My service is over and I am officially an RPCV. Well, not quite because to be an RPCV you must be a 'Returned Peace Corps Volunteer' and I don't plan on returning to the States for another month. Instead I'm zipping around Cambodia - as a sort of goodbye tour -with some of my very best friends from home. They arrive on Friday and I couldn't be more excited.
This last week was hard. Although not as hard as I imagined it to be. I had goodbye soup with my co-teachers one night, followed by goodbye soup with my students the next, and then goodbye soup the last night with my counterpart Soksara from the health center. The hardest goodbye was to her because she has helped me so much this past year with projects like Camp GLOW and CCPCR, as well as being a good friend and always being there when I needed help. It's people like her that make being a Peace Corps Volunteer a hundred times easier, and tolerable when dealing with so much adversity and intolerance that can come when being the only foreigner in a town of thousands.
My goodbyes are far from over though. Staggering throughout these next two weeks, as I travel around the country, I will eventually say goodbye to most of all my fellow K3s. It's nice to know that the majority of us will go back to the same country and I'm optimistic that I will see people again. I think that is the only way I can make these goodbyes tolerable.
I don't have much else to write. Saying goodbye is exhausting. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
To the United States of America
To the United States of America,
This is your warning.
I am no longer the model citizen I once was.
Cambodia has changed me... maybe for the better and maybe for the worse. I want to warn you about a few things, however, that may surprise/disgust/frighten you. I've put them in an easy to peruse format for your reading pleasure. Here we go....
1) I spit food on the ground
2) I make strange noises like "ooooey" when I am surprised
3) I think an outfit can consist of a printed scarf with a striped shirt, sweatpant shorts, and chacos.
4) Do you need a tissue to blow your nose? Because I don't!
5) A palm leaf is a perfectly good substitute for floss
6) Anything can be a food. Why do we need to be so picky? I vote for termites to be adopted into the typical American's diet.
7) I bow to older people
8) I haggle over a 50 cent difference in price.
9) Soup or fried pork with rice are perfectly legitimate options for breakfast
10) Need to toast before every drink... literally
To be continued...
This is your warning.
I am no longer the model citizen I once was.
Cambodia has changed me... maybe for the better and maybe for the worse. I want to warn you about a few things, however, that may surprise/disgust/frighten you. I've put them in an easy to peruse format for your reading pleasure. Here we go....
1) I spit food on the ground
2) I make strange noises like "ooooey" when I am surprised
3) I think an outfit can consist of a printed scarf with a striped shirt, sweatpant shorts, and chacos.
4) Do you need a tissue to blow your nose? Because I don't!
5) A palm leaf is a perfectly good substitute for floss
6) Anything can be a food. Why do we need to be so picky? I vote for termites to be adopted into the typical American's diet.
7) I bow to older people
8) I haggle over a 50 cent difference in price.
9) Soup or fried pork with rice are perfectly legitimate options for breakfast
10) Need to toast before every drink... literally
To be continued...
The Great Experiment Nears the End
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
In one week it's over. My experiment/career as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cambodia is over.
It's been great, it's been horrible, it's went by quickly, and it also took forever. Right now I'm just trying to take one day at a time before I really take stock of the fact that there are people I will never see again, places that will never be the same.
Last Tuesday I finished my externship with CCPCR. It was great to meet those girls and young women and spend so much time with them. I'm a bit disappointed with how much time was forfeited to dengue. I lost two out of the four weeks I was given to work there and it cost me pretty much all that I had planned to do. The only thing I accomplished was a short workshop on health that I set up with a nurse from the health center in Romeas Hek.
Now I'm in Phnom Penh, trying to wrap up all my paperwork that I have - Description of Service, Site Report, Externship form, and about five other forms and papers - before I head back to site to say goodbye to everyone. I'm not really looking forward to it. I hate goodbyes. And everyone who has finished here , or are finishing up, said it has been the hardest thing they've done. EVER.
I hope I survive it...
Ralph Waldo Emerson
In one week it's over. My experiment/career as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cambodia is over.
It's been great, it's been horrible, it's went by quickly, and it also took forever. Right now I'm just trying to take one day at a time before I really take stock of the fact that there are people I will never see again, places that will never be the same.
Last Tuesday I finished my externship with CCPCR. It was great to meet those girls and young women and spend so much time with them. I'm a bit disappointed with how much time was forfeited to dengue. I lost two out of the four weeks I was given to work there and it cost me pretty much all that I had planned to do. The only thing I accomplished was a short workshop on health that I set up with a nurse from the health center in Romeas Hek.
Now I'm in Phnom Penh, trying to wrap up all my paperwork that I have - Description of Service, Site Report, Externship form, and about five other forms and papers - before I head back to site to say goodbye to everyone. I'm not really looking forward to it. I hate goodbyes. And everyone who has finished here , or are finishing up, said it has been the hardest thing they've done. EVER.
I hope I survive it...
Monday, June 13, 2011
Celebrating One Month Left - Dengue Style
The 12th of this month marked a month left of my Peace Corps journey!! What did I do to celebrate? I was curled up in the fetal position in a budget guesthouse in Phnom Penh and watching ridiculous movies like "She's Out of My League" and "2012".
On Monday I came down with a fever, chills, mind numbing headache, and sore eyes. At first I thought it wasn't that big of a deal because the fever was less than 102. Also I've been spending alot of time with young kids who are walking petri dishes of diseases and thought it was just a little something picked up from them. By Wednesday, though, I had developed a body rash and my appetite was nil so I made the call to our Peace Corps Medical Officer. Immediately I was whisked away to Phnom Penh to undergo the blood tests to determine if what I had was just a typical virus or it was the Big D - dengue.
What is dengue? It is a virus transmitted by infected mosquitoes and symptoms include "a fever, severe headache, severe pain behind the eyes, joint pain, muscle and bone pain, rash, and mild bleeding (e.g., nose or gums bleed, easy bruising)" (CDC). it is known asd "bone-break fever" because of the intesnse muscle and bone pain associated with the disease.
Luckily, my symptoms were not that bad (with the exception of an incredible headache). Every day for six days, I had to go into the Peace Corps Office to get blood drawn and have it tested to see what my white blood cell and blood platelet counts were. My white blood cells were low nearly everyday while the platelets were in the normal range. If the platelets get low then there is a chance of developing hemorrhagic dengue.
Over a week of having symptoms and hiding out in a hotel room in Phnom Penh, I finally got a clean bill of health today! I am looking forward to getting back to Svay Rieng and getting work done. I'll just need to be a bit more careful about mosquitoes once I get back. Now that I've had dengue once I am more susceptible to getting hemorrhagic dengue (the same as ordinary dengue except you bleed from orifices like your eyeballs etc.... think '28 Days Later').
On Monday I came down with a fever, chills, mind numbing headache, and sore eyes. At first I thought it wasn't that big of a deal because the fever was less than 102. Also I've been spending alot of time with young kids who are walking petri dishes of diseases and thought it was just a little something picked up from them. By Wednesday, though, I had developed a body rash and my appetite was nil so I made the call to our Peace Corps Medical Officer. Immediately I was whisked away to Phnom Penh to undergo the blood tests to determine if what I had was just a typical virus or it was the Big D - dengue.
What is dengue? It is a virus transmitted by infected mosquitoes and symptoms include "a fever, severe headache, severe pain behind the eyes, joint pain, muscle and bone pain, rash, and mild bleeding (e.g., nose or gums bleed, easy bruising)" (CDC). it is known asd "bone-break fever" because of the intesnse muscle and bone pain associated with the disease.
Luckily, my symptoms were not that bad (with the exception of an incredible headache). Every day for six days, I had to go into the Peace Corps Office to get blood drawn and have it tested to see what my white blood cell and blood platelet counts were. My white blood cells were low nearly everyday while the platelets were in the normal range. If the platelets get low then there is a chance of developing hemorrhagic dengue.
Over a week of having symptoms and hiding out in a hotel room in Phnom Penh, I finally got a clean bill of health today! I am looking forward to getting back to Svay Rieng and getting work done. I'll just need to be a bit more careful about mosquitoes once I get back. Now that I've had dengue once I am more susceptible to getting hemorrhagic dengue (the same as ordinary dengue except you bleed from orifices like your eyeballs etc.... think '28 Days Later').
Thursday, May 19, 2011
A Case of the Dimples
Upon returning from up north for an engagement party, etc, I came home to my host sisters telling me a story about the sub-school director’s daughter. When I first came to site I had the opportunity to meet her before she left for Phnom Penh to study at a university there. I hadn’t seen her in over a year and so it was interesting that my sisters would want to talk about someone who, for the most part, was no longer around. What I remember of her was that she was a very pretty, smart, and confident young woman of 18. The story went like this: she went to a ‘beautician’ who said she could make her skin white. This young woman, like most women in Cambodia, let the ‘beautician’ put harsh chemicals all over her body. Apparently she felt the burning almost immediately. She is now in the hospital because her skin is literally falling off of her.
