Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! I know this post is long overdue, my apologies for that. I’ll mention why in a moment, but first… I never told you about the girl’s camp! I have only recently realized that I didn’t actually give you a full account of the doings. My bad! So it was day and a half event. We met on Saturday afternoon. My friends Ratha and Lauren helped me facilitate (and when I say helped I mean they may have ended up doing more than me, there were fantastic) They broke into groups and talked about things like what leadership means to them and things they can do to be leaders in their own lives. Each group presented their ideas to the others. Then they made collages. They were told to select pictures from magazines that they thought represented something about themselves, and they were asked to write their names, using English adjectives that they thought described themselves. The idea being something like this
Bright
Resourceful
Independent
=BRI
There were just enough supplies for each girl to do a paper, but competition for their usage was fierce. Also, the part about using adjectives didn’t really get through, so they just used random English words. So it would be something like this:
Bread
Road
Inside
=BRI
Some of my favorites: Ranou = Run, Animal, Night, Only, Update and Nita = Need, Ice Cream, Temple, A doctor;
This was the end of day one. Things were going well. And then Sunday happened. First let me say that this one of the most fantastic things I’ve ever done in my life, but with my less than stellar organizational skills combined with Cambodia’s total lack of organization, chaos ensued. My guest speaker showed up an hour early, except that my one guest speaker turned out to be four guest speakers. He had invited his friends. And they were slightly annoyed because they went to the high school when I had told them to come to the elementary school. Lesson learned: always double check in Khmer when making arrangements. Thankfully it was all cool. My friend Lauren who is PCV in another province came to help out, and was a lifesaver. I couldn’t have done it without her. She entertained our friends until it was their turn to talk (and she did a thousand other amazingly helpful things). They were all experienced development workers, so they had really good things to say. We played another game and then had a lunch break. After lunch, a female development came and spoke about finding jobs. She is one of my good friends, and she was sooooo nervous. But it really seemed to give her a dose of confidence to be asked to speak. And the girls were really interested in what she had to say; they asked tons of questions. Then…. the straw game! Each group was given a bag of drinking straws and a roll of tape. The group that built the tallest tower won. It was an intense competition. There are no words to describe the noise of 30+ teenage girls screaming at the top of their lungs. Wow. It was hard battle. Losses were sustained on all sides. Towers crumbled. But in the end everyone ended up with some candy so it was all good. The game was followed with an intense photo shoot as each girl needed a photo with the foreigners. They don’t really form lines in this country, everyone just sort of jostles for position. So we introduced to them to this new and painful concept. And then we danced. All girl dance parties are possibly the best self esteem building activities ever. The girls absolutely let loose. I’ve never seen them dance on tables at normal parties before. Yes, there was synchronized table dancing. We know how party. Their only complaint was that the whole thing was just too short; they had a really great time. But the best part came at school on Monday. One of the camp participants who is really shy volunteered to present her groups work in front of the whole class. I almost cried. So thanks again to everyone who helped make it possible!

There isn’t really a lot to report since then. The reason I have been so long in writing is that no matter where you are in the world, how old you are, or what language you speak, sometimes life will just kind of suck. Yes, friends, even in a country where you are kind of required to nap and drink coconuts, life can take a dump on you. But I’m sure you have figured that out already, so I am going to keep this positive.

It’s Christmas! At least that is what my calendar says. The fact that the palm trees outside are withering from the heat and I’m still sweating while lying underneath a fan begs to differ. No, it doesn’t feel like Christmas. I’m carrying around a mini Christmas tree and a Santa hat to remind myself that it actually is Christmas. The thing is that the people here are pretty used to me doing ridiculous things. I’m foreign. Of course I do weird stuff. During the camp, when I would go to a vendor and say “I need 10 bags of drinking straws and 6 six rolls of packing tape” they’re like “Of course you do”. No one finds it strange because I’m already strange. So of course I’m running around with a Santa hat. I’m foreign. Why wouldn’t I be running around with a Santa hat? They wouldn’t let me wear it to school this morning, which kinda made me sad. It’s a special hat. It actually has a glittery Santa on the hat! I got it a, get this, at a Christmas party! The Lutheran World Federation has an office here, and while most of the staff is Cambodian Buddhist, the head of the organization in Cambodia is an American who came for an annual meeting. So we had a Christmas party. We even built a Christmas tree. Did any of you have a Christmas tree made from affixing mango tree branches to a bamboo frame? I think not. And instead of putting presents on the tree, they hung small presents from the branches like ornaments. I think they just put whatever happened to be lying around inside of these presents, as I received condoms. Merry Christmas to me. Today I taught my students Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. After school I was kind of feeling sad, so my co-teacher sang the Christmas songs to me. It was really sweet. But I don’t think it’s the weather or the food (I think I can safely say I’ve never eat rice on Christmas day before) that makes it seem that way. I think it’s being the only person who really cares that it is Christmas. In America, everyone knows and everyone is making preparations. People ask each other where they’re going for Christmas, have they finished shopping, etc. There are decorations in store windows, products are specially packaged in red and green, and it seems like there are just more people everywhere. It’s not something I was conscious of in the states, but when everyone is participating in something it makes a person feel like they are a part of a greater whole. And while it is annoying to have to wait in lines for hours at wal-mart, it’s something that marks Christmas. It’s those little things that make it hard for me to realize it’s Christmas. The small, subliminal cues that tell us Christmas is coming don’t exist here.

But I wouldn’t have you think that the lack of Christmas spirit means lack of party spirit. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the past week I have attended a wedding and a Christmas party, today I will attend a three-year death anniversary (the exciting thing about dying in Cambodia is that you get way more parties thrown in your honor than you ever did when you were alive, there is a funeral the day someone dies, one 7 days later, one 100 days later, and one 3 years later, some even do a 10 year one), and on Sunday one of students is having a birthday. Woot. And at least two more weddings are happening next month. So there will be no shortage of good times. Thanks to everyone for your prayers and support. I’ve received cards from people I haven’t seen in forever, some from people I barely know, and some from people I don’t know at all. Your support has meant so much to recently. I can’t even tell you how much I appreciate it. I hope you all have a great holiday season!

Thanks!

Hi everyone, will post soon! Now just wanted to let you all know that the girls camp was a huge success. The girls told me they were sad it ended. They absolutely loved the shirts so thanks so much to all who donated. At school, the day after the camp, one of the shyest participants volunteered to present her group's work to the entire class. I have never seen her do anything remotely like that before. I think it really made a difference so thanks again. Promise more details forthcoming.

Musings on headgear, alcohol related injuries, and gay chickens

There are many things that I do in Cambodia that I never would have done in the States. One of those is to wear ridiculous things on my head. I have some wonderfully awful hats, and now, I have a Rastafarian headband. I have mentioned my sparkly hat and gold/silver billabong hat in a previous blog, but I haves since acquired several more. One is black and red with gold dots on the red part. Another is rainbow striped with a pink, silver-dotted brim. A few days ago my friend gave me a headband that Bob Marley would be proud of. I wore it to school. Much to the amusement of my students. I also occasionally tie scarves around my head to keep my hair from blowing in the wind. And I sometimes wear long, billowy, floral skirts. Sometimes when I think about what I’m wearing I scare myself. I first arrived in Cambodia with a wardrobe as low key as possible. Fail. Khmer people don’t like black and gray. I have since procured many colorful sarongs, surfer shorts, pajamas, and t-shirts. As long as it is a bright color, they love it. Matching and fitting aren’t really a big deal here. They just like things that are bright and shiny. I don’t think there is a word for “flattering” in Khmer.

Water Festival just ended, but not to worry, we won’t have to face the shock of getting back to working a full week yet. Now we have a three day weekend for Cambodian independence day. Water Festival is actually three festivals. There is a rice roasting festival, a boat racing festival, and moon festival. Cambodians show gratitude to the Mekong river for sustaining their crops. This is the reason for boat racing. The moon festival consists of making small paper shrines and putting candles on them and setting them afloat on the river. They believe that the moon, rather than the sun, is responsible for the growth of crops. They wait til midnight to thresh the rice. Altogether these festivals make up Water Festival, which is a really big deal. Hundreds of thousands of people descend on Phnom Penh to watch the boat races and get ridiculously drunk. Having already seen boat races in Battambang, I was content to stay home.

