Pictures of the world map that my students created in our library:)
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?”
Monday, February 21, 2011
Maps and Parties
The world map is done!! Well, ALMOST done.
The holdup is trying to find a person to write the names of the countries in Khmer. Although I could write them in English I feel it will not help any of the students or staff members at Romeak Hek High School become more geographically literate. And they really do not know anything about geography.
I spend a lot of time in my school’s library – especially lately - as I’ve been finishing up on the map. When teachers or students come in I nearly always ask them to point to Cambodia on the map. I’ve had people point to a country in Africa, South America, and one person even pointed to China. Results are equally frightening when I ask them where the United States is. Rarely, if ever, does anyone point to the correct country. And when shown which country on the map IS Cambodia they always look very dejected, and often exclaim at how small it is.
This is why I gave permission yesterday for my English Club students draw a four foot map of Cambodia right next to the world map. I admit I was a little selfish of the world map. I had a few of my club’s students help me paint some of the larger countries, but the majority of the work was done by me. The map turned out fairly good (although I still can’t muster the energy to draw all the island countries in the South Pacific) but I am racked with guilt for not letting the students do the map themselves. So now they have their own map project and couldn’t be more excited. And I am happy because I know that Europe’s countries are, for the most part, in the right place.
February is nearly over which means my birthday is just around the corner. Surprisingly my host family asked me about two months ago if they could throw me a birthday party. I thought, sure, why not? So, this Thursday, I’ll have my first and only Cambodian birthday party. I’ve already been promised some duck meat, num ban chalk (Cambodian noodles), rice wine, and music. A few weeks ago my host dad sat down with me at the table and started talking about the party. He told me about all those things that he would get for the party but that he would need me to take care of my cake.
A cake. Easy. Right?
Only not in rural Cambodia.
In Romeas Hek we actually do have a family that supplies weddings, and other celebrations of the well-to-do families of our district, with cakes. I’ve had one of these cakes. And to put it lightly, they taste like chemical throw up. I will admit they ARE pretty but I’m fairly sure there is nothing in them that would make my birthday a sweet one.
Luckily for me there is a French restaurant in Phnom Penh that bakes cakes and packages them so they can not only travel but also SURVIVE without being refrigerated (there’s no frosting on them). So last week, when I had a dentist appointment in Phnom Penh, I picked up four of these cakes. As each cake is supposed to serve 10 people – and we are expecting 40 – I hope it will be enough.
This upcoming weekend I hope to celebrate again with some of my fellow volunteers in the big city as well as watch the Academy Awards. For the first time in my life I have watched every single one of the nominated films for Best Picture. Thank you, Cambodian Black Market, for making this possible.
The holdup is trying to find a person to write the names of the countries in Khmer. Although I could write them in English I feel it will not help any of the students or staff members at Romeak Hek High School become more geographically literate. And they really do not know anything about geography.
I spend a lot of time in my school’s library – especially lately - as I’ve been finishing up on the map. When teachers or students come in I nearly always ask them to point to Cambodia on the map. I’ve had people point to a country in Africa, South America, and one person even pointed to China. Results are equally frightening when I ask them where the United States is. Rarely, if ever, does anyone point to the correct country. And when shown which country on the map IS Cambodia they always look very dejected, and often exclaim at how small it is.
This is why I gave permission yesterday for my English Club students draw a four foot map of Cambodia right next to the world map. I admit I was a little selfish of the world map. I had a few of my club’s students help me paint some of the larger countries, but the majority of the work was done by me. The map turned out fairly good (although I still can’t muster the energy to draw all the island countries in the South Pacific) but I am racked with guilt for not letting the students do the map themselves. So now they have their own map project and couldn’t be more excited. And I am happy because I know that Europe’s countries are, for the most part, in the right place.
February is nearly over which means my birthday is just around the corner. Surprisingly my host family asked me about two months ago if they could throw me a birthday party. I thought, sure, why not? So, this Thursday, I’ll have my first and only Cambodian birthday party. I’ve already been promised some duck meat, num ban chalk (Cambodian noodles), rice wine, and music. A few weeks ago my host dad sat down with me at the table and started talking about the party. He told me about all those things that he would get for the party but that he would need me to take care of my cake.
