Sunday, October 26, 2008

Getting into the Halloween spirit

For Halloween I’ve got plans to travel up to Siem Reap for a coffee, beer, and cheese fest with some of the other volunteers. Basically the plan is to visit as many non-rice serving restaurants as possible in four days. Maybe I’ll even make it over to Angkor Wat to see what the fuss is all about.

Cambodia, refusing to disappoint, has helped to kick off this week with a bang. Sunday overall was a fabulous day. I made banana pancakes for breakfast (impulse Bisquick buys in Phnom Penh sometimes turn out alright), ironed my teaching clothes the old-fashioned way with a heavy metal iron and hot coals, went for a long bike ride and got caught out in a massive rainstorm.

I would have made Bear Grylis proud with the shelter I made by propping palm branches up against my bike. I sat in the rice field under my shelter for a good hour while the cows and water buffalo wandered past me unfazed by the monsoon.

The storms here are something to be admired. At first the air becomes heavy and still; a few drops fall here and there. Within a minute it turns into a non-stop downpour. The wind will pick up causing the rain to come in sideways and the palm trees to sway and dance out in the rice fields. A single storm can fill a rice field to its brim and wash out the roads. One storm in Teuk Phos lasted non-stop for 7 hours. There was a bout a foot of water surrounding most of my house and the road out front turned into a lake three foot deep in places. The water buffalo were out in the marsh and all you could see were their cute faces sticking above the surface. My training host family didn’t seem overly concerned about the flooding. Plus, I was safe and sound in my second floor bedroom, so as they say in Cambodia: aut ei dtee (no problem).

Back to the story at hand: Sunday’s events. I debated whether or not to post the following part of the story. In the end though I decided to tell it because the sum of all my experiences (good and bad) in Cambodia will make my service what it is.

Sunday night was like any other; my little host brother was wearing my bike helmet and sunglasses, listening to my ipod, and dancing around my room. Suddenly a bat flew into the house and made quite the ruckus. It decided to hang out (ha-ha, literally) on one of the beams of the ceiling. My host dad, BunPa, grabbed a broom and hopped onto the crey (table/bed thing) and began swinging at the bat like it was a piƱata. After three swings he sent the bat flying across the room and it landed in the spokes of my bike tire with a wham. The poor little guy was all tangled up in the spokes. BunPa flicked it outside and watched as the dogs pounced and tormented it. The bat was making such horrific noises and finally BunPa killed it with a sandal.


Some things in Cambodia will never sit well with me, I think that’s okay. I don’t have to agree with everything I see over here to be good at my job. Likewise, I cannot change everything that upsets me, nor should I try. However, it is hard to bite your tongue when your neighbors bet on chicken fights every afternoon, when people hit dogs just for the sake of doing so, or when the pigs squeal as they’re laying upside down tied to the back of the motos on their way to be slaughtered. The pigs really get to me because they sound like children screaming.

A lot of things over here don’t make sense to me, and I doubt they ever will. Regardless, I’ll keep trying to make a place for myself and learn as much as I can. Thanks for reading everyone and a special hello to Kristine’s mom (Mrs. Hart). Kristine told me that you have been following the blog, so I promised to say hello for her. I’ll try to post another story next week about the upcoming happenings in Siem Reap. Happy Halloween everyone! Please eat an extra Snickers bar for me.


Pictures: (first, my bedroom at site; second, a very nice Khmar style kitchen)

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Finding my grove at permanent site

