Temporary delay

My apologies for the great length of time between posts. . . I know everyone is just dying to know what's new in rural Cambodia, that old hot spot of trend setters and world changing political movements. I had a whole post written up about this summer, and my travels and visitors and then my laptop gave out on me. It literally just died while i was in the middle of something. Odds are not something important, but still. So I took it to the place that has a decent rep for rehabilitating computers in Siem Reap. The technician was really nice, inspected and tested everything and then concluded, "It's the motherboard." "Is that bad?" I asked, but based on the name alone I was pretty sure it was bad. The kindly computer technician told me it couldn't be fixed. My laptop had up and died, taking that last un posted blog post with it, as well as an article destined for our in country Peace Corps newsletter, some npr podcasts, and a few academic papers written my senior year of college. So long story short I am sans computer at least for the time being. Maybe in the time lapse I can think of something entertaining and witty to post when I next have computer access. In the meantime I anticipate reading a lot. . . There are worse things.

When one door closes…

This week the Cambodian school year officially came to a close. Today may or may not have been the school closing ceremony. I went to school at the time the school director told me the ceremony would start, but none of the teachers were there, nor was the school director. One of my coteachers showed up maybe 20 minutes later and told me no one knew if the school would close that day, because it would happen whenever the school director got there. I asked him to call me if would be that day, and he didn’t, so I’m assuming the school director didn’t show up. I’ll try again tomorrow. I watched Sleepless in Seattle all the way through for the first time, so it wasn’t a total waste of a morning.

The Cambodian school calendar is very bizarre. It begins in late September or October and finishes end of June. School runs Monday through Saturday, and in my village upper secondary (grades 10-12) is 7:00am – noon and lower secondary school (grades 7-9) is 1:00pm – 5:00pm. There isn’t enough space to have two schools run all day, so they share. This is fairly common in poorer areas. Lucky for me I only teach high school so I don’t have to go back to school in the afternoon when it is blazing hot out.

Since the beginning of April school has been kind of a joke… more so than usual. Vacation for Khmer New Year lasted the whole month of April, more likely than not because it is just too hot to teach/learn then. In May some students returned, but numbers were definitely lower than before. There were more days when teachers just wouldn’t teach than before. By 11:00am most students had gone home, and the school was a ghost town by noon. Considering that even during the first semester when my classes actually met every time they were supposed to each “hour” of class was about 40 minutes, students barely get any instructional time compared to the US.

I am extremely happy to put the first year of teaching behind me. My experience teaching in the classroom has been more or less a disappointment. I had fairly high expectations of the results I would get by the end of one year. While we were appropriately warned about the condition of the Cambodian school system during training, I was unprepared to have so many students who just did not know any English. The low level was a total shock. Additionally, neither of my coteachers were interested in lesson planning. I tried a few times to set aside some time each week to meet with them and plan our lessons, but it was pointless. They teach the same book every year, and don’t deviate from the activities and material in it, so there is no reason to lesson plan. I was taking up their precious free time, so I let it go. When I came with a warm-up activity prepared they were both usually willing to let me have a few minutes at the beginning of class. That is something I hope to implement consistently next year.

I’ll admit I got lazy after awhile. I tried different things to get students engaged, but usually my tactics just took up too much time for my coteachers to be willing to let me consistently use them. For some months I was typing up worksheets for my tenth graders with a definition and example sentence for every vocabulary word and some activities for them to do at home for extra points. I think this was helpful, but just not something sustainable that my coteachers will continue after I’m gone. It took me hours to grade and correct all the papers, sort out the cheaters, record the scores, prepare the worksheet for the next chapter, etc. Then I had to make copies which was a HUGE pain in the butt. The copy room at school is never open, and they wouldn’t trust me to make copies on my own. I had to wait around for a student who worked in the copy room part time (? I am still confused about exactly what the deal was there). Then I had to collect money for the copies, which I felt badly about since students have enough expenses and most of them didn’t give a rat’s ass about the worksheets.