A cake. Easy. Right?
Only not in rural Cambodia.
In Romeas Hek we actually do have a family that supplies weddings, and other celebrations of the well-to-do families of our district, with cakes. I’ve had one of these cakes. And to put it lightly, they taste like chemical throw up. I will admit they ARE pretty but I’m fairly sure there is nothing in them that would make my birthday a sweet one.
Luckily for me there is a French restaurant in Phnom Penh that bakes cakes and packages them so they can not only travel but also SURVIVE without being refrigerated (there’s no frosting on them). So last week, when I had a dentist appointment in Phnom Penh, I picked up four of these cakes. As each cake is supposed to serve 10 people – and we are expecting 40 – I hope it will be enough.
This upcoming weekend I hope to celebrate again with some of my fellow volunteers in the big city as well as watch the Academy Awards. For the first time in my life I have watched every single one of the nominated films for Best Picture. Thank you, Cambodian Black Market, for making this possible.
Poop Patrol
In Peace Corps you come to terms with many things. And some things you may never come to terms with. For me, the risk of parasites has always been a pervading worry in my mind. Not a trip to the bathroom has gone by without me inspecting my poop in the toilet; a very sad, but true, fact of life.
I eat a large quantity of bean sprouts here – mostly they come in my morning soup although lately my host sister has been making stir fry with them. These sprouts are sometimes over 2 inches long and in their transparent and whitish color, it makes them hard distinguish whether or not they are parasites. Standing over the squat toilet, staring and scrutinizing over your poo can really make you crazy. It was a particular day last week- with some very questionable looking poops- that I became very worried. And no matter how long I stared at them, poked them with a stick, or swirled them around in the bowl, I couldn’t come to a concrete conclusion.
I thought about my options. I could put it in a Ziploc bag and take it with me to Phnom Penh the following week. Gross. I could touch it and compare its consistency with that of a bean sprout. NO WAY. So time wore on. And time in a mosquito filled bathroom feels like eternity. As each minute passed, I was increasingly becoming more anxious about the whole thing. Finally I made the decision to bring my host mother into the bathroom for her opinion. My host mother is a nurse, so I didn’t think it would be too weird to ask her to look at my poop, and as my host mother I’m fairly certain she is used to my eccentricities by now.
Now this is not a normal thing in Cambodian culture – and I have no idea what she thought when I invited her to go to the bathroom with me. When we arrived and I showed her the contents of the bowl, she looked at me with this look of disgust… and curiosity(?)… right before she grabbed the water bucket and flushed my excrement evidence down the toilet. I was a bit shaken up after all this – I mean – wasn’t she taking this seriously? I could be hosting a parasite party in my body RIGHT NOW! After we left the bathroom and went out to the table under the house (where the rest of my host family was sitting) she asked me what I had eaten in Phnom Penh. I said Chinese food. And then she looked into my eyes and asked me if I had eaten any American food.
I must admit, after my Phnom Penh trips I usually come back to site with some major stomach problems. It always worries my host family but then I usually just blame it on the fact that my stomach “no longer recognizes American food”. They laugh and then look relieved that they had not, in some way, inflicted dysentery on me.
This time I got a bit upset that she didn’t believe me. That and because she thought I had somehow ingested a three inch long parasite without my knowledge. I mean, it takes awhile for those things to get that long, right?
Since then, I have kept up with the poop patrol. I haven’t found any other evidence of parasites at play – which makes me happy – and a bit concerned that maybe I’m not looking closely enough. I’ve read enough frightening things on the internet (they can get into your brain! And lungs!) that I will keep up my duty with diligence. Now that I’ve been here over a year and had enough false calls (what do you mean my teeth are perfect? I swear I have a cavity right here!!) that only time will tell.