I recently read a NYT story about the increase of cosmetic surgery in China. And recently, Time magazine also wrote about the wave of popularity plastic surgery is seeing throughout Asia and highlights how the government of Thailand is even taking it upon themselves to “hawk” these medical procedures as tours. Not that this isn’t popular in America, just that in the US and Europe we have the benefit of certain controls that make these procedures a bit more safe than they would be otherwise.
“Elsewhere in Asia, this explosion of personal re-engineering is harder to document, because for every skilled and legitimate surgeon there seethes a swarm of shady pretenders”. - TIME Magazine: Changing Faces
It frightens me when I hear stories like that of my sub-school director’s daughter, or others, who choose to get a procedure done here because they feel “they need it” or in a foreigner’s case, because it is less expensive than at home.
In my ignorance, I really thought plastic surgery was something that people only with disposable incomes would even consider. One of my good friends at site, Nary, returned last month from Vietnam with a facemask on. I at first thought it was strange as she doesn’t usually wear one and so I asked her if she was sick. “No,” she replied,” I got dimples.”
Although Nary and her family are business owners they are not rich. So when she proceeded to tell me that she spent $1000 ($500 a dimple… a fortune here), I got a little angry. I got even angrier when she said that I should go get some for myself. For this I replied that I “liked my face already” to which her mother replied “Ooooh she thinks she is already beautiful.”
AAAH!
So I’ve now taken some time away from Nary and her family. It is not that I do not enjoy spending time with them it’s just that when I see what she has done to herself, and think about how much she spent, I get upset. As for the sub-school director’s daughter, she is still healing at the hospital. Her family says she may be able to leave in a week or so.
TIME Magazine: Changing Faces www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020805/story4.
Chinese Turn to Plastic Surgery in Growing Numbers
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/world/asia/24beijing.html
I recently read a NYT story about the increase of cosmetic surgery in China. And recently, Time magazine also wrote about the wave of popularity plastic surgery is seeing throughout Asia and highlights how the government of Thailand is even taking it upon themselves to “hawk” these medical procedures as tours. Not that this isn’t popular in America, just that in the US and Europe we have the benefit of certain controls that make these procedures a bit more safe than they would be otherwise.
“Elsewhere in Asia, this explosion of personal re-engineering is harder to document, because for every skilled and legitimate surgeon there seethes a swarm of shady pretenders”. - TIME Magazine: Changing Faces
It frightens me when I hear stories like that of my sub-school director’s daughter, or others, who choose to get a procedure done here because they feel “they need it” or in a foreigner’s case, because it is less expensive than at home.
In my ignorance, I really thought plastic surgery was something that people only with disposable incomes would even consider. One of my good friends at site, Nary, returned last month from Vietnam with a facemask on. I at first thought it was strange as she doesn’t usually wear one and so I asked her if she was sick. “No,” she replied,” I got dimples.”
Although Nary and her family are business owners they are not rich. So when she proceeded to tell me that she spent $1000 ($500 a dimple… a fortune here), I got a little angry. I got even angrier when she said that I should go get some for myself. For this I replied that I “liked my face already” to which her mother replied “Ooooh she thinks she is already beautiful.”
AAAH!
So I’ve now taken some time away from Nary and her family. It is not that I do not enjoy spending time with them it’s just that when I see what she has done to herself, and think about how much she spent, I get upset. As for the sub-school director’s daughter, she is still healing at the hospital. Her family says she may be able to leave in a week or so.
TIME Magazine: Changing Faces www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020805/story4.
Chinese Turn to Plastic Surgery in Growing Numbers
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/world/asia/24beijing.html
Monday, April 25, 2011
Back and forth and back and forth.
…is how the next few months will play out it seems. And my feelings about the whole thing
Currently I am writing from my site. I have been here for about a week since returning from Sumatra and now I’m planning on leaving again. Going – literally – across the country to attend a Peace Corps volunteer’s wedding to a Cambodian man. I really can’t wait:) It will be a bit difficult in the end considering that when I return next week and I will then need to help my GLOW girls host a workshop on leadership on the 5th and then -nearly immediately after-hold my 50th Anniversary “Clean-Up-The-Library” project on the 7th. Whew.
I will then attend our Close of Service conference from the 17th until the 20th. After that I will only need to teach until I start my externship at CCPCR (The Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children’s Rights) on May 30th. I will live and work there, in the provincial town for about a month. In July I will come back to site and say my goodbyes and then it will be off to Phnom Penh to meet my friends and finish all my paperwork. My Close of Service (COS) date is July 12th.
When I think about how much (or how little) time I have left I start to get very anxious and so I’m trying to take it all in stride…. And not really think about it. When I do I’m happy because I’ll be going home! But then I’m sad because I will be leaving Cambodia. But then I’m happy because I’ll have a washing machine and Starbucks. But then I’m sad because I don’t know if I’ll be able to find a job and the winter in PNW is very depressing in itself without being unemployed.
Anyways…....About Sumatraa!!!!!!
It is beautiful. And completely devoid of all those gap year kids and backpackers that crowd the nice places on mainland SE Asia.
When I initially bought my plane tickets to this (very large) Indonesian island I had no idea what to expect. What I knew about Indonesia could be summarized in less than ten words - them being - Muslim, tsunami, Bali, Barack Obama, rain forests, coffee, and Palm oil. Air Asia being awesome (although a huge pain in buying the tickets themselves) I was able to score round-trip tickets from Phnom Penh to Medan, Indonesia, for $130. And any plane ticket less than $75 each way is as good incentive as any for a vacation (also there were seven of us going on this trip so - no matter what - it would be a good time).
It was a whirl-wind trip. I still can't believe I was there for two weeks - it felt more like three days. So as to not bore you with the details, here are a few of the places we went and things we did/saw:
Medan: NOT A TOURIST town and could very well be the worst place I've ever traveled to... ever. It has the only airport in Northern Sumatra, so there was no escaping it's banality. It somewhat redeems itself in my eyes by having a Starbucks... but that is pretty much it.
Bukit Lawang: AWESOME. We stayed at the Ecolodge Hotel the first and last night and on the second went into the jungle. We trekked for the entire day - only stopping occasionally to eat and drink some water. Sometimes the trekking got a bit frightening as some parts of the hike were so steep I would say we were doing more rope climbing (although in this case the ropes were tree roots) than hiking. We hiked until we got to the campsite, a small place on the river, and refreshed ourselves by going swimming. That night it really POURED on us and, of course, my sleeping spot under the makeshift tarp tent had a hole in it. Eventually I was able to get some sleep and the next day we all did some more trekking along a ridge near our campsite. In the afternoon we packed up our (mostly wet) things and rafted back to town.
Berestagi: The next day we were off to see Berastagi and hike up a volcano! On our way there our helpful, and somewhat clingy, trek guide from Bukit Luwang came with us and so we wnded up stopping at a Crocodile Farm when we passed through Medan. It was a very sad place. The crocodiles had no room to move and were literally living stackee\d upon each other. There was a pond in the back of the place where some of the crocodiles were allowed to swim. One of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers paid to feed a crocodile a live duck. Still am on the fence about how I feel about the whole thing. A crocodile has to eat... right??
Finally we got to our hotel, the International, and called it a night. The next day we were up and out early to hike up the volcano and hit up the hot springs. It was a really nice hike and mush less tiring than the trekking. The place smelled like sulfur, but we were all able to get a few good pictures out of the whole deal.
Lake Toba: The bonus about traveling in a group of 7 (or one of them) is that you get to take private transportation everywhere. So, after we gloriously triumphed in Berastagi, we piled in our third rented van and headed to Lake Toba, the largest crater lake in the world. We were actually going to stay on an island, Samosir Island, on the lake ( an island on an island...).
This was our most relaxing leg of our trip and nearly me favorite. We biked around the island a lot, swam, and played tons of Scrabble. We also discovered a place called Tabo that has beautiful bungalows, a bakery, and I really good buffet breakfast. We didn't stay there (we stayed at Carolina) but we did partake of their delicious baked goods and home roasted (and grown!) coffee.
On the 14th I was back in Cambodia and dreaming of Sumatra. If another chance comes up, I will definitely go back :)
If you want to read more about our Sumatra trip my friends were a bit more thorough... AND posted pictures... on their blogs.
Jen and Nathan's blog http://cambodiandays.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/sumatra-jungles-volcanoes-and-cannibals/
Cooper's tenthingsithink.com
Jacq's at jacqincambodia.blogspot.com
Kristin's at kristinincambodia.blogspot.com
and Jeremy's at http://dispatchesfromdeltas.com/.
Currently I am writing from my site. I have been here for about a week since returning from Sumatra and now I’m planning on leaving again. Going – literally – across the country to attend a Peace Corps volunteer’s wedding to a Cambodian man. I really can’t wait:) It will be a bit difficult in the end considering that when I return next week and I will then need to help my GLOW girls host a workshop on leadership on the 5th and then -nearly immediately after-hold my 50th Anniversary “Clean-Up-The-Library” project on the 7th. Whew.
