Monday, March 22, 2010

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…

Monday, March 8, 2010

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.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

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!