I eat a large quantity of bean sprouts here – mostly they come in my morning soup although lately my host sister has been making stir fry with them. These sprouts are sometimes over 2 inches long and in their transparent and whitish color, it makes them hard distinguish whether or not they are parasites. Standing over the squat toilet, staring and scrutinizing over your poo can really make you crazy. It was a particular day last week- with some very questionable looking poops- that I became very worried. And no matter how long I stared at them, poked them with a stick, or swirled them around in the bowl, I couldn’t come to a concrete conclusion.
I thought about my options. I could put it in a Ziploc bag and take it with me to Phnom Penh the following week. Gross. I could touch it and compare its consistency with that of a bean sprout. NO WAY. So time wore on. And time in a mosquito filled bathroom feels like eternity. As each minute passed, I was increasingly becoming more anxious about the whole thing. Finally I made the decision to bring my host mother into the bathroom for her opinion. My host mother is a nurse, so I didn’t think it would be too weird to ask her to look at my poop, and as my host mother I’m fairly certain she is used to my eccentricities by now.
Now this is not a normal thing in Cambodian culture – and I have no idea what she thought when I invited her to go to the bathroom with me. When we arrived and I showed her the contents of the bowl, she looked at me with this look of disgust… and curiosity(?)… right before she grabbed the water bucket and flushed my excrement evidence down the toilet. I was a bit shaken up after all this – I mean – wasn’t she taking this seriously? I could be hosting a parasite party in my body RIGHT NOW! After we left the bathroom and went out to the table under the house (where the rest of my host family was sitting) she asked me what I had eaten in Phnom Penh. I said Chinese food. And then she looked into my eyes and asked me if I had eaten any American food.
I must admit, after my Phnom Penh trips I usually come back to site with some major stomach problems. It always worries my host family but then I usually just blame it on the fact that my stomach “no longer recognizes American food”. They laugh and then look relieved that they had not, in some way, inflicted dysentery on me.
This time I got a bit upset that she didn’t believe me. That and because she thought I had somehow ingested a three inch long parasite without my knowledge. I mean, it takes awhile for those things to get that long, right?
Since then, I have kept up with the poop patrol. I haven’t found any other evidence of parasites at play – which makes me happy – and a bit concerned that maybe I’m not looking closely enough. I’ve read enough frightening things on the internet (they can get into your brain! And lungs!) that I will keep up my duty with diligence. Now that I’ve been here over a year and had enough false calls (what do you mean my teeth are perfect? I swear I have a cavity right here!!) that only time will tell.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Five months left? Future plans??
After rereading my blog post “Initial Reactions”, I have a few things to say…
First and foremost, it feels like I wrote that post only yesterday... not over a year ago. Secondly, most of those things I wrote about - namely my anxiety to move into a host family and my understanding of the culture – were in the most part correct. Those few months of training were the hardest I’ve had to go through – and I would never want to go through that again. Ever.
Having been thrown the question of “so what exactly ARE you doing over there?” more than once, I suppose now is the time to carefully write out what I have been doing all the way out here in SE Asia besides the obvious - surviving. Specifically, it is time to finally write down what I will do and DO IT. With only five months left I hope putting this "To-Do" list on such a public forum will give me some more incentive to see things through. So ...I expect all of you to hold me accountable for the things mentioned below.
I have laid it out in an easy to read format (bullets) so that you may peruse at your discretion.
- English/Leadership Club: Although I have been absent recently due to GRE testing and preparation as well as two New Year celebrations (Western and Chinese), I am throwing myself into it this next week – starting with essay writing. The students in the club requested that I teach it to them – starting with paragraphs- and so I plan on doing that for as many weeks as it takes. The leadership aspect of the club has been a harder subject to breach. My hope is to secretly teach them ethics, speaking, and things like that through the guise of essay writing.
- Library: Finishing the world map (finally) and getting the library into some kind of organized system. I’ve also been made aware of some grant money I can apply for that would help in getting some much needed, albeit expensive, items like a white board and reference books.
