Days like this I get really homesick. Not due to the reasons you might think, like it is almost Christmas and I know my little brother is done with finals so come this weekend my whole family will be at home. And I won’t be there. Because I am here. For twenty more months or so, not that I am counting down. Nor is it because the weather is nice and wintery in northern California, raining and “freezing” by my temperate Californian perspective and I just sweat through my shirt while giving a test in our concrete school buildings with no fans and tin roofs.
No, these things are there everyday. I can adjust to the constant knowledge that life goes on without me on the other side of the world. I miss my family and friends every day, every season, but that I can deal with because it’s a constant.
What gets to me is walking into the bathroom and seeing that the cistern is refilled and I can’t see the tiled bottom even though there is only about a foot and a half of water in it. The water has a murky greenish tint, and has various crap floating in it. What is the point of even bathing? Not to mention that that is basically the same water that I drink. Yes, I bleach and filter it first but YUCK.
Even better is walking “into” the “kitchen”, by which I mean walking outside behind the house, and hearing something moving around in water. There are so many water holding containers it took me a minute to find the source. Then I saw the bucket with the colander on top, probably to keep the stray cats out. I tried to peer in but all I saw was a brownish scaly surface. On the off chance that it was a snake I decided not to investigate further, but to play it cool. “Oh sure,” my attitude clearly conveyed, “there are always buckets of live animals and liquid in my kitchen.” Then it moved when I was standing right next to the bucket making my easy mac n’ cheese (thanks Alida!). I jumped back and laughed nervously. “Fish,” my host sister said. At least it wasn’t a snake.
I sat down with my noodles to stir in the cheese powder (screw organics! I love me some powdered cheese product) when my little 2-year old host brother walks into the kitchen, squats, and pees on the floor. In America if you find a puddle of piss and a live aqueous creature in your kitchen you assume your roommate had some sort of mental break down or had a super wild night last night. But no, this kind of stuff is supposed to just be my life now. I try to appear calm and worldly, but I would really rather not have urine in my kitchen. I just don’t like it.
At dinner I discovered the fish were catfish, or something that looked like it. I have told my host family that I do not eat fish, because even though I have been eating meat for a few months now, I still cannot pull apart a creature with its eyeballs still in its head and eat it. So at least on that front I was safe.
Then there were the chopped bits of something resembling poultry. My host mom set down a bowl of meat pieces with bones and everything still in there and was clearly excited about it. I tried to identify a safe, bone free piece, but I couldn’t. So I just hoped no one would notice that I didn’t eat it. I no longer had to wonder what it was when my host sister put the goose head on the cutting board and started chopping up its neck. The slender, graceful neck and the perfectly rounded bill laid there, evidence of some sort of intelligent design, or at least leaving no one to wonder why there is a famous ballet called Swan Lake. The goose/swan was beautiful. The only problem was that the whole thing had a reddish sauce on it and, of course, it wasn’t attached to a body because that was in pieces in the bowl in front of me.
Don’t get me wrong, I know how much worse I could have it. But sometimes I can’t help but ask, “Really? What was I thinking?” Then I find a student’s paper tucked among the 150 who have no idea what is going on, with a fairly coherent paragraph, or at least sentence, on it. I remember why I’m here, and why I stay. Plus, it can’t hurt my law school applications…
But for now I will be sustained on sweet sweet memories of indoor plumbing, not being woken up my dogs in the middle of the night (though frat boys weren’t exactly delightful either), and a vegetarian diet. Happy holidays everyone!!!
Monday, December 21, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
Stuff Khmer People Like
As with every country, there are things that people in Cambodia seem to more or less universally enjoy. Some are totally unsurprising, because they are awesome. Some are totally confusing… Either way, here’s what I’ve noticed.
1. Tom and Jerry
Every television I have encountered seems to get Cartoon Network, and plays Tom and Jerry at least 12 hours a day. I don’t know if Cartoon Network in America plays Tom and Jerry that much, but it really seems to ALWAYS be on TV here. I have walked into restaurants and seen it on, my adult host sisters and brothers watch it, it is always on at guest houses… I think maybe everyone watches it because there is not dialogue it is just universally available, but I have never really appreciated it before. Another thing I can learn to love here.
2. Wearing pajamas at all hours
I see women and girls of all ages wearing Khmer pajamas, which consist of pants and a long or short sleeve button up collared top, at all times of the day everywhere across Cambodia. They are worn to the market, around the house, to school if uniforms aren’t required, and anywhere else. I especially like the ones with little bears or bunnies that say things like “I love words” and “Hip-Hop Bear” which brings me to…
3. Hip-Hop
Khmer people take American hip-hop songs and sing them, or change the words to Khmer. I guess there is no copyright law here, but it makes for some banging jams. Also, I see people everywhere with brightly colored shirts that say things in block letters like “HIP HOP audition for super team all-stars dance.” My favorite one, which actually has nothing to do with hip-hop said, “My shirty attitude is none of your f*&#$* business!” Fair enough.
4. Rice
As I think I’ve mentioned it is really difficult to explain the American diet because everyone wants to know what we eat if not rice. I think I have somehow conveyed Americans consume about six loaves of bread a day.
5. White skin
Random women have touched my arms and legs, maybe to see if the color comes off? I frequently have conversations about how my skin is so beautiful because it is white. I tell everyone that in America having dark skin is beautiful, but the whole transformation of tan skin to a symbol of the leisure class rather than one of a field hand is a little beyond my vocabulary in Khmer. It has been a challenge to find face moisturizer here because everything has whitening formula in it. I don’t really know what that consists of, but I know I don’t want it in my face lotion.
6. White people who speak Khmer
Sometimes all it takes is saying “No, thank you” in Khmer to elicit a shocked howling, laughing reaction. Everyone seems to really dig it. Hopefully future employers and law school admissions officers will be equally pleased.
7. Comparisons
Be wary of traveling in groups around Cambodian towns as you will quickly know who is the fattest, tallest, prettiest, smartest, or anything other most adjective easily determined.
8. Motos
During the breaks at school all the male teachers sit on their motos rather than the benches. Teachers who I know live maybe a five minute walk from school ride their motos rather than walk. I watched a teacher drive across the courtyard to the classroom for his next class yesterday, which was about 100 yards, if that. Everyone has a moto. Even the babies ride on motos. Whenever anyone from my host family needs to go somewhere the two little kids run out and one climbs up behind and one stands in front of the driver, and they look super excited. I keep trying to convince my students books are as cool as motos, but I don’t think they are buying it.
1. Tom and Jerry
Every television I have encountered seems to get Cartoon Network, and plays Tom and Jerry at least 12 hours a day. I don’t know if Cartoon Network in America plays Tom and Jerry that much, but it really seems to ALWAYS be on TV here. I have walked into restaurants and seen it on, my adult host sisters and brothers watch it, it is always on at guest houses… I think maybe everyone watches it because there is not dialogue it is just universally available, but I have never really appreciated it before. Another thing I can learn to love here.
2. Wearing pajamas at all hours
I see women and girls of all ages wearing Khmer pajamas, which consist of pants and a long or short sleeve button up collared top, at all times of the day everywhere across Cambodia. They are worn to the market, around the house, to school if uniforms aren’t required, and anywhere else. I especially like the ones with little bears or bunnies that say things like “I love words” and “Hip-Hop Bear” which brings me to…
3. Hip-Hop
Khmer people take American hip-hop songs and sing them, or change the words to Khmer. I guess there is no copyright law here, but it makes for some banging jams. Also, I see people everywhere with brightly colored shirts that say things in block letters like “HIP HOP audition for super team all-stars dance.” My favorite one, which actually has nothing to do with hip-hop said, “My shirty attitude is none of your f*&#$* business!” Fair enough.
4. Rice
As I think I’ve mentioned it is really difficult to explain the American diet because everyone wants to know what we eat if not rice. I think I have somehow conveyed Americans consume about six loaves of bread a day.
5. White skin
Random women have touched my arms and legs, maybe to see if the color comes off? I frequently have conversations about how my skin is so beautiful because it is white. I tell everyone that in America having dark skin is beautiful, but the whole transformation of tan skin to a symbol of the leisure class rather than one of a field hand is a little beyond my vocabulary in Khmer. It has been a challenge to find face moisturizer here because everything has whitening formula in it. I don’t really know what that consists of, but I know I don’t want it in my face lotion.
6. White people who speak Khmer
Sometimes all it takes is saying “No, thank you” in Khmer to elicit a shocked howling, laughing reaction. Everyone seems to really dig it. Hopefully future employers and law school admissions officers will be equally pleased.
7. Comparisons
Be wary of traveling in groups around Cambodian towns as you will quickly know who is the fattest, tallest, prettiest, smartest, or anything other most adjective easily determined.