Water festival means the beginning of ambok season. To make ambok, they take grains of recently harvested rice, roast them, and then put them in a mortar/pestle to pound them into flakes. The reason I get so excited is that if you fry the flakes, they puff up and basically become rice krispies. Yum! I had that for breakfast. One of the downsides of water festival is the alcohol. Two young girls were seriously injured in a moto accident over the holiday. They were carrying a load of wood on the moto, and most of it fell on them when they crashed. The driver of the other moto was not from around here, visiting for the holiday and driving far too fast, probably drunk. He was injured pretty badly as well, but he went home so we don’t really know much more about his condition. Le’ak and Mey aren’t my students, but their aunt, whom I have affectionately dubbed my ‘dealer’ sells me Vietnamese coffee, so we’re basically family. The girls are back home and they are going to be okay, but they’re really banged up. I visited them today. They were both in good moods, but they have some pretty awful scrapes. They may be scarred for life. But they were joking around and talking about how they don’t ever want me to leave Cambodia. It was so sweet. I also learned that the Chinese doctor who has been here for six years doesn’t speak Khmer as well as I do. He thinks Khmer people look like the Vietnamese. Apparently Khmer people don’t like being called Vietnamese any more than I like being called French. They also told me that Americans are far more beautiful than the French. The French are too white and have too many freckles. I’m sure had I been French they would have said the same thing about Americans. But whatever, it was fun. They are so bored because their injuries prevent them from doing much. I brought them some oranges and magazines. I would have given them my checkers set, but I left it with my host brothers, because they had lost a lot of pieces anyway. It didn’t seem to phase them, they just invented a different game requiring fewer pieces.

Now I have host sisters, and went with one of them and a few of her friends to pick oranges. They hate the way I peel oranges, cutting toward my hand taking the skin off in one long strip. They always try and take the knife and teach me to do the khmer way. They are certain I will cut my hands. I have tried to learn the khmer way. It's hard. I am content to just pay attention when I peel fruit and thus avoid cutting my hands. They are certain this will lead to my losing a finger. I have assured them and entire nation peels fruit this way and the loss of limbs remains relatively low. I find that it is rather difficult to pay attention to fruit peeling while having this conversation, so I hope that one day I do not prove them right. During this fruit peeling conversation, there are chickens milling around trying to eat the orange peels. One of them has almost no feathers. This is not at all unusual, Cambodia has some of the ugliest chickens I have ever seen. My host sister informs me that when a chicken has no feathers, this means that it is gay. So apparently homosexuality is big among Cambodian chickens. She says that the rooster try to pluck their feathers so they will look more like females. So in case you weren't previously aware of the cause of baldness in chickens, here it is. I'll end on that note. Nanny vickie, thanks for the pix, Colebren is so grown up! And for those who have sent me packages, I have a rather difficult mail situation, so things may not get to me in hurry, but I will let you know when they do. Love and miss you all!

typhoons and other reasons to get excited

It’s been a while, I know. But I have actually been ridiculously busy. It was a good feeling for the most part. I have just started teaching at the public high school again. I’m really excited about this year. I think I have a handle on things… I think… Anyway, the students know me, and I know them, so that makes things easier. I love the first few weeks of class. The students don’t have books yet so I don’t have to teach with the ridiculous books they have to use. There is full attendance and everyone is super excited. Well, mildly excited anyway. The weather has helped. It has been relatively cool here, meaning that one shirt can last me an entire day, which is an extremely exciting prospect. Unfortunately, part of the reason it has been so cool is because of the typhoon that hit Vietnam. It also hit eastern Cambodia. I’m in the west, not too far from Thailand, but some of the eastern provinces that border Vietnam got hit pretty bad. At least nine people are dead. This is a really big deal in a country that doesn’t really have natural disasters. So keep Southeast Asia in your prayers, the weather here has been crazy. (Don’t worry mom, I’m completely fine).

What else? Oh yes, I have recently become slightly obsessed with jasmine scented soap. It’s fantastic. I want to take showers even when I am not dirty just so I can use said soap. And it’s in the local market. The best part may be the green package that has a woman who is obviously enjoying taking a bath far more than any human being should. I laugh when I remember packing for Cambodia like I was preparing for the apocalypse, thinking basic essentials could not be found here. There are so many fantastic things to be found in markets here. I recently purchased a gold Billabong cap with embossed silver flowers. This is my going-to-school hat. You can purchase cherry blossom toothpaste, rhinestone playboy bunny sandals, and button-down shirts with pot leaves on them.

And in big city markets it’s even better. I’ve seen flip-flops with ‘sperm’ written on them, and the T-shirts, oh the T-shirts. Some are kind of funny (Happy Speed Racer Jesus, Stupid Kiss Me). I like it when grown men wear a pink, rhinestone embossed Britney Spears T-shirt. Those are good. There are many that I have to wonder who designed them. The pot leaf is a popular motif, and in Battambang I saw shirts that said things like “I’d rather be snorting cocaine off a hooker’s a$$” and “Which way to the SEX?” People have no idea what they are wearing. One of my most prim and proper students (a 15 yr old girl) has a shirt that says “Save a virgin, do me instead”. Part of this awesome taste in apparel has to do with it being the kind of thing that falls off the truck from Thailand. But still, one has to ask oneself if the slightly apple shaped woman wearing skinny jeans and playboy bunny T-shirt couldn’t have found something slightly more flattering to wear.

The reason I saw the special T-shirts mentioned above was because I got to go to Battambang last weekend. Battambang is the third largest city in Cambodia. The regional boat races were held there. In November, all of Cambodia will descend on Phnom Penh during the water festival. During this time, boats ranging in size from 20-100 person teams race on the Mekong river. This is kind of like the super bowl of boat racing. What I saw was kind of like the division play offs. It was so much fun. I really like boats. I like to ride them, but since that wasn’t possible I enjoyed just watching them instead. They were long boats, and they were powered by men with oars. The boats were all painted in bright colors, and each had it’s own fancy spirit emblem for protection. The boats are just barely wide enough for two men to sit side by side. Some have traditional patterns painted on the sides, other are painted to resemble dragons, snakes, and waves. They even have races for all-female teams. My favorite boat had a man riding in front whose only contribution was to beat the spirit drum, presumably invoking the protection of the spirit. It was not a banner day for the spirit unfortunately, and this boat lost. Each race was short, less that a mile. They raced in pairs, and everyone yelled and cheered.

When I got back from Battambang I got to know my new host family. I moved recently. My old host family is great, but sometimes it’s hardest living with people you like. So I now live in a mansion. Literally. I don’t think there are many houses this big in America. There is satellite TV, a fancy water filter, ceiling fans, running water, and a butt blaster. For those of you who don’t know what a butt blaster is, allow me to enlighten you. Normally, when you need to drop a deuce, you clean yourself with a water scooper and your left had. Yeah. Well a butt blaster is basically the sprayer that many of you have attached to your kitchen sink. Except it’s in the bathroom. And it is the best thing pretty much ever. With this marvelous device, you don’t have to touch yourself in order to get squeaky clean. Hooray!

The family is cool There are 5 people, the parents, two daughters, and the husband’s mother. The mother runs a tight ship, and is very superstitious. She had to make sure that I wasn’t born in the year of the pig, because two people in the house were already born in the year of the pig, and three is bad luck. (On a side note, you will never see a picture with three Khmer people. They will always make someone else be in the picture to make four. Even if they have to pull a random stranger off the street. Another side note, I was not born in the year of the pig, but in the year of the tiger. This means that I am a strong woman who intimidates men and will have difficulty finding a husband). She’s such a change from my former host mother, who was always after me for money. The new host mom refused to take this month’s rent because I moved in on the second instead of the first. She also bought her and I match pajama sets. The floral print pajama sets are everyday wear here. I wore my new one to the market this morning and everyone told me how beautiful I was. Of course they also tell me I’m beautiful when I get back from an hour-long bike ride covered in sweat and mud, so I take this with a grain of salt. This family is sooooo rich. Between the family in the west and the sandalwood oil exporting (more about that in a second), I don’t even know how much they must make. My host mother spent a few days in Phnom Penh last week and spent at least $200. That’s 2 months salary for me. She couldn’t believe that I didn’t make $500-$1000. The father is adorable. He’s a roly-poly little fellow who is just very jolly. He extracts the oil from sandalwood to sell to Muslim countries. He also has a ton of family in the west, hence the pimp house we live in. The Grandma is cool but a little standoffish. The older girl is in high school and speaks some English. She is possibly the sweetest person I’ve ever met. We are currently engaged in laundry wars, as she wants to do my laundry whenever she has free time. She is also fascinated by the computer, and is watching me while I type this. The youngest is completely apathetic toward the presence of a random foreigner in her house. Which is quite refreshing, as it’s rather tiring when people get excited about you all the time.