I am, however, optimistic that I can use what I learned this year to improve my teaching next year. I plan to be more consistent about warm-up activities. Also, I usually tried to really emphasize the grammar points that I thought were useful. I hope to communicate to my coteachers which points are really good and are a good use of time to practice, and which are less useful. Some volunteers have really developed great resources which I could have used more in the classroom this year, and I will refocus on those next year.

While teaching in the classroom didn’t exactly go as well as I’d hoped, my English club and health club were both very successful. I’ll have a better idea for next year how to structure a successful English club. I should definitely make it more specific, rather than just a random selection of stories, songs, activities and what not. Hopefully my health club continues to go as well as it’s been going these last few weeks! I have high hopes that the girls in the club will stay committed through the summer, and put together a great project at the end.

And now I can just prepare for my parents and friends to visit!!! Thank goodness it’s summer!

Malaysia, Truly Asia

There are these great ads that run on tv here promoting tourism in Malaysia. The slogan is “Malaysia, truly Asia.” I’m not sure how accurate that slogan is though, considering most people probably think of Japan or Vietnam before Malaysia, but it is catchy, I’ll give them that.
Christine, my sorority sister, came to visit at the beginning of June. It was my first time leaving the country, which really put Cambodia in perspective for me. We of course saw Angkor Wat and all the sights in Phnom Penh, and then flew to Kuala Lumpur, the capitol of Malaysia. It was a big shock to fly out of Cambodia and right into a real, modern city. Even the Malaysian airport had a Starbucks and a McDonalds, beacons of westernization if you ask me. We explored all over the city, saw the view from the Petronas twin towers (after being forced to watch an incredibly creepy video about the power of oil that reminded me of a futuristic sci-fi thriller), wandered through the air-conditioned malls, and explored China town.
The first day there we headed out to the Bantu caves. The caves are 276 steps up into a mountain and have a shrine inside. They were an amazing sight, though for some people the monkeys running up and down the steps were obviously the main attraction. On the way back our taxi driver gave us his opinion of Malaysia. Doesn’t David Sedaris say taxi drivers are the best way to get to know a new place? I didn’t ask him what Malaysians believe about Santa Claus but I did gain some insight. Before the trip I knew essentially nothing about Malaysia except that the Petronas towers are the iconic symbol of Kuala Lumpur. Turns out Malaysia was a British colony (literally I knew NOTHING going into the trip). There are huge Indian and Chinese populations, but our taxi driver claimed even if your family had lived in Malaysia for generations, as his had, your Malaysian passport will still say “from India.” He also told us only those who are ethnic Malay can vote for the parliament seats, and unsurprisingly an ethnic Malay person has held control of the country since independence. I should probably do some research to back up these claims before throwing them around on my blog, but my internet is slow so for now I’ll take them at face value.
Christine and I took the overnight train from Kuala Lumpur to Langkawi, an island off the coast of northern Malaysia. The island was so lush and green, it was really beautiful. The weather didn’t exactly cooperate for us to partake in the activities the beach would normally offer, but we did explore the island. One day we rode a cable car up into the mountains and got a beautiful view of the island. All the way at the top it was so foggy we couldn’t see anything, but it was still cool to see the cable cars basically disappearing into the fog. Afterwards we hiked up a very steep hill to see the seven pool water fall. At the very top it was a fairly small stream, but it was still a very verdant and worthwhile site. On the way down we saw a view of the waterfall from below. Maybe the view wasn’t worth the crazy hike, but it was nice to see a wet, green landscape after months of dried up rice paddies.
We had one more day in Kuala Lumpur on the way back, where I was happy to take full advantage of the ridiculously nice breakfast buffet. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip for me. What can I say, food is a priority?
We then took our last flight, every single one of which was delayed (Air Asia is no RyanAir… they are not the most on time airline and they do not have a great jingle that plays everytime a flight lands on time), to Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam. The city wasn’t as totally cosmopolitan as Kuala Lumpur. It was more like a half way point between total modernization and being totally rural and undeveloped. I really enjoyed walking around the city, just seeing the wild difference between two major cities only a six hour bus ride from each other, Ho Chi Minh and Phnom Penh. The streets were clean, though they were packed with traffic, and everyone just appeared so much more modern in both dress and behavior. We saw all the major sites we could in one day including the old Post Office and Notre Dame cathedral, as well as the huge market. The hotel where we were staying had a great live band that played on the 23rd floor so we went up to watch them for our last night. It was so much fun and the band really appreciated us livening up the crowd of mostly people there on business.
It was a rude awakening to come back to Cambodia. Seeing other countries really opened my eyes to how rural and poor Cambodia is. Outside of Siem Reap and Phnom Penh the whole country is essentially wooden houses and motos. There is no public transport system, the roads are far worse than the rest of Southeast Asia, and the cities are dirtier. But at the same time I can appreciate that Cambodia has retained as much of its culture as possible. Even given its horrific recent past, I still feel Cambodians are proud and try to preserve the things about their country that are true and original. It is easy to get caught up in thinking that Cambodia is just so far behind, but there is a simple beauty to the country and the culture that you have to look hard to see. I hope that people who visit Southeast Asia get enough of a sense of the country to take that away, and not overlook the small miracles here in the face of the country’s major problems.

