I arrived at site on September 27th, fairly confident that I would get along fine the first few weeks. I was right in some respects; there were no incidents which deterred me from liking the place or for people here to consider me an “ugly American” (or if there were they were quiet about it). Mostly it was just awkward. Three weeks later it is still awkward only now my family and most people in my village recognize that I cannot speak fluent Khmer. Patiently they have taken time to teach me some Khmer words that I failed to learn in the first two months (surprisingly I did not know the Khmer words for “to clean” or “schedule”.. I wonder if this was some kind of Freudian slip?).
My first step to become a resident of Rumeus Hek was to buy a mattress. I have a very small bed frame at my host family’s house and was looking for something equally as small. There were none to find. I had to go ahead and buy one that was equal in length but twice the width for a whopping $30 (for a volunteer who makes less than $4 a day…it is a lot). Every night I have to be careful not to move around to much as to fall off and take all the bedding with me – a big pain in the butt considering my mosquito net takes up almost the entirety of my room and gets caught in my hair when I try to move around the out skirts of it. My family has been helpful with getting me settled in. For the first week I had no money and had to rely on their generosity. I was especially thankful to them when I heard from a volunteer in another province that her family had withheld food from her because as she had not been able to pay them yet. Equally frustrating for her was that her town had been affected by a hurricane and did not have any electricity, so even if she could withdraw money from the bank she would not be able to (we all had to wait until the 1st of the month for money to arrive in our accounts).
It has been surprisingly easy to make friends here. For the first few days my host sister and I went to a seller near the market to eat some Cambodian sandwiches for breakfast. The seller is a very friendly woman who unfortunately likes to give her three year old large doses of coffee to the detriment of her customers. Mostly this child just cries bloody murder until it gets the coffee and then after the coffee is consumed screams for more. This is depending on the time of day; often if I go in the evening (and many doses of coffee later) the child is screaming that it doesn’t feel well. I have yet to find out whether or not it is acceptable to tell this woman that giving coffee to a three year old is not a good idea. It was only last week that we swapped phone numbers and on Sunday she called me to see if I had done my laundry. I think we are getting closer to that level in our relationship… but maybe I’ll wait a month or two…or maybe I’ll never tell her. She makes the best Cambodian sandwiches in town and to jeopardize that relationship early on in my service would be fatal to my Peace Corps career. What is a Cambodian Sandwich? I assume it is like the Vietnamese sandwich on the crusty roll but as I’ve never had it I can only guess that it is similar. It is a toasted baguette with pork, what I call “rooster sauce” or spicy ketchup, cucumber, and other delicious sauces and spices. It is 25 cents a sandwich (or 1000 riel). Usually I accompany this with a shot of coffee with a bit of sweetened condensed milk which costs me 700 riel/20 cents. All together a great breakfast for less than 50 cents : )
Not surprisingly I acquired other friends while looking for food. Peace Corps has encouraged us to go out and meet people and really get to know the community during our first few months here. I always seem to need a destination or reason for going anywhere and thus interpreted it as “go and buy food and other things and make some conversation along the way”.
As I was passing the entrance of my market I made eye contact with a woman selling fruit. She recognized that I was wandering and invited me to sit down. I ended up sitting there for two hours. She kept giving me delicious fruit for free (Mangos, bananas, Lychee fruit, and oranges) and, because nearly everyone going to the market passes by that particular spot, after about 10 minutes of me sitting down we had a pretty decent crowd around the fruit stand. She has three children that live at home; a daughter (24), a son (22), and a 3 year old. I have become quite good friends with the 24 and 22 year old and we have gone on a few bike rides together. They have made it their mission to teach me Khmer and said that within 5 months I will know Khmer fluently– I hope they’re right. Before I left the stand that day the family, unsatisfied by the 2 kilos of fruit I ate, came out with some kind of packing material that looked somewhat like wax paper. The 24 year old woman, Nary, put it in her mouth and offered me a sheet of packing material as well. I thought it looked interesting and – carefully (it had sharp edges and treads) - put it in my mouth. At first I was certain that it was some kind of joke; “Look at the foreigner, she doesn’t know anything – she can’t even recognize that she is chewing on a large piece of plastic!” Luckily they sincerely eat the stuff and had given me some waxy paper material made out of rice.