I will then attend our Close of Service conference from the 17th until the 20th. After that I will only need to teach until I start my externship at CCPCR (The Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children’s Rights) on May 30th. I will live and work there, in the provincial town for about a month. In July I will come back to site and say my goodbyes and then it will be off to Phnom Penh to meet my friends and finish all my paperwork. My Close of Service (COS) date is July 12th.
When I think about how much (or how little) time I have left I start to get very anxious and so I’m trying to take it all in stride…. And not really think about it. When I do I’m happy because I’ll be going home! But then I’m sad because I will be leaving Cambodia. But then I’m happy because I’ll have a washing machine and Starbucks. But then I’m sad because I don’t know if I’ll be able to find a job and the winter in PNW is very depressing in itself without being unemployed.
Anyways…....About Sumatraa!!!!!!
It is beautiful. And completely devoid of all those gap year kids and backpackers that crowd the nice places on mainland SE Asia.
When I initially bought my plane tickets to this (very large) Indonesian island I had no idea what to expect. What I knew about Indonesia could be summarized in less than ten words - them being - Muslim, tsunami, Bali, Barack Obama, rain forests, coffee, and Palm oil. Air Asia being awesome (although a huge pain in buying the tickets themselves) I was able to score round-trip tickets from Phnom Penh to Medan, Indonesia, for $130. And any plane ticket less than $75 each way is as good incentive as any for a vacation (also there were seven of us going on this trip so - no matter what - it would be a good time).
It was a whirl-wind trip. I still can't believe I was there for two weeks - it felt more like three days. So as to not bore you with the details, here are a few of the places we went and things we did/saw:
Medan: NOT A TOURIST town and could very well be the worst place I've ever traveled to... ever. It has the only airport in Northern Sumatra, so there was no escaping it's banality. It somewhat redeems itself in my eyes by having a Starbucks... but that is pretty much it.
Bukit Lawang: AWESOME. We stayed at the Ecolodge Hotel the first and last night and on the second went into the jungle. We trekked for the entire day - only stopping occasionally to eat and drink some water. Sometimes the trekking got a bit frightening as some parts of the hike were so steep I would say we were doing more rope climbing (although in this case the ropes were tree roots) than hiking. We hiked until we got to the campsite, a small place on the river, and refreshed ourselves by going swimming. That night it really POURED on us and, of course, my sleeping spot under the makeshift tarp tent had a hole in it. Eventually I was able to get some sleep and the next day we all did some more trekking along a ridge near our campsite. In the afternoon we packed up our (mostly wet) things and rafted back to town.
Berestagi: The next day we were off to see Berastagi and hike up a volcano! On our way there our helpful, and somewhat clingy, trek guide from Bukit Luwang came with us and so we wnded up stopping at a Crocodile Farm when we passed through Medan. It was a very sad place. The crocodiles had no room to move and were literally living stackee\d upon each other. There was a pond in the back of the place where some of the crocodiles were allowed to swim. One of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers paid to feed a crocodile a live duck. Still am on the fence about how I feel about the whole thing. A crocodile has to eat... right??
Finally we got to our hotel, the International, and called it a night. The next day we were up and out early to hike up the volcano and hit up the hot springs. It was a really nice hike and mush less tiring than the trekking. The place smelled like sulfur, but we were all able to get a few good pictures out of the whole deal.
Lake Toba: The bonus about traveling in a group of 7 (or one of them) is that you get to take private transportation everywhere. So, after we gloriously triumphed in Berastagi, we piled in our third rented van and headed to Lake Toba, the largest crater lake in the world. We were actually going to stay on an island, Samosir Island, on the lake ( an island on an island...).
This was our most relaxing leg of our trip and nearly me favorite. We biked around the island a lot, swam, and played tons of Scrabble. We also discovered a place called Tabo that has beautiful bungalows, a bakery, and I really good buffet breakfast. We didn't stay there (we stayed at Carolina) but we did partake of their delicious baked goods and home roasted (and grown!) coffee.
On the 14th I was back in Cambodia and dreaming of Sumatra. If another chance comes up, I will definitely go back :)
If you want to read more about our Sumatra trip my friends were a bit more thorough... AND posted pictures... on their blogs.
Jen and Nathan's blog http://cambodiandays.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/sumatra-jungles-volcanoes-and-cannibals/
Cooper's tenthingsithink.com
Jacq's at jacqincambodia.blogspot.com
Kristin's at kristinincambodia.blogspot.com
and Jeremy's at http://dispatchesfromdeltas.com/.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Where am I and what happened to the time?
I have four months left at site. It seems like enough time to do some serious work but when you take out the month of April (traveling to Indonesia and we have the entire month off from school)- and considering there are 5 days of national holidays the next month (King’s birthday (5/13, 5/14, 5/15), Buddha’s birthday (5/17), and the National Plowing ceremony (5/21))- May is pretty much shot too. This leaves me with two months to do everything I had hoped to do before my service ends. These things include finishing up the school’s library, spending time working for an NGO in Svay Rieng town, and putting together a camp GLOW with the other volunteers in my province.
Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is well under way!!! We are hosting it the last weekend of March (Mar 25th – 27th) in the provincial town. It is being made possible through a Small Projects Assistance grant from USAID. My counterpart, Soksara (a nurse from the local health center), and I will be doing two sessions and one activity. Our sessions will be on female body awareness and HIV/Aids. For our activity we will be showing the movie “Palace of Dreams”, a movie produced by the BBC, and made in Cambodia, that confronts HIV through a culturally-appropriate soap opera-like script. I thought it was pretty good and when I showed it to my host sisters they seemed to really like it as well:)
For Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary, 50 Peace Corps Cambodia volunteers were given $50 to do something in their community to commemorate it. In Romeas Hek, we will be having a “Clean Up the Library Party” at the high school. I don’t really know what will go into the party yet – only that there will be food, music, and lots of book organizing. The party is set for May 7th.
In June, I am looking forward to having an “externship” with CCPCR (Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children's Rights). My role there is not so definitive. I’ll be teaching English sometimes, and doing some basic health classes, but mostly just getting to know the girls and spending time helping wherever I can. The caveat is that I will need to move to the provincial town in order to work there and I’ll need to find a place to stay for nearly a month.
Most of my time these last few weeks has been spent working in the library and getting things together for Camp GLOW. The map of the world is pretty much done and, with a few applications of paint, the map of Cambodia will be as well. I have been so busy, actually, that I didn’t even notice that another barang (foreigner) moved into town and opened up a restaurant. My students were the first to tell me and then, as I was biking past it one day, I noticed it had a full bar with liquors unheard of in our rural part of the province (Malibu?! Bombay Gin!?). I figured I needed to check this place out (and the fact that my students had also told me that they have pizza there was an additional incentive). So today, when I met my Camp GLOW counterpart and my co-teacher for a meeting at their restaurant, I saw right on their menu, in ENGLISH, was about ten different types of pizza. I was blown away. Our provincial town doesn’t even have western food– yet Romeas Hek does?? And not only do they have pizza but they have chicken strips and fries, spaghetti, pancakes, and real sandwiches!
What happened to my rural site? The dirt track is now a paved national highway; there is now a factory here that employs hundreds of people; a guesthouse with a pool; and now this, a restaurant that beats any in the provincial town! The site I came two nearly two years ago has morphed into something completely different and I am worried that when or if I visit in the future that it will be a completely different place.
Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is well under way!!! We are hosting it the last weekend of March (Mar 25th – 27th) in the provincial town. It is being made possible through a Small Projects Assistance grant from USAID. My counterpart, Soksara (a nurse from the local health center), and I will be doing two sessions and one activity. Our sessions will be on female body awareness and HIV/Aids. For our activity we will be showing the movie “Palace of Dreams”, a movie produced by the BBC, and made in Cambodia, that confronts HIV through a culturally-appropriate soap opera-like script. I thought it was pretty good and when I showed it to my host sisters they seemed to really like it as well:)
For Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary, 50 Peace Corps Cambodia volunteers were given $50 to do something in their community to commemorate it. In Romeas Hek, we will be having a “Clean Up the Library Party” at the high school. I don’t really know what will go into the party yet – only that there will be food, music, and lots of book organizing. The party is set for May 7th.
In June, I am looking forward to having an “externship” with CCPCR (Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children's Rights). My role there is not so definitive. I’ll be teaching English sometimes, and doing some basic health classes, but mostly just getting to know the girls and spending time helping wherever I can. The caveat is that I will need to move to the provincial town in order to work there and I’ll need to find a place to stay for nearly a month.