Waiting for the Rain

Picture a room, about nine feet square, with a large bed, dresser, and dirty tile floor. Imagine laying on that floor while the air around you presses down on your existence, or so it feels. Sweat drips down your face and stings your eyes, while beads of it are trapped between your back and the floor. It can’t possibly be this hot, and yet it keeps getting hotter. You think about moving, but what’s the point? It’s just as hot and unpleasant no matter where you are. Even a fan moving the stale air around the cement box you live in doesn’t help anymore. The air is more milky than airy, every square inch seeming to bear enough water to fill a swimming pool. And then, when you think it can’t get any hotter, you hear thunder and a few minutes later you think you hear rats running on the tin roofing again but actually its rain. Somehow the sky bursts open and water drips down and for maybe 20 minutes it is cool. Then the rain stops and the cycle starts again. Welcome to rainy season in Cambodia.
I know it’s been months since I posted anything, but I haven’t had much to report. I aim to keep it positive, so I haven’t had a lot to say. In April I did take a trip to Ratanakiri. We stayed in a really cool place called the Tree Top Eco-lodge that some other volunteers had recommended. It was really nice and had running water, mosquito nets, and fans. We spent all week exploring the town and the surrounding areas. I rode an elephant, swam in a waterfall, rode a bike on some killer hills to get to a crater lake that is supposedly 70 meters deep, and drank some delicious coconut shakes. The area was really pleasant and beautiful and I am really glad I decided to go. I think it is one of the most naturally beautiful places in Cambodia and it is really on the rise! The capital city, Banlung, where we stayed is growing rapidly and I’m sure in a decade it will be quite built up and the road will be paved, making the trip far less painful. It is an exciting place and I’m glad to have seen it before it is overrun by tourists and completely westernized.
Luckily shortly after I returned the rainy season began. It hasn’t rained much yet but it is nice to break the heat a little bit. I have barely left my house in weeks because it is just too hot so it will be nice to be able to move about freely at other times than the early morning again. Also getting some fresh water is much needed, since the water in my bathroom is more black than water-colored. The only downside of more water means more bugs, as evidenced by the mosquito larvae squirming around in the water I bathe in. Gross.
I attempted to post pictures to Picasa from vacation. Hopefully it worked. Enjoy!

