a night. The next day we were up and out early to hike up the volcano and hit up the hot springs. It was a really nice hike and mush less tiring than the trekking. The place smelled like sulfur, but we were all able to get a few good pictures out of the whole deal.
Lake Toba: The bonus about traveling in a group of 7 (or one of them) is that you get to take private transportation everywhere. So, after we gloriously triumphed in Berastagi, we piled in our third rented van and headed to Lake Toba, the largest crater lake in the world. We were actually going to stay on an island, Samosir Island, on the lake ( an island on an island...).
This was our most relaxing leg of our trip and nearly me favorite. We biked around the island a lot, swam, and played tons of Scrabble. We also discovered a place called Tabo that has beautiful bungalows, a bakery, and I really good buffet breakfast. We didn't stay there (we stayed at Carolina) but we did partake of their delicious baked goods and home roasted (and grown!) coffee.
On the 14th I was back in Cambodia and dreaming of Sumatra. If another chance comes up, I will definitely go back :)
If you want to read more about our Sumatra trip my friends were a bit more thorough... AND posted pictures... on their blogs.
Jen and Nathan's blog http://cambodiandays.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/sumatra-jungles-volcanoes-and-cannibals/
Cooper's tenthingsithink.com
Jacq's at jacqincambodia.blogspot.com
Kristin's at kristinincambodia.blogspot.com
and Jeremy's at http://dispatchesfromdeltas.com/.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Where am I and what happened to the time?
I have four months left at site. It seems like enough time to do some serious work but when you take out the month of April (traveling to Indonesia and we have the entire month off from school)- and considering there are 5 days of national holidays the next month (King’s birthday (5/13, 5/14, 5/15), Buddha’s birthday (5/17), and the National Plowing ceremony (5/21))- May is pretty much shot too. This leaves me with two months to do everything I had hoped to do before my service ends. These things include finishing up the school’s library, spending time working for an NGO in Svay Rieng town, and putting together a camp GLOW with the other volunteers in my province.
Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is well under way!!! We are hosting it the last weekend of March (Mar 25th – 27th) in the provincial town. It is being made possible through a Small Projects Assistance grant from USAID. My counterpart, Soksara (a nurse from the local health center), and I will be doing two sessions and one activity. Our sessions will be on female body awareness and HIV/Aids. For our activity we will be showing the movie “Palace of Dreams”, a movie produced by the BBC, and made in Cambodia, that confronts HIV through a culturally-appropriate soap opera-like script. I thought it was pretty good and when I showed it to my host sisters they seemed to really like it as well:)
For Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary, 50 Peace Corps Cambodia volunteers were given $50 to do something in their community to commemorate it. In Romeas Hek, we will be having a “Clean Up the Library Party” at the high school. I don’t really know what will go into the party yet – only that there will be food, music, and lots of book organizing. The party is set for May 7th.
In June, I am looking forward to having an “externship” with CCPCR (Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children's Rights). My role there is not so definitive. I’ll be teaching English sometimes, and doing some basic health classes, but mostly just getting to know the girls and spending time helping wherever I can. The caveat is that I will need to move to the provincial town in order to work there and I’ll need to find a place to stay for nearly a month.
Most of my time these last few weeks has been spent working in the library and getting things together for Camp GLOW. The map of the world is pretty much done and, with a few applications of paint, the map of Cambodia will be as well. I have been so busy, actually, that I didn’t even notice that another barang (foreigner) moved into town and opened up a restaurant. My students were the first to tell me and then, as I was biking past it one day, I noticed it had a full bar with liquors unheard of in our rural part of the province (Malibu?! Bombay Gin!?). I figured I needed to check this place out (and the fact that my students had also told me that they have pizza there was an additional incentive). So today, when I met my Camp GLOW counterpart and my co-teacher for a meeting at their restaurant, I saw right on their menu, in ENGLISH, was about ten different types of pizza. I was blown away. Our provincial town doesn’t even have western food– yet Romeas Hek does?? And not only do they have pizza but they have chicken strips and fries, spaghetti, pancakes, and real sandwiches!