- Girls Leading Our World (GLOW) Health camp? Still a big question mark as we wait to see if we qualify for grant money… cross your fingers :)
- Studying for the GREs. I recently took them in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and could be much happier with the score I received. I hope to take them again sometime in the spring before they change the test again (for the umpteenth time). (Side note, when I told my co-teachers of my disappointment they asked if I offered some corruption to the test givers. When I said no, they just shook their heads and laughed. I still don’t know if they were telling a joke or being sincere. I assume the latter).
- Teaching. I have been doing a lot less of this recently though as my co-teachers seem to be on perpetual hiatus. For example, Chinese New year was celebrated this week and when I showed up to teach I was surprised to find most of the teachers and students gone. Some other teachers told me it was because of the New Years celebrations. Everyone seems to be Chinese on Chinese New Year. Here’s hoping to better attendance these last few months.
- Cleaning my room and washing my clothes. It takes enough time, and is such a pain, that it warrants at least an entire day of my week. Sad but true.
- Planning for the future? With the post-Cambodia future within sight, I find myself spending more of my hours at site thinking about those months following the end of my service. If any of you know of someone who would like to hire me from September/October 2011 until the summer 2012 – I am all ears. I have lots of skills such as… mosquito swatting, washing clothes by hand, and cussing in Cambodian. Resume available by request.
Also, one of my good friends - who is also a fellow volunteer but with Volunteer Service Abroad aka VSA (New Zealand's verson of the Peace Corps) has been volunteering at the Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children's Rights (CCPCR) for over a year now. CCPCR is an amazing and much needed shelter for women and children who have been, or are in danger of being, trafficked. Not only does it provide shelter to these women and girls but helps fund their education and professional training. Unfortunately their funding will dry up this month and so she and some people back in New Zealand and the United States (Thanks Mom!) are trying to raise a bit of money to see them through a few more months. To get more information about the center you can go to http://www.ccpcr.org.kh/program/?program=9&pro_id=16 and to donate please visit www.givealittle.co.nz/org/ccpcr. If you wish to donate please note that the currency is in New Zealand dollars and not USD.
First and foremost, it feels like I wrote that post only yesterday... not over a year ago. Secondly, most of those things I wrote about - namely my anxiety to move into a host family and my understanding of the culture – were in the most part correct. Those few months of training were the hardest I’ve had to go through – and I would never want to go through that again. Ever.
Having been thrown the question of “so what exactly ARE you doing over there?” more than once, I suppose now is the time to carefully write out what I have been doing all the way out here in SE Asia besides the obvious - surviving. Specifically, it is time to finally write down what I will do and DO IT. With only five months left I hope putting this "To-Do" list on such a public forum will give me some more incentive to see things through. So ...I expect all of you to hold me accountable for the things mentioned below.
I have laid it out in an easy to read format (bullets) so that you may peruse at your discretion.
- English/Leadership Club: Although I have been absent recently due to GRE testing and preparation as well as two New Year celebrations (Western and Chinese), I am throwing myself into it this next week – starting with essay writing. The students in the club requested that I teach it to them – starting with paragraphs- and so I plan on doing that for as many weeks as it takes. The leadership aspect of the club has been a harder subject to breach. My hope is to secretly teach them ethics, speaking, and things like that through the guise of essay writing.
- Library: Finishing the world map (finally) and getting the library into some kind of organized system. I’ve also been made aware of some grant money I can apply for that would help in getting some much needed, albeit expensive, items like a white board and reference books.
- Girls Leading Our World (GLOW) Health camp? Still a big question mark as we wait to see if we qualify for grant money… cross your fingers :)
- Studying for the GREs. I recently took them in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and could be much happier with the score I received. I hope to take them again sometime in the spring before they change the test again (for the umpteenth time). (Side note, when I told my co-teachers of my disappointment they asked if I offered some corruption to the test givers. When I said no, they just shook their heads and laughed. I still don’t know if they were telling a joke or being sincere. I assume the latter).
- Teaching. I have been doing a lot less of this recently though as my co-teachers seem to be on perpetual hiatus. For example, Chinese New year was celebrated this week and when I showed up to teach I was surprised to find most of the teachers and students gone. Some other teachers told me it was because of the New Years celebrations. Everyone seems to be Chinese on Chinese New Year. Here’s hoping to better attendance these last few months.