The Battle for the Bathroom

Last week I was going to “take a shower”, to the extent you can call it that, in my house when I saw a HUGE spider on the opposite wall. Luckily my bathroom is big enough that I could keep a healthy distance between myself and the spider, because I did not want to deal with him. I’ve never been particularly afraid of spiders, and in college I was often the designated spider killer, but this is not your ordinary garden variety daddy long legs. This creature was the full size of my hand, and hairy. I’m fine with spiders in the bathroom, or my bedroom even, as long as they don’t move and stay where I can see them, but I was really not thrilled about this gigantic arachnid being so close to me. At least I could watch him to make sure he didn’t come closer while I showered…
I then turned to notice the cockroach sitting on the door frame. Of course this cockroach was also abnormally large. It was easily the size of a table spoon, plus legs and antennae. It was so gross looking and now I had to watch both the cockroach and the spider, AND I had to walk by the cockroach every time I went from the water bucket to the ledge where I set my bucket holding my shampoo and stuff.
Then of course there was also an average sized gecko in the room. I’m not scared of the geckos, and actually really like watching them eat bugs, but how much wildlife does one bathroom need?
It was quite a lot of work to keep track of all the creatures who all brought the outdoors in while bathing. I’m convinced they were doing an epic battle to decide who would control the territory of the bathroom. I never actually saw them fight per se, but the giant spider only had seven legs so I know he was a fighter. He had endured a battle and lost a leg, and still returned to fight. I did not want to mess with him.
For a few days the creatures came and went. The spider disappeared for awhile and another slightly smaller but also abnormally ugly one came to reside on the wall RIGHT NEXT TO my water bucket. He looked poisonous. I’m sure he was. The cockroach took up residence behind the mirror. He poked his horrible little Gregor Samsa face out a few times right next to my soap dish, but mostly he stayed out of my way.
I went away for the weekend and when I returned so had the spider. I noticed him on the underside of the pvc pipe used to fill the bathroom cistern. He was tucked back in the corner. I looked to see what he was up to and noticed he was holding something white, roundish, about the size of a table spoon rounded over. I did not see the cockroach. The gecko was there, however, and had the spider cornered. The horrible arachnid stretched one of his hairy spindly legs around the corner to see if it was a safe route of exit and brushed the gecko right in the face. The spider scurried back further into his corner, still holding the white thing. I was quite impressed the gecko didn’t even flinch. I stared for a few moments and then went about my business, always keeping an eye on the stalemate in the corner, but at least comfortable the gecko would hold the spider there. Then the gecko left! Just like that, with no provocation, he turned around and walked up the wall and through the open slot in the window. I quickly rinsed off and got the hell out of the bathroom. I am fairly sure that the white thing in the spiders’ grasp was the cockroach, all wrapped up and ready for snacking. I was not about to be next.
This morning the spider, the gecko, and the cockroach were no where to be seen. I think they retreated to their lairs for the day. But tonight the battle may continue. Who knows how it will end…

The Day I Survived a Surprise Ceremony and a Khmer Wedding... all while stone cold sober!