What happened to my rural site? The dirt track is now a paved national highway; there is now a factory here that employs hundreds of people; a guesthouse with a pool; and now this, a restaurant that beats any in the provincial town! The site I came two nearly two years ago has morphed into something completely different and I am worried that when or if I visit in the future that it will be a completely different place.
Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is well under way!!! We are hosting it the last weekend of March (Mar 25th – 27th) in the provincial town. It is being made possible through a Small Projects Assistance grant from USAID. My counterpart, Soksara (a nurse from the local health center), and I will be doing two sessions and one activity. Our sessions will be on female body awareness and HIV/Aids. For our activity we will be showing the movie “Palace of Dreams”, a movie produced by the BBC, and made in Cambodia, that confronts HIV through a culturally-appropriate soap opera-like script. I thought it was pretty good and when I showed it to my host sisters they seemed to really like it as well:)
For Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary, 50 Peace Corps Cambodia volunteers were given $50 to do something in their community to commemorate it. In Romeas Hek, we will be having a “Clean Up the Library Party” at the high school. I don’t really know what will go into the party yet – only that there will be food, music, and lots of book organizing. The party is set for May 7th.
In June, I am looking forward to having an “externship” with CCPCR (Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children's Rights). My role there is not so definitive. I’ll be teaching English sometimes, and doing some basic health classes, but mostly just getting to know the girls and spending time helping wherever I can. The caveat is that I will need to move to the provincial town in order to work there and I’ll need to find a place to stay for nearly a month.
Most of my time these last few weeks has been spent working in the library and getting things together for Camp GLOW. The map of the world is pretty much done and, with a few applications of paint, the map of Cambodia will be as well. I have been so busy, actually, that I didn’t even notice that another barang (foreigner) moved into town and opened up a restaurant. My students were the first to tell me and then, as I was biking past it one day, I noticed it had a full bar with liquors unheard of in our rural part of the province (Malibu?! Bombay Gin!?). I figured I needed to check this place out (and the fact that my students had also told me that they have pizza there was an additional incentive). So today, when I met my Camp GLOW counterpart and my co-teacher for a meeting at their restaurant, I saw right on their menu, in ENGLISH, was about ten different types of pizza. I was blown away. Our provincial town doesn’t even have western food– yet Romeas Hek does?? And not only do they have pizza but they have chicken strips and fries, spaghetti, pancakes, and real sandwiches!
What happened to my rural site? The dirt track is now a paved national highway; there is now a factory here that employs hundreds of people; a guesthouse with a pool; and now this, a restaurant that beats any in the provincial town! The site I came two nearly two years ago has morphed into something completely different and I am worried that when or if I visit in the future that it will be a completely different place.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
A Cambodian Birthday
On Thursday, February 24th, I celebrated my 26th birthday. And because my Cambodian host-family put it together, and organized it, it was my most interesting and unique birthday of all.
I woke up that morning and came downstairs to my family and house-mates hustling and bustling around my house. My host sisters and mother were washing the 60 or so dishes for the party, my host aunt was chopping vegetables and spices for the curry, and Chin, one of our student boarders, was slaughtering his third duck. Now, if I had had the choice, I would not have had a birthday party at all. It was my host father who had come up to me about two months before and asked if he could make a party for me. To me, it seemed like a nice gesture, and so I said yes. I did not take into account that my host father has political ambitions nor that I know way too many people to feasibly ask them all to a party. But, somewhere along the way we ended up inviting over 60 people – and SURPRISE – about that many came.
At first it was a bit nerve racking. We had all told our party guests to arrive at 5 pm. But there I was at 5:30pm, in my party dress, staring at 50 + empty seats. Cambodians are notorious for coming late to things and so I didn’t really start worrying until 6pm when no one else had arrived. But, lo and behold, at 6:15pm, two students from my club arrived. I quickly sat them down and thanked them for coming. They, in turn, gave me birthday presents.
Birthday presents. Now, this was not something I had even really considered. And when they handed them to me I had no idea what to do with them; should I open them right then? What is the protocol for this? Where is a Cambodian Miss Manners when you need her?? Luckily, my host mother is very adept to my waves of panic and quickly guided me and the two presents to a card table with a beautiful red tapestry on it. This was going to be my present table for the night, it seemed.