8. Motos
During the breaks at school all the male teachers sit on their motos rather than the benches. Teachers who I know live maybe a five minute walk from school ride their motos rather than walk. I watched a teacher drive across the courtyard to the classroom for his next class yesterday, which was about 100 yards, if that. Everyone has a moto. Even the babies ride on motos. Whenever anyone from my host family needs to go somewhere the two little kids run out and one climbs up behind and one stands in front of the driver, and they look super excited. I keep trying to convince my students books are as cool as motos, but I don’t think they are buying it.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Le Grande Tour
http://picasaweb.google.com/meaganeg/CambodianHouse#
The above link will take you to some pictures of my house. I have pictures of my room in a previous album but in my procrastination to define more vocabulary words for class next week I thought I would post some pictures!
The above link will take you to some pictures of my house. I have pictures of my room in a previous album but in my procrastination to define more vocabulary words for class next week I thought I would post some pictures!
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Angkor Wat Bike Race
The race started at 6:00am on Saturday. That meant we all had to wake up at 4:30am to get ready and meet in town to ride together to the start line. The start line was 8 kilometers away from the meeting point. I felt a little mislead since that meant we were biking 46k, not 30. As a well known poor biker, and this weekend one who was running on little sleep, those extra 16k didn’t help me. However, biking through Siem Reap in the dark was really fun and it was still nice and cool throughout the whole race which is a huge feat in Cambodia and explains the 6:00am start time.
A few friends and I cruised along, stopping frequently to take pictures of the temples (or waiting for me to catch up) which I will post so everyone can see them, even though some are a little blurry since I took them while biking (footnote 3). The road doesn’t actually run through the main temples of Angkor Wat but we did get to see Bayon, and the Terrace of the Elephants, among other things, which are both pretty famous landmarks. I was really impressed with the temples we saw and cannot wait until I get an opportunity to really see Angkor Wat. The highlight for me was definitely near the end when we saw all the monkeys on the side of the road. I stopped to take some pictures and one monkey walked right up to the edge of the road, where it picked up a hard candy, unwrapped it and ate it! I was so excited by this, maybe just because I was a little delusional after biking for over two hours on 4 hours of sleep, but that monkey definitely wrapped up the race for me (pun intended… get it? He had a candy wrapper?). We had maybe 10 more minutes of riding after the monkey sighting. I like to think that I am a decently athletic person. I can hold my own at most athletic events, and keep up with the average person, but I am certainly no biker. I am fine to cruise around town on a bike, or even ride for a little exercise, but there will be no Tour de France appearances anytime in my future. If it weren’t for my friend Lori yelling, “Don’t stop pedaling! We are almost there!” I would probably have given up about 5 minutes before the finish line. We all finished in a cool 2 hours and 24 minutes. Next year I’m going for 2 hours and 20 minutes. I think it is do-able.
Overall I had a really great weekend because this was my first chance to do something outside of Peace Corps in Cambodia and really feel like I accomplished something challenging, even if I accomplished it slowly. I was ready to go back to site by the end of the weekend though. As much as I am bored in my village frequently or irritated by my co-teachers or my inability to communicate in Khmer, I think I am getting used to village life. Being in Siem Reap town for a weekend is enough to wear out my patience (and my budget). It is nice to go in to town and be just another white face in the crowd for a few days, instead of the token town “Barang,” but it is also irritating that to all the tuk tuk drivers and little kids hawking postcards or books you are just another visitor. They don’t know that you live there and aren’t interested in their service or products. I appreciate that these people are hassling me to make their living, but it grates on the nerves to have someone yelling, “lady tuk-tuk!” at every corner. I am ready for a little peace and quiet, reading my book, sitting in the hammock, and even, believe it or not, a little rice.1. http://www.angkormarathon.org/
2. http://www.villagefocus.org/
3. http://picasaweb.google.com/meaganeg/AngkorWatBikeRace
Monday, November 30, 2009
Lonely Planet audition: Kampong Cham town
First, thanks for all the birthday wishes! It really did not feel like my birthday, maybe because the weather is still quite warm or maybe because I was not at Kip’s, but it was nice to hear from so many people!
No, this isn't really an audition to write for Lonely Planet... unless they are interested. In which case please, Lonely Planet editor or Human Resources person, read on.
I just returned from a three-day language training in Kampong Cham provincial town (each province has a provincial capitol city with the same name, which is usually the most bangin’ city in the province). Kampong Cham is the richest province and the difference was visible almost immediately (Siem Reap is the poorest province in Cambodia). Near the end of the five hour bus ride I began to notice the landscape changing. There were a lot more trees and a lot less rice paddies. Many of the houses were big concrete multiple-story houses, instead of the traditional wooden house on stilts that is the most common form of housing in my province. The city itself had paved roads. Siem Reap just paved one of their main roads hastily since someone important was coming into town and they realized they needed to get their crap together… Kampong Cham also has a beautiful bridge across the Tonle Sap that runs through town. It was built by the Japanese, as most nice looking things in Cambodia are if they aren’t built by the Belgians, and we took a walk across it after training and climbed up an old tower of some sort to get a really nice view of the whole area. The colonial influence is also much heavier in Kampong Cham; you can see a lot of French colonial style buildings.
I was pretty sad to not be able to have Thanksgiving dinner. There was a place doing a traditional Thanksgiving in Siem Reap but we had to be in Kampong Cham Thursday night, and so I couldn’t participate. However, I did have a delicious tofu burger at one of the three western restaurants in town. While I gave up being a vegetarian for my time here, in order to be more culturally assimilated and because vegetarian options are sometimes extremely limited or non-existent, I still appreciate being able to find a good vegetarian meal and the tofu burgers at Mekong Crossing Restaurant in Kampong Cham definitely qualified (no, I’m not getting paid for that little plug). Plus, it was nice to see some other volunteers. We are still not allowed to leave the province for another month, unless on Peace Corps approved travel like for training, so I rarely get to see other volunteers. It has been really weird after spending every waking moment with people for two months and growing to really know and like them, and then being strewn about the country not being able to see them. Soon, though, lockdown will be over and I cannot wait to see some more of the country!
I would definitely want to return to Kampong Cham province. It was just really beautiful and clean and developed. The volunteers there definitely face a different set of issues in some cases than I do, for example students being on the cell phones constantly and riding their motos around instead of being in class. I don’t think any of my students have motos (technically you have to be 18 to drive one but that law, like so many others, seems to be ignored) or flashy cell phones, which probably has to do with the disparity of wealth between the two provinces. It is far less westernized than Siem Reap, but we still saw a fair number of backpackers, most of whom seemed to be French. I am actually somewhat envious of the provincial town. Even though Siem Reap leaves little to be desired in the way of western options for eating, drinking, and replacing things that break or wear out, it is always a little bit of culture shock to go back to the village. The westernized part of the city is so wealthy and busy, and even right across the bridge on the Khmer side of town it is much quieter, the buildings are smaller, and the roads are dusty and unpaved. It has really gotten to the point where by the end of a weekend in Siem Reap I am ready to go back and just lay in my bed or hammock and read! I swear I will have no normal social skills to speak of by the time I am done here…
Side note: I coughed up the cash to get an internet phone and figured out how to hook it up to my laptop as a modem, so I can get online in the village! Look for me on skype.
No, this isn't really an audition to write for Lonely Planet... unless they are interested. In which case please, Lonely Planet editor or Human Resources person, read on.
I just returned from a three-day language training in Kampong Cham provincial town (each province has a provincial capitol city with the same name, which is usually the most bangin’ city in the province). Kampong Cham is the richest province and the difference was visible almost immediately (Siem Reap is the poorest province in Cambodia). Near the end of the five hour bus ride I began to notice the landscape changing. There were a lot more trees and a lot less rice paddies. Many of the houses were big concrete multiple-story houses, instead of the traditional wooden house on stilts that is the most common form of housing in my province. The city itself had paved roads. Siem Reap just paved one of their main roads hastily since someone important was coming into town and they realized they needed to get their crap together… Kampong Cham also has a beautiful bridge across the Tonle Sap that runs through town. It was built by the Japanese, as most nice looking things in Cambodia are if they aren’t built by the Belgians, and we took a walk across it after training and climbed up an old tower of some sort to get a really nice view of the whole area. The colonial influence is also much heavier in Kampong Cham; you can see a lot of French colonial style buildings.
I was pretty sad to not be able to have Thanksgiving dinner. There was a place doing a traditional Thanksgiving in Siem Reap but we had to be in Kampong Cham Thursday night, and so I couldn’t participate. However, I did have a delicious tofu burger at one of the three western restaurants in town. While I gave up being a vegetarian for my time here, in order to be more culturally assimilated and because vegetarian options are sometimes extremely limited or non-existent, I still appreciate being able to find a good vegetarian meal and the tofu burgers at Mekong Crossing Restaurant in Kampong Cham definitely qualified (no, I’m not getting paid for that little plug). Plus, it was nice to see some other volunteers. We are still not allowed to leave the province for another month, unless on Peace Corps approved travel like for training, so I rarely get to see other volunteers. It has been really weird after spending every waking moment with people for two months and growing to really know and like them, and then being strewn about the country not being able to see them. Soon, though, lockdown will be over and I cannot wait to see some more of the country!