My weekly schedule consists of working at the public high school with a coteacher, the health center, and having lots of free time. I work at the school 16 hours a week and at the health center 4 hours a week. There are practically no women teachers in my school and as I feel uncomfortable here around large groups of men (maybe this will change once I become proficient in the language?) I usually navigate towards the students. This not only helps my relations with them but helps me gage their language ability. On my first day there a group of 11th graders approached me and wanted to practice their English. They had the usual questions how many brothers and sisters do you have? What do your parents do? How old are you? How much do you weigh?
Nearly every person I have met has asked me how much I weigh. My family owns a pig scale and brought it out the other night to see if “maybe I would like to weigh myself in front of everyone?” I said “no thank you” and that “I do not want to know how much I weigh”. This last statement delivered some very quizzical looks but the fact is I can almost guarantee I am the heaviest woman in Rumeus Hek. This has recently been confirmed by working at the local health center. About once a week I go and observe the nurses in action (once my language gets good enough I will be hope to do more – just last year a volunteer became a midwife!). My time there is mostly spent watching the pregnant women come in, get a brief check-up…and get weighed. The average weight has been about 45 kilos or 100 lbs. I try to boost myself up with thinking that if anything they are jealous of my weight because after saying “you’re fat” they usually follow it up with “you’re beautiful”. But, me being an American woman, I am VERY self-conscious about my weight and would rather not weigh myself in front of everyone or tell all the people in my village how many kilos I am. Maybe that will change over time…
…especially if I try to keep up with my running schedule. We are currently in the midst of the rainy season and as there are no paved roads in my village, running is a very messy ordeal. I have limited my running to mornings following dry nights. It has been over a week since I have been able to go on a run : (
My experience thus far has led me to conclude that the people in my village are very generous and thoughtful. Here are a few examples….
Example 1) The other day I rode my bicycle to the market (as always) and forgot it in the hot afternoon sun. When I came back to where I left my bike it had been moved, thoughtfully, under the awning of the market and in the shade. I was so thankful, the seat of my bicycle is black and when left in the sun it becomes unbearably hot. I looked around to see who the Good Samaritan was, but they could not be found.
Example 2) I was invited to my student’s house to drink a Coke and talk with them in English. As we were conversing, they asked me how many teaching skirts (sampots) and shirts I had. I said two but that I was planning on buying one more. My student’s mother overheard that and asked me to follow her into her house. She had me try on a few of her sampots and shirts. At her insistence she tailored her own skirt to fit me right then. That day she gave me, a perfect stranger, a shirt and a sampot.
When I am not co-teaching, at the health center, or wandering the streets of Rumeus Hek, you can find me reading. And reading A LOT, like hours at a time. I have already devoured three books (Pillars of the Earth by Follett, Me Talk Pretty One Day by Sedaris, and Undaunted Courage by Ambrose) and am unfortunately left with two books to last me two and a half more months. That is when I am officially off what we Peace Corps Cambodia Volunteers like to call “Lock Down”; the mandatory three months we must stay at site without going into another province or Phnom Penh. Unfortunately for us in Svay Reng, Phnom Penh is the only city nearby (without crossing a border) where we can find decent English books or American food (Burgers!!Pizza!!!Cheese!!!!). This is not the case for those lucky enough to be placed in Kampot, Battambang or Siem Reap (think Angkor Wat) Provinces. I have tried to take my reading in small doses but cannot stop. I feel there may be dark days ahead.