- Cleaning my room and washing my clothes. It takes enough time, and is such a pain, that it warrants at least an entire day of my week. Sad but true.
- Planning for the future? With the post-Cambodia future within sight, I find myself spending more of my hours at site thinking about those months following the end of my service. If any of you know of someone who would like to hire me from September/October 2011 until the summer 2012 – I am all ears. I have lots of skills such as… mosquito swatting, washing clothes by hand, and cussing in Cambodian. Resume available by request.
Also, one of my good friends - who is also a fellow volunteer but with Volunteer Service Abroad aka VSA (New Zealand's verson of the Peace Corps) has been volunteering at the Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children's Rights (CCPCR) for over a year now. CCPCR is an amazing and much needed shelter for women and children who have been, or are in danger of being, trafficked. Not only does it provide shelter to these women and girls but helps fund their education and professional training. Unfortunately their funding will dry up this month and so she and some people back in New Zealand and the United States (Thanks Mom!) are trying to raise a bit of money to see them through a few more months. To get more information about the center you can go to http://www.ccpcr.org.kh/program/?program=9&pro_id=16 and to donate please visit www.givealittle.co.nz/org/ccpcr. If you wish to donate please note that the currency is in New Zealand dollars and not USD.
Friday, January 7, 2011
The Yellow-Ribbon-Ramen Road to Rat-land
The name of this blog entry was inspired by my little friend Roal who loves to munch on dry Ramen noodles and always leaves a little golden noodle trail behind him as he wanders. And he usually wanders to wherever I am (usually sitting downstairs reading or studying upstairs in my room) and where he thinks it’s the funniest thing to just smack me on the head while I’m distracted. And for a two year old he packs a pretty powerful punch.
I survived New Years and arrived back at site only to be thrown into more partying and feasting. My site celebrated Victory Over The Genocide Day two days before the official holiday of January 7th (as that was the day my district was officially “liberated” from the Khmer Rouge). My host family was hosting not only one party BUT two that day; one in the afternoon for visiting people of influence (i.e. traveling business owners, managers, government officials) and another in the evening for the young Vietnamese and Cambodian football (soccer) players who had participated in the tournament that day. The party in the evening would simultaneously be a birthday party for my host sister who had turned 13 a few days earlier.
Arriving around 1pm on the day of the festivities, I came in at just at about the “right time” – when everyone was either quite buzzed or very drunk off beer and rice wine. Getting out of the taxi van and seeing the dozen or so tables set up and filled with drunken Cambodian men I tried to make a quick beeline to my bedroom. Unfortunately I was not quick enough and was summoned almost immediately to the table where my host parents and the District Governor were entertaining some very important-looking guests. Luckily they weren’t half as drunk as I had assumed them to be and were very friendly to boot. One of them even spoke nearly fluent English and, as manager to half of all the rubber tree plantations in Eastern and Southern Cambodia, he is probably a good person to know. We even made our friendship “real”.
In Cambodia, to really solidify a friendship, you must hold the other person’s hand over a cup and then pour some kind of alcohol over your embraced hands. The alcohol then trickles into the aforementioned cup and after pouring a decent amount of alcohol, you take the collected liquid and share it equally between yourself and your new friend. Down the hatch with your collected dirt, germs, and sweat and out comes a real friendship!
My new friends invited me to go to Kampong Cham with them that day and EVEN offered me a car to take me back that night (“It’s only two hours away,” they exclaimed) but I opted to stay in Romeas Hek and watch the soccer games between my commune, the neighboring communes, and Vietnam as well as join the party that night with my host family. I was glad I did so, too. That night my host sister, her friends, and I danced up a storm. They all wanted to learn to dance “American style” and so I tried to teach them the most PG way to shake their hips without breaking any cultural norms. Essentially I gave them the elementary school version of high school dancing in America.
