Home is where the indoor plumbing is.

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!!!

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.

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!

Angkor Wat Bike Race

This weekend was the Angkor Wat half marathon and bike race. I participated in the 30 kilometer “fun bike” with a bunch of other volunteers from all over Cambodia. The proceeds from entry fees went to “bring artificial limbs for mine survivors and save youth from HIV/AIDS”(footnote 1). The event was organized by Village Focus International (footnote 2). It was a pretty big deal! We kept seeing all these really athletic looking people all over town (which made me nervous for the race) and when we went to register and get all the information the hotel where the registration took place was packed with people as well as set up booths from Adidas selling athletic gear and one with local crafts and things. It was the most professional and organized event I’ve seen in Cambodia, and was definitely a little culture shocking if that is a term.
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