Most of my time these last few weeks has been spent working in the library and getting things together for Camp GLOW. The map of the world is pretty much done and, with a few applications of paint, the map of Cambodia will be as well. I have been so busy, actually, that I didn’t even notice that another barang (foreigner) moved into town and opened up a restaurant. My students were the first to tell me and then, as I was biking past it one day, I noticed it had a full bar with liquors unheard of in our rural part of the province (Malibu?! Bombay Gin!?). I figured I needed to check this place out (and the fact that my students had also told me that they have pizza there was an additional incentive). So today, when I met my Camp GLOW counterpart and my co-teacher for a meeting at their restaurant, I saw right on their menu, in ENGLISH, was about ten different types of pizza. I was blown away. Our provincial town doesn’t even have western food– yet Romeas Hek does?? And not only do they have pizza but they have chicken strips and fries, spaghetti, pancakes, and real sandwiches!
What happened to my rural site? The dirt track is now a paved national highway; there is now a factory here that employs hundreds of people; a guesthouse with a pool; and now this, a restaurant that beats any in the provincial town! The site I came two nearly two years ago has morphed into something completely different and I am worried that when or if I visit in the future that it will be a completely different place.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
A Cambodian Birthday
On Thursday, February 24th, I celebrated my 26th birthday. And because my Cambodian host-family put it together, and organized it, it was my most interesting and unique birthday of all.
I woke up that morning and came downstairs to my family and house-mates hustling and bustling around my house. My host sisters and mother were washing the 60 or so dishes for the party, my host aunt was chopping vegetables and spices for the curry, and Chin, one of our student boarders, was slaughtering his third duck. Now, if I had had the choice, I would not have had a birthday party at all. It was my host father who had come up to me about two months before and asked if he could make a party for me. To me, it seemed like a nice gesture, and so I said yes. I did not take into account that my host father has political ambitions nor that I know way too many people to feasibly ask them all to a party. But, somewhere along the way we ended up inviting over 60 people – and SURPRISE – about that many came.
At first it was a bit nerve racking. We had all told our party guests to arrive at 5 pm. But there I was at 5:30pm, in my party dress, staring at 50 + empty seats. Cambodians are notorious for coming late to things and so I didn’t really start worrying until 6pm when no one else had arrived. But, lo and behold, at 6:15pm, two students from my club arrived. I quickly sat them down and thanked them for coming. They, in turn, gave me birthday presents.
Birthday presents. Now, this was not something I had even really considered. And when they handed them to me I had no idea what to do with them; should I open them right then? What is the protocol for this? Where is a Cambodian Miss Manners when you need her?? Luckily, my host mother is very adept to my waves of panic and quickly guided me and the two presents to a card table with a beautiful red tapestry on it. This was going to be my present table for the night, it seemed.
After that, people kept coming. People I knew, people I didn’t know, people whom I had met before but couldn’t remember their names, and lots and lots of little neighborhood kids. And each one of them gave me presents. The card table quickly became filled and also became THE PLACE to get your picture taken with Kellee. I’ll post those pictures, here on my blog, so you can appreciate the present pile and mastery of my Cambodian family and friends to look so sad at such a joyous celebration. My favorite picture is the one of my host siblings and me. I have this giant smile on my face and they all look like they are about to cry. They REALLY were happy at the party, I swear.
There was lots of eating (four whole ducks went into that curry!) and lots of drinking. Sometime around 8:30 I lit the candles to my birthday cake and brought them out to the party. This was probably the most awkward part of the night. See, Cambodians don’t really celebrate birthdays and even when they do they rarely if ever have cakes with candles on them. I brought out the cake and then my host family and friends proceeded to stand in a semi-circle around me and light sparklers. We didn’t sing. And when it came to blowing out the candles my host parents decided to help me. Everyone then continued to stand in a semi-circle, in silence, smiling and waving sparklers until they went out. Then it was time to pass out the cake.
Now, when my host father approached me two months earlier he said he would take care of all the food, drinks, electricity, tables, chairs, etc. as long as I would take care of the cake. I thought, “No problem!” There, of course, was a problem. The problem was two fold. One, because I make $5 a day and cakes are expensive and two, there are no places that sell delicious (edible) cakes in my district. Luckily for me, I have some other foreigner friends in the provincial town who were able to steer me to a French restaurant in Phnom Penh that not only made delicious cakes but cakes that could travel and withstand the Cambodian heat for a week without refrigeration. And so I bought my birthday cakes, four of them, for $5 each. They were delicious, yet small, and when I cut them up for the 60+ people at the party each person had about a Costco-sample-sized piece of my cake. Somehow I was able to cut the things into 60 pieces. Even then, though, some people were not able to get a piece. I blame some of my male students, who by this time had partaken of the free beer and were a bit drunk.
After the cake was dance party time!! My host siblings rotated being the deejay and we had a good mix of traditional Cambodian music and even some newer stuff for the younger crowd. Sometime a little after 10, the crowd started dissipating and I was quickly pushed into the living room to open presents.
When I got into the room all my siblings were sitting around the presents and/or holding one. They were obviously very excited about all the colorful boxes and so I let them “help me” open them. This quickly got out of hand. Paper was flying everywhere – people were mentioned of whom I did not recognize – and soon I was holding a large plastic sailboat lamp/clock, a ceramic doll with pink hair, a stuffed animal of some sort and wearing a khroma on my head all the while having absolutely NO IDEA who or where those things came from*. My favorite presents were the most practical ones (and these I received usually two or more of) such as towels, soap, and toothbrushes. My favorite gift was a tube of Crest toothpaste which is not sold, as far as I can tell, anywhere in Cambodia.
I finally found myself in bed around 11, exhausted and still reeling from all the excitement of the last few hours. With a mixture of pleasure and sadness my Cambodian birthday was over and now, in a little over 4 months, my Cambodian adventure will be over too.
*Note to whomever is living or will live in Cambodia and may be in this situation – have someone more sober/awake than you take note of who has given you what present. This will come in handy when you run into someone at the market and they mention the present to you and you can quickly respond with a thank you instead a curious expression and a somewhat-rude-question of “what are you talking about?”
I woke up that morning and came downstairs to my family and house-mates hustling and bustling around my house. My host sisters and mother were washing the 60 or so dishes for the party, my host aunt was chopping vegetables and spices for the curry, and Chin, one of our student boarders, was slaughtering his third duck. Now, if I had had the choice, I would not have had a birthday party at all. It was my host father who had come up to me about two months before and asked if he could make a party for me. To me, it seemed like a nice gesture, and so I said yes. I did not take into account that my host father has political ambitions nor that I know way too many people to feasibly ask them all to a party. But, somewhere along the way we ended up inviting over 60 people – and SURPRISE – about that many came.
At first it was a bit nerve racking. We had all told our party guests to arrive at 5 pm. But there I was at 5:30pm, in my party dress, staring at 50 + empty seats. Cambodians are notorious for coming late to things and so I didn’t really start worrying until 6pm when no one else had arrived. But, lo and behold, at 6:15pm, two students from my club arrived. I quickly sat them down and thanked them for coming. They, in turn, gave me birthday presents.
Birthday presents. Now, this was not something I had even really considered. And when they handed them to me I had no idea what to do with them; should I open them right then? What is the protocol for this? Where is a Cambodian Miss Manners when you need her?? Luckily, my host mother is very adept to my waves of panic and quickly guided me and the two presents to a card table with a beautiful red tapestry on it. This was going to be my present table for the night, it seemed.
After that, people kept coming. People I knew, people I didn’t know, people whom I had met before but couldn’t remember their names, and lots and lots of little neighborhood kids. And each one of them gave me presents. The card table quickly became filled and also became THE PLACE to get your picture taken with Kellee. I’ll post those pictures, here on my blog, so you can appreciate the present pile and mastery of my Cambodian family and friends to look so sad at such a joyous celebration. My favorite picture is the one of my host siblings and me. I have this giant smile on my face and they all look like they are about to cry. They REALLY were happy at the party, I swear.
There was lots of eating (four whole ducks went into that curry!) and lots of drinking. Sometime around 8:30 I lit the candles to my birthday cake and brought them out to the party. This was probably the most awkward part of the night. See, Cambodians don’t really celebrate birthdays and even when they do they rarely if ever have cakes with candles on them. I brought out the cake and then my host family and friends proceeded to stand in a semi-circle around me and light sparklers. We didn’t sing. And when it came to blowing out the candles my host parents decided to help me. Everyone then continued to stand in a semi-circle, in silence, smiling and waving sparklers until they went out. Then it was time to pass out the cake.
Now, when my host father approached me two months earlier he said he would take care of all the food, drinks, electricity, tables, chairs, etc. as long as I would take care of the cake. I thought, “No problem!” There, of course, was a problem. The problem was two fold. One, because I make $5 a day and cakes are expensive and two, there are no places that sell delicious (edible) cakes in my district. Luckily for me, I have some other foreigner friends in the provincial town who were able to steer me to a French restaurant in Phnom Penh that not only made delicious cakes but cakes that could travel and withstand the Cambodian heat for a week without refrigeration. And so I bought my birthday cakes, four of them, for $5 each. They were delicious, yet small, and when I cut them up for the 60+ people at the party each person had about a Costco-sample-sized piece of my cake. Somehow I was able to cut the things into 60 pieces. Even then, though, some people were not able to get a piece. I blame some of my male students, who by this time had partaken of the free beer and were a bit drunk.