It’s been nearly 2 weeks since I arrived at my permanent site in Kampong Thom province. I’ve made friends with a lady who sells coconuts at her food stand, had some teaching clothes made at the market, explored the nearby temples of Sambor Preh Kuk, and eaten a cow’s stomach. It hasn’t been an easy week at school, but I’m trying to make a place for myself in Cambodia.
Each morning I’m up before dawn stretching and preparing for a quick run through the rice fields near my house. My new house has something that resembles running water, so after my run I take a cold shower and get ready for school. However, there is not electricity available at my site, so I use a car battery to charge my cell phone and power a small light in my room. On school days I get dressed in the traditional Khmer teaching garb (yes, I look ridiculous) and ride my bike up to school (about 2k away from my house). Before class I grad a quick breakfast of rice, and veggies for 2,000 riel ($0.50) and then observe 4 hours worth of English classes. At 11:00 I go home to change clothes then head to the market to eat lunch at my family’s stall. The rice is not so bad…I now prefer to have duck eggs rather than chicken eggs served on a big pile of rice with lots of soy sauce. I sure miss bread and cheese though! Depending on the day, I will hang around the market for a while to practice Khmer, go for a bike ride, or go back to school to observe more classes. Since everything is so new, I do find myself very bored at times. Last Sunday I had absolutely nothing to do, so I went to breakfast, worked out for a couple hours, went for a 2 hour bike ride, ate lunch, then rode my bike to the nearby temples and wandered around all afternoon. I spend a lot of time on my bike.
Living with my new host family is working out well so far. I have a younger sister, Bun yah, who is 13 and in 7th grade. She is such a sweetie and I’m trying very hard to help her with her English. This is her first year studying English formally and she is really shy to practice with me. I understand completely because I usually feel very shy to practice my Khmer.
My host brother, Bun nah is 10 and hilarious. Last week he was riding my bike around (it’s beyond too big for him). I borrowed someone’s mini sized kid’s bike and rode down the street after him. All of the neighbor kids were rolling on the ground laughing at the site of us. Last night he was looking through an American magazine of mine and was SO excited about all of the car ads. Tonight I’m going to buy some glue on the way home so that we can make car book covers for his school books.

I call my host parents older brother and sister since they are fairly similar in age to me (30-something and 29, respectively). They own a stall at the market and sell TV’s, radios, cell phones, and car batteries. I think that they get frustrated with me because my language skills are by no means impressive, but they do show me a ton of patience when I try and verbalize my plans or what I did in the day. I don’t think that I would be able to stick things out here without them.
The work situation is beyond frustrating for me right now. The 10th grade still has not shown up yet, only about 1/3 of the students have books, the computers would be better served as doorstops because they don’t work with any regularity, and I can’t even get someone to give me my own bathroom key. Ugh! It’s just going to take time for things to take shape. I’m trying my best to get used to the pace of life in Cambodia and show the same patience that the Cambodians have shown me regarding the language barrier. Thanks for the letters and phone calls from home everyone! They keep me smiling and cheer me up when I’ve had a rough day. Take care and write often.

Pictures: first (the K2 crew after swear-in ceremony October 4th), second (interesting tree cluster at Sambor Preh Kuk), third (me standing on top of a huge stone archway @ Preh Kuk), and fourth (over-grown temple @ Preh Kuk)

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

First Week at Site

Susedi from Kampuchea! I arrived at my permanent site on Sunday (my house is on the left) and had two days to settle in and get ready for school to start. Monday morning I spent a good two hours boiling water over a fire so that I would have enough drinking water for the week. I then ironed my clothes the old-fashioned way using hot coals in a heavy metal iron. I got the chance to explore this massive temple complex a few kilometers away from my house named Sambor Prey Kuk. I'll be posting pictures of it as soon as I can, because it is nothing less than amazing. Wednesday was my first official day of school and I spent the morning observing classes. I developed a weird rash on my legs and the medical officer said I probably got scabies from one of the grungy guesthouses in Phnom Penh last week.
So yesterday afternoon I rode my bike to the provincial town to pick up the medicine. It took quite a while to get here because it's about 30k away from my town and down a very bumpy road. It's funny when riding my bike 30k in the afternoon sun to get my scabies medicine becomes enjoyable. The provincial town has a western style restaurant, so for dinner last night I ate a cheeseburger, french fries, and a banana shake. It was fabulous and a nice change from the rice.
The kids in my host family (far left - cousin, middle - host brother, right-host sister).
Take care everyone! Miss you lots. Keep checking my blog and put in some requests for topics you would like to hear about.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

A Typical Day in Tuk Phos...


Greetings to everyone from back home! I hope you all are happy and healthy. I’ve finally found time to post my first story from abroad. It’s been almost three months since I jumped on a plane to Cambodia, but it feels like a year has already flown by. I am in my last week of training and currently preparing for the Peace Corps swearing-in ceremony on October 4th. That marks the day when I actually become a volunteer. After that, it’s off to my permanent site in Kampong Thom province for my two year stint as a high school English teacher.

