So I think my camera is dead. Sad story. Thankfully, my awesome family is sending me a new one! Yay! I love getting mail (hint). I've been with my host family in the village of Baribo for almost a week. The first night was a big awkward party. My host mother spent most of it relating every odd or unusual thing I did to the neighbors. I knew this from her acting out everything and then all the old ladies laughing. A typical meeting with an Om Srei (woman close to mother's age) goes something like this: They comment on how white and fat I am. Here, fat isn't necessarily bad, most people associate it with healthy. They rub my arms and talk about me as though I;m a piece of furniture. Then they laugh. It is actually pretty fun. It took me a while to figure out that they weren't mad at me though, as they tend to scream instead of talk. We had been told that Cambodian women tend to be conservative and quiet. These rules don't seem to apply when one reaches the age of about 50. They Oms (aunts) and Yiyays (grandmothers) sit around gossiping about EVERYTHING and dipping snuff (I think it's called pan). It's really gross. But they are cool people. After ab out ten minutes of trying in vain to correctly pronounce my name, they decided to just give me a new one. Unfortunately, as I couldn't communicate, I wasn't aware of this until several hours later. Everyone in the village now calls me Avi (which is much nicer than 'barang', the kmher word for foreigner).

There are three people who live at my house besides myself. My mother, her daughter, and the daughter's husband. It took me forever to figure out that this guy was my brother in law. At first, my mother told me she had three daughters, one in Phnom Penh, one who lived across the street, and one who lived with her. Imagine my surprise when she hands my bag to a man who then drives off in a moto (on which Im not allowed to ride). She the proceeds to tell me that he is my brother.