The night wasn’t completely innocent, however, as I was persuaded to drink some rice wine and some “medicine wine” from Mondulkiri (one of the most Northeastern provinces in Cambodia) with the adults. The Mondulkiri wine wasn’t half bad and went well with my Cambodian cold-noodle curry dish (called Num ban chalk). I went to bed around 8:30 pm although the party was still “raging”. I’ve now come to terms with how loud the music can be at these get-togethers and can even feign sleep although my room, bed, and I are vibrating with the pulse of the music coming from the three large speakers below my bedroom.
Around 3:30 am I woke up with a start. At first I thought it was a dream, then I thought it was my new anklet that had brushed up against my other leg, because it just couldn’t be what my brain wanted me to think…. that a rat had just walked over my legs. In my half-asleep state I just rolled over and assumed I was imagining things. That naiveté lasted only a second. As soon as that thought crossed my mind I heard it trying to escape my mosquito net. I sat up in a panic. The sudden movement must have panicked the rat as well because it jumped back on my legs to the other side of the bed. Scrambling over the pile of books, laptop, and other things that clutter my bed, I ripped the mosquito net open and I jumped to the floor.
At about this point I was shaking and nearly hyperventilating. I proceeded to just stand there, outside mosquito-netted bed, trying to calm down and listen for noises that indicated it was still trapped. Many things raced through my mind at this time. Mostly I just kept asking myself how that thing could have gotten into my bed… I mean, these nets are supposed to make our beds safe zones, HAVENS, from giant-flesh-eating-Cambodian Rats. I am not joking about the giant part and the flesh eating part was something I just heard about (after putting up a facebook status about my experience, a Cambodian friend reasoned that I was “lucky” because while he was sleeping a rat had started chewing on his ear – no joke.) If you want to see how big these things can get just google “Cambodian Rats”.
After waiting about 20 minutes, I deemed it safe to get back on my bed. My site doesn’t have electricity between midnight and 5am and so I had to really rely on my other senses – namely hearing- because the flashlight I have is dinky (to say the least). I didn’t sleep the rest of the night and left my flashlight on the entire time. If it was going to attack again – I’d at least be able to see it!
Initially I wasn’t going to write about this experience because it has been so distressing to my psyche (and I really wanted to forget it happened) – but now I find it all very cathartic – as well as helpful. After posting about the incident on facebook I got all kinds of helpful suggestions that varied from setting conventional traps, to sticky paper baited with fish heads, getting a pet snake, and arming myself with a fork under the pillow.
Now, after thoroughly cleaning my room and mulling the whole thing over for a day, I have come to terms with the fact that rats may just crawl on me again. However, if they have the cojones to do it again, I plan on being prepared. I don’t know if I am quite ready to get a snake, but am willing to set some traps and arm myself with a fork under the pillow. I may just even want to work on my ninja reflexes so I can just pick it up by the tail and throw it out the window in one quick move.
Or maybe, just maybe, I should sweep up the trail of ramen noodles that lead to the landing in front of my room.
I survived New Years and arrived back at site only to be thrown into more partying and feasting. My site celebrated Victory Over The Genocide Day two days before the official holiday of January 7th (as that was the day my district was officially “liberated” from the Khmer Rouge). My host family was hosting not only one party BUT two that day; one in the afternoon for visiting people of influence (i.e. traveling business owners, managers, government officials) and another in the evening for the young Vietnamese and Cambodian football (soccer) players who had participated in the tournament that day. The party in the evening would simultaneously be a birthday party for my host sister who had turned 13 a few days earlier.
Arriving around 1pm on the day of the festivities, I came in at just at about the “right time” – when everyone was either quite buzzed or very drunk off beer and rice wine. Getting out of the taxi van and seeing the dozen or so tables set up and filled with drunken Cambodian men I tried to make a quick beeline to my bedroom. Unfortunately I was not quick enough and was summoned almost immediately to the table where my host parents and the District Governor were entertaining some very important-looking guests. Luckily they weren’t half as drunk as I had assumed them to be and were very friendly to boot. One of them even spoke nearly fluent English and, as manager to half of all the rubber tree plantations in Eastern and Southern Cambodia, he is probably a good person to know. We even made our friendship “real”.