After that, people kept coming. People I knew, people I didn’t know, people whom I had met before but couldn’t remember their names, and lots and lots of little neighborhood kids. And each one of them gave me presents. The card table quickly became filled and also became THE PLACE to get your picture taken with Kellee. I’ll post those pictures, here on my blog, so you can appreciate the present pile and mastery of my Cambodian family and friends to look so sad at such a joyous celebration. My favorite picture is the one of my host siblings and me. I have this giant smile on my face and they all look like they are about to cry. They REALLY were happy at the party, I swear.
There was lots of eating (four whole ducks went into that curry!) and lots of drinking. Sometime around 8:30 I lit the candles to my birthday cake and brought them out to the party. This was probably the most awkward part of the night. See, Cambodians don’t really celebrate birthdays and even when they do they rarely if ever have cakes with candles on them. I brought out the cake and then my host family and friends proceeded to stand in a semi-circle around me and light sparklers. We didn’t sing. And when it came to blowing out the candles my host parents decided to help me. Everyone then continued to stand in a semi-circle, in silence, smiling and waving sparklers until they went out. Then it was time to pass out the cake.
Now, when my host father approached me two months earlier he said he would take care of all the food, drinks, electricity, tables, chairs, etc. as long as I would take care of the cake. I thought, “No problem!” There, of course, was a problem. The problem was two fold. One, because I make $5 a day and cakes are expensive and two, there are no places that sell delicious (edible) cakes in my district. Luckily for me, I have some other foreigner friends in the provincial town who were able to steer me to a French restaurant in Phnom Penh that not only made delicious cakes but cakes that could travel and withstand the Cambodian heat for a week without refrigeration. And so I bought my birthday cakes, four of them, for $5 each. They were delicious, yet small, and when I cut them up for the 60+ people at the party each person had about a Costco-sample-sized piece of my cake. Somehow I was able to cut the things into 60 pieces. Even then, though, some people were not able to get a piece. I blame some of my male students, who by this time had partaken of the free beer and were a bit drunk.
After the cake was dance party time!! My host siblings rotated being the deejay and we had a good mix of traditional Cambodian music and even some newer stuff for the younger crowd. Sometime a little after 10, the crowd started dissipating and I was quickly pushed into the living room to open presents.
When I got into the room all my siblings were sitting around the presents and/or holding one. They were obviously very excited about all the colorful boxes and so I let them “help me” open them. This quickly got out of hand. Paper was flying everywhere – people were mentioned of whom I did not recognize – and soon I was holding a large plastic sailboat lamp/clock, a ceramic doll with pink hair, a stuffed animal of some sort and wearing a khroma on my head all the while having absolutely NO IDEA who or where those things came from*. My favorite presents were the most practical ones (and these I received usually two or more of) such as towels, soap, and toothbrushes. My favorite gift was a tube of Crest toothpaste which is not sold, as far as I can tell, anywhere in Cambodia.
I finally found myself in bed around 11, exhausted and still reeling from all the excitement of the last few hours. With a mixture of pleasure and sadness my Cambodian birthday was over and now, in a little over 4 months, my Cambodian adventure will be over too.
*Note to whomever is living or will live in Cambodia and may be in this situation – have someone more sober/awake than you take note of who has given you what present. This will come in handy when you run into someone at the market and they mention the present to you and you can quickly respond with a thank you instead a curious expression and a somewhat-rude-question of “what are you talking about?”
I woke up that morning and came downstairs to my family and house-mates hustling and bustling around my house. My host sisters and mother were washing the 60 or so dishes for the party, my host aunt was chopping vegetables and spices for the curry, and Chin, one of our student boarders, was slaughtering his third duck. Now, if I had had the choice, I would not have had a birthday party at all. It was my host father who had come up to me about two months before and asked if he could make a party for me. To me, it seemed like a nice gesture, and so I said yes. I did not take into account that my host father has political ambitions nor that I know way too many people to feasibly ask them all to a party. But, somewhere along the way we ended up inviting over 60 people – and SURPRISE – about that many came.