I would definitely want to return to Kampong Cham province. It was just really beautiful and clean and developed. The volunteers there definitely face a different set of issues in some cases than I do, for example students being on the cell phones constantly and riding their motos around instead of being in class. I don’t think any of my students have motos (technically you have to be 18 to drive one but that law, like so many others, seems to be ignored) or flashy cell phones, which probably has to do with the disparity of wealth between the two provinces. It is far less westernized than Siem Reap, but we still saw a fair number of backpackers, most of whom seemed to be French. I am actually somewhat envious of the provincial town. Even though Siem Reap leaves little to be desired in the way of western options for eating, drinking, and replacing things that break or wear out, it is always a little bit of culture shock to go back to the village. The westernized part of the city is so wealthy and busy, and even right across the bridge on the Khmer side of town it is much quieter, the buildings are smaller, and the roads are dusty and unpaved. It has really gotten to the point where by the end of a weekend in Siem Reap I am ready to go back and just lay in my bed or hammock and read! I swear I will have no normal social skills to speak of by the time I am done here…
Side note: I coughed up the cash to get an internet phone and figured out how to hook it up to my laptop as a modem, so I can get online in the village! Look for me on skype.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Cheaters never prosper. Then again most people in Cambodia don't regardless...
This Wednesday, I had probably the most depressing day of teaching yet. Near the end of each month teachers administer monthly tests. Each teacher puts together their own test, and it seems mostly to consist of activities directly out of the book, meaning they are activities students have already completed in class and have the answers to. For example, the grade ten exam had a paragraph where students had to circle the correct verb form, a crossword the answers to which came from filling in the blanks in sentences and all of which were vocabulary words, a section of sentences with the words scrambled, and a word search. Students did not understand the concept of the crossword, and many could not even copy the words of the scrambled sentences correctly. Some could not do the word search so they just wrote some words next to it that they remembered from the past month. The word search was from the unit on going to the market, so it contained words like cabbage and vegetables. Official and manager were not in the crossword and yet I had several tests all in a row with those words written in.
Which brings me to the real reason I had such a horrible day. Usually I excuse myself for monthly tests. I have heard horror stories about the cheating that goes on and I know I cannot just stand by and watch students cheat, but it is very ingrained into students that there is pressure to get the correct answers at any cost. I am not really sure why because I don’t think students fail a grade ever, and their grades do not determine University acceptance. Somehow I ended up getting wrangled into watching students during a monthly test while my co-teacher ran to grab some papers for me. Before I could really argue he basically tossed the tests to the students and they began. As the tests were being passed around I asked everyone to put away their text books. The students either did not understand me or were shocked that I would ask them to do this, so they did not. I had to go around and physically touch each book that was sitting on the students’ desks and motion for them to put the books away. The students were still talking though, and I assume they were chatting about the test. I asked them repeatedly to be quiet, as they were taking a test, until finally I raised my voice which always gets results since Khmer teachers rarely do it. Plus most of the students are terrified of me anyway. I cannot imagine why.
The students were finally quiet but kept blatantly looking at each others’ papers and copying answers! One boy was turned all the way around in his desk scanning the paper behind him to get the answers. I asked him what he was doing. He did not respond. I asked him why he was cheating. He did not respond. I told him to turn around (he was still facing the students behind him). He did not move. I demonstrated that I wanted him to rotate his body and look only AT HIS OWN TEST. He turned around but looked completely confused.
There were two girls sitting next to each other who were blatantly copying. I kept walking by and tapping on the desk and telling them to stop, but after about 30 seconds they would return to copying. I finally stood directly in front of them, watching them take their tests. They stopped cheating for maybe a minute, and then kept cheating! I slammed my hand down on the desk and said, “What are you doing?! I am standing in front of you because you are cheating. STOP CHEATING!” I left at the end of the hour, my first of the day, and told my co-teacher I had a migraine and needed to go home.
I am sure some of my students just don’t understand what I am saying, but I am pretty sure they get the gist of the fact that I want them to not cheat on their tests. I would like for them to not cheat, but I don’t know if I have the energy to explain that they need to not cheat and that if I catch them I will rip up their test in front of the whole class. And possibly call them names. There are so many problems with the Cambodian educational system, cheating being just one of them, that I feel like I just don’t have the energy to change things. Also, even if I can convince my students that cheating is wrong and they should have personal integrity and want to achieve good grades of their own accord, cheating happens all the way through the system, even on national exams. So if they aren’t cheating are they at a disadvantage to the rest of the students who are? In the long run am I hurting their chances of scoring high enough on the national exam to qualify for a university scholarship since the rest of the students in the country are cheating their pants off? I am about ready to throw in the towel on the whole teaching thing today, and just run my own class with only the students who can understand me… if only that were possible.
Which brings me to the real reason I had such a horrible day. Usually I excuse myself for monthly tests. I have heard horror stories about the cheating that goes on and I know I cannot just stand by and watch students cheat, but it is very ingrained into students that there is pressure to get the correct answers at any cost. I am not really sure why because I don’t think students fail a grade ever, and their grades do not determine University acceptance. Somehow I ended up getting wrangled into watching students during a monthly test while my co-teacher ran to grab some papers for me. Before I could really argue he basically tossed the tests to the students and they began. As the tests were being passed around I asked everyone to put away their text books. The students either did not understand me or were shocked that I would ask them to do this, so they did not. I had to go around and physically touch each book that was sitting on the students’ desks and motion for them to put the books away. The students were still talking though, and I assume they were chatting about the test. I asked them repeatedly to be quiet, as they were taking a test, until finally I raised my voice which always gets results since Khmer teachers rarely do it. Plus most of the students are terrified of me anyway. I cannot imagine why.
The students were finally quiet but kept blatantly looking at each others’ papers and copying answers! One boy was turned all the way around in his desk scanning the paper behind him to get the answers. I asked him what he was doing. He did not respond. I asked him why he was cheating. He did not respond. I told him to turn around (he was still facing the students behind him). He did not move. I demonstrated that I wanted him to rotate his body and look only AT HIS OWN TEST. He turned around but looked completely confused.
There were two girls sitting next to each other who were blatantly copying. I kept walking by and tapping on the desk and telling them to stop, but after about 30 seconds they would return to copying. I finally stood directly in front of them, watching them take their tests. They stopped cheating for maybe a minute, and then kept cheating! I slammed my hand down on the desk and said, “What are you doing?! I am standing in front of you because you are cheating. STOP CHEATING!” I left at the end of the hour, my first of the day, and told my co-teacher I had a migraine and needed to go home.
I am sure some of my students just don’t understand what I am saying, but I am pretty sure they get the gist of the fact that I want them to not cheat on their tests. I would like for them to not cheat, but I don’t know if I have the energy to explain that they need to not cheat and that if I catch them I will rip up their test in front of the whole class. And possibly call them names. There are so many problems with the Cambodian educational system, cheating being just one of them, that I feel like I just don’t have the energy to change things. Also, even if I can convince my students that cheating is wrong and they should have personal integrity and want to achieve good grades of their own accord, cheating happens all the way through the system, even on national exams. So if they aren’t cheating are they at a disadvantage to the rest of the students who are? In the long run am I hurting their chances of scoring high enough on the national exam to qualify for a university scholarship since the rest of the students in the country are cheating their pants off? I am about ready to throw in the towel on the whole teaching thing today, and just run my own class with only the students who can understand me… if only that were possible.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Mythbusters
Bad Advice
In my what feels like an eternity but is actually only four months in Cambodia, I have received a lot of horrible advice and misinformation which the givers believe to be truth. You could call these myths. I have examined these myths, and attempted to determine their validity. I will now pass the results of my research on to you, with the goal of hopefully entertaining. (Clearly, I have done nothing interesting or meaningful in the last month, so I’m stretching for blog content. I swear one of these days I’ll actually write something about the meaningful and interesting work I am doing, but mostly right now it consists of convincing the students not to be scared of me, planning for things that haven’t happened yet, and searching for a space where I can have clubs.)
Myth #1: Eat rice until you are full, or else you will get sick.
After experimenting with this one I can conclude based on both scientific logic and pure personal experience that this myth is busted. I ate rice until I was full several nights in a row, and not only did I still become sick, but I also became fat.
Myth #2: You should not eat a large breakfast or you will become fat.
In some sense this may be true. I guess if you eat huge portions of rice several times a day and do not exercise your caloric intake will simply overwhelm your energy expenditure and you will gain weight. However, the whole kick starting your metabolism thing seemed to be lost in translation.
Myth #3: If you only drink coffee in the morning you will be a bad teacher.
My former co-teacher, who I decided it was best not to work with because he has a bad attitude and has already worked with a Peace Corps volunteer, so he knows all the tricks I have up my sleeve, asked what I was drinking in my travel mug this morning. As always, I told him it was coffee. He responded, “Ah, you drink only coffee and you are a bad teacher, but I eat bread with coffee so I will be a good teacher.” He knows all the secrets of good teaching…
Myth #4: If you eat mangosteen dipped in sugar it becomes poisonous and you will die.
We busted this one during training by doing it. However, I have now heard it from three different sources, so I wonder if in high volumes there is some truth to this. It sounds a little like the pop rocks and coke debate to me.