The time spent here thus far has been fairly great. Of course I miss home and, especially, speaking English. I can already tell that I am becoming bit more Khmer and a little less American to my detriment or not. Evidence is everywhere. Such as the other day when I decided to use the toothpaste that the mouse chewed up and when I ate an entire frog head and everything. In the Unites States I would have thrown the toothpaste away thinking that I could get the Hanta-virus from it.And I would have never eaten a frog… ever. My coworkers at my school joke that they will get me too eat dog one day. I hope that day will never come. No matter how successful of a volunteer I am - the experience will be worth it.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
A funny thing happened on the way to becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer…
The journey has no doubt been long. To us, the two months of training have gone by exceedingly fast while at the same time being incredibly slow; especially those first two weeks with our host families. Without being able to speak the language the days felt like years (at least now we have a bit of a foundation for moving to permanent site).Tonight was our, K3’s, last night together until our mid service training in February. No tears were shed but by looking at everyone’s face you could tell that we all will be missing each other when depart for our permanent sites tomorrow. It’s daunting to know that we will be without a “support system” within our towns and cities, at least until we build those relationships ourselves. For some of us it will be the first time away, on our own, trying to navigate that kind of relationship building in another country. Although we were and are all fully aware that we would be living with a Khmer family, surrounded by Khmer people, and not having another volunteer or American close to us… now that it is upon us we are all a bit apprehensive. Over and over we kept talking about how it was for Peace Corps volunteers nearly 50 years ago when the first volunteers went to Africa. They did not have cell phones or the internet. And getting to their sites sometimes took days. It all made our “grievances” look very trivial in comparison.
This last week has been one of the longest during my training. Last weekend was Pchum Ben, a holiday only celebrated in Cambodia (that I know of). It is hard to explain but I guess you could say it is similar to that of Day of the Dead in Mexico because it is dedicated to the departed and lifeless. The holiday itself is 15 days long. The very last weekend of the holiday the families travel to their ancestral home and meet with other family members. And on the last Saturday they go to the Wat (Buddhist Temple)and pray with the monks in front of the stupa, where their dead family members’ ashes are entombed. They give gifts for their ancestors and to the monks. And throughout the day they eat A LOT of food. It was not until Pchum Ben that I had my first bout of diarrhea. I blame it on the sheer quantity and variety of food they made me eat. It really bummed me out because I was trying to win the prize for the only volunteer to never get it in Cambodia. I failed, miserably.
The rest of the week was filled with getting our stuff ready to travel to permanent site, taking our language proficiency interviews, saying goodbye to our training families, and getting sworn in as volunteers. All of us passed our language proficiency interviews (go K3s!). I think I have a bit of test anxiety because just the idea of taking the test made me nervous, and so during nearly the whole thing I was a bit of a wreck. Luckily the only question that I feel I really “messed up” on was when the tester asked me to compare Khmer culture and American culture. Only hours before had I even heard the word “culture” in Khmer and knew no other substantial words in Khmer to make an intelligent answer. What I came up with was this: “Cambodia has Pchum Ben. For Pchum Ben they go to the Wat and sit in front of their dead family and eat a lot of food.” I didn’t even mention anything about American culture. Luckily I passed with an Intermediate Low which is what the majority of the other trainees received.
On Friday, September 25th we were sworn in by the American Ambassador to Cambodia, Carol Rodley, in Phnom Penh. It was a fun day. Our school directors came from each of sites for support and to have a brief conference before the swear-in. After the ceremony we were able to mingle with some RPCVs (returned Peace Corps volunteers) that live in Phnom Penh. Many of them have prestigious jobs with organizations such as USAID and Helen Keller International. It is safe to say that many of us are looking forward to the possible opportunity to work with an organization such as those in the future. Also in attendance was the Cambodia’s Minister of Education, Im Sethy. Thirty years ago he was one of a handful of teachers who came to Phnom Penh to build Cambodia’s Education system from the ground up. The following are links to articles about our swearing in ceremony:
http://khmernz.blogspot.com/2009/09/us-peace-corps-volunteers-sworn-in.html
(more websites to come.. .hopefully)
What was the funny thing that happened to my on the way to becoming a volunteer? It was how much I enjoyed it. When I first arrived here I was set on to prepare myself to serve Cambodia as much as possible. In the process of doing so I not only learned a great deal of technical information but also how to have fun here. The kind of things that will help me be mentally stable while being away from so many people I love back home. Silly Khmer card games? Check. Good places to get ice cream in Phnom Penh? Double check. How to order the best coffee and sweetened milk combination? You bet :)
Tomorrow I leave for Rumeus Hek. Who knows how frequently I will have internet but I will try to post as often as possible :) Thank you for reading!