At first it was a bit nerve racking. We had all told our party guests to arrive at 5 pm. But there I was at 5:30pm, in my party dress, staring at 50 + empty seats. Cambodians are notorious for coming late to things and so I didn’t really start worrying until 6pm when no one else had arrived. But, lo and behold, at 6:15pm, two students from my club arrived. I quickly sat them down and thanked them for coming. They, in turn, gave me birthday presents.
Birthday presents. Now, this was not something I had even really considered. And when they handed them to me I had no idea what to do with them; should I open them right then? What is the protocol for this? Where is a Cambodian Miss Manners when you need her?? Luckily, my host mother is very adept to my waves of panic and quickly guided me and the two presents to a card table with a beautiful red tapestry on it. This was going to be my present table for the night, it seemed.
After that, people kept coming. People I knew, people I didn’t know, people whom I had met before but couldn’t remember their names, and lots and lots of little neighborhood kids. And each one of them gave me presents. The card table quickly became filled and also became THE PLACE to get your picture taken with Kellee. I’ll post those pictures, here on my blog, so you can appreciate the present pile and mastery of my Cambodian family and friends to look so sad at such a joyous celebration. My favorite picture is the one of my host siblings and me. I have this giant smile on my face and they all look like they are about to cry. They REALLY were happy at the party, I swear.
There was lots of eating (four whole ducks went into that curry!) and lots of drinking. Sometime around 8:30 I lit the candles to my birthday cake and brought them out to the party. This was probably the most awkward part of the night. See, Cambodians don’t really celebrate birthdays and even when they do they rarely if ever have cakes with candles on them. I brought out the cake and then my host family and friends proceeded to stand in a semi-circle around me and light sparklers. We didn’t sing. And when it came to blowing out the candles my host parents decided to help me. Everyone then continued to stand in a semi-circle, in silence, smiling and waving sparklers until they went out. Then it was time to pass out the cake.
Now, when my host father approached me two months earlier he said he would take care of all the food, drinks, electricity, tables, chairs, etc. as long as I would take care of the cake. I thought, “No problem!” There, of course, was a problem. The problem was two fold. One, because I make $5 a day and cakes are expensive and two, there are no places that sell delicious (edible) cakes in my district. Luckily for me, I have some other foreigner friends in the provincial town who were able to steer me to a French restaurant in Phnom Penh that not only made delicious cakes but cakes that could travel and withstand the Cambodian heat for a week without refrigeration. And so I bought my birthday cakes, four of them, for $5 each. They were delicious, yet small, and when I cut them up for the 60+ people at the party each person had about a Costco-sample-sized piece of my cake. Somehow I was able to cut the things into 60 pieces. Even then, though, some people were not able to get a piece. I blame some of my male students, who by this time had partaken of the free beer and were a bit drunk.
After the cake was dance party time!! My host siblings rotated being the deejay and we had a good mix of traditional Cambodian music and even some newer stuff for the younger crowd. Sometime a little after 10, the crowd started dissipating and I was quickly pushed into the living room to open presents.
When I got into the room all my siblings were sitting around the presents and/or holding one. They were obviously very excited about all the colorful boxes and so I let them “help me” open them. This quickly got out of hand. Paper was flying everywhere – people were mentioned of whom I did not recognize – and soon I was holding a large plastic sailboat lamp/clock, a ceramic doll with pink hair, a stuffed animal of some sort and wearing a khroma on my head all the while having absolutely NO IDEA who or where those things came from*. My favorite presents were the most practical ones (and these I received usually two or more of) such as towels, soap, and toothbrushes. My favorite gift was a tube of Crest toothpaste which is not sold, as far as I can tell, anywhere in Cambodia.
I finally found myself in bed around 11, exhausted and still reeling from all the excitement of the last few hours. With a mixture of pleasure and sadness my Cambodian birthday was over and now, in a little over 4 months, my Cambodian adventure will be over too.
*Note to whomever is living or will live in Cambodia and may be in this situation – have someone more sober/awake than you take note of who has given you what present. This will come in handy when you run into someone at the market and they mention the present to you and you can quickly respond with a thank you instead a curious expression and a somewhat-rude-question of “what are you talking about?”
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