On the subject of weird foods, I recently ate a live cricket. I quite enjoy crickets when they are sautéed with hot peppers, but I had never eaten one still alive before last month. Crickets aren’t that gooey, especially when fried, they’re just rather crispy and delicious. Recently I was having dinner with a few other foreigners in the provincial town and they were absolutely disgusted with the idea of eating crickets. I staunchly defended their deliciousness. Alas, one poor cricket was unlucky enough to alight on our table. The group wanted me to eat. Well, I’m not cheap, so I asked what they were offering. They said they pay for dinner. Well we had just gotten the check and I didn’t know beforehand that we were at a ridiculously expensive restaurant, so I gladly accepted the offer. They didn’t believe I’d actually do it. I will say that fried crickets are infinitely superior to live crickets, both in taste and texture. While the live cricket wasn’t bad, a strong pepper does help it go down. It was a bit scratchy. But I got a free meal out of it, no I considered it all-in-all to have been a successful evening.

What else, what else? Oh the girls camp! My students had so much fun. We spent a weekend in the provincial town focusing on leadership and empowerment. We also gave them practical tips on applying for university, scholarships, and jobs. They hadn’t ever done anything like that before, and it was the first time in a guesthouse for most of them. They were so cute I almost couldn’t stand it. And they made new friends from the provincial town. Most of the session focused on empowerment and decision making. In one session, they were asked to evaluate the roles of men and women in Cambodia, in another they were given conflict scenarios that they might experience in real life and deal with them. Many of these had to do with respecting family concerns while still doing what is best in one’s own life. It was something they really needed to hear, and definitely don’t here often enough.

They are all looking forward to the camp that we’re gonna do at site. The only problem is ….certain folks who think are so insecure that they have to make other people unhappy in order to feel good about themselves. Understand that most of the people who are in charge are members of the ruling party, and most of these people have at the most a sixth grade education. Whenever I have mentioned this camp to any high officials, the general reaction was one of scoffing as to why anyone would want to help women. As the (male) head of the women’s community group said to me “We aren’t really interested in helping women, just in keeping track of them.” Yes friends, generally an audience with anyone important leaves me ready to cry or hit people, usually both. One particular person has brought me to tears at least twice in the last week over this camp. He was angry that I didn’t ask his permission to send students to the camp in Pursat. The reason I did not ask is that there is absolutely no good reason to do it. I had informed ahead of time, but as usual he was too busy talking to hear what I was telling him. So his ego was bruised. Well, my co teacher wrote a simple letter asking for permission to send students to the camp at my site. But this wasn’t good enough. No, the this fellow got out this huge book of rules and made us rewrite the entire thing according to certain regulations. We can’t use the word leadership, we have to promise not to say anything bad about the ruling party, and we had to change the name of the project to “Women as Housekeepers”. I wish there were an emoticon for the profound disgust and rage that I felt. After this, he berated me in front of all the other teachers, telling me that I am always wrong and that he and the officialdom are always right. Gag me. And we have to go to the head of provincial education, who has made his views on the education of women very clear. He’s against it. So yeah, I may be in for a fight. But honestly I’m indignant enough about the way they’re treating my girls that I’m completely up for it. Ugh, the joys of a post communist state. But I did manage a small victory. I told the teachers at my school that when men go on ridiculous ego trips and generally make idiots of themselves to make other people miserable, it means that they are insecure because they are not very well endowed. Now, whenever certain people are acting like jerks, a few teachers extend their pinkies and giggle. I have made a difference.

So all in all life’s fairly awesome. Pray that I don’t hurt anyone in the next few weeks and it will all be good.

Why is my native language so complicated?

As native English speakers, we generally don’t take the time to think about the way our language is put together. Even when I taught ESL in college, I mainly taught to native Spanish speakers, whose language is nearly as complex as ours. But now I teach English to people whose native language has NONE of the following: Verb tenses, verb conjugation, plurals. It also has few words. There are maybe 50,000 words in Khmer. There are over 200,000 in English. ‘More’and ‘Again’ are the same word in Khmer. As are maybe, possibly, approximately, around, about, roughly, and perhaps. Also questions are very difficult for them. In their language, they just add the word no to the end of a sentence. Thus, when I try to explain why an action that began in the past and is already completed takes a different tense that one began in the past but is still happening, I often rue the excessive complexities of English. While I appreciate the subtle differences that these can make in literature, they tend to make my everyday life just a little bit more difficult. You can't just translate a lot of English concepts simply because the concepts are entirely new to the students in any context. The usage of Khmer differs from English so much that often the students think I don't understand their questions or that I don't know my own language. For example, a girl asked about what a market vendor might say when he or she hadn't sold much. I told her that we would probably say that business has been slow or we hadn't done much business. She argued with me for nearly ten minutes because I hadn't translated it word for word into Khmer. I told her that we wouldn't say "me offer not sell" (the literal translation from khmer) Yes, the local language is a whole other animal. Here are some literal traslations of everyday conversations one may have in Khmer.

Host Grandma: Go market no? (Are you going to the market?)
Me: Go. (Yes, *responding with a verb is more common than saying the word yes)
HG: Take basket come (Bring the basket with you * the market basket serves the purpose of a shopping cart)

At the market:
Random person: Come from where? (Where are you coming from?)
Me: House.
RP: know wear sarong too. (You can wear a sarong! That’s fantastic!)

At the breakfast stall:
Breakfast lady: Niece eat what?
Me: Niece eat rice (people almost always refer to themselves and others in the third person, usually by some sort of kinship term.)
Random Person: White person know eat rice! (The foreigner is capable of consuming rice. Excellent)
RP: have age how many already? (How old are you?)
Me: I have age 23 already
RP: Take husband yet?
Me: not yet
RP: Want you take husband when? Want take husband cambodia?
Me: No want husband. Want work want study more.
RP: Have older younger how many person? (how many children do your parents have?)
Me: 2

At school:
Student: In Cambodia how teacher feel? (Do you like it here?)
Me: Teacher feel happy.
Student: sorry late last morning feed cow feed chicken. (I’m sorry I’m late, I had to feed the cows and chickens this morning)
Me No anything No. (That’s fine, I understand.)
Me: Younger younger remember what from yesterday? (What do you all remember from yesterday?)
Student: Teacher student remember small small (I don’t remember very much)
Me: Have person which other more remember anything? (Who remembers?)
Student: Teacher, I remember sentence have noun have verb one more (I remember a sentence needs a noun and a verb)
Me: Time all aldready! meeting each other day tomorrow (Time’s up! See you tomorrow)
Students: Goodbye teacher

I haven’t heard dance of the sugarplum fairies man for a while, so I will assume theme from Titanic man has prevailed!

shout outs, etc.

As summer draws to a close I cannot tell where the time has gone. I don’t even remember June happening weird. I am however, super excited to be going into a new school year. I now have some idea of what to expect. When I first came, I was overwhelmed by everyone’s expectations. I felt terrible when I had to tell my students that I couldn’t spend time with them individually for several hours a week. Setting boundaries was the hardest thing I’ve had to do. But it was worth it. People were disappointed, but they got over it. No one thinks any less of me for it. I have made a ton of new friends, and I am going to start teaching people whose English is more advanced, which means I have a wider variety of materials available to me. It should be good. I got to participate in a workshop on Gender and Development recently. It was really good. I was still slightly offended by many of the things that Khmer people laughed at (i.e. a husband not allowing his wife to go anywhere without him). But in the end they all seemed to have a decently progressive understanding of women’s roles in society. My favorite part was when I did a Q & A session on Gender in America. We had been discussing control over finances. I mentioned that money is a significant factor in American divorce statistics. This blew their minds. I was asked why, I love someone, I would leave him if he blew his entire paycheck on new car or tv. I replied that if he did this, he obviously didn’t love me. This statement received a standing ovation. It was one of the happiest moments of my life.