Happy International Women’s Day everyone! Here is Cambodia we celebrate women’s rights by taking a day off of school, what else? On Thursday there was a stage being assembled in the middle of the school grounds. I asked my co teacher what it was for and he told me there would be a ceremony for Women’s Day on Friday. He said about 200 people were asked to attend, and everyone else would go to class. Obviously I doubted that students would be going to class that day. I also assumed at the last minute he would tell me we were going.
On Friday I got to school and had barely hopped off of my bike when my co teacher said, “okay we will attend the ceremony now.” I do so hate being right. Then something unexpected happened when a woman who I do not know, and frankly still have no idea who she is, grabbed my arm and lead me to sit on the stage. All of the women were in the back row of chairs… Since I knew some important people were coming to the ceremony I wore my nicer teaching shirt that day and didn’t roll up the sleeves, so at least I looked mildly presentable, but everyone else was wearing formal sampots and white lacy shirts. In fact, one of the older women was wearing a shirt that was entirely made of lace! You could completely see her bra; thank goodness she was wearing one. I can’t believe I was told not to wear one of my shirts anymore because it was too low cut. I should have known it would be okay if the shirt is just see-through, as long as the cut isn’t suggestive in any way.
So just before the ceremony began one of my other co teachers came up to me and informed me the organizers wanted me to give a speech. “No problem, just a short speech, only two or five minutes,” he said. And of course they expected it in Khmer. I told them I cannot get up and give a speech for two or five minutes in Khmer, about women’s rights, without any advanced warning. I don’t have that kind of vocabulary! So I agreed to speak for maybe two or five minutes in English, and my co teacher would translate. I scribbled some notes of things I could say, but out of spite I refused to let the man who was translating see them before we started. Take that! I know it is wrong to behave like a petulant child, but that didn’t stop me. They knew about this ceremony weeks ago! All I would need is a day to translate some words ahead of time. So I took my revenge and put my translator on the spot they way they put me on the spot. It made no sense, given the speech wasn’t his idea, but I chose to be vaguely vindictive to anyone around. It happens.
I stood up and gave my few sentence speech about women being the way of the future, making advances in science, math, politics, literature, etc. I told the students present that I knew they were the future of Cambodia and they had a real chance to make a difference in a society that is rapidly growing and changing. I told them to do their best and do anything they could dream of; they have all the same capabilities and should have all the same opportunities as their male counterparts. It probably wasn’t my best work, but given that I had five minutes to prepare and wanted to keep it fairly simple for translation I thought it was ok! When we sat down my co teacher said, “Maybe next time we tell you before so you have some time to prepare a better speech.” Ya think???
After the whole ordeal was finished my classes were over so I went home. I needed to get some things done anyway, since I was going to Kralanh with my whole family on Saturday and would be gone all day. I woke up at 4:30am and got dressed and we all piled into a van. By 5:00am we were on the road. When we arrived I realized we were going to a wedding. I was definitely not dressed for a wedding, but no one in my family was wearing traditional wedding clothes, so I think it was okay. We saw the morning ceremony and then went to the pagoda to make an offering both to the monks and the ancestors. Then we went back to the house and waited. Khmer weddings have three parts, basically the same as any American Judeo-Christian wedding. There is a formal ceremony in the morning, then people eat a lot, then people drink a lot and dance a lot. Unfortunately in Cambodia there are long breaks between the three parts, making it a full day event. Everyone else went back to their homes to rest and get out of the heat in between parts. We had no where to go so my whole family and I just waited around for the next part to begin.
When lunch was served I was more than a little nervous. Almost all the volunteers I know have said they were sick after eating at a wedding because the food is prepared en masse, in a place with no clean water, and Typhoid Mary is probably the one in the kitchen. I picked at a few things that looked safe, but didn’t eat much. I told my host father I was scared of getting a “chew poo-uh” or stomach ache. He understood and agreed I should be careful.
Of course throughout the event men kept offering me beer. As a foreigner I get to blend some of the gender lines a little. I’m like a Cambodian hermaphrodite I guess, I have a little of both sexes. So finally I was so bored I decided to have a beer, which I never do at site even though they usually offer me one when the men in my host family are drinking. My host father said, “No, this is beer! Do you know how to drink beer?” Yes, I think I might… So I started to drink some beer. All the random men of Kralanh, especially those who know Janice, the volunteer there, came up to cheers and try to force me to chug some Crown beer. I kept telling them it was too hot to drink so quickly. I was fine drinking it slowly. I had a few glasses full, with ice in the glass to cool it down, which probably equated to a little over one beer. Then my host dad took my glass away! Raining on my parade as usual.
Luckily we left before the dancing started. It would have been another several hot hours of waiting so I was not excited. We piled in the van again and set off back down the road for home. I was pretty excited to get back and bathe. I was happy to experience my first Khmer wedding, and have my host family there to look out for me and explain things, but I was even happier to be back home before dark. After all, women really shouldn’t be out past dark unless they are prostitutes.

Feeling hot, hot, HOT!... and a general update of what I'm doing.