After the cake was dance party time!! My host siblings rotated being the deejay and we had a good mix of traditional Cambodian music and even some newer stuff for the younger crowd. Sometime a little after 10, the crowd started dissipating and I was quickly pushed into the living room to open presents.
When I got into the room all my siblings were sitting around the presents and/or holding one. They were obviously very excited about all the colorful boxes and so I let them “help me” open them. This quickly got out of hand. Paper was flying everywhere – people were mentioned of whom I did not recognize – and soon I was holding a large plastic sailboat lamp/clock, a ceramic doll with pink hair, a stuffed animal of some sort and wearing a khroma on my head all the while having absolutely NO IDEA who or where those things came from*. My favorite presents were the most practical ones (and these I received usually two or more of) such as towels, soap, and toothbrushes. My favorite gift was a tube of Crest toothpaste which is not sold, as far as I can tell, anywhere in Cambodia.
I finally found myself in bed around 11, exhausted and still reeling from all the excitement of the last few hours. With a mixture of pleasure and sadness my Cambodian birthday was over and now, in a little over 4 months, my Cambodian adventure will be over too.
*Note to whomever is living or will live in Cambodia and may be in this situation – have someone more sober/awake than you take note of who has given you what present. This will come in handy when you run into someone at the market and they mention the present to you and you can quickly respond with a thank you instead a curious expression and a somewhat-rude-question of “what are you talking about?”
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.
Monday, January 3, 2011
The Beginning of the End, or the Beginning of New Beginnings
As I stare at where my toenail once was (a sacrifice I made to the Running Gods for running the half-marathon) and fully take in the fact that 2010 is really over - my mind wanders to the near future when I will no longer be in Cambodia.
It is impossible to avoid going there.
2011 is the year I go home and the year I start the rest of my "adult" life. Although this year will be the year of change, I doubt it will compare to 2010 - the year Kellee lived, breathed, and nearly became Khmer.
The following are a list of memories/accomplishments for the year 2010:
1) Ate dog, spider, snake, and duck fetus for the first time.
2) Celebrated New Years three times (once in January, again in February, and in April)
3) Was bit by a dog (retribution for #1? I think so...)
4) Saw Angkor Wat not once but three times
5) Visited Vietnam
6) Sniffed someone for the first time
7) Learned how to REALLY dance like a Cambodian
8) Swam in the Indian ocean
9) Discovered Justin Beiber (which I initially disliked, was then indifferent to, and now sing along with and have on my ipod)
10) Made amends with the rats that take residence in the ceiling above my bed
11) Became a fan of Prahak (no easy task)
12) Introduced my father and brother to the Cambodian culture (and my Cambodian host family to American culture)
13) Was visited by one of my best friends and her boyfriend (if not my favorite couple)
14) Ran my first half-marathon
15) Drew the ENTIRE world
16) Drank Cambodian moonshine
17) Made some lifelong friendships
18) Read ALOT of books
19) Cried for no reason
20) Laughed for no reason
21) Questioned my sanity (more than once)
22) Learned to speak (some) Khmer
23) Biked more miles than I thought I physically could
24) Fell in love with Cambodia
I know I could never replicate 2010 and am so grateful for everything that happened... even the awful, dog-meat eating, crying-for-no-reason, rat-induced-insomnia parts. I know my toenail will grow back. It usually does. Now it is time to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new. I cannot wait to see what 2011 will bring :)
It is impossible to avoid going there.
2011 is the year I go home and the year I start the rest of my "adult" life. Although this year will be the year of change, I doubt it will compare to 2010 - the year Kellee lived, breathed, and nearly became Khmer.
The following are a list of memories/accomplishments for the year 2010:
1) Ate dog, spider, snake, and duck fetus for the first time.
2) Celebrated New Years three times (once in January, again in February, and in April)
3) Was bit by a dog (retribution for #1? I think so...)
4) Saw Angkor Wat not once but three times
5) Visited Vietnam
6) Sniffed someone for the first time
7) Learned how to REALLY dance like a Cambodian
8) Swam in the Indian ocean
9) Discovered Justin Beiber (which I initially disliked, was then indifferent to, and now sing along with and have on my ipod)
10) Made amends with the rats that take residence in the ceiling above my bed
11) Became a fan of Prahak (no easy task)
12) Introduced my father and brother to the Cambodian culture (and my Cambodian host family to American culture)
13) Was visited by one of my best friends and her boyfriend (if not my favorite couple)
14) Ran my first half-marathon
15) Drew the ENTIRE world
16) Drank Cambodian moonshine
17) Made some lifelong friendships
18) Read ALOT of books
19) Cried for no reason
20) Laughed for no reason
21) Questioned my sanity (more than once)
22) Learned to speak (some) Khmer
23) Biked more miles than I thought I physically could
24) Fell in love with Cambodia
I know I could never replicate 2010 and am so grateful for everything that happened... even the awful, dog-meat eating, crying-for-no-reason, rat-induced-insomnia parts. I know my toenail will grow back. It usually does. Now it is time to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new. I cannot wait to see what 2011 will bring :)
Monday, November 29, 2010
Tragedies, Triumphs, and Thanksgivings.
November 21st to the 28th, 2010. It was one weird week.
Not only was it Thanksgiving week and Water Festival in Phnom Penh but one of my best friends and her boyfriend had come to visit me from America.
I came in on Saturday to pick my friends up from the airport and see a little bit of the Water Festival. Water festival is HUGE in Phnom Penh. It is a holiday which celebrates the change in the current of the Tonle Sap River through boat races, fireworks, and lots of free concerts. These boats are massive and hold around 40 to 50 people. It is awe inspiring to see how coordinated the rowers can be in their strokes – when completely synchronized they look more like a mythological sea monster. One fin lifts, the other one strikes the water, one, two, one, two…
I had some misgivings about going to water festival to begin with. The crowds are awful. Some places you can hardly move as there are so many people in front, to the back, and both sides of you. And as a foreigner, you draw attention to yourself and it makes being pick pocketed or targeted for theft that much more of a possibility. Needless to say, I avoided the crowds and mostly stayed away from water festival (when I could).
It was great to see my friends Veronica and Ross and catch up with them after a year of being away. They looked good – a little white to me after being in a country of tan people- but overall healthy and happy (even with the jet lag – or “lack of it”). The next day we made to see Cambodia and good use of their short visit (they were only here a week).
Then I heard about the tragedy. On Tuesday morning I got a call at 2 am from a friend asking if I knew what the incident was that happened in Phnom Penh. As I was no longer there, I really had no idea and quickly set about searching it on the internet. The first few hits were a bit frightening. They spoke of people getting electrocuted on a bridge in Phnom Penh – of women inciting a stampede by running around frantically - and people becoming nervous and causing panic and a stampede when the suspension bridge started swaying. The first estimate of casualties was around 180 people.
It took a few days to sort out what exactly happened that night on the Koh Pich Bridge. Even now, over a week later and with over (or nearly?) 400 people dead, they still do not know where the fault lies. All I can say is that too many people got onto the bridge and when everyone panicked, people died. My host sister from training was actually on the bridge and, luckily, survived. She did have to stay about a week in the hospital as she was having trouble breathing.Now, two weeks later, she says it bothers her to laugh or talk sometimes.
After a tragic start to my friends' visit to Cambodia, we continued on to discover the beauty that makes it the "Kingdom of Wonder" including the beach, Angkor Wat, and Toul Sleng and the Killing Fields. On Thanksgiving we celebrated by eating an amazing Italian dinner at Luna D'autunno in Sihanoukville after asking a handful of restaurants if there was anything going on (i.e. Turkey dinners with the works) in town but, apparently, there is no love for that American holiday there. It all worked out though as the food and wine we had that night was amazingly delicious.
They flew out on the 27th and I went back to site the following day to a very, very busy week. Not only did I need to give a presentation to the Provincial Health Department about Peace Corps (in Khmer) but I had visitors coming to my site and I had to prepare myself for my first half marathon that I was running that Sunday. There was a lot of biking, nail biting, and sleepless nights but I survived the week triumphantly. The two things I was most nervous about (the presentation and the half marathon) went better than I expected. Following the presentation, the doctors and NGO staff said that I, and the other two volunteers who gave the presentation, spoke Khmer very clearly. We were giving the presentation in order to give the NGOs and others involved in health in Svay Rieng an idea of what the Peace Corps does and what we would like to do in regards to health. We were also doing it to help our cause in getting a Girls Health and Leadership Camp underway (something we wish to hold in the provincial town sometime in March next year).