This last week has been one of the longest during my training. Last weekend was Pchum Ben, a holiday only celebrated in Cambodia (that I know of). It is hard to explain but I guess you could say it is similar to that of Day of the Dead in Mexico because it is dedicated to the departed and lifeless. The holiday itself is 15 days long. The very last weekend of the holiday the families travel to their ancestral home and meet with other family members. And on the last Saturday they go to the Wat (Buddhist Temple)and pray with the monks in front of the stupa, where their dead family members’ ashes are entombed. They give gifts for their ancestors and to the monks. And throughout the day they eat A LOT of food. It was not until Pchum Ben that I had my first bout of diarrhea. I blame it on the sheer quantity and variety of food they made me eat. It really bummed me out because I was trying to win the prize for the only volunteer to never get it in Cambodia. I failed, miserably.
The rest of the week was filled with getting our stuff ready to travel to permanent site, taking our language proficiency interviews, saying goodbye to our training families, and getting sworn in as volunteers. All of us passed our language proficiency interviews (go K3s!). I think I have a bit of test anxiety because just the idea of taking the test made me nervous, and so during nearly the whole thing I was a bit of a wreck. Luckily the only question that I feel I really “messed up” on was when the tester asked me to compare Khmer culture and American culture. Only hours before had I even heard the word “culture” in Khmer and knew no other substantial words in Khmer to make an intelligent answer. What I came up with was this: “Cambodia has Pchum Ben. For Pchum Ben they go to the Wat and sit in front of their dead family and eat a lot of food.” I didn’t even mention anything about American culture. Luckily I passed with an Intermediate Low which is what the majority of the other trainees received.
On Friday, September 25th we were sworn in by the American Ambassador to Cambodia, Carol Rodley, in Phnom Penh. It was a fun day. Our school directors came from each of sites for support and to have a brief conference before the swear-in. After the ceremony we were able to mingle with some RPCVs (returned Peace Corps volunteers) that live in Phnom Penh. Many of them have prestigious jobs with organizations such as USAID and Helen Keller International. It is safe to say that many of us are looking forward to the possible opportunity to work with an organization such as those in the future. Also in attendance was the Cambodia’s Minister of Education, Im Sethy. Thirty years ago he was one of a handful of teachers who came to Phnom Penh to build Cambodia’s Education system from the ground up. The following are links to articles about our swearing in ceremony:
http://khmernz.blogspot.com/2009/09/us-peace-corps-volunteers-sworn-in.html
(more websites to come.. .hopefully)
What was the funny thing that happened to my on the way to becoming a volunteer? It was how much I enjoyed it. When I first arrived here I was set on to prepare myself to serve Cambodia as much as possible. In the process of doing so I not only learned a great deal of technical information but also how to have fun here. The kind of things that will help me be mentally stable while being away from so many people I love back home. Silly Khmer card games? Check. Good places to get ice cream in Phnom Penh? Double check. How to order the best coffee and sweetened milk combination? You bet :)
Tomorrow I leave for Rumeus Hek. Who knows how frequently I will have internet but I will try to post as often as possible :) Thank you for reading!
Monday, September 14, 2009
Magical Mystery Tour or One of the Most Inspirational Weeks of My Life
It all began on a Wednesday morning. I and nine other Peace Corps volunteers set out to learn more about the health system in Cambodia, and the needs of its people. As we will be the first set of Peace Corps Volunteers in Cambodia to work in health and it is very exciting (and necessary) to see what we will be able to (and must) do in our communities.
The week was a whirlwind. From 6 am to 6pm we had meetings and language classes somewhere in between. We visited NGOs that teach women and village health volunteers about nutrition and the importance of breast feeding. Near Phnom Penh we visited IRD, a nongovernmental organization who does anything and everything in terms of making a healthy and sustainable Cambodia. We met with representatives from a group called Friends Helping Friends, HIV positive Cambodians supporting other HIV positive men and women in their communities by educating prevention, teaching trades in order to help them make enough money to get the care they need as well as help their families, and support groups to share their experiences. We went with them to the hospital to see the some people who are currently living with AIDS. It was sobering to see the effects on people once the disease has set in. There was a young woman who had lost both her parents when she was very young to the disease only to then get it herself. She was in the hospital for a brain tumor which had only recently been discovered when earlier that week she had randomly lost the ability to talk. Her grandparents were at her side laying packs of ice or her body. She lay very rigidly, staring at the ceiling moving her hands rhythmically over her body, constantly petting her arms or her stomach. Next to her were two people who were nothing more than skin and bones. The representatives from Friends Help Friends said that these people had given up taking their medications and had succumbed to AIDS. They did not move while we visited the ward. We left the hospital in complete silence – many of us crying. Cambodia has one of the highest HIV rates in SE Asia. You can read more about it at http://www.aidsalliance.org/sw7234.asp .
“Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink”
Many many many of the places and people we visited talked about water. It is a big deal here in Cambodia. The funny thing is, the problem isn’t with scarcity – there is a whole bunch of it here (almost too much during the rainy season… at least to walk in ;) ) – it’s just that it is really really dirty. Fecal matter, arsenic, you name it, these are just two of the most common and dangerous things found in water here. The arsenic is naturally occurring and is found in deep wells around the Tonle Sap. There are a few NGOs working in partnerships with American universities, such as IRD(www.irdc.org) , that test for arsenic as well as educate the public about the dangers of arsenic (FYI arsenic is undetectable through the senses, no taste, no smell, no anything). Fecal matter is a whole other issue. Animal poop as well as the human kind is prevalent on the ground and in the drainage ponds, waiting to be consumed, made into fertilizer, or stepped on by a young naïve Peace Corps trainee. Unfortunately the poop also finds its way into the drinking water, causing severe diarrhea to those who consume those evil microorganisms. Most adult Cambodians seem to be immune to them as I have seen them not only swimming in, but also drinking out of, these shallow ponds. The children are not immune and diarrhea (i.e. dehydration) is one of the main reasons why young children are even admitted to the hospitals here. Because of this and other health related problems caused by water, most of the presentations we saw were on how to keep water clean and healthy.
This week I finally had one of those moments of, “OMG I’m in Cambodia” and I was really happy about it. This week was inspirational not because of what I learned but who I met. If you ever want to meet someone who truly wants to make a change in the world, come to Cambodia and talk to any one of the staff at their NGOs, health clinics, or hospitals. I would write more about the specific NGOs and people I met this week but I think I will save that for the book :)
I am excited to get to site and really get to know my community. It will only get harder from here though… so maybe ask me about it in a few weeks.
A week and a half until swear in and then I move out to my permanent site:)
The week was a whirlwind. From 6 am to 6pm we had meetings and language classes somewhere in between. We visited NGOs that teach women and village health volunteers about nutrition and the importance of breast feeding. Near Phnom Penh we visited IRD, a nongovernmental organization who does anything and everything in terms of making a healthy and sustainable Cambodia. We met with representatives from a group called Friends Helping Friends, HIV positive Cambodians supporting other HIV positive men and women in their communities by educating prevention, teaching trades in order to help them make enough money to get the care they need as well as help their families, and support groups to share their experiences. We went with them to the hospital to see the some people who are currently living with AIDS. It was sobering to see the effects on people once the disease has set in. There was a young woman who had lost both her parents when she was very young to the disease only to then get it herself. She was in the hospital for a brain tumor which had only recently been discovered when earlier that week she had randomly lost the ability to talk. Her grandparents were at her side laying packs of ice or her body. She lay very rigidly, staring at the ceiling moving her hands rhythmically over her body, constantly petting her arms or her stomach. Next to her were two people who were nothing more than skin and bones. The representatives from Friends Help Friends said that these people had given up taking their medications and had succumbed to AIDS. They did not move while we visited the ward. We left the hospital in complete silence – many of us crying. Cambodia has one of the highest HIV rates in SE Asia. You can read more about it at http://www.aidsalliance.org/sw7234.asp .
“Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink”
Many many many of the places and people we visited talked about water. It is a big deal here in Cambodia. The funny thing is, the problem isn’t with scarcity – there is a whole bunch of it here (almost too much during the rainy season… at least to walk in ;) ) – it’s just that it is really really dirty. Fecal matter, arsenic, you name it, these are just two of the most common and dangerous things found in water here. The arsenic is naturally occurring and is found in deep wells around the Tonle Sap. There are a few NGOs working in partnerships with American universities, such as IRD(www.irdc.org) , that test for arsenic as well as educate the public about the dangers of arsenic (FYI arsenic is undetectable through the senses, no taste, no smell, no anything). Fecal matter is a whole other issue. Animal poop as well as the human kind is prevalent on the ground and in the drainage ponds, waiting to be consumed, made into fertilizer, or stepped on by a young naïve Peace Corps trainee. Unfortunately the poop also finds its way into the drinking water, causing severe diarrhea to those who consume those evil microorganisms. Most adult Cambodians seem to be immune to them as I have seen them not only swimming in, but also drinking out of, these shallow ponds. The children are not immune and diarrhea (i.e. dehydration) is one of the main reasons why young children are even admitted to the hospitals here. Because of this and other health related problems caused by water, most of the presentations we saw were on how to keep water clean and healthy.
This week I finally had one of those moments of, “OMG I’m in Cambodia” and I was really happy about it. This week was inspirational not because of what I learned but who I met. If you ever want to meet someone who truly wants to make a change in the world, come to Cambodia and talk to any one of the staff at their NGOs, health clinics, or hospitals. I would write more about the specific NGOs and people I met this week but I think I will save that for the book :)
I am excited to get to site and really get to know my community. It will only get harder from here though… so maybe ask me about it in a few weeks.
A week and a half until swear in and then I move out to my permanent site:)
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Rumeus Hek (Roomy High),,
Is a very rural town 13 km from Vietnam and about 40 km from the provincial town. On Tuesday I was told that is where I will be living for the next two years and on Friday I went for a two night visit. The family is wonderful and, believe it or not, they have electricity. It is only for about 4 hours a day but it is enough for me to charge my phone and computer if need be. My father works in the District Office in town and my mother works part time at the referral hospital. That is another benefit of Rumeus Hek.. it has the referral hospital. For a 25 mile radius it is the only hospital to speak of. With two/three doctors it can be very busy. I was able to meet with some of the staff on Sunday to discuss what kind of role I can play at the hospital and community, both as an educator and volunteer. This part makes me a bit nervous as I am not an expert in health education or teaching English as a foreign language. Due to it being a very poor country and Rumeus Hek being a very poor district, the doctor made it clear that human resources are invaluable to them; especially someone with a college degree and a little experience. I cannot wait to be of some help :)
The family has four children, three girls and a boy. The eldest daughter is at University in Phnom Penh and the other three live at home. Their house is large by Khmer standards and has two large community rooms – one downstairs near the kitchen and another upstairs with a television. My room is adjacent to that room and has two windows that look out over their fruit trees (Mango and Coconut, mostly). I am still unsure of how many “bedrooms” they have.. .this seems to be a bit of a challenge as Khmer people often sleep in the same room they cook/host guests/watch tv etc (also having only known them for two days I felt it a bit awkward to just walk around their house).
One more month until swear-in after which I will move to my permanent site and I am getting increasingly anxious. I will not have internet access in my town and the nearest internet café is a 40 km bike ride away. If you would like to get a hold of me you may write to me (although my mail will be in the provincial town i.e. 40 bumpy km by bicycle) or you may call me. Send me an email for the digits
Will I know enough Khmer to survive? Will I be able to handle the 40 km bike ride to my Provincial town? Will a day go by in which a mosquito does not bite me? Only time will tell...
The family has four children, three girls and a boy. The eldest daughter is at University in Phnom Penh and the other three live at home. Their house is large by Khmer standards and has two large community rooms – one downstairs near the kitchen and another upstairs with a television. My room is adjacent to that room and has two windows that look out over their fruit trees (Mango and Coconut, mostly). I am still unsure of how many “bedrooms” they have.. .this seems to be a bit of a challenge as Khmer people often sleep in the same room they cook/host guests/watch tv etc (also having only known them for two days I felt it a bit awkward to just walk around their house).
One more month until swear-in after which I will move to my permanent site and I am getting increasingly anxious. I will not have internet access in my town and the nearest internet café is a 40 km bike ride away. If you would like to get a hold of me you may write to me (although my mail will be in the provincial town i.e. 40 bumpy km by bicycle) or you may call me. Send me an email for the digits
Will I know enough Khmer to survive? Will I be able to handle the 40 km bike ride to my Provincial town? Will a day go by in which a mosquito does not bite me? Only time will tell...
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!
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.
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.
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.
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