Myth #5: Tiger balm cures all.
Definitely not true. It is really good if you have itchy mosquito bites, and smelling it helped clear up swollen nasal passages when I had a bad cold and laryngitis, but I definitely do not recommend rubbing it on the outside of your nose. I got tired of holding the jar in front of my face so I could breathe and thought if I just rubbed it outside my nostrils I could rest my arms… bad idea. I also do not recommend it for open wounds and doubt that it cures broken bones or serious genetically predetermined afflictions.
In my what feels like an eternity but is actually only four months in Cambodia, I have received a lot of horrible advice and misinformation which the givers believe to be truth. You could call these myths. I have examined these myths, and attempted to determine their validity. I will now pass the results of my research on to you, with the goal of hopefully entertaining. (Clearly, I have done nothing interesting or meaningful in the last month, so I’m stretching for blog content. I swear one of these days I’ll actually write something about the meaningful and interesting work I am doing, but mostly right now it consists of convincing the students not to be scared of me, planning for things that haven’t happened yet, and searching for a space where I can have clubs.)
Myth #1: Eat rice until you are full, or else you will get sick.
After experimenting with this one I can conclude based on both scientific logic and pure personal experience that this myth is busted. I ate rice until I was full several nights in a row, and not only did I still become sick, but I also became fat.
Myth #2: You should not eat a large breakfast or you will become fat.
In some sense this may be true. I guess if you eat huge portions of rice several times a day and do not exercise your caloric intake will simply overwhelm your energy expenditure and you will gain weight. However, the whole kick starting your metabolism thing seemed to be lost in translation.
Myth #3: If you only drink coffee in the morning you will be a bad teacher.
My former co-teacher, who I decided it was best not to work with because he has a bad attitude and has already worked with a Peace Corps volunteer, so he knows all the tricks I have up my sleeve, asked what I was drinking in my travel mug this morning. As always, I told him it was coffee. He responded, “Ah, you drink only coffee and you are a bad teacher, but I eat bread with coffee so I will be a good teacher.” He knows all the secrets of good teaching…
Myth #4: If you eat mangosteen dipped in sugar it becomes poisonous and you will die.
We busted this one during training by doing it. However, I have now heard it from three different sources, so I wonder if in high volumes there is some truth to this. It sounds a little like the pop rocks and coke debate to me.
Myth #5: Tiger balm cures all.
Definitely not true. It is really good if you have itchy mosquito bites, and smelling it helped clear up swollen nasal passages when I had a bad cold and laryngitis, but I definitely do not recommend rubbing it on the outside of your nose. I got tired of holding the jar in front of my face so I could breathe and thought if I just rubbed it outside my nostrils I could rest my arms… bad idea. I also do not recommend it for open wounds and doubt that it cures broken bones or serious genetically predetermined afflictions.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Ticket to Ride
I just got out of a taxi. But unlike a taxi in San Francisco, where you pay the driver some probably really expensive fair plus tip, and then slide out the door, I had to wake up the man in front of me, say over and over again, “I stop here” because that is the only Khmer phrase I know that could convey I needed him to move, and clamber out the door. A Cambodian taxi is what I ride to get back from Siem Reap town to my village. Luckily I am along the main highway so tracking down a taxi isn’t usually difficult. We just hail a tuk tuk and tell them we are going to the taxi stand to catch a taxi to our districts, negotiate the price, and the tuk tuk driver takes us to the edge of town. There is almost always a broke-down old pick-up truck waiting there, half full of people. Today I sat in the back seat of the cab, with three other women and a small child while two other passengers sat in the front seat next to the driver. The driver somehow got us back to my site safely, despite the feet dangling over the windshield right in his field of vision because the area on top of the cab had five or so men sitting on it along with several bags. The bed of the pick-up was full too of course. Last time I counted 22 people in the bed of the taxi when we were at capacity.
The upside of this form of travel is that it costs only 5000 riehl (1.25 USD) to get home. Buses run all morning from Siem Reap down the main highway to Phnom Penh and many other cities, all passing through my village. To take a nice air conditioned bus, however, would mean paying the fare for the whole ride (more or less $5 from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh) which is pretty expensive for a 30 kilometer trip. On the way into town, however, I can easily hail a bus since ones with empty seats stop frequently at the edge of my market in town. I just hop on and it is smooth sailing into town! There is, of course, a downside to this form of transportation which is the unpredictability of the price. The first time I rode into town this way they didn’t charge me at all, whereas the second time it cost me $2, which is much more than the 3000 riehl it costs to take a taxi. I am not sure why it is cheaper to get into Siem Reap than out of it in a taxi, but then again I understand as close to nothing as possible about Cambodian logic. I do really enjoy having such easy access to Siem Reap town, as I have heard horror stories about other people’s journeys to and from their sites. Plus I am willing to pay a little extra if it means not waiting for hours in the cab of a hot truck with 7 other people sweating and breathing and using up the much valued oxygen all around me.
Another interesting form of transportation I’ve used in Cambodia is the bamboo train. I guess it runs all over the country, but I took it in Pursat province out to a smaller village. We rode the train during health training when we went to visit this village because it was rainy season and the road had washed away. The train consisted of a bamboo platform atop two sets of wheels on the track with a motor. It was pretty exciting for about ten minutes until my butt fell asleep. However, it was cool to cruise right by water buffalo and watch my feet dangle over the tracks as we crossed bridges spanning the little rivers that we came to. It was really exciting when we had to stop because a huge train was coming in the other direction. We had to stop and jump off, then the men took apart the train so that the tracks would be clear for the big train to roll through. Normally I would want to help disassemble the train for the sake of feminism and prove I can carry as much bamboo train as any man… or at least any relatively small man who works out infrequently, but in this case I was fine standing safely away from the tracks watching. At one of these stops I wandered off into the forest because I needed to pee, until I remembered what a bad idea that is because of land mines that are still unexploded all over Cambodia. I decided to squat where I was and follow my exact footsteps back to the group. The bamboo train took about an hour and a half in one direction, and only 45 minutes on the return because our only stop was to slow down enough to push another car that had run out of whatever powers these “trains” versus the three near death experiences on the way to the village.
Most people do their moving on motos. Unfortunately Peace Corps volunteers worldwide are not allowed to operate motorized vehicles, nor are we allowed to ride on motorbikes. I did not really know about this rule when I signed up for Peace Corps since I read very old material that was written when some volunteers were still issued dirt bikes or motorcycles to get around. Obviously my dreams were crushed when I heard about it, but I am glad it exits. Despite the prevalence of motorbikes, which makes them the most convenient, easiest and often cheapest mode of transport, traffic accidents are the number one cause of death in Cambodia, many of these involving motos. I am very happy to say no to the moto if it means I get to go home to America in one piece.
In any case, transportation says a lot about a place so hopefully I’ve conveyed a little piece of Cambodia to you!
The upside of this form of travel is that it costs only 5000 riehl (1.25 USD) to get home. Buses run all morning from Siem Reap down the main highway to Phnom Penh and many other cities, all passing through my village. To take a nice air conditioned bus, however, would mean paying the fare for the whole ride (more or less $5 from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh) which is pretty expensive for a 30 kilometer trip. On the way into town, however, I can easily hail a bus since ones with empty seats stop frequently at the edge of my market in town. I just hop on and it is smooth sailing into town! There is, of course, a downside to this form of transportation which is the unpredictability of the price. The first time I rode into town this way they didn’t charge me at all, whereas the second time it cost me $2, which is much more than the 3000 riehl it costs to take a taxi. I am not sure why it is cheaper to get into Siem Reap than out of it in a taxi, but then again I understand as close to nothing as possible about Cambodian logic. I do really enjoy having such easy access to Siem Reap town, as I have heard horror stories about other people’s journeys to and from their sites. Plus I am willing to pay a little extra if it means not waiting for hours in the cab of a hot truck with 7 other people sweating and breathing and using up the much valued oxygen all around me.
Another interesting form of transportation I’ve used in Cambodia is the bamboo train. I guess it runs all over the country, but I took it in Pursat province out to a smaller village. We rode the train during health training when we went to visit this village because it was rainy season and the road had washed away. The train consisted of a bamboo platform atop two sets of wheels on the track with a motor. It was pretty exciting for about ten minutes until my butt fell asleep. However, it was cool to cruise right by water buffalo and watch my feet dangle over the tracks as we crossed bridges spanning the little rivers that we came to. It was really exciting when we had to stop because a huge train was coming in the other direction. We had to stop and jump off, then the men took apart the train so that the tracks would be clear for the big train to roll through. Normally I would want to help disassemble the train for the sake of feminism and prove I can carry as much bamboo train as any man… or at least any relatively small man who works out infrequently, but in this case I was fine standing safely away from the tracks watching. At one of these stops I wandered off into the forest because I needed to pee, until I remembered what a bad idea that is because of land mines that are still unexploded all over Cambodia. I decided to squat where I was and follow my exact footsteps back to the group. The bamboo train took about an hour and a half in one direction, and only 45 minutes on the return because our only stop was to slow down enough to push another car that had run out of whatever powers these “trains” versus the three near death experiences on the way to the village.