On a side note, the word I translated as ‘love’ in the above story actually means pity, sympathize with, or have compassion for. They use the word pity to mean what we consider love. It is a platonic form of love, and there is a saying in Cambodian that pity is stronger than love. This blows my mind. Pity? People want to be pitied. Once, one person had some oranges, and was passing out orange slices. She missed on of the other people and that person said “Don’t you pity me?” Granted compassion and sympathy make more sense as far as translation goes, but I would never equate either of those feelings with love. Huh.

I would like to send the biggest shout out in the world to everyone who has supported the tshirt project. Thanks to my wonderful mother, who has been incredibly awesome in putting this all together, thanks also to the lovely Nancy Jarboe for her tireless efforts with tshirt prep. And also to JP and Marilyn Hartung for donating the shirts. I can’t tell you amazed and moved I am at the support of all of you, friends, family, and complete strangers. Thank you all so very much for helping these girls. I’m both overwhelmed and extremely gratified that a group of people halfway around the world cares enough to help out these girls.

Also, for those of you following popsicle wars, I haven’t been home much during the day so I don’t have any updates yet, but will keep you abreast of any new developments.

Some new developments elsewhere: September started out with a bang for Cambodia. For the first time in history, Americans are being charged for child sex crimes committed overseas. Guess which country? Yep, the ‘bode. This is actually a very encouraging development. I recently saw a public service announcement on tv encouraging Cambodians to report suspicious foreigners. Apparently the US DoJ and ICE have an initiative focusing primarily on Cambodia to crack down on sex tourism. Good job.

For some lighter fare: Great news. A new study indicates coffee is fantastic for you. Contradicting old studies that say it is bad for you. SELF magazine recommended four cups a day. Four! Even I, (for those of you who don’t know me, if there were a way to give myself a coffee IV, I would be down with it) try to keep it at or below three cups a day. What I don’t understand is why we listen to new studies, when, next month, they will be old, outdated studies, completely contradicted. Obviously everyone cannot be right. This month’s SELF also had the best moves for toning your abs, butt, and thighs. Last month’s issue said the same thing. So which one is right? Were SELF readers using only mediocre butt toning moves last month? Understand, I don’t get much in the way of entertainment out here. In the states I liked having SELF for workout ideas, but never really thought critically about the magazine itself. But really, if it (or any periodical of this sort) does what it claims to, we wouldn’t need it every month. If I had used only the latest issue, would I have the best abs, instead of the mediocre abs produced by the workouts of the previous months? Yes, I know it is slightly ridiculous that I had time to sit and write an entire paragraph about this. Don’t judge me. I’m off for my third cup of coffee. Only for health reasons, of course.

What I do all day

Do you ever wonder what exactly I do all day? I have the impression that some people think I lead a very adventurous and exotic life. I will let you decide for yourself. A day in my life would go something like this:

5:30am.: Wake up to the sound of my host mother yelling at her sons to get up. I consider getting up and doing productive things, and then promptly dismiss this thought as ludicrous.
6-6:30am: Make a concerted effort to get out of bed. This usually results in my enjoyment of watching hungry mosquitoes foiled by my mosquito net.
7am: Breakfast at the market. Catch up on the gossip, discuss how terribly tan and thin I have become and how this will make my parents not recognize me upon my return to the states. And when they finally recognize me, my darkened, emaciated state will cause them to weep. On a side note, black coffee with a scoop of ovaltine is pretty much the best thing ever.
8am: A bike ride. Ah yes... Good for physical and mental health.
9am: Fling cold water on myself with a bucket. Otherwise known as bathing.
9-11: Running around to various NGOs, working on various projects
11: Fling more cold water on myself
11:15: Lunch time!
11:30-1: Nap time!
1-2: Teaching
2: Another bath
2-5: Getting water from the well to fill up the basin in the bathroom, doing dishes, should be lesson planning, more often reading. This is also coconut time. Afternoons are not complete without coconut consumption. Also, for many people this is still naptime. This month is monsoon season. Or at least it should be. But it hasn’t been raining that much. I’m told there is always drought in the year of the cow. Who knew? But when it does rain, it rains in the afternoons. This is an awesome time to sip hot coffee and read a Henry James novel.
5-7: More teaching!
7:Dinner
7:30: bath number 4. After this we hang out and watch tv until bed. I usually read. There was major drama the other night because the tv went out completely. The family really didn’t know what to do without tv. It has been kind of repaired, but now instead of the two channels we got previously, we know only get one.
8:30: Bedtime!

In other news, there is popsicle drama. I may have mentioned that a guy straps a large orange cooler on his moto and drives around and sells popsicles. Like the ice cream truck in America. Like the ice cream truck in America, the popsicle moto plays a little diddy as he goes by to let neighborhood children know he’s coming. Unlike in America, these little diddies are usually from movies soundtracks or they are christmas songs. And they sound like they are being played on the kazoo. Every moto driver has his own unique sound. In my village, we have “Theme from Titanic” man. He passes by six or seven times a day. Six or seven times a day I am treated to a kazoo rendition of My Heart Will Go On. But the other day, what did I hear but “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies”! What is this! Indeed, “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies” man is cutting in on the turf of “Theme from Titanic” man. What will happen? Who will win the money of the neighborhood children? Will I go insane from hearing not one but two kazoo medleys all day? Stay tuned for more details.

zoo+sparkly hat+cambodia=awesome

I wandered around a zoo in Cambodia yesterday while wearing a sparkly hat. What did you do yesterday? That’s what I thought. I win. Yes, there is a zoo in Cambodia. It is actually a wildlife rescue park. They have many animals that have nearly been poached out of existence. The problem with a zoo in Cambodia is that after nine in the morning it is so hot all the animals lie down for a nap. But it was fun, although we were charged $5 while the Cambodian visitors paid 50 cents. I’m still a little bitter. Why, you may ask, was I wandering around a zoo in the first place. The new group of volunteers (well, trainees for the next 5-6 weeks) arrived a couple weeks ago. Another volunteer and I got to spend the week hanging out with them. It was weird to see so many foreigners in one place. I probably spoke more English in that week than I have spoken in the past month. There were also Marines in town, building and refurbishing a hospital. They were from a unit based in Okinawa. I met them while buying a toothbrush. Apparently, they really like Fanta. The old lady who ran the small establishment which sells toothbrushes and Fanta was simply overjoyed at the sheer number of foreigners. She told me that she was giving us the Khmer price, not the foreigner price, which as I mentioned earlier is often 3-10x more. For this we were all grateful.

A word about my sparkly hat. For those of you who actually know me, you are probably aware that I tend to avoid things with glitter and sequins in much the same way a pothead avoids German Shepherds. Alas, in a great act of cultural contrition, I purchased a ballcap covered in silver glitter. The new volunteers have informed that middle school boys all over the states have taken to wearing these, so I am assured of my extreme coolness. Occasionally I like to wear it tilted to the side, just because I can. It also looks incredible when worn under my bike helmet. At this point I need you all to control your jealousy at my sweet headgear.

On a completely unrelated note, it’s funny how small things can set you off sometimes. I gave a list of things I have and haven’t gotten used to over the past year. But even the things you’re used can just make you snap sometimes. I visited my district office the other day. I needed some statistics about the district for a proposal that I’m writing, in hopes of getting funding for the girl’s camp. Every district is supposed to have a women’s community group. Every time have gone to the district office, they have told me our district doesn’t really have a women’s group. The conversation generally goes a little something like this:
Me: What do you mean by ‘doesn’t really’ have a group?
Them: We…er…uh.. don’t know
Me: Is this a community?
Them: Well, uh, yes.
Me: Do women live here?
Them: Yes, but….
Me: Well, if we have a community, and we have women, those seem to be the two elements required for a community women’s group. Right?
Them: Have you eaten rice yet?