Well apparently it is hot season. I had forgotten what it feels like to be covered in sweat all the time. Cool season was so nice, and I really took it for granted because it wasn’t actually that cool. Now I wake up a little sweaty. Am dripping by the time I get through my morning routine, and have soaked through my shirt before I even get to school. I have to mop up my face about every ten minutes to keep the sweat from running in my eyes while I am teaching. I come home and lay on the tile floor in my room with the fan blasting on me. The floor is definitely not clean, but I am so unbearably hot I don’t even care. I shower before dinner or before I go to bed but I start sweating again as soon as I dry off. I soak a sarong in water and wring it out, then drape it over myself when it’s time for bed. It helps me cool off enough to fall asleep. I do not like hot season.
In other news, I just returned from a week long meeting and conference of English teachers in Phnom Penh. It was a really busy week and I feel like I had so much to do and so little time to do it in. I didn’t get through everything on my to-do list but I did eat a delicious roasted veggie and hummus bagel sandwich one day, so that was nice. I have a lot of new ideas, and just getting away from site for a week helped motivate me to move on some ideas that I had before but was having a hard time implementing. I started a participation program in my classes today. I mark down every time a student speaks in class and after two weeks the most vocal student will get a prize. The only problem is it isn’t motivating any students who don’t already speak in class. At least maybe it will spark some competition among the students who do know enough English to participate. I am also planning a writing workshop for the 12th grade students with my co-teacher. Well actually, he asked me to do an essay writing workshop and I am making him do it with me so he can learn the information as well and teach it after I am gone. I need to hunt down my school director this week and get his permission which is always fun. It usually takes about five days to pin the man down in a meeting, which then takes about 20 minutes in half Khmer half English to get my point across. You gotta do what you gotta do though.
After I make it through the essay workshop I hope to start my girls’ health club. I need to move soon since students will be mostly MIA as summer approaches, and it will be impossible to wrangle them after May. I am hoping to find several students who want to work in the health field and speak enough English to follow me if I speak slowly and translate difficult words and teach them about various health topics. I also hope they can tell me from their perspective what the most pressing health issues are in my commune and we can work on a project together to improve one of them. I think this will be a great opportunity to discuss basic health information that isn’t known to many Cambodians and also to give young girls a chance to be empowered by seeing the change they can make in their community, however small.
I have a few other ideas for things I want to do this summer, but for now I need to figure out how to get support and funding and coordinate with other volunteers!
Sorry my blog updates have been infrequent lately. I haven’t really done much except have diarrhea and try not to get on a plane back to America. I will try to be better this month and hopefully I will have some exciting things to share soon!

Do Not Befriend the Livestock

It was a lesson hard-learned, though, to be fair, I’ve had ample opportunity to learn it. Some of you may remember the tale of the mouse I rescued from the cistern during training only to find it dead less than 24 hours later. This time is was a duck.

Some Cambodian ducks are ugly. They have a weird red bumpy growth on their beak and face that looks like an awful case of acne, but not Norbert the duck. Norbert appeared one day in front of my host family’s house. He was a beautiful and friendly looking duck with a thin blue plastic string tying his feet together at one end and attached to a table at the other.

Clearly the beginning of our relationship was, well, less than ideal. Nonetheless, I had pictures of a long and happy life together with Norbert. He was ferociously feeding on some rice grains that someone had put in front of him; if you’re going to kill and eat a duck, why would you feed it? No point in wasting the rice, the aqua vitae of Cambodia, and no sense putting poop into its intestines. Better to let the poop be voided and thereby avoid later removing it oneself before enjoying the intestines. Plus, you can’t plump an animal up overnight (despite my host family’s comments on my girth after being gone for only a day or two), so if they were plumping Norbert he’d be my companion for at least a while.

I got quite used to seeing Norby on my way to school, and of course greeted him when coming and going. Then a few short days into our relationship the rice disappeared, and so did Norbert. This is how I know Norbert was a male duck. After his needs were satiated he was gone from my life.

At dinner that night I sprinkled a few pieces of roasted meat onto my rice. It could have been anything since it was cut up into pieces and my eye is far from discerning when it comes to meat. I bit into it and it was juicy, tasted similar to chicken, but was a little chewier. I believe I ate a little bit of my Norbert the duck. I guess I got my just desserts: Norbert broke my heart with his devilish good looks and always being there for me – I knew it was more than the rope around his legs keeping him there – until he suddenly took off, but I know I really got under his skin in the end.

This Little Piggie Went to Market...

The last few days have been pretty busy up here in Siem Reap. On Thursday my friend Kara came to my site to visit. She lives in Siem Reap province also and had a meeting in town, so rather than kill time in town for one day or go back to site for one day she came to my village to hang out. Thursday evening we had some tuk-a-luks (fruit smoothies with condensed milk) and watched a movie before having dinner with my host family. They were very excited to meet Kara and ask her all about her more rural site, pointing out that she does not have electricity and asking if she has to manually draw water from the well.