Most people do their moving on motos. Unfortunately Peace Corps volunteers worldwide are not allowed to operate motorized vehicles, nor are we allowed to ride on motorbikes. I did not really know about this rule when I signed up for Peace Corps since I read very old material that was written when some volunteers were still issued dirt bikes or motorcycles to get around. Obviously my dreams were crushed when I heard about it, but I am glad it exits. Despite the prevalence of motorbikes, which makes them the most convenient, easiest and often cheapest mode of transport, traffic accidents are the number one cause of death in Cambodia, many of these involving motos. I am very happy to say no to the moto if it means I get to go home to America in one piece.
In any case, transportation says a lot about a place so hopefully I’ve conveyed a little piece of Cambodia to you!
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
A Day in the Life
After a few months here my sense of exciting vs. boring has been severely warped, and I have little sense of what is interesting and relevant for people to read, so I thought I’d just write about what a typical day here is like and see how that goes.
I usually wake up a little before six or seven depending on what time I have to teach. It has started to cool down so I don’t have to shower in the morning because I am not drenched in sweat at night, so I wash my face and put on my Khmer teaching clothes. We have to wear traditional Khmer skirts, which are ankle length and made out of fabric that feels like a couch. It is heavy, itchy, upholstery fabric basically, worn with a collared shirt. During training we kept hearing that appearance is very important in Khmer culture, and I find that to be true among the teachers at my school. If I run out of the house and my collar is a little askew my co-workers are quick to point it out. Also, popping your collar is not an option. I went to school one day with my collar popped without even thinking about it because that is just how I roll, and my teachers came up to me within minutes very confused and “fixed” my collar for me. I guess it is frowned upon to be awesome here.
I teach a few hours a day. High school is in the morning from 7:00am to noon. In the afternoon the younger students have class, so I am free to do other things. I teach with co-teachers, so depending on what day and what hour I am teaching with one of three Cambodian teachers. We work together to cover the material in the text book, although since I am still starting out I basically just fill in where they ask me to and sometimes throw in an activity I think up. As I get more into my role we will lesson plan together and I can try to integrate more student-centered learning techniques and activities into the classroom. Two of my co-teachers are actually great teachers and studied educational science so they know a lot of good teaching techniques. Unfortunately, they have told me they are under pressure to get through the text book so they don’t really have time to use many of these techniques. I think the students will learn more if my teachers can ease up from the grind to get through the book and just focus on learning fewer things more thoroughly and more accurately. A lot of the vocabulary is pretty useless and the students get about ten new vocab words every other hour of classes, which they are never really tested on and which are not reviewed so there is little point. To be fair I do not know what private classes for English look like, so maybe they review the words there.
After class I return home and change into normal clothes. It is about noon so I make lunch. I eat dinner with my host family but I make my own breakfast and lunch. I am not totally comfortable using my host family’s kitchen because I don’t want to use up too much of their propane and they still won’t let me do the dishes so I don’t want to make too much of a mess (they think I don’t know how to wash dishes, which is a fair assumption since it is quite different than in America but it is not like its brain surgery…). I usually just boil some water for oatmeal and coffee in the morning and make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. It is like fourth grade all over again. I am lucky to have bread in my market and I stock up on the peanut butter and jelly in Siem Reap town at the Lucky Market, which is like an American supermarket except that the products from America are wildly expensive. A box of Special K cereal costs about seven dollars! Sometimes in the morning I take my coffee to school with me. Teachers are very confused as to why I drink coffee in the morning. A few of them joked that it is probably beer in the mug; they were speaking Khmer and thought I couldn’t piece together what they were saying. They make me wish it was beer. But that is beside the point…
After lunch I have relatively little to do. I haven’t started doing clubs yet because I don’t really know my students that well and think it will be better when my Khmer improves and they get used to my accent more. Some of them are really smart, but most still have problems understanding me since they have only ever heard a Khmer person speaking English. Until I start clubs I pretty much just read all afternoon. I have an hour of Khmer lessons at 3:00pm which is a nice break and helps me feel like I’m accomplishing something. The teacher who agreed to tutor me is really nice and has almost finished teaching me the consonants, and then we will do the vowels so I can learn to read. I think that will be really helpful so I can use a Khmer-English dictionary when I don’t know a word I need, and it will help with my pronunciation a lot. I have also learned some new vocabulary.
I usually go for a bike ride in the late afternoon, once it has cooled down a bit. Even though it will be cool season soon it is still ridiculously hot and often humid during the day. It gets to be much nicer around 4:00pm though. After about an hour of riding I take a shower and read some more, just to try something new, until dinner time. Khmer food at my host family’s house is always rice, usually with some stir fried meat and vegetables. Occasionally we have curry, which is really tasty. It is very difficult to explain American food to Khmer people, because they ask what we eat instead of rice. It is almost impossible to explain the range of possibilities because that kind of variety doesn’t exist in rural Cambodia. Usually I think I end up conveying that we eat bread, which people take to mean we eat bread three times a day with varying things on it. In the same way it is extremely difficult to explain what people do in America. Several people have asked what the most common job is in America, and it is so hard to explain that there are more options than I even know of or could imagine. Most people in my village either work in the rice paddies, sell something in the market, or teach. Some work for NGOs as well. The part of my job that is teaching about American culture and society has proved to be somewhat more complicated than I anticipated in that many people I have tried to talk to cannot even fathom the things I describe. Not all people are so limited, but many are.
After the awkward dinner discussion I usually just head to bed. I read for awhile or write some letters, and then tuck in my mosquito net and hit the hay. Then it is off to dream about America… The sweet land of opportunity and running water and cable TV and salads and paved roads and minimal parasites in my food.
I hope I answered some of the questions about what I’m doing over here! Hopefully soon I’ll have some more interesting and enlightening information to relay about my wonderful world-changing side projects, but for the moment I’m really just trying to make each day pass as quickly as possible. I miss you America!
I usually wake up a little before six or seven depending on what time I have to teach. It has started to cool down so I don’t have to shower in the morning because I am not drenched in sweat at night, so I wash my face and put on my Khmer teaching clothes. We have to wear traditional Khmer skirts, which are ankle length and made out of fabric that feels like a couch. It is heavy, itchy, upholstery fabric basically, worn with a collared shirt. During training we kept hearing that appearance is very important in Khmer culture, and I find that to be true among the teachers at my school. If I run out of the house and my collar is a little askew my co-workers are quick to point it out. Also, popping your collar is not an option. I went to school one day with my collar popped without even thinking about it because that is just how I roll, and my teachers came up to me within minutes very confused and “fixed” my collar for me. I guess it is frowned upon to be awesome here.
I teach a few hours a day. High school is in the morning from 7:00am to noon. In the afternoon the younger students have class, so I am free to do other things. I teach with co-teachers, so depending on what day and what hour I am teaching with one of three Cambodian teachers. We work together to cover the material in the text book, although since I am still starting out I basically just fill in where they ask me to and sometimes throw in an activity I think up. As I get more into my role we will lesson plan together and I can try to integrate more student-centered learning techniques and activities into the classroom. Two of my co-teachers are actually great teachers and studied educational science so they know a lot of good teaching techniques. Unfortunately, they have told me they are under pressure to get through the text book so they don’t really have time to use many of these techniques. I think the students will learn more if my teachers can ease up from the grind to get through the book and just focus on learning fewer things more thoroughly and more accurately. A lot of the vocabulary is pretty useless and the students get about ten new vocab words every other hour of classes, which they are never really tested on and which are not reviewed so there is little point. To be fair I do not know what private classes for English look like, so maybe they review the words there.
After class I return home and change into normal clothes. It is about noon so I make lunch. I eat dinner with my host family but I make my own breakfast and lunch. I am not totally comfortable using my host family’s kitchen because I don’t want to use up too much of their propane and they still won’t let me do the dishes so I don’t want to make too much of a mess (they think I don’t know how to wash dishes, which is a fair assumption since it is quite different than in America but it is not like its brain surgery…). I usually just boil some water for oatmeal and coffee in the morning and make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. It is like fourth grade all over again. I am lucky to have bread in my market and I stock up on the peanut butter and jelly in Siem Reap town at the Lucky Market, which is like an American supermarket except that the products from America are wildly expensive. A box of Special K cereal costs about seven dollars! Sometimes in the morning I take my coffee to school with me. Teachers are very confused as to why I drink coffee in the morning. A few of them joked that it is probably beer in the mug; they were speaking Khmer and thought I couldn’t piece together what they were saying. They make me wish it was beer. But that is beside the point…
After lunch I have relatively little to do. I haven’t started doing clubs yet because I don’t really know my students that well and think it will be better when my Khmer improves and they get used to my accent more. Some of them are really smart, but most still have problems understanding me since they have only ever heard a Khmer person speaking English. Until I start clubs I pretty much just read all afternoon. I have an hour of Khmer lessons at 3:00pm which is a nice break and helps me feel like I’m accomplishing something. The teacher who agreed to tutor me is really nice and has almost finished teaching me the consonants, and then we will do the vowels so I can learn to read. I think that will be really helpful so I can use a Khmer-English dictionary when I don’t know a word I need, and it will help with my pronunciation a lot. I have also learned some new vocabulary.