My first half marathon at Angkor Wat was a big question mark when I bussed up to Siem Reap on Friday the 3rd. I had not been able to train the last few weeks before and had no idea if I would even be able to run the entire 13 miles as I had never attempted it before. Luckily, as with all things I build up in my head, it was not as bad as I made it seem. At times during the 2 hours and 8 minutes I was out on the course, I did psych myself out enough to stop and walk.... something I wish I hadn't done now so I would know what my real running time was for those 13 miles. The biggest regret I have was drinking nearly an entire water bottle around the 9K mark... which gave me a wicked side ache at the 10k mark... which led me to walk for over a minute... which then made my muscles cold and heavy and unable to move at the pace I set in the beginning and led me to walk more later in the course. Now I have my sights set on running another one before rainy season starts again:)
After all this running around, biking to and from from the provincial town and site, I still cannot relax. Tomorrow I plan on biking (sore muscles and all)to the provincial town in order to get a data projector from the provincial university so I may be able to (FINALLY) draw a world map on a wall in the school's library. Unfortunately, the University needs it back Friday night for a 7:30 am class on Saturday ... which leaves me with a little over a day to draw the entire world map on the wall of the library. I am hoping, wishing, praying, that everything goes as planned and that when I bike (the 25 miles)into town with the projector on Friday afternoon it will be with the knowledge I, and my students, have brought the world to Romeas Hek High School.
Wish us luck :)
Not only was it Thanksgiving week and Water Festival in Phnom Penh but one of my best friends and her boyfriend had come to visit me from America.
I came in on Saturday to pick my friends up from the airport and see a little bit of the Water Festival. Water festival is HUGE in Phnom Penh. It is a holiday which celebrates the change in the current of the Tonle Sap River through boat races, fireworks, and lots of free concerts. These boats are massive and hold around 40 to 50 people. It is awe inspiring to see how coordinated the rowers can be in their strokes – when completely synchronized they look more like a mythological sea monster. One fin lifts, the other one strikes the water, one, two, one, two…
I had some misgivings about going to water festival to begin with. The crowds are awful. Some places you can hardly move as there are so many people in front, to the back, and both sides of you. And as a foreigner, you draw attention to yourself and it makes being pick pocketed or targeted for theft that much more of a possibility. Needless to say, I avoided the crowds and mostly stayed away from water festival (when I could).
It was great to see my friends Veronica and Ross and catch up with them after a year of being away. They looked good – a little white to me after being in a country of tan people- but overall healthy and happy (even with the jet lag – or “lack of it”). The next day we made to see Cambodia and good use of their short visit (they were only here a week).
Then I heard about the tragedy. On Tuesday morning I got a call at 2 am from a friend asking if I knew what the incident was that happened in Phnom Penh. As I was no longer there, I really had no idea and quickly set about searching it on the internet. The first few hits were a bit frightening. They spoke of people getting electrocuted on a bridge in Phnom Penh – of women inciting a stampede by running around frantically - and people becoming nervous and causing panic and a stampede when the suspension bridge started swaying. The first estimate of casualties was around 180 people.
It took a few days to sort out what exactly happened that night on the Koh Pich Bridge. Even now, over a week later and with over (or nearly?) 400 people dead, they still do not know where the fault lies. All I can say is that too many people got onto the bridge and when everyone panicked, people died. My host sister from training was actually on the bridge and, luckily, survived. She did have to stay about a week in the hospital as she was having trouble breathing.Now, two weeks later, she says it bothers her to laugh or talk sometimes.
After a tragic start to my friends' visit to Cambodia, we continued on to discover the beauty that makes it the "Kingdom of Wonder" including the beach, Angkor Wat, and Toul Sleng and the Killing Fields. On Thanksgiving we celebrated by eating an amazing Italian dinner at Luna D'autunno in Sihanoukville after asking a handful of restaurants if there was anything going on (i.e. Turkey dinners with the works) in town but, apparently, there is no love for that American holiday there. It all worked out though as the food and wine we had that night was amazingly delicious.
They flew out on the 27th and I went back to site the following day to a very, very busy week. Not only did I need to give a presentation to the Provincial Health Department about Peace Corps (in Khmer) but I had visitors coming to my site and I had to prepare myself for my first half marathon that I was running that Sunday. There was a lot of biking, nail biting, and sleepless nights but I survived the week triumphantly. The two things I was most nervous about (the presentation and the half marathon) went better than I expected. Following the presentation, the doctors and NGO staff said that I, and the other two volunteers who gave the presentation, spoke Khmer very clearly. We were giving the presentation in order to give the NGOs and others involved in health in Svay Rieng an idea of what the Peace Corps does and what we would like to do in regards to health. We were also doing it to help our cause in getting a Girls Health and Leadership Camp underway (something we wish to hold in the provincial town sometime in March next year).
My first half marathon at Angkor Wat was a big question mark when I bussed up to Siem Reap on Friday the 3rd. I had not been able to train the last few weeks before and had no idea if I would even be able to run the entire 13 miles as I had never attempted it before. Luckily, as with all things I build up in my head, it was not as bad as I made it seem. At times during the 2 hours and 8 minutes I was out on the course, I did psych myself out enough to stop and walk.... something I wish I hadn't done now so I would know what my real running time was for those 13 miles. The biggest regret I have was drinking nearly an entire water bottle around the 9K mark... which gave me a wicked side ache at the 10k mark... which led me to walk for over a minute... which then made my muscles cold and heavy and unable to move at the pace I set in the beginning and led me to walk more later in the course. Now I have my sights set on running another one before rainy season starts again:)
After all this running around, biking to and from from the provincial town and site, I still cannot relax. Tomorrow I plan on biking (sore muscles and all)to the provincial town in order to get a data projector from the provincial university so I may be able to (FINALLY) draw a world map on a wall in the school's library. Unfortunately, the University needs it back Friday night for a 7:30 am class on Saturday ... which leaves me with a little over a day to draw the entire world map on the wall of the library. I am hoping, wishing, praying, that everything goes as planned and that when I bike (the 25 miles)into town with the projector on Friday afternoon it will be with the knowledge I, and my students, have brought the world to Romeas Hek High School.
Wish us luck :)
Saturday, November 13, 2010
The Hotness and the witchdoctor
So I guess I had to come to Cambodia in order to make my first batch of salsa. And learn about the caustic-ness of chili oil and what that can do to the skin. And meet a “witchdoctor”.
This past weekend all of the Peace Corps Svay Rieng volunteers met in the provincial town to do our own Thanksgiving dinner. Not being your typical place to celebrate an American holiday – the food was far from typical. It was "Mexican" – tortillas, fried beef in taco seasoning, beans (galore! .. even with some rocks in them!), CHEESE!, and salsa. I was in charge of the salsa making along with some other volunteers. We had all the necessary ingredients; tomatoes, onions, garlic, limes, salt, black pepper, and chili peppers. As I never really encountered these chilies growing up (I’m German/Irish – we eat potatoes and sausage and sometimes pasta) and having lived in a sorority with a cook nearly the entirety of my college career – I never considered those silly little spicy red plants dangerous. But, oh, they really really are. My painful experience can only be described as “the hotness” now.
Did you know they contrive the main ingredient of pepper spray from chili peppers (hence the name – pepper spray)? The horrible burning sensation on the skin and what causes all of your mucus membranes to go into overdrive is from something called “capsaicin” and it is some pretty nasty stuff. I had known a little bit about it – I mean everyone has heard of that friend, family member, or acquaintance who was dared to do this or that with some Tabasco sauce (aka my brother) – and so I knew to at least avoid my eyes. Hindsight is 20/20 and having not known the dangers to my skin I went ahead and handled the peppers liberally (I was told to make sure there were not too many seeds in the salsa -as that would make it too spicy- and proceeded to handle every single one of the peppers - carefully squeezing those little seeds from the red casings they came in).
It took about 20 minutes before I was seriously considering chopping my hands off. I tried everything … putting my hands on ice, in a bucket of water, rubbing them with soap, vegetable oil, salt, and lime juice. I would’ve tried milk if there was any - but that isn’t something Cambodian people have laying around the house. The only thing that worked was putting my hands in a bucket of uncooked rice (what they call angkah here) for about 30 minutes. And BAM – most of the burning went away. It wasn’t until evening the following day that underneath my fingernails finally stopped tingling though.
Info on Capsaicin --- (taken from livestrong.org)
A Science Daily article states that capsaicin is "an extremely powerful and stable alkaloid." It's produced in the glands located between the pepper's placenta and pod walls. When capsaicin comes into contact with your skin, it stimulates circulation and invokes a response in your pain receptors. Used in pepper spray and various insect repellents, capsaicin also deters human predators, as well as the pests that threaten your garden.
How to avoid Pepper Burn
Avoid the dreaded "pepper burn" in your kitchen by wearing rubber gloves whenever you handle chili peppers or measure out hot pepper oil. If you're peeling or chopping peppers, remember not to touch your lips or eyes, advises PBS' Scientific American Frontiers. Want to get rid of some of the heat in that hot pepper you're slicing? Carefully remove the pepper's placenta, or "midrib," advises the Chile Pepper Institute.