In Cambodia, to really solidify a friendship, you must hold the other person’s hand over a cup and then pour some kind of alcohol over your embraced hands. The alcohol then trickles into the aforementioned cup and after pouring a decent amount of alcohol, you take the collected liquid and share it equally between yourself and your new friend. Down the hatch with your collected dirt, germs, and sweat and out comes a real friendship!
My new friends invited me to go to Kampong Cham with them that day and EVEN offered me a car to take me back that night (“It’s only two hours away,” they exclaimed) but I opted to stay in Romeas Hek and watch the soccer games between my commune, the neighboring communes, and Vietnam as well as join the party that night with my host family. I was glad I did so, too. That night my host sister, her friends, and I danced up a storm. They all wanted to learn to dance “American style” and so I tried to teach them the most PG way to shake their hips without breaking any cultural norms. Essentially I gave them the elementary school version of high school dancing in America.
The night wasn’t completely innocent, however, as I was persuaded to drink some rice wine and some “medicine wine” from Mondulkiri (one of the most Northeastern provinces in Cambodia) with the adults. The Mondulkiri wine wasn’t half bad and went well with my Cambodian cold-noodle curry dish (called Num ban chalk). I went to bed around 8:30 pm although the party was still “raging”. I’ve now come to terms with how loud the music can be at these get-togethers and can even feign sleep although my room, bed, and I are vibrating with the pulse of the music coming from the three large speakers below my bedroom.
Around 3:30 am I woke up with a start. At first I thought it was a dream, then I thought it was my new anklet that had brushed up against my other leg, because it just couldn’t be what my brain wanted me to think…. that a rat had just walked over my legs. In my half-asleep state I just rolled over and assumed I was imagining things. That naiveté lasted only a second. As soon as that thought crossed my mind I heard it trying to escape my mosquito net. I sat up in a panic. The sudden movement must have panicked the rat as well because it jumped back on my legs to the other side of the bed. Scrambling over the pile of books, laptop, and other things that clutter my bed, I ripped the mosquito net open and I jumped to the floor.
At about this point I was shaking and nearly hyperventilating. I proceeded to just stand there, outside mosquito-netted bed, trying to calm down and listen for noises that indicated it was still trapped. Many things raced through my mind at this time. Mostly I just kept asking myself how that thing could have gotten into my bed… I mean, these nets are supposed to make our beds safe zones, HAVENS, from giant-flesh-eating-Cambodian Rats. I am not joking about the giant part and the flesh eating part was something I just heard about (after putting up a facebook status about my experience, a Cambodian friend reasoned that I was “lucky” because while he was sleeping a rat had started chewing on his ear – no joke.) If you want to see how big these things can get just google “Cambodian Rats”.
After waiting about 20 minutes, I deemed it safe to get back on my bed. My site doesn’t have electricity between midnight and 5am and so I had to really rely on my other senses – namely hearing- because the flashlight I have is dinky (to say the least). I didn’t sleep the rest of the night and left my flashlight on the entire time. If it was going to attack again – I’d at least be able to see it!
Initially I wasn’t going to write about this experience because it has been so distressing to my psyche (and I really wanted to forget it happened) – but now I find it all very cathartic – as well as helpful. After posting about the incident on facebook I got all kinds of helpful suggestions that varied from setting conventional traps, to sticky paper baited with fish heads, getting a pet snake, and arming myself with a fork under the pillow.
Now, after thoroughly cleaning my room and mulling the whole thing over for a day, I have come to terms with the fact that rats may just crawl on me again. However, if they have the cojones to do it again, I plan on being prepared. I don’t know if I am quite ready to get a snake, but am willing to set some traps and arm myself with a fork under the pillow. I may just even want to work on my ninja reflexes so I can just pick it up by the tail and throw it out the window in one quick move.
Or maybe, just maybe, I should sweep up the trail of ramen noodles that lead to the landing in front of my room.
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