The last time I went, there was a random dude. I got to have a whole new conversation:
Me: What do you mean by ‘doesn’t really’ have a group?
Random dude: Actually, we do have a women’s group.
Me: Really! That’s great. Who is the group leader?
Random dude: I am.
Me: You? You are the leader of a women’s group?
Random dude: Yes.
Me: (explanation of girl’s camp project), but I need some statistics about the women in the community so I can write a proposal.
Random dude: We sent all our statistics to the Provincial capitol. They haven’t sent them back yet.
Me: You don’t have copies?
Random dude: No. You see, we aren’t really concerned with helping women, just keeping track of them.

You can imagine that was a rather disheartening day. But the funny thing is, while I was unsure whether I had a stronger desire to cry or beat Random dude senseless, I very calmly walked away and went home. I was fine going home. I took a bath, read a book until lunch was ready and then sat down to eat. In order to attempt to understand my mindset, you need to know that Khmer do not take chicken meat off the bones. They take a meat cleaver to entire bird a just start whacking. While this makes a chicken soup more nutritious, it also means that it takes a few minutes to eat one bite of chicken because you have to suck all the meat off the bones. While I prefer to be able to just eat something without having to stop mid-chew and remove bones from my mouth, normally it isn’t a problem. Today was not normal. I saw what I thought was pork, put it my mouth and it was chicken. Mainly bone and gristle. As I have said, any other day, this would not be a problem. But today I didn’t want to pick out the bones. How hard is it to take the bones out before you cook something? I missed biting into a boneless chicken breast and just being able to chew without nearly chipping your tooth. I guess you learn how to deal with things, but on some level it still bothers you. Obviously it wasn’t the bone thing that was really getting to me. And I don’t think I would want to be sort of person who was okay with the district’s rather callous disregard for the welfare of half of its population. So I’m just going to have to bypass government sources completely. Oh well. It will work out. When all is said and done, I still got to walk around a zoo in a sparkly hat.
Thanks to everyone for all your support and prayers. They really do mean a lot to me.

The things you get used to

I need a nap. Seriously. The air in Cambodia doesn’t like me very much. I never had allergies in the states, but for some reason rainy season in Cambodia does a number on my respiratory system. I am sneezey, which makes me grumpy and sleepy. I would go on with the seven dwarves references but that would be tiresome for all concerned. We had a workshop for student teachers at the NGO over the weekend. Some of the high school students teach the first grade students. It’s a really cool program. So I got to make power point presentations. I don’t know why power point makes me so happy. But it does. I always feel so productive when I make a presentation. Perhaps it is a false sense of productivity. Simply writing out the information would barely take up one sheet of paper. But put it in a power point show with a snappy template and I feel like I have accomplished something. Either way it makes me happy. And the snacks were fantastic. Couldn’t really ask for more.

Now planning for girls camps is the major task. I’m currently look up scholarship opportunities to present to them. But it should be really fun when we get it all taken care of. My girls are extremely excited. I really hope they get something out of all this. I also hope their parents let them stay away from home for a night! Someday I want to get the resume workshop up and going. The summer is going by fast. I don’t actually remember the month of June even happening.

We’ve been in country for a year now. It’s strange because in a lot of ways I feel like I just got here. But I’ve become so at home here that it kind of seems like I’ve been here forever.
Things I’m used to:
• Rodents scurrying about my room in the middle of the night
• Bathing 3-5 times a day with a bucket
• Sharing the back of a truck with 20 people and various animals while careening down the national road
• Finding animal anus in my soup
• Walking in ankle deep mud
• Sweating 24/7
• Chickens attempting to steal my dinner
• The loudest, most annoying music on the planet being blared across the street
• Being told yes when the answer is obviously no
• Being told no when the answer is obviously yes
• Littering
• Being yelled at
• Spontaneous declarations of love
• Being asked if I know how to eat rice
• The rather fluid interpretation of time management
• Eating bugs. They are yummy. No joke

Things I may never get used
• Being called French
• Staring
• Spontaneous cuddling
• When people yell “High lo, barrang” (hello French/white person) and then laugh like it the funniest thing they’ve ever experienced
• People thinking I only eat bread
• People who cannot speak English refusing to accept that I cannot understand their mispronunciation of English words. (Ex. ummen, rit, punning = ointment, “Raid”, banana)
• The confusion of fish paste with cheese
• The confusion of “hip hop” dancing with dry heaves
• The sad, 80s aerobic – like dancers on tv.
• The sheer amount of glitter
• Not being able to watch youtube because of copyright laws

My ongoing relationship with mud

Rainy season has arrived. Sometimes more properly referred to as monsoon season. Torrential rains cover the land with 3-12 inches of mud. This makes travel and laundry monumental tasks. Khmer people have this amazing ability to walk on the surface mud. It’s like how Jesus walked on water, only it’s mud. I don’t know how they do it. I’m slipping and sliding and my shoes always get covered with mud. But they delicately pick their way through the mudholes that they call roads. When I go to the market with my host grandmother, she always makes me stop several times to clean my shoes. And the market is even worse than the road. Wooden stalls floating in the mud. My feet get dirty yet again, which embarrasses grandma to no end. But I can now walk without slipping. Much. I think that is an accomplishment. I really wish there were words to describe all the mud.

The cool thing about rainy season is that it is considerably less hot during a monsoon. I bathed in a thunderstorm the other day. It was pretty cool.

I now have some access to internet, which is exciting. The computers are limited and people have to do real work on them so I can’t sit around writing this blog all day, but I hope to be in more frequent contact with people. Woot.

This new world of internet today showed me that people are unknowingly buying repossessed meth houses without knowing it. This has caused them terrible health problems and is very expensive to fix. How terrible is that? Various states have laws concerning disclosure of a house’s history, and some also require cleanup, but the expense is prohibitive. Very sad story.

I was cheered by the arrival of an envelope, thanks Nanny Jan! Hope you are feeling better.
And then I nearly cried when I saw pictures of the food. And then I ate my tobasco jelly beans. And my emotional roller coster was up again.

Love and miss everyone!

Happy Anniversary to me

Well my first school year as high school English teacher in rural Cambodia has officially come to a close. It was definitely the most stressful and rewarding job I’ve ever done. The exams were a nightmare. I am known as the most evil of all exam proctors as I don’t allow students to use their textbooks or class notes. And I don’t allow them to switch papers. And I don’t allow them to get up and move to get a better look at someone else’s paper. I am cruel indeed. Understand that none of the other teachers do this. Most don’t even attempt to do this. The only ones who enforce rules are the ones who co-proctor with me. I guess I guilt them into it. But it would impossible to stop the copying. Absolutely impossible. One looks at the paper of the person in back of them, that person looks behind them, and so forth until the whole class looks like some sort of winding copy-snake. And no one sees anything wrong with this. They say they do of course, but it practice, they couldn’t care less. In a way, I don’t blame them. Teachers get paid the same amount of money whether they show up to school or not. And the fact that their salaries are regularly a few weeks (in some cases a few months) late, they really don’t feel the need to show up if they have better things to do. Thus, some classes meet maybe 3 times in a whole semester. (Not English of course, sometimes the students try to convince me to stay home so they can leave early). But the test is over everything they should have covered. And even if class met regularly, the tests are very optimistic about the amount of material covered. And it would never occur to a student to attempt to read the book if the teacher hasn’t covered it yet. There isn’t really an idea of self study. So it is hard to fault them for cheating, because in many ways it seems as though the ministry of education is trying to screw them over. But never fear, for if you have enough money you can buy all the grades you need. It will be okay in the end. This is the reason why I’m usually harder on the students whose families have money, because I know that they will probably just pay for good scores in the end, so they might as well earn them. And grading was fun too. I didn’t proctor the English test, but I did grade it. All of the essays were poorly copied from a book, but I did get some interesting quotes, for example “Everyone in Cambodia always has happy wet dream” (Don’t ask, I have absolutely no idea). On the subject of women’s roles in Cambodia: “Women have the weak sex” and “Women should have rights equal and babies”. Oh yes. Good times.