Friday morning after teaching we went to the market to pick up some odds and ends to make lunch and to explore. I bought the remaining ingredients I needed for my culinary adventures that day and found a whole section of the market laden with vegetables that I hadn’t been able to locate consistently. Since many of the stalls in the market look the same I sometimes get confused as to where I found things I liked so I can pick them up again later, so having an excuse to wander the market aimlessly was beneficial and a good way to spend a morning!

Upon returning from the market we decided to read for awhile before making lunch; this actually meant we fell asleep for about an hour an a half. It was a rare cool day and when reading under the mosquito net it is hard to not doze off. After our naps we got down to cooking and tried two new recipes: one for a cheesey morning glory dip that another volunteer had written up in our newsletter, and one I pulled off the internet for beer battered onion rings! Both dishes were a hugely delicious success. The cheesey dip was made with laughing cow cheese, garlic, milk, and morning glory and we ate it with my favorite cracked pepper crackers. Even my host family let their curiosity overcome their fear and dip in, and they loved it! My host father finished off the remaining onion rings with hot sauce at dinner and was clearly pro-onion ring. In the past it has been a challenge to convince anyone to try my “American food” but I found that just leaving it on the table and walking away for a while is a good strategy to get people interested enough to try things.

Saturday morning Kara and I headed into Siem Reap town to meet some other volunteers to bid Katie adieu on her last weekend in country. Due to some issues which I will not elaborate on here because it makes me angry and might result in me saying things that will get me in trouble, Katie decided to head back to the states but came to see Angkor Wat before she left. Luckily we also got to see her one more time and spend a day swimming and enjoying the company. Katie was a great volunteer and is a good friend and her presence will definitely be missed here.

I also ran a few errands in town, including dropping off an easy reader book to be copied for my first meeting of my Advanced English Reading Club on Sunday. However, when I returned to pick up the copies the next morning the copy shop was still closed and locked up. I decided I could wait a bit before heading back to site, so I tried again two hours later on my way out of town but the store was still not open. At least I hadn’t paid for the copies ahead of time.

I was a little irritated since I had lesson planned for the club based on having those books, but I decided I would just photocopy a short story I had on hand when I got back to site. Unfortunately the photo copy place in town was also closed when I got back. I had to try and think quickly to come up with a back-up lesson plan. It wasn’t ideal to kick off my reading club without a text, and to not have any homework to send with the students so they could read something before next Sunday, but as with most things here I just had to accept that it did not work out ideally and move on. I had the 15 students tell me a little about themselves, and I told them about what the club was all about, and they all seemed really excited and best of all they could understand everything! Almost all the students are tenth graders too, which is fantastic because it means I could work with them for both years I am here and if they are already this good I can only imagine how good they could be next June.

To wrap up the club meeting I played a game having each of the students say their name and “I’m going to the market and I’m buying…” finishing the sentence with something that starts with the same letter as their name, and then saying everyone else’s answers as well. The students caught on much more quickly than I thought they would and they really liked it. Plus I think I learned most of their names fairly quickly. I had visions of this game tanking, which would not have started the club off on a high note, so I was so excited when they understood. After so much anticipation I finally get to start working with a small group of students who have the basic skills to work with me and the ability to absorb information; I can’t wait to see how it develops.

I have also been spending A LOT of time grading homework lately. Some of the students unknowingly have some very entertaining answers to simple questions, which makes the whole thing a little less tedious. Here are a few funny ones from the past week:

1. “If I had a boyfriend, I could love her.” There is either a little gender confusion going on here or that pronoun is vaguer than the author had hoped for. Or maybe not…

2. “Will there be a beautiful girl to confess with you that she will love you? Yes, there will be next month.” Believe it or not the assignment was not to write a horoscope.

3. “Cambodia people don’t understand about healthy.” No kidding. That is why I have had giardia, food poisoning, and any other number of G.I. upset issues.

4. “If I travel to America I will be able to see Sahara area.” This kid is on Sarah Palin’s speech writing team actually. He can see Russia from his house also.

5. “If I could travel anywhere in the world I will go to the United Stad because it’s luxury for all seasons.” It surely is. Someone has a future in tourism, if they improve their spelling a little.

Kam-what? Kampot.