"First Aid" for Pepper Burn
If your skin accidentally gets exposed to capsaicin, first rub it with alcohol, advises the Chile Pepper Institute, then soak it in milk. According to Science Daily, capsaicin is neutralized by fats. Another option suggested by the Jalepeno Madness website by way of Poison Control is to wash the affected area with soap and water. Apply olive oil or vegetable oil. Rinse after one minute. If you get hot pepper in your eyes, the Chile Pepper Institute indicates that the only way to treat it is to flush your eyes with water.
The moral of the story? Use gloves. Or don’t use chili peppers. Or use chili prepared in one of those nice little shakers.
The dinner was fabulous in the end. Delicious tortillas filled with delicious things. And we were even able to score an hour in a local bread oven -which looked like it may have been from the middle ages – for some awesome brownies and pecan pie ala Kristin and Alan.
Ok enough about chili peppers…
Having just spent the weekend in lovely Svay Rieng town - I was told I must share the story of my experience with a "Kru Khmer" or a traditional Cambodian healer. As I may or may not have mentioned before, my house now holds five additional people (two highschool students, two Vietnamese men, and a male relative of my host mother's) along with my three sisters, brother, "uncle", mother, father, and myself. With all these people we also have/had some extra help around the house. Before what I will call "the accident" we also had an "ohm" (older aunt) who would do most of the cooking for the family during the day and go home at night. It was because of my Ohm that I finally got to meet a Kru Khmer.
As a health volunteer I had heard stories about the traditional Cambodian healers. Most of these stories left me with the image of a man with wild hair- possibly wearing face paint and a feather headdress- a “witchdoctor” of sorts. Needless to say I was a bit disappointed when this very thin, quite old, Khmer man rides up to my house on a decrepit bicycle last month. My ohm - who is in her late 60s - was trying to lift something much too heavy and rolled her ankle. Unfortunately because of her age her ankle no longer had the resilience to deal with it and didn't "roll" so much as break or was sprained … I still don’t know. When I arrived to the house my host sister had wrapped it in a scarf and told my Ohm to keep it still. After arriving back at home from teaching and seeing her in tears on the traditional Khmer table – greh- I started to tell her she needed ice for the swelling and quickly got a bag of it together for her. She took it from me and placed it ever so delicately next to her injury. By this time my sister had come back and told us that she had help coming.
And that was when, on his very sad looking bicycle, the Kru Khmer arrived. He was wearing the usual uniform of any rural Khmer man of simple means – a tshirt with an assortment of different sized holes, pants that are much too short, and a cigarette in hand. In his other hand he had incense and a bag of herbs. These herbs – when sniffed – reminded me of lemongrass and, maybe, spearmint? Anyways… the Kru Khmer quickly set about chanting and lighting incense. He gave my ohm one stick of incense to hold and stuck others in the ground around my house. There was some spitting involved in, around, and on my ohm, and in the end the herbs were placed on the injury and my bag of ice set to the side.
Now, a month and some days later, my ohm’s injured ankle is still injured and very very swollen. When I asked her if she had gone to the hospital she said no - that it will heal "in time". Now I pray that if anything happens to me - and I am somewhat unable to talk (unconscious or otherwise) - the first line of defense that my host family calls is the Peace Corps Medical officer and not the skinny, rough, smoking, spitting old man around the corner with the incense in his hands.
One question I've asked myself today: I wonder what the witchdoctor would've done with the hotness?
This past weekend all of the Peace Corps Svay Rieng volunteers met in the provincial town to do our own Thanksgiving dinner. Not being your typical place to celebrate an American holiday – the food was far from typical. It was "Mexican" – tortillas, fried beef in taco seasoning, beans (galore! .. even with some rocks in them!), CHEESE!, and salsa. I was in charge of the salsa making along with some other volunteers. We had all the necessary ingredients; tomatoes, onions, garlic, limes, salt, black pepper, and chili peppers. As I never really encountered these chilies growing up (I’m German/Irish – we eat potatoes and sausage and sometimes pasta) and having lived in a sorority with a cook nearly the entirety of my college career – I never considered those silly little spicy red plants dangerous. But, oh, they really really are. My painful experience can only be described as “the hotness” now.
Did you know they contrive the main ingredient of pepper spray from chili peppers (hence the name – pepper spray)? The horrible burning sensation on the skin and what causes all of your mucus membranes to go into overdrive is from something called “capsaicin” and it is some pretty nasty stuff. I had known a little bit about it – I mean everyone has heard of that friend, family member, or acquaintance who was dared to do this or that with some Tabasco sauce (aka my brother) – and so I knew to at least avoid my eyes. Hindsight is 20/20 and having not known the dangers to my skin I went ahead and handled the peppers liberally (I was told to make sure there were not too many seeds in the salsa -as that would make it too spicy- and proceeded to handle every single one of the peppers - carefully squeezing those little seeds from the red casings they came in).
It took about 20 minutes before I was seriously considering chopping my hands off. I tried everything … putting my hands on ice, in a bucket of water, rubbing them with soap, vegetable oil, salt, and lime juice. I would’ve tried milk if there was any - but that isn’t something Cambodian people have laying around the house. The only thing that worked was putting my hands in a bucket of uncooked rice (what they call angkah here) for about 30 minutes. And BAM – most of the burning went away. It wasn’t until evening the following day that underneath my fingernails finally stopped tingling though.
Info on Capsaicin --- (taken from livestrong.org)
A Science Daily article states that capsaicin is "an extremely powerful and stable alkaloid." It's produced in the glands located between the pepper's placenta and pod walls. When capsaicin comes into contact with your skin, it stimulates circulation and invokes a response in your pain receptors. Used in pepper spray and various insect repellents, capsaicin also deters human predators, as well as the pests that threaten your garden.
How to avoid Pepper Burn
Avoid the dreaded "pepper burn" in your kitchen by wearing rubber gloves whenever you handle chili peppers or measure out hot pepper oil. If you're peeling or chopping peppers, remember not to touch your lips or eyes, advises PBS' Scientific American Frontiers. Want to get rid of some of the heat in that hot pepper you're slicing? Carefully remove the pepper's placenta, or "midrib," advises the Chile Pepper Institute.
"First Aid" for Pepper Burn
If your skin accidentally gets exposed to capsaicin, first rub it with alcohol, advises the Chile Pepper Institute, then soak it in milk. According to Science Daily, capsaicin is neutralized by fats. Another option suggested by the Jalepeno Madness website by way of Poison Control is to wash the affected area with soap and water. Apply olive oil or vegetable oil. Rinse after one minute. If you get hot pepper in your eyes, the Chile Pepper Institute indicates that the only way to treat it is to flush your eyes with water.
The moral of the story? Use gloves. Or don’t use chili peppers. Or use chili prepared in one of those nice little shakers.
The dinner was fabulous in the end. Delicious tortillas filled with delicious things. And we were even able to score an hour in a local bread oven -which looked like it may have been from the middle ages – for some awesome brownies and pecan pie ala Kristin and Alan.
Ok enough about chili peppers…
Having just spent the weekend in lovely Svay Rieng town - I was told I must share the story of my experience with a "Kru Khmer" or a traditional Cambodian healer. As I may or may not have mentioned before, my house now holds five additional people (two highschool students, two Vietnamese men, and a male relative of my host mother's) along with my three sisters, brother, "uncle", mother, father, and myself. With all these people we also have/had some extra help around the house. Before what I will call "the accident" we also had an "ohm" (older aunt) who would do most of the cooking for the family during the day and go home at night. It was because of my Ohm that I finally got to meet a Kru Khmer.
As a health volunteer I had heard stories about the traditional Cambodian healers. Most of these stories left me with the image of a man with wild hair- possibly wearing face paint and a feather headdress- a “witchdoctor” of sorts. Needless to say I was a bit disappointed when this very thin, quite old, Khmer man rides up to my house on a decrepit bicycle last month. My ohm - who is in her late 60s - was trying to lift something much too heavy and rolled her ankle. Unfortunately because of her age her ankle no longer had the resilience to deal with it and didn't "roll" so much as break or was sprained … I still don’t know. When I arrived to the house my host sister had wrapped it in a scarf and told my Ohm to keep it still. After arriving back at home from teaching and seeing her in tears on the traditional Khmer table – greh- I started to tell her she needed ice for the swelling and quickly got a bag of it together for her. She took it from me and placed it ever so delicately next to her injury. By this time my sister had come back and told us that she had help coming.
And that was when, on his very sad looking bicycle, the Kru Khmer arrived. He was wearing the usual uniform of any rural Khmer man of simple means – a tshirt with an assortment of different sized holes, pants that are much too short, and a cigarette in hand. In his other hand he had incense and a bag of herbs. These herbs – when sniffed – reminded me of lemongrass and, maybe, spearmint? Anyways… the Kru Khmer quickly set about chanting and lighting incense. He gave my ohm one stick of incense to hold and stuck others in the ground around my house. There was some spitting involved in, around, and on my ohm, and in the end the herbs were placed on the injury and my bag of ice set to the side.