So now that school is out, I have time to do fun things like girls camps, business related classes, and reading basically all the time. But the Lutheran World Fellowship office is really cool. And the staff let me use their internet and want me to do some work with them as far as business workshops are concerned. So at least summer should not be boring. And I get to mentor an English camp at the US Embassy for a few days.

Miracle of miracles happened the other day: I had a pleasant taxi ride to Phnom Penh. Normally I hate taxis. The normal passenger count for a toyota camry is six adults, not counting children or the driver. Now, this isn’t a particularly comfortable arrangement for Khmer people. I am twice as big as them, so when I’m in the car, everyone suffers. Not only is uncomfortable but you have to wait for all the people. But the other day I found an awesome taxi dude. In fact, he was so awesome, he showed up on time. At 7! (when he said he would show up, seven always means eight here) Not expecting him for another hour, I wasn’t even dressed. So I hurriedly throw on clothes and get downstairs. I get in the car, and I am only one of three passengers. I keep waiting for us to stop and pick up more people, but we never do. I have my own seat all the way to PP!!!!! We only stop once. It really made me happy. The same annoying music was still playing, but I’m basically used to that now.

A word on music and culture. I will sum up two very popular songs, and let them speak for themselves. The first one is a lovely little diddy about a boy who falls in love with an ethnically Chinese girl. Because the Chinese have fairer skin than Cambodians, Cambodians perceive them to be more beautiful. She is very quiet and he knows she will be an obedient wife, so he loves her. But her mother wants $5000 for her. (An average wife costs about $3000) So he sells all of his cows. But alas, he still cannot raise the money, and her mother tells him to go away.

The second song is more recent, but sung by same person who sang the first. He wants a wife, but he has a dilemma: should he marry a foreign woman or a Cambodian woman? The question plagues him, for obviously there could be no question as to whether or not either of these women would actually want to marry him. The foreign woman has white skin, and she is good to look at, but the Khmer woman would be obedient to her husband. Decisions, Decisions. In the end, he decides on the Khmer woman. And as I explained to the fruit lady at rest stop, it wasn’t his choice really because there is no way a foreign woman would marry a man like that. This also led to the explanation of how because I want to work, my husband would have to do housework so I didn’t think a Khmer man would want to marry me. She said that I had a point, but also that Khmer men are lazy and probably wouldn’t do all the work they needed to. So we came up with a plan whereby I would marry 3-4 men, and give each one a task. I would have a laundry husband, a cooking husband, a lawn work husband, and so forth. And they would all have to compete with each other to earn my favor, and thus do their jobs well. I now have a plan for my life. Thanks fruit lady.

You know what makes a really good omelet? Insects. Oh yes. There these insects, that resemble wasps except they are brown and don’t have a stinger. And we eat them and their larvae pretty frequently. They are actually quite delicious. Sweet and a bit crunchy. You fry them up and put them in just about anything, you can even eat them plain. I actually like them a lot. And if ants get into them, not a problem, just fry em up eat them too. Better than fish soup, that’s for sure.

In other news, it has been a really long couple of weeks, first of all, to my family, I’m so sorry about Granny, you guys have no idea how much I missed you and how badly I wanted to be there with you. I am truly sorry. And to Erin: I’m so happy for you! I really regret not getting to see you on your big day, Congratulations!

This was one of those weeks that really made me not want to be in Cambodia. Several different things happened; I won’t go into all of it here. Suffice to say that both at school and at my house everything seemed to be about money. Cambodians think that all Americans are rich. And I really felt like everyone I was around just wanted to find some way to get money out of me. The school director wants my English club students to pay electricity costs for using the school building. Which is fine, except his reasoning was that the school was to poor to manage the cost. Well if they spent their budget on things it was intended to fund maybe it wouldn’t be so poor. He also made a huge deal about it in front of all the other teachers, which was embarrassing beyond belief.

I’ve come to detest even mentioning money. But here, it is all people want to talk about. They want to know how much everything costs, how much everyone makes, it just goes on and on. And they refuse to believe that my parents do not just have thousands of dollars lying around so they can come see me whenever they want.

The problem is that this society is built on patronage and reciprocity. What you do doesn’t matter at, it’s who you know. It is completely natural and not at all shameful to be friends with someone simply for what you can get out them. That has always bothered, although while a lot of my friends have asked me for outrageous, most have understood when I explained why that can’t happen. But the idea of liking someone for who they are isn’t the ideal here. It’s really tough to deal you, a lot of times I feel really taken advantage of. But despite this, the overwhelming majority of people are really good to me, definitely better than I deserve.

That’s all for now, oh Nanny I got your envelope, it didn’t cost much. Thanks so much!
Love and miss everyone

Air Conditioning and Economic Development. The two would seem to be completely unrelated. However, having lived in an underdeveloped nation void of air conditioning, I have developed a theory: People do not like to work when it is hot. People do not like to anything when it is hot. I do not think it is a coincidence that before the advent of air conditioning, most development took place in the cooler climates (i.e. the industrial revolution took place primarily in Europe and the northern United States). The truth is that when it is hot things pretty much shut down. It is easy to say that one can survive without air conditioning while sitting in one’s air conditioned home. That’s what I thought when I joined Peace Corps. And it is true, I’m used to the heat (in a very relative sense) and while I don’t enjoy it I can deal with it. And I usually deal with it by laying on the tile floor in the living room.

The thing is that there is a huge difference between living in the heat and being productive in the heat. This may sound lazy, but until you’ve lived in a climate that regularly exceeds 100 degrees, you can’t understand just how unproductive it makes you. You can’t get anything done in Cambodia after 10 in the morning. And you really don’t want to do anything. Of all of the obstacles to development I have encountered here, this one surprised me the most. You just don’t think about the real effects of things like heat when you live in a country that has air conditioning. It’s easy to say just tough it out, but it’s easier said than done.

Happy Mother’s day to all you mothers out there (Especially to mine:) Thanks for being awesome. Not a lot going on right now, due to the aforementioned heat. And the King’s Birthday. Tuesday-Saturday there will be no class so we can party in honor of the King. Woot. Some of the staff at one of the NGOs wants me to teach English workshops in the morning next week. This means I won’t be lying on my floor bored. Always a plus. And I just got ten more books. Yay. Between reading, teaching, and sewing (the darn Cambodian zippers...ugh) I should be fairly entertained.

Love and miss all of you! Have a great Mother’s day!

If you have never eaten four gigantic mangoes in one day, allow me to give you some advice: do not attempt. Mangoes are excessively filling, and if consumed in excess, render one unable to move. It is mango season here. Every two weeks or so some fruit or another ripens and then said fruit is everywhere. There are literally piles of if lying about. People try to give the fruit to one another, hoping that they will somehow reduce the amount in their possession. This doesn’t work, because people just end up receiving as much as they give. So anywhere you go, people are begging you to eat their fruit. The pile of mangoes on our table is larger everyday, as though they multiply during the night. I was even forced to eat one before I left the house this morning. And I’m sure more will come after dinner.

May 1st was Earth Day, and as with any day that has a notation on a calendar, there was no school. So one of the NGOs took some students to pick up trash along the main road. It was pretty stellar. I got to hold a sign and everything. As with any special event in this country, there someone with a megaphone there too. It was pretty much a perfect morning. We had rubber gloves, well glove I should say, there weren’t enough for everyone to have 2. We also got those cool little blue masks that make your face sweat. Sweetness. Mind you, picking up trash in Cambodia is kind of like collecting sand on the beach, the idea that one could gather it all is slightly ludicrous. But it was a step and a very positive activity for the students. People just throw trash wherever, and they really like to throw it in water, the same water people bathe in. Not pretty. Some of the ponds and ditches in my town would require a HAZMAT unit to safely clean up. But they filled six bags and that means six less bags of nastiness hanging out on the streets.

We also had our first Spanish class yesterday. It was super fun. I feel much less pressure when teaching Spanish than when teaching English. The NGO guys were unsure that this was a good idea, but everyone had fun and they seemed convinced in the end. Granted I taught them greetings and the alphabet, but it’s more Spanish than anyone around here knows. I don’t know if it is useful, and that is kind of why I’m excited about teaching it. These kids want to learn something simply for sake of learning. That’s really rare here and definitely something I want to encourage. I’m planning on giving them Spanish names and maybe teaching a little salsa *scandalous*.