I usually go for a bike ride in the late afternoon, once it has cooled down a bit. Even though it will be cool season soon it is still ridiculously hot and often humid during the day. It gets to be much nicer around 4:00pm though. After about an hour of riding I take a shower and read some more, just to try something new, until dinner time. Khmer food at my host family’s house is always rice, usually with some stir fried meat and vegetables. Occasionally we have curry, which is really tasty. It is very difficult to explain American food to Khmer people, because they ask what we eat instead of rice. It is almost impossible to explain the range of possibilities because that kind of variety doesn’t exist in rural Cambodia. Usually I think I end up conveying that we eat bread, which people take to mean we eat bread three times a day with varying things on it. In the same way it is extremely difficult to explain what people do in America. Several people have asked what the most common job is in America, and it is so hard to explain that there are more options than I even know of or could imagine. Most people in my village either work in the rice paddies, sell something in the market, or teach. Some work for NGOs as well. The part of my job that is teaching about American culture and society has proved to be somewhat more complicated than I anticipated in that many people I have tried to talk to cannot even fathom the things I describe. Not all people are so limited, but many are.
After the awkward dinner discussion I usually just head to bed. I read for awhile or write some letters, and then tuck in my mosquito net and hit the hay. Then it is off to dream about America… The sweet land of opportunity and running water and cable TV and salads and paved roads and minimal parasites in my food.
I hope I answered some of the questions about what I’m doing over here! Hopefully soon I’ll have some more interesting and enlightening information to relay about my wonderful world-changing side projects, but for the moment I’m really just trying to make each day pass as quickly as possible. I miss you America!
Friday, October 23, 2009
An Ex-pat's Guide to the Universe... of Cambodia
I wrote this October 12 but haven't had internet since then... sorry about the double post. I figured I might as well post them all while I can!
Upon arriving in Cambodia I quickly realized that even simple everyday actions are very different here than in the states. We all had to learn how to wash our clothes, clean our water, bathe, converse, and of course use the bathroom. It is like I left America a more or less fully functional adult, and when I arrived in Cambodia I could only function at the level of an infant. Any 10 year old child could tell or show you how to do these things, but I had to be taught how to do all of them. I thought for your entertainment, and because school ended two hours ago and I am now out of things to do for the day, I would describe how to do some basic things in Cambodia vs. America. Hopefully it doesn’t serve to discourage anyone from visiting!
1. Bathing
Not that anyone needs to be taught how to bathe American style, but just think about what is involved. Turn on the water, step in the shower, close the shower curtain. Lather, rinse, repeat. Turn off the water. Voila!
As I mentioned before my bathroom has a hose that brings the water right into the bathroom. It is glorious. I just scoop the water out of the big bucket and dump it over my head, lather up, and dump again. While I’m in there I usually spray my arms and feet in the morning with mosquito repellant so I can easily wash it off my hands. I then just shimmy into my sarong and walk back to my room! I know some people have given up on this, but I still carry my water bottle of filtered water into the bathroom with which to brush my teeth. Which brings us to…
2. Preparing Drinking Water
For most people in America this consists of turning on the tap.
In Cambodia Peace Corps hooked us up with some awesome water filters! We don’t have to boil our water first, which is nice because I feel bad using too much of my family’s wood or propane and it takes 20 minutes at a rolling boil to really kill what is in the water. Instead I scoop the water out of the rain water catchers and into my giant steel pot where I add a cap full of bleach. This totally freaked me out at first, putting bleach in my drinking water, but it can’t be worse than what I normally ingest on a weekend in the states… After 30 minutes of sitting, I pour the bleached water into my water filter and in a few short hours I have a whole filter full of delicious clean water. Go team.
3. Washing Clothes
This is my favorite. I dream about washing machines all the time. Just sort lights and darks about once a week and throw in a load with some detergent. Return in about 45 minutes to transfer clothes to the dryer or drying line.
FILL: During training my host family had a well in front of their house where I would do laundry. I would throw down the bucket, let it fill up about half way, and then haul it up and pour the water into the basin. Luckily my permanent site family has a motor that pumps water from their well. As I’ve said before, I’m totally spoiled here. I just scoop the water from the holding tanks into the wash basin and also fill a bucket.
WASH: I put a few items of clothing in the basin and sprinkle some detergent on top and squish it around. With t-shirts and stuff I just sort of scrub the fabric against itself because I don’t want it to stretch out too much. With other stuff I then pick up the scrub brush and go to town. Especially my pants require a lot of scrubbing to get the mud and what not out. My poor linen pants have stains on them from I don’t know where that are definitely in there for good. After I scrub out all the curry that I have inevitably dropped in my lap that week I squeeze the water out of the items and throw them in the bucket of water. When I’m done with my whole load I dump out the water from the basin, usually a dark color that is either reddish or greenish or blueish brown, and rinse the wash basin then fill it with clean water.
RINSE: I pull the items from the water bucket and squeeze them out, then rinse them one more time in the wash basin full of fresh water.
SPIN: I wring them out and toss my clothes back into the laundry basket to carry them to the front of the house.
DRY: My family has a bunch of racks so I put everything on hangers and let it hang dry. On drier days this is quick, but on humid days sometimes it takes a day or more. I have a nice set up in my room with a clothesline so when things are dry I don’t even have to fold them I just throw them on the line in my room! I still think it is awkward that my underwear hangs out in front of the house for the whole village to see, but I usually sandwich it between other clothes. Hopefully all the guys have managed to keep their leopard thongs hidden; I don’t think that would go over well in the community. I am not even kidding. This is a true confession by a volunteer…
4. Speaking
It is difficult to explain the difference between speaking the same language as everyone and piecing together part Khmer, sometimes part English, usually part pantomime. I have gotten quite used to sitting quietly while people ramble on to each other about me in Khmer. Sometimes they are not so nice because they think I cannot understand, but when I get the drift of what they are saying I usually just say something mean back in English. My host brother in law was talking about how I must not be very smart because I do not speak Khmer very well while we were all sitting at the dinner table. Later I told him his haircut looked like a ridiculous ugly child in America. He had no idea what I was saying. Is it petty? Absolutely. Does it make me feel better? Absolutely.
5. Dropping off the Kids at the Pool
You know what I’m talking about. The John. The throne. Dropping a bomb, a deuce, dookie. There are two kinds of toilets in Cambodia, a western looking toilet and a squatty potty as I like to call it, better known as the Asian style squat toilet. This is basically a rectangular porcelain platform with two indentations on either side for your feet, sometimes ridged for traction, and a hole in the middle. Upon discussion many of my fellow volunteers and I concluded this type of toilet has its advantages. While it may be difficult to master the “Asian squat” at first and it can hurt your knees if you have extended or frequent visits, there is no weird hovering half squat like with the western style toilet, no soaking wet seat, and it’s much cleaner because you get good cheek spread-age (I am so never getting a professional job in any future employers read this. I swear I don’t normally talk about poop and buttholes this much.).
The western style toilet usually looks just like an American toilet… but it is not. I definitely do not sit on mine so I have to do the weird hovering thing. At least it is a thigh workout. I do, however, have a butt squirter. There is a little hose that comes out of my wall, attached to PVC pipe, with a gun like nozzle on the end. You use it to squirt your butt! It is a great luxury. The other option is to take the water scooper, scoop water, and then pour it on your butt, usually followed up or in conjunction with your hand. It is advisable to consistently use your left hand, and only eat with your right. Flushing consists of pouring a scoop of water down the toilet in both cases. Toilet paper isn’t really an option. I guess some volunteers use it but then you have to transfer it to a trash bag and burn it later. The less trash the better. Plus, I personally do not want to have to deal with a bag of poopy paper every few days, or every day if you are lucky…
Hopefully you enjoyed my little lesson about life in Cambodia. If you have any questions about my life here I would love to answer them. Part of the mission of Peace Corps is to teach Americans about the culture in which we live for two years. While that part of the mission is definitely not what I think is most important, it can be fun and interesting.
I miss everyone back home! Send me an email or leave me a comment, let me know what is up in your life (or as my teddy bear Khmer notebook says, what is up in your fashion?).
P.S. I am trying to write an update every week but the internet situation is questionable. I will do my best to keep it current but life is hard on the streets.
Upon arriving in Cambodia I quickly realized that even simple everyday actions are very different here than in the states. We all had to learn how to wash our clothes, clean our water, bathe, converse, and of course use the bathroom. It is like I left America a more or less fully functional adult, and when I arrived in Cambodia I could only function at the level of an infant. Any 10 year old child could tell or show you how to do these things, but I had to be taught how to do all of them. I thought for your entertainment, and because school ended two hours ago and I am now out of things to do for the day, I would describe how to do some basic things in Cambodia vs. America. Hopefully it doesn’t serve to discourage anyone from visiting!