That's just a little Bay Area love in the title. Shout out to Richmond. Watch Coach Carter if you are confused.
Sorry I have failed to update over the past few weeks. I turned off my internet for awhile to save money. Also, I was away from site for Christmas and New Year’s Eve!
For Christmas I went to Phnom Penh. Our three-month long “lockdown” period was over, so we were all allowed to leave our provinces for the first time, outside of Peace Corps training. I cannot tell you the weight I feel lifted off my chest just knowing I’m not trapped in my province, even though it is a pretty good place to be trapped. One of my friends was staying with some other friends who have a flat in Phnom Penh, so a few of us made use of the kitchen for Christmas dinner. It was so nice to have control over what I ate! We made some potatoes and stir fried veggies and bratwurst. Not exactly what I think of when I think of Christmas, but it was delicious none-the-less. I was just happy to be eating after surviving the worst bout of food poisoning I have ever experienced in my life. I cannot, not would you want me to, explain the pain and misery involved in horrible food poisoning, in Cambodia, in the middle of the night. I still get nervous at dinner time because the contaminated food definitely came from my host family’s dinner table. I guess it happens, but I was more than a little irritated when they laughed and told me maybe I shouldn’t eat at the market. Firstly, I had not eaten at the market for two days prior to getting sick, and secondly, food poisoning onsets within hours after eating whatever makes you sick so it was definitely dinner, which I ate at home. I think that was a run-on sentence. I’m done ranting now.
     The weekend was fairly uneventful as everyone was busy running around trying to take care of everything they needed to do in Phnom Penh, which for me basically just meant eating as much western food as possible and buying season one of Glee. I watched the whole thing in a day and a half (working hard or hardly working?) and I am now very bitter my high school did not have a show choir. But also somewhat thankful since high school was hard enough as it was, I definitely didn’t need any slushie facials added to my high school memories.
     For New Year’s Eve I was planning to stay in Siem Reap, but I decided I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to travel down to Kampot. My boyfriend is located there and I decided I really wanted to spend New Year’s Eve with him (make fun of me all you want, haters) and he has been hyping Kampot so much I was dying to check it out. The 11 hour journey by bus turned out to be worth it! Kampot is a nice little sleepy river town, with several great western restaurants tucked away (we all know food is a first priority for me) but without the overwhelming tourist presence and general bustle of Siem Reap. On New Year’s Day (notice how I just glanced over whatever happened New Year’s Eve? I’m a smooth operator.) a bunch of us went on a boat “tour” of the river, or tributary, or whatever it is. We cruised around on the water and saw some of Kampot from the water, and eventually made it out to where the ocean begins. There was a sand bar where the boat docked and we all got to hop off the boat and hang out on a little strip of beach surrounded by the ocean. It was a really cool place to watch the sun go down over Cambodia.
I was definitely sad to say goodbye to Kampot. I think it was one of the first times in, well, six months, that I’ve felt really away from work and just the constant stress of being a foreigner in Cambodia and a Peace Corps Volunteer. I don’t mean to complain, oh boo hoo my life is so hard, but the day to day difficulties do start to get me, and I think all of us, down after a while.
     When I returned to site I had a boost of productivity. I cleaned my room, organized my bookshelf and bought a fold up table to act as a desk since I haven’t been terribly effective or comfortable working in my bed. I also spend almost two hours doing laundry. When you don’t stay on top of it laundry can really add up and become a huge pain in the butt, and being away for a few days always causes trouble. I finally finished it and hung it outside, and feeling pretty good about my accomplishments, retreated to my room to read Where the Wild Things Are, a Christmas gift from my big sister :). Only about 20 minutes later my host father said something about my clothes and a cow. Obviously I had no idea what he was talking about, because I still cannot understand half of what the man says, so I walked outside to see my host mother and sister helping me by rinsing the dirt off all my freshly laundered clothes. Turns out a cow knocked over my laundry. It was so funny and so Cambodia I couldn’t even really be frustrated. How often can you say a cow knocked over your laundry? After a nice relaxing break away, I’m right back in the village, and the village doesn’t give you much time to transition back before it knocks over your laundry or puts a chicken foot in your curry. (That happened also my first night back. Yum.)