Speaking of scandalous things: My host family found my dress. I bought a sundress in Malaysia. In Cambodia, sundresses are considered pajamas, while actual pajamas are considered appropriate attire for almost any occasion. Why, they asked, did I not wear my new pajamas? I told them it wasn’t for sleeping, but for nice occasion. We went back and forth for about ten minutes before I finally managed to convince them I was not going to wear the only decent dress I own to bed. They’re funny folk.

As always, I love and miss you all. Peace and Love and all that good stuff.
If you have never eaten four gigantic mangoes in one day, allow me to give you some advice: do not attempt. Mangoes are excessively filling, and if consumed in excess, render one unable to move. It is mango season here. Every two weeks or so some fruit or another ripens and then said fruit is everywhere. There are literally piles of if lying about. People try to give the fruit to one another, hoping that they will somehow reduce the amount in their possession. This doesn’t work, because people just end up receiving as much as they give. So anywhere you go, people are begging you to eat their fruit. The pile of mangoes on our table is larger everyday, as though they multiply during the night. I was even forced to eat one before I left the house this morning. And I’m sure more will come after dinner.

May 1st was Earth Day, and as with any day that has a notation on a calendar, there was no school. So one of the NGOs took some students to pick up trash along the main road. It was pretty stellar. I got to hold a sign and everything. As with any special event in this country, there someone with a megaphone there too. It was pretty much a perfect morning. We had rubber gloves, well glove I should say, there weren’t enough for everyone to have 2. We also got those cool little blue masks that make your face sweat. Sweetness. Mind you, picking up trash in Cambodia is kind of like collecting sand on the beach, the idea that one could gather it all is slightly ludicrous. But it was a step and a very positive activity for the students. People just throw trash wherever, and they really like to throw it in water, the same water people bathe in. Not pretty. Some of the ponds and ditches in my town would require a HAZMAT unit to safely clean up. But they filled six bags and that means six less bags of nastiness hanging out on the streets.

We also had our first Spanish class yesterday. It was super fun. I feel much less pressure when teaching Spanish than when teaching English. The NGO guys were unsure that this was a good idea, but everyone had fun and they seemed convinced in the end. Granted I taught them greetings and the alphabet, but it’s more Spanish than anyone around here knows. I don’t know if it is useful, and that is kind of why I’m excited about teaching it. These kids want to learn something simply for sake of learning. That’s really rare here and definitely something I want to encourage. I’m planning on giving them Spanish names and maybe teaching a little salsa *scandalous*.

Speaking of scandalous things: My host family found my dress. I bought a sundress in Malaysia. In Cambodia, sundresses are considered pajamas, while actual pajamas are considered appropriate attire for almost any occasion. Why, they asked, did I not wear my new pajamas? I told them it wasn’t for sleeping, but for nice occasion. We went back and forth for about ten minutes before I finally managed to convince them I was not going to wear the only decent dress I own to bed. They’re funny folk.

As always, I love and miss you all. Peace and Love and all that good stuff.
If you have never eaten four gigantic mangoes in one day, allow me to give you some advice: do not attempt. Mangoes are excessively filling, and if consumed in excess, render one unable to move. It is mango season here. Every two weeks or so some fruit or another ripens and then said fruit is everywhere. There are literally piles of if lying about. People try to give the fruit to one another, hoping that they will somehow reduce the amount in their possession. This doesn’t work, because people just end up receiving as much as they give. So anywhere you go, people are begging you to eat their fruit. The pile of mangoes on our table is larger everyday, as though they multiply during the night. I was even forced to eat one before I left the house this morning. And I’m sure more will come after dinner.

May 1st was Earth Day, and as with any day that has a notation on a calendar, there was no school. So one of the NGOs took some students to pick up trash along the main road. It was pretty stellar. I got to hold a sign and everything. As with any special event in this country, there someone with a megaphone there too. It was pretty much a perfect morning. We had rubber gloves, well glove I should say, there weren’t enough for everyone to have 2. We also got those cool little blue masks that make your face sweat. Sweetness. Mind you, picking up trash in Cambodia is kind of like collecting sand on the beach, the idea that one could gather it all is slightly ludicrous. But it was a step and a very positive activity for the students. People just throw trash wherever, and they really like to throw it in water, the same water people bathe in. Not pretty. Some of the ponds and ditches in my town would require a HAZMAT unit to safely clean up. But they filled six bags and that means six less bags of nastiness hanging out on the streets.

We also had our first Spanish class yesterday. It was super fun. I feel much less pressure when teaching Spanish than when teaching English. The NGO guys were unsure that this was a good idea, but everyone had fun and they seemed convinced in the end. Granted I taught them greetings and the alphabet, but it’s more Spanish than anyone around here knows. I don’t know if it is useful, and that is kind of why I’m excited about teaching it. These kids want to learn something simply for sake of learning. That’s really rare here and definitely something I want to encourage. I’m planning on giving them Spanish names and maybe teaching a little salsa *scandalous*.

Speaking of scandalous things: My host family found my dress. I bought a sundress in Malaysia. In Cambodia, sundresses are considered pajamas, while actual pajamas are considered appropriate attire for almost any occasion. Why, they asked, did I not wear my new pajamas? I told them it wasn’t for sleeping, but for nice occasion. We went back and forth for about ten minutes before I finally managed to convince them I was not going to wear the only decent dress I own to bed. They’re funny folk.

As always, I love and miss you all. Peace and Love and all that good stuff.

Singapore: Little India was fantastic. The rest of the city, not so much. But the cloth and spices people sold along the street in the Indian district were fabulous. Basically, all we did was go out to for drinks and pool. It was pretty cool. We met a random guy who used to work at the south pole. And then we went to…………………………

BORNEO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Really, there aren’t enough good things to say about Borneo. We arrived in Kuching, “the city of cats”. We wandered about. We saw a Hindu temple, a Catholic church, Anglican church, a Buddhist temple, a Sikh, and a Mosque within about 20 minutes. It was so cool. We explored a shopping mall and the Chinese food court outside. Someone taught us to say thank you in Chinese, which made this one guy laugh uncontrollably. That’s us, just spreading the joy. We went down to the ferry around sunset. The river made calming noises, in the foreground were palm trees and the background was the outline of a mountain with a mosque. The sky was just cloudy enough to make it turn all different colors. There were hues of blue, purple, red, yellow, and orange. It was so picturesque. And then it was five oclock. At least six mosques began the call to prayer. Regardless of a person’s religious beliefs, there is something curiously haunting about the call to prayer. Just the sound of it somehow carries your thoughts toward God. At the end, there was one crier who was just a little behind all the others. His lone refrain lasted about 10 seconds longer than everyone else’s. It was really an amazing moment.