1. Bathing
Not that anyone needs to be taught how to bathe American style, but just think about what is involved. Turn on the water, step in the shower, close the shower curtain. Lather, rinse, repeat. Turn off the water. Voila!
As I mentioned before my bathroom has a hose that brings the water right into the bathroom. It is glorious. I just scoop the water out of the big bucket and dump it over my head, lather up, and dump again. While I’m in there I usually spray my arms and feet in the morning with mosquito repellant so I can easily wash it off my hands. I then just shimmy into my sarong and walk back to my room! I know some people have given up on this, but I still carry my water bottle of filtered water into the bathroom with which to brush my teeth. Which brings us to…
2. Preparing Drinking Water
For most people in America this consists of turning on the tap.
In Cambodia Peace Corps hooked us up with some awesome water filters! We don’t have to boil our water first, which is nice because I feel bad using too much of my family’s wood or propane and it takes 20 minutes at a rolling boil to really kill what is in the water. Instead I scoop the water out of the rain water catchers and into my giant steel pot where I add a cap full of bleach. This totally freaked me out at first, putting bleach in my drinking water, but it can’t be worse than what I normally ingest on a weekend in the states… After 30 minutes of sitting, I pour the bleached water into my water filter and in a few short hours I have a whole filter full of delicious clean water. Go team.
3. Washing Clothes
This is my favorite. I dream about washing machines all the time. Just sort lights and darks about once a week and throw in a load with some detergent. Return in about 45 minutes to transfer clothes to the dryer or drying line.
FILL: During training my host family had a well in front of their house where I would do laundry. I would throw down the bucket, let it fill up about half way, and then haul it up and pour the water into the basin. Luckily my permanent site family has a motor that pumps water from their well. As I’ve said before, I’m totally spoiled here. I just scoop the water from the holding tanks into the wash basin and also fill a bucket.
WASH: I put a few items of clothing in the basin and sprinkle some detergent on top and squish it around. With t-shirts and stuff I just sort of scrub the fabric against itself because I don’t want it to stretch out too much. With other stuff I then pick up the scrub brush and go to town. Especially my pants require a lot of scrubbing to get the mud and what not out. My poor linen pants have stains on them from I don’t know where that are definitely in there for good. After I scrub out all the curry that I have inevitably dropped in my lap that week I squeeze the water out of the items and throw them in the bucket of water. When I’m done with my whole load I dump out the water from the basin, usually a dark color that is either reddish or greenish or blueish brown, and rinse the wash basin then fill it with clean water.
RINSE: I pull the items from the water bucket and squeeze them out, then rinse them one more time in the wash basin full of fresh water.
SPIN: I wring them out and toss my clothes back into the laundry basket to carry them to the front of the house.
DRY: My family has a bunch of racks so I put everything on hangers and let it hang dry. On drier days this is quick, but on humid days sometimes it takes a day or more. I have a nice set up in my room with a clothesline so when things are dry I don’t even have to fold them I just throw them on the line in my room! I still think it is awkward that my underwear hangs out in front of the house for the whole village to see, but I usually sandwich it between other clothes. Hopefully all the guys have managed to keep their leopard thongs hidden; I don’t think that would go over well in the community. I am not even kidding. This is a true confession by a volunteer…
4. Speaking
It is difficult to explain the difference between speaking the same language as everyone and piecing together part Khmer, sometimes part English, usually part pantomime. I have gotten quite used to sitting quietly while people ramble on to each other about me in Khmer. Sometimes they are not so nice because they think I cannot understand, but when I get the drift of what they are saying I usually just say something mean back in English. My host brother in law was talking about how I must not be very smart because I do not speak Khmer very well while we were all sitting at the dinner table. Later I told him his haircut looked like a ridiculous ugly child in America. He had no idea what I was saying. Is it petty? Absolutely. Does it make me feel better? Absolutely.
5. Dropping off the Kids at the Pool
You know what I’m talking about. The John. The throne. Dropping a bomb, a deuce, dookie. There are two kinds of toilets in Cambodia, a western looking toilet and a squatty potty as I like to call it, better known as the Asian style squat toilet. This is basically a rectangular porcelain platform with two indentations on either side for your feet, sometimes ridged for traction, and a hole in the middle. Upon discussion many of my fellow volunteers and I concluded this type of toilet has its advantages. While it may be difficult to master the “Asian squat” at first and it can hurt your knees if you have extended or frequent visits, there is no weird hovering half squat like with the western style toilet, no soaking wet seat, and it’s much cleaner because you get good cheek spread-age (I am so never getting a professional job in any future employers read this. I swear I don’t normally talk about poop and buttholes this much.).
The western style toilet usually looks just like an American toilet… but it is not. I definitely do not sit on mine so I have to do the weird hovering thing. At least it is a thigh workout. I do, however, have a butt squirter. There is a little hose that comes out of my wall, attached to PVC pipe, with a gun like nozzle on the end. You use it to squirt your butt! It is a great luxury. The other option is to take the water scooper, scoop water, and then pour it on your butt, usually followed up or in conjunction with your hand. It is advisable to consistently use your left hand, and only eat with your right. Flushing consists of pouring a scoop of water down the toilet in both cases. Toilet paper isn’t really an option. I guess some volunteers use it but then you have to transfer it to a trash bag and burn it later. The less trash the better. Plus, I personally do not want to have to deal with a bag of poopy paper every few days, or every day if you are lucky…
Hopefully you enjoyed my little lesson about life in Cambodia. If you have any questions about my life here I would love to answer them. Part of the mission of Peace Corps is to teach Americans about the culture in which we live for two years. While that part of the mission is definitely not what I think is most important, it can be fun and interesting.
I miss everyone back home! Send me an email or leave me a comment, let me know what is up in your life (or as my teddy bear Khmer notebook says, what is up in your fashion?).
P.S. I am trying to write an update every week but the internet situation is questionable. I will do my best to keep it current but life is hard on the streets.
So this is my life now…
I am a female. I am 22 years old. For most of those 22 years I have been a book worm, football fanatic, lover of cupcakes, dancer, student, and advocate for the value of education. I am still all of these things, but as of late, I am also a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in Siem Reap province in Cambodia. I have wanted to be a Peace Corps Volunteer for as long as I can remember, long before I understood what it really meant, and to be fair I’ve been in country three months and still hardly know what it means. Now I’m here, trudging through the day to day work, trying to make a change in myself and in my community. I say trudging because it is rainy season and I literally trudge. It rains almost every day for at least an hour or so, which keeps the roads pretty muddy. But it also keeps away the blazing heat so I can’t complain too much.
When I arrived in country it was hot. I was pretty shell shocked and jet lagged after a two day ordeal of traveling from San Francisco to Japan, to Thailand, and finally arriving in Phnom Penh. All I could register was the heat. Still some days it is all I can do to manage being so hot. Sweat pours out of every inch of my skin constantly. I carry bandanas to mop off my face every five minutes or so. Really, it is probably no hotter than at home in California, but the humidity is killer. It feels like the air is made of milk. It is disgusting and uncomfortable.
Luckily, I can find a brief reprieve by “showering” when I get home from school. I am spoiled at my host family’s house by having a nice bathroom with a hose that brings in water regularly to the water bucket. I can scoop cool water out any time and run it over my head to cool down… at least for a minute. The rest of the bathroom situation is not so pleasant. Ask any Peace Corps Volunteer or anyone who has lived abroad in a developing country: your poop is always the talk of the hour, whether the lack of it or the unending stream of it. What parasites it contains. How to keep it away from your mouth (oral-fecal contamination causes more diseases than I could possibly imagine before I came here. News flash: poop in your mouth gets you sick. Who knew?). Cosmo should have a special issue for Peace Corps Volunteers, and instead of quizzes like “What Your Man’s Pizza Preferences Say about His Love” it could have “What Your Poop Says about Your Host Family’s Food Preparation and Hygiene” and articles like “Difficult Conversations: How to Talk to Host Mom about the use of Soap and Bleach”.
I am also spoiled with electricity 24/7. I cannot tell you how awesome this is. My training host family (all the trainees lived in Takeo province for two months and then were sent to our permanent sites after we swore in officially as volunteers) did not have electricity all the time. They ran a generator for a few hours at night, and during that window I had to shower and get ready for bed, and do any work or reading I wanted or needed to. After that it was all flashlights. Headlamps are the best invention ever for situations like this, but they also attract bugs right to your face. That also meant the fan shut off around eight-thirty or nine. If it was hot I could count on lying awake in my own sweat for a few solid hours. Before I was sure I was accepted to the Peace Corps I was looking for apartments hoping to find hardwood floors and a dishwasher. Now all I want is electricity and a bathroom that is not taken over by rats at night. Things snap into perspective here at light speed.
I work at a high school teaching English about 16 hours a week, plus prep time. I also volunteer at the health center in town doing… well… I’ll get back to you on that. I am in the first group of health volunteers here. We had a week of training and have a ton of resources but I still am not exactly sure what I am going to do. No one who works at the health center really speaks English and my Khmer is limited. I can, however, tell them all about my favorite fruits and what colors they are. “I like dragon fruit the best. It is pink. Inside it is white and black. It has a sweet flavor.” Look at me, changing the world one useless piece of information at a time.