The past 10 weeks have been occupied by non-stop cultural and language training. I’m by no means proficient in Khmer (pronounced Khmai), but I can go to the market, travel alone, and order food at a restaurant, etc. Conversation with me pretty much goes as follows:

Host mom: What are you doing today?
Me: I like chicken.
H.M.: What time are you going to school?
Me: I go to school today.
H.M.: What time do you go?
Me: Yes, I like bananas too.
H.M.: (gives me a strange look and walks away)

Although my language is very basic at best, I am somehow finding a way to function over here. Most days follow a predictable schedule. I usually wake up a handful of times each night to the barking werewolf dogs, the mice in my room, or because of the chirping bugs and frogs outside. Then at 4:00am every morning the monks begin beating on the drums as a reminder to the farmers that the sun’s coming up and the rice fields need to be tended to. Unfortunately for me I live across the street from the Wat and my bedroom window also faces that direction, so sleeping late in Cambodia is never an option. I lie awake and wait anxiously for the sun to come up because I’ve got to wash yesterday’s clothes before I leave for breakfast at 6:30. I walk or ride my bike to the market (p’saa) and usually buy some fruit before meeting my friends at our usual breakfast place on the main road in Tuk Phos. At the food shop you either order noodles or rice with one of the following: veggies, chicken, pork, or beef. I usually get noodles and veggies with lots of hot sauce. I have yet to get sick over here (knock on wood) and I attribute that to the massive amount of Thai peppers that I eat everyday, and the fact that I eat a coconut every afternoon.

After breakfast, all of us head to language class for four hours. Yes, four hours of language class! It’s cruel. In my training village there are three groups of roughly four people each. Each group is assigned a bilingual host country national who teaches us the basics….new words, pronunciations, and sentence structure. After being grilled on the Khmer that I’ve already forgotten from the previous day’s lesson, I go back to my house and eat lunch with my host family. Usually we’ve got a little break in the middle of the day so I sit in the shade and drink a coconut before taking my second bucket bath of the day. It’s so hot here that most Khmer people take 3-4 bucket baths per day to cool off. I’m happy to follow suit because I drink an ungodly amount of water and sweat it all out between 1 and 2 o’clock. Later in the afternoon we typically have teacher training, a community development session, or cultural training for a few hours. By 5:00 I’m on my way home to eat dinner with my family.

Dinner is awesome in Cambodia. Until a few weeks ago I ate on top of the crey (short table thing) with the family. We now eat at a table for some reason or another, maybe because I was terrible at sitting Khmer style. The food is served communally on one big platter with 2-3 different dishes. Either my host sister or myself will dish up the rice in a particular order; guest (if there is one), host father, host mother, host sister, and me (if Srey Mom is dishing up the rice she is last). Then we all dig in taking one spoonful at a time from the platter. My family knows that I love hot peppers, so they give me my own bowl of soy sauce loaded with those little guys. My host mother is a fabulous cook and I do enjoy most of the food. We eat a ton of fish soup, grilled frogs, and various stir fries with meat and vegetables. However, I have eaten some things that were a little too different even for my taste: a pig’s foot, cow tendon soup, chicken brain, chicken stomach, pig intestine, and fish eyes (although Amy and I used to eat these as kids) top the list.

After dinner my host sister and I clean up and I take another bucket bath in the kitchen/cooking shed out back. I usually study Khmer, write letters, read a book, or watch TV with my host family and try to pretend that I know what they are saying to me. I’m under my mosquito net by 8:00 every night and soon thereafter I fall asleep. One thing that shocked my about the tropics is how short the days are. We only have about 12 hours of light because we’re so close to the equator. So, it gets light around 5:45 am and turns pitch black by 6:30 pm. The bugs come out of the woodwork at night too, so I like to be under my net to keep them at bay. I spend the rest of the night drifting in and out of sleep, and waking up often to scare the mice back into the walls. My favorite nights are when I lay under my mosquito net and read while listening to the rain and the croaking frogs.

As you all can tell I am enjoying it here in Cambodia very much. Occasionally there are days when I’m so homesick for Colorado that all I can think about is riding my bike in the mountains and sometimes there are days when I want to hide from everything Khmer and not eat a single grain of rice. But those days come and go and I always find a way to get through it. But in general I enjoy being here and I am looking forward to the next two years as an English teacher.

Thanks for reading everyone! Keep checking back for new posts because I will have access to internet in my new village starting on October 5th. Also, check out the pictures.