Now, a month and some days later, my ohm’s injured ankle is still injured and very very swollen. When I asked her if she had gone to the hospital she said no - that it will heal "in time". Now I pray that if anything happens to me - and I am somewhat unable to talk (unconscious or otherwise) - the first line of defense that my host family calls is the Peace Corps Medical officer and not the skinny, rough, smoking, spitting old man around the corner with the incense in his hands.
One question I've asked myself today: I wonder what the witchdoctor would've done with the hotness?
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Questions I’ve recently asked myself…
Have I really become so accustomed to being uncomfortable that I can sleep on a plastic fork all night and not even notice?
How can I look MORE American?
Was it the 12 or so shots of rice wine I had yesterday or my lingering cold that made my run today an ultimate FAIL?
Why can’t I stop eating noodle soup?
Can you be addicted to MSG?
Does a cell phone that is on make you more susceptible to being struck by lightening?
Does really long mole hair bring good luck?
Why do mosquitoes exist? Is it to torment me? And if mosquitoes lay eggs in the water that I bathe with, could they hatch in my wet hair?
How does Hillary Clinton look so good for being 60+?
What are the long term health effects of breathing the smoke from plastic things burning?
Did I just waste $190 to take the GRE if the world is ending in 2012?
Why do Cambodians love John Cena so much?
How long does it take to use a kilowatt of electricity on your laptop in rural Cambodia?
How can I look MORE American?
Was it the 12 or so shots of rice wine I had yesterday or my lingering cold that made my run today an ultimate FAIL?
Why can’t I stop eating noodle soup?
Can you be addicted to MSG?
Does a cell phone that is on make you more susceptible to being struck by lightening?
Does really long mole hair bring good luck?
Why do mosquitoes exist? Is it to torment me? And if mosquitoes lay eggs in the water that I bathe with, could they hatch in my wet hair?
How does Hillary Clinton look so good for being 60+?
What are the long term health effects of breathing the smoke from plastic things burning?
Did I just waste $190 to take the GRE if the world is ending in 2012?
Why do Cambodians love John Cena so much?
How long does it take to use a kilowatt of electricity on your laptop in rural Cambodia?
Friday, October 29, 2010
Cambodian Proverbs..
Went googling to find a Cambodian proverb to write on the wall of the school's library. The following is a list of 23 that I borrowed from the following website: http://www.special-dictionary.com/proverbs/source/c/cambodian_proverb/3.htm
(my favorites are in bold)
1. A husband should not talk of pretty girls in front of his wife.
2. Active hands, full bellies.
3. Cultivate a heart of love that knows no anger.
4. Don't let an angry man wash dishes; don't let a hungry man guard rice.
5. Don't let women who attract attention walk behind you.
6. Don't reject the crooked road and don't take the straight one, instead take the one traveled by the ancestors.
7. Don't shoot people you hate; don't lend to those you love.
8. Don't take rich people as examples.
9. Don't take the straight path or the winding path. Take the path your ancestors have taken."
10. For news of the heart ask the face.
11. If you are doing wrong, make sure you don't get fat from it.
12. If you are patient in a moment of anger, you will spare yourself one hundred days of tears.
13. If you know a lot, know enough to make them respect you, if you are stupid, be stupid enough so they can pity you.
14. Negotiate a river by following its bends, enter a country by following its customs.
15. People give, but don't be in a hurry to take.
16. Stealing may bring profit, but hanging costs far more.
17. The boat sails by, the shore remains.
18. The elephant that is stuck in the mud will tear down the tree with it.
19. The immature rice stalk stands erect, while the mature stalk, heavy with grain, bends over.
20. The tiger depends on the forest; the forest depends on the tiger.
21. With water make rivers, with rice make armies.
22. You can't claim heaven as your own if you are just going to sit under it.
23. You don't have to cut a tree down to get at the fruit.
(my favorites are in bold)
1. A husband should not talk of pretty girls in front of his wife.
2. Active hands, full bellies.
3. Cultivate a heart of love that knows no anger.
4. Don't let an angry man wash dishes; don't let a hungry man guard rice.
5. Don't let women who attract attention walk behind you.
6. Don't reject the crooked road and don't take the straight one, instead take the one traveled by the ancestors.
7. Don't shoot people you hate; don't lend to those you love.
8. Don't take rich people as examples.
9. Don't take the straight path or the winding path. Take the path your ancestors have taken."
10. For news of the heart ask the face.
11. If you are doing wrong, make sure you don't get fat from it.
12. If you are patient in a moment of anger, you will spare yourself one hundred days of tears.
13. If you know a lot, know enough to make them respect you, if you are stupid, be stupid enough so they can pity you.
14. Negotiate a river by following its bends, enter a country by following its customs.
15. People give, but don't be in a hurry to take.
16. Stealing may bring profit, but hanging costs far more.
17. The boat sails by, the shore remains.
18. The elephant that is stuck in the mud will tear down the tree with it.
19. The immature rice stalk stands erect, while the mature stalk, heavy with grain, bends over.
20. The tiger depends on the forest; the forest depends on the tiger.
21. With water make rivers, with rice make armies.
22. You can't claim heaven as your own if you are just going to sit under it.
23. You don't have to cut a tree down to get at the fruit.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
“The President of the World is Here!!”
This is the first thing the man who sells me coffee told me today. I was a bit confused at first but, after a minute or two, I figured out that he meant Ban Ki-Moon, and by here he meant Phnom Penh. Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary-General is in Cambodia this week to meet with people from the Khmer Rouge tribunal and, of course, Hun Sen. There are some reports that he will be meeting with those groups representing the people who will be – or are currently- displaced because of the Boeng Kuk lake development in the center of Phnom Penh. But this has not been confirmed. Information about his visit: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2010102544261/National-news/ban-ki-moon-visit-un-chief-to-see-court-drug-clinic.html
In other news, I am currently busy at site for the first time in months! My days range from hectic to slothful but mostly are somewhere in between. School is in session and so I am teaching nearly every weekday as well as running in the mornings. I am attempting to run my first half marathon in December although- between the monsoons, sickness, and an awful school timetable – I have been very bad at sticking to a training schedule. My goal is just to finish – whether it be by running, walking, or limping over the finish line.
I have also ambitiously decided to start a community service learning club at my school. This is ambitious only because a club has yet to be attempted – ever, it seems- at my school. I am lucky to have a very committed co teacher who is also the “head” of the English department at my school. He seems to think it will be successful and has conveyed this message onto the school director and sub-school directors. Who, when I met with them about the club, just nodded and smiled and said “okay!”. If only all meetings could go so well. Although I have a very strange feeling they may have just been humoring me…
Although I have been studying on and off for the last few months, I’ve only recently really started to commit myself to studying for the GRE and hope that three months of studying will be enough to do well on the test at the end of January. I took the test right after I graduated in 2007 but was not satisfied with the score, nor was ready to go to graduate school then. Now, with the many hours of self reflection that Peace Corps has given me, I am ready to pledge myself to two more years of coursework. Between studying, running, club planning, and teaching, I now have things to do everyday and a limited amount of free time - which is not a bad thing at all :)
Well, I’m hitting my afternoon slump (i.e. naptime) and must get back to facebook stalking and catching up on current events before I fall asleep. Until next time…
In other news, I am currently busy at site for the first time in months! My days range from hectic to slothful but mostly are somewhere in between. School is in session and so I am teaching nearly every weekday as well as running in the mornings. I am attempting to run my first half marathon in December although- between the monsoons, sickness, and an awful school timetable – I have been very bad at sticking to a training schedule. My goal is just to finish – whether it be by running, walking, or limping over the finish line.
I have also ambitiously decided to start a community service learning club at my school. This is ambitious only because a club has yet to be attempted – ever, it seems- at my school. I am lucky to have a very committed co teacher who is also the “head” of the English department at my school. He seems to think it will be successful and has conveyed this message onto the school director and sub-school directors. Who, when I met with them about the club, just nodded and smiled and said “okay!”. If only all meetings could go so well. Although I have a very strange feeling they may have just been humoring me…
Although I have been studying on and off for the last few months, I’ve only recently really started to commit myself to studying for the GRE and hope that three months of studying will be enough to do well on the test at the end of January. I took the test right after I graduated in 2007 but was not satisfied with the score, nor was ready to go to graduate school then. Now, with the many hours of self reflection that Peace Corps has given me, I am ready to pledge myself to two more years of coursework. Between studying, running, club planning, and teaching, I now have things to do everyday and a limited amount of free time - which is not a bad thing at all :)
Well, I’m hitting my afternoon slump (i.e. naptime) and must get back to facebook stalking and catching up on current events before I fall asleep. Until next time…
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