I have met most of my students and many of them are painfully shy. I think that is the number one thing I would like to change in my two years here. Many of the students are clearly intelligent, but it takes so much prodding to get them to say anything you would never know it. I want them to stand up and be heard. I know some of you are probably thinking, and I’ll admit I’ve thought myself, teaching English to kids who are just going to end up rice farmers is pointless. The thing is, for some of them English is the key to their education. There are not many text books written in Khmer for higher level education. Doctors and nurses are usually educated in French; others are educated with English texts. If they cannot understand English they are limited to Khmer translated texts if they can even study at all (I’m still a little unclear as to how that works since I’ve been told texts are in English but English is an optional subject on the national exam required to get into University). By the time anyone gets around to translating something into Khmer it is very out of date. Additionally, the tourism industry in Cambodia is starting to take off. To get a job at a restaurant, hotel, with a tour company or any other job involving tourists English is the language of choice. Most tourists that I have encountered speak English as either their first or second language. They want people providing their services to speak their language so they can communicate, not an unreasonable concept for any of us to grasp. It may raise questions of what is lost when you separate language from culture, and tourists come to expect that they need not navigate a country’s language, but that is a whole separate tangent… The point is English is a chance to get a better paying job, break the cycle of poverty, maybe help younger siblings afford high education, help their families afford clean drinking water, live in a house that isn’t blown over by a typhoon, killing the family living inside. English might be the rope dangling into the pit, lifting out a girl who would otherwise get married right after high school, if she finished high school at all, pop out nine kids and work in the rice paddies. There are 13 tenth grade classes at my high school, 11 eleventh grade classes, and 4 twelfth grade classes which have significantly fewer students.
These children could be tomorrow’s leaders. They could be the ones making policy and reforming the education system, which desperately needs to be done. High school students only attend school in the morning because they have to share the facility with the middle school students. There aren’t enough classrooms or teachers to have a full day. They get five hours of class, six days a week. There is no arts education, no music, apparently there is a P.E. class but I haven’t seen it. I think when a class of tenth graders cannot identify the capitol of Cambodia (true story) there are more pressing issues than the arts, but I can’t help but think of the eleventh grader who told me today he wants to be an artist. The kid with a unibrow who could barely eke out a coherent sentence in English and supposedly wants to be an English teacher is a whole other issue (Not that there is anything wrong with having a unibrow, that is just how I remember him. I teach about 300 kids during the week so it is hard to keep them all straight.) I want my students to want more and strive for more. I want them to know they deserve clean drinking water, to not be beaten by their spouse, to have a job that pays the bills, and to be valued as much as the kid in the seat next to them regardless of their gender.
I am still a lover of words, a Coca-Cola addict, a bad music fiend, guilty-pleasure magazine reader, snowboarding, overly talkative, cheap laugh seeker. But now I am also an English teacher, mentor, health volunteer and educator, teacher trainer, support system, friend, Khmer learner, ex-pat who wipes her ass with her hand and asks, “Have you eaten rice yet?” Is it a day that ends in Y (or that starts with “twoo-nai” in Khmer)? Because if so then yes, I have eaten rice already, and, yes, it was quite “ching’ahn”.
When I arrived in country it was hot. I was pretty shell shocked and jet lagged after a two day ordeal of traveling from San Francisco to Japan, to Thailand, and finally arriving in Phnom Penh. All I could register was the heat. Still some days it is all I can do to manage being so hot. Sweat pours out of every inch of my skin constantly. I carry bandanas to mop off my face every five minutes or so. Really, it is probably no hotter than at home in California, but the humidity is killer. It feels like the air is made of milk. It is disgusting and uncomfortable.
Luckily, I can find a brief reprieve by “showering” when I get home from school. I am spoiled at my host family’s house by having a nice bathroom with a hose that brings in water regularly to the water bucket. I can scoop cool water out any time and run it over my head to cool down… at least for a minute. The rest of the bathroom situation is not so pleasant. Ask any Peace Corps Volunteer or anyone who has lived abroad in a developing country: your poop is always the talk of the hour, whether the lack of it or the unending stream of it. What parasites it contains. How to keep it away from your mouth (oral-fecal contamination causes more diseases than I could possibly imagine before I came here. News flash: poop in your mouth gets you sick. Who knew?). Cosmo should have a special issue for Peace Corps Volunteers, and instead of quizzes like “What Your Man’s Pizza Preferences Say about His Love” it could have “What Your Poop Says about Your Host Family’s Food Preparation and Hygiene” and articles like “Difficult Conversations: How to Talk to Host Mom about the use of Soap and Bleach”.
I am also spoiled with electricity 24/7. I cannot tell you how awesome this is. My training host family (all the trainees lived in Takeo province for two months and then were sent to our permanent sites after we swore in officially as volunteers) did not have electricity all the time. They ran a generator for a few hours at night, and during that window I had to shower and get ready for bed, and do any work or reading I wanted or needed to. After that it was all flashlights. Headlamps are the best invention ever for situations like this, but they also attract bugs right to your face. That also meant the fan shut off around eight-thirty or nine. If it was hot I could count on lying awake in my own sweat for a few solid hours. Before I was sure I was accepted to the Peace Corps I was looking for apartments hoping to find hardwood floors and a dishwasher. Now all I want is electricity and a bathroom that is not taken over by rats at night. Things snap into perspective here at light speed.
I work at a high school teaching English about 16 hours a week, plus prep time. I also volunteer at the health center in town doing… well… I’ll get back to you on that. I am in the first group of health volunteers here. We had a week of training and have a ton of resources but I still am not exactly sure what I am going to do. No one who works at the health center really speaks English and my Khmer is limited. I can, however, tell them all about my favorite fruits and what colors they are. “I like dragon fruit the best. It is pink. Inside it is white and black. It has a sweet flavor.” Look at me, changing the world one useless piece of information at a time.
I have met most of my students and many of them are painfully shy. I think that is the number one thing I would like to change in my two years here. Many of the students are clearly intelligent, but it takes so much prodding to get them to say anything you would never know it. I want them to stand up and be heard. I know some of you are probably thinking, and I’ll admit I’ve thought myself, teaching English to kids who are just going to end up rice farmers is pointless. The thing is, for some of them English is the key to their education. There are not many text books written in Khmer for higher level education. Doctors and nurses are usually educated in French; others are educated with English texts. If they cannot understand English they are limited to Khmer translated texts if they can even study at all (I’m still a little unclear as to how that works since I’ve been told texts are in English but English is an optional subject on the national exam required to get into University). By the time anyone gets around to translating something into Khmer it is very out of date. Additionally, the tourism industry in Cambodia is starting to take off. To get a job at a restaurant, hotel, with a tour company or any other job involving tourists English is the language of choice. Most tourists that I have encountered speak English as either their first or second language. They want people providing their services to speak their language so they can communicate, not an unreasonable concept for any of us to grasp. It may raise questions of what is lost when you separate language from culture, and tourists come to expect that they need not navigate a country’s language, but that is a whole separate tangent… The point is English is a chance to get a better paying job, break the cycle of poverty, maybe help younger siblings afford high education, help their families afford clean drinking water, live in a house that isn’t blown over by a typhoon, killing the family living inside. English might be the rope dangling into the pit, lifting out a girl who would otherwise get married right after high school, if she finished high school at all, pop out nine kids and work in the rice paddies. There are 13 tenth grade classes at my high school, 11 eleventh grade classes, and 4 twelfth grade classes which have significantly fewer students.
These children could be tomorrow’s leaders. They could be the ones making policy and reforming the education system, which desperately needs to be done. High school students only attend school in the morning because they have to share the facility with the middle school students. There aren’t enough classrooms or teachers to have a full day. They get five hours of class, six days a week. There is no arts education, no music, apparently there is a P.E. class but I haven’t seen it. I think when a class of tenth graders cannot identify the capitol of Cambodia (true story) there are more pressing issues than the arts, but I can’t help but think of the eleventh grader who told me today he wants to be an artist. The kid with a unibrow who could barely eke out a coherent sentence in English and supposedly wants to be an English teacher is a whole other issue (Not that there is anything wrong with having a unibrow, that is just how I remember him. I teach about 300 kids during the week so it is hard to keep them all straight.) I want my students to want more and strive for more. I want them to know they deserve clean drinking water, to not be beaten by their spouse, to have a job that pays the bills, and to be valued as much as the kid in the seat next to them regardless of their gender.
I am still a lover of words, a Coca-Cola addict, a bad music fiend, guilty-pleasure magazine reader, snowboarding, overly talkative, cheap laugh seeker. But now I am also an English teacher, mentor, health volunteer and educator, teacher trainer, support system, friend, Khmer learner, ex-pat who wipes her ass with her hand and asks, “Have you eaten rice yet?” Is it a day that ends in Y (or that starts with “twoo-nai” in Khmer)? Because if so then yes, I have eaten rice already, and, yes, it was quite “ching’ahn”.
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