Then we were hungry. We went back to the Chinese dude who laughed at us for saying thanks. We thought the night was over. We could not have been more wrong. We make our way to the guesthouse, walking past one of the many Chinese Buddhist temples in the town. This one happened to be having a party. And we were invited. For no apparent reason. We looked as we were walking by, and they invited to sit down. So we sat. And they gave us beverages, attempted to give us food, and explained what they were doing. Apparently the god of heaven was having a birthday the next day. So everyone got to together to set and eat and make offerings and eat some more. And drink. There was a lot of drinking. We sat there chatting with a few middle aged fellows. Then we learned that one of these guys was the mayor of the town. We met the mayor less than six hours after arriving in the town! The best part: he’s a Catholic named James. Go figure. When he left the party pretty much broke up. So we went to the only logical after-party spot: McDonalds. Understand that there are no McDonalds in Cambodia. And in most other countries (Including Borneo) Mickey D’s is a lot nicer than in the states. So we went for sundaes. While we were waiting in line, we noticed an African. We played a game that we had started in Kuala Lumpur called “Where is that foreigner from”. Kelsey voted Kenya, I said Nigeria. I won. Obviously the only way to know who wins this game is to ask. So Kelsey did. And the four of had ice cream together. They were students at the university, and they were celebrating his birthday. It was cute. Then we went back to the hostel. Surely the night was really over by no. Wrong again. Chinese poker and Bollywood movies. Oh yes, both of these things were happening. The Chinese use playing cards that are shaped like tongue depressors. The poker is also more similar to rummy. It was fun to watch. But not as fun as bollywood. We had fun at that hostel, but it didn’t have breakfast or a toilet in the room, so we shopped around the next day. That was a stellar decision. We found Tracks, a cool little hostel run by some really cool guys. They’re Iban, one of the many ethnic groups in Borneo. Traditionally, Iban men got tattoos to mark events in their lives. Since colonization by the British, many gave this custom up. But these guys also run a tattoo shop. They were on National Geographic’s Taboo: Tattoo. If you haven’t watched it yet, you should. Anyhow, when they’re not tattooing folks, they just kind of hang out at the hostel and play the guitar. So we spent most of our time in Borneo hanging out and watching movies while the guys played guitar. It was very nice to be able to sleep in and do whatever we wanted. In Cambodia there are always people in your business, and so it was nice to just spend our days wandering around the city and nights chilling with our new friends. We did walk around a lot. We went to a lot of religious buildings, museums, and ethnic districts. We even saw orangutans. There is a rehabilitation centre where you can watch the feeding. There was a little baby and it was really cute.

After the orangutans, we went to the tattoo shop. We just dropped by and watched a guy get tattooed. There was a lot more blood than I expected. It was weird to be in the shop, there were posters and pictures of famous people he’d tattooed. If you want to check it out, the website is borneoheadhunter.com. So between tattoos (and there were a lot breaks) we watched movies and drank coffee. We got sharpie tattoos. It was a pretty cool day.

Borneo is an interesting place. It is technically Malaysia because Malaysia defended Borneo from the Japanese invasion. But most Malay people are actually Indonesian. The native people don’t particularly like them, because they took their land and tried to make them Muslim. Borneans are Malay in name only. Going to Borneo from Peninsular Malaysia requires a trip through immigration, even though they are technically the same country. According to Borneans, the reason Malaysia is so rich is that they take the oil found in Borneo and keep all the money from it.

Borneo was really awesome. It is strange coming back to Cambodia. When I first arrived in Cambodia, I found it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I was expecting everyone to live in cardboard boxes. I have gotten used to Cambodia, and leaving made me realize just how bad it really is. Honestly, I would have rather stayed in Borneo. I didn’t come to Cambodia for myself, but because it was what I needed to do. It was good to be reminded of why I’m here. I chose to be here, not somewhere else, because here, people need help. So now it’s back to Kravanh. A new school year will be starting soon, a new start for everyone.

Love and miss you all!

Brief rundown of the week (more details later)
1. Played pool in Singapore
2. Met the Mayor of Borneo's capital within hours of arriving
3. Had ice cream with Nigerians at McDonald's
4. Watched bollywood movies
5. Hung out with the most famous tattoo artist in Borneo (possibly all of southeast asia. Watch "Taboo: Tatoos" on National Geographic and you'll see him)
6. Had Turkish coffee
7. Listened to the call to prayer while watching the sunset over the river
8. Stayed up til after 3am listening to native musicians
9. Folder paper boats at a buddhist temple
10. Escaped from the rain in a Hindu temple
11. Realized the building by the police station is actually a Sikh temple
12. Had junior high girls tell me about Jesus
SO much more! Still love and miss everyone. Will write more when I have time

Malaysia PTII: Leaving the jungle was almost a cool as being inside of it. We decided to take boat instead of a train so we could see the river. It was pretty fantastic. We saw some native people swimming. The women were all shy and covered their mouths with their hands, and the kids all ran around splashing in the water and yelling hello. We got very wet, not because it was raining, but because a little French girl kept sticking her hand out of the boat and dangling it in the water, thus splashing everyone behind her. But she was super cute, and we knew we would totally have done that at her age, so we didn’t care. We got into Jerantut and had to wait for the night train to Kuala Besut, the mainland access point to the islands. While we were waiting, we played Yahtzee with Florian and Thomas, two German mathmeticians headed to the same islands we were. (I won the Yahtzee game, btw) We shared a taxi with them to the jetty and hung out on the beach, where they told us about math formulas for calculating probability, the German word for “a spiraling descent into hell” and other assorted awesomeness which I will never be able to remember.

The second day was all about snorkeling. Uber awesome. Swam with the fishies and the turtles. Some people saw lots of sharks, but I only saw a tiny one. Oh well. There was coral that kind of looked like a clam, but closed up when you came near it, schools of fish that you could just swim through. There was a fish feeding frenzy on one pile of dead coral, and a pink and blue fish the size of a microwave came and started running the other fish away. There were fist of all colors and sizes. Seriously, some were as big as me. The turtles were definitely as big as me. They got rather annoyed by all the divers, but they have to come up for air sometimes, so when they do, we can touch them. Excellence. Also, in the course of the day I found that my sunscreen had expired, therefore I have the worst sunburn ever. I didn’t know the back of my knees could burn, but it’s possible. Oh well, the burn was totally worth it. We left yesterday. On the boat, we ran in to too cool guys named Ben (English) and Aurli (French, his name is really longer, but I can’t spell it, sorry). We decided to share a taxi. (In Malaysia, taxis only take four people in a small sedan; unlike Cambodia which can take as many as eight, nine or ten if you count children). This was not as simple as it sounded. Because it was so late, all the taxis raised their prices. And there was a guy following us around making sure that no one gave us a lower price. Then they told us that there was no bus. Then, when the bus does come, the taxi people tell it not to stop for us. So Aurlie jumps on the bus, and tells the driver if he doesn’t take us to the place we want to go, he will call the police. So the four of us had the bus to ourselves for the trip. Then comes the fun part. We get to our destination. Kelsey’s bag was stolen, so all of her local currency was gone. I had to pay for things like the room and bus tickets, so I didn’t have enough either. We needed a bus to Singapore. But there was no one to change money for us. We left our bags with the guys and went frantically searching for money changers. We finally found a ticket seller who would accept US dollars, but he gave us a terrible exchange rate. He also gave us tickets to Kuala Lumpur because all the Singapore busses were already gone. So here we are, probably but not certainly leaving for Singapore very soon. More updates pending.
Love and miss you all!

Malaysia: Pretty much awesome. We arrived at the Kuala Lumpur airport about 7 o'clock wednesday night. The first thing we saw was a McDonald's. We were not in Cambodia anymore. By the time we got our luggage and changed money, it was almost 8. Realizing that the airport is about an hour away from the actual city, we resisted the urge to get fries, and instead took a bus to Kuala Lumpur. Once in Kuala Lumpur, we were slightly overwhelmed by things such as paved roads, traffic lgihts, traffic laws, etc.The city at night is beuatifiul. The twin towers sort of glow, but more about those in a minute.We took the monorail to the place that the lonely planet guidebook said had hostels. Unfortunately, we went one stop too far. So then we walked. It was fun. And tiring. And we met a nice Indian guy who tried to help us, but he didn't know anymore than we did. We still slightly in awe of being in a city with public transportation. Eventually, we found a hostel. We had rice and fried chicken for dinner (the fried chicken is fantastic!) The next day, we trekked all over town. We had curry for breakfast, then we headed for the towers. They are amazing. I bought a lonely planet calendar last year, and each month it has some pictures and a little blurb about a different city. After the month was up, I hung the pictures on my wall. The picture for Malaysia was of the Petronas towers. I always thought if would be super cool to see them. I saw them. And it was super cool. The building is beautriful. The first five floors are a shopping mall (the food court included A&W and Dunkin' Donuts) and the higher floors are offices. They let you go up to the bridge that connects them. You can see the entire city. It was kind of surreal to be standing in the Malaysian equilivalent of the statue of liberty, looking out on the city. Kuala Lumpur is encircled by mountains. It was overcast the day we went, and the fog was just starting to roll off the mountains. It was incredible. We spent the rest of the day trekking around the city. I found a starbucks, that made me pretty happy. Then we found a huge mall/foodcourt/spa/movie theatre.I can't even begin to describe it. really. I have never seen anything like it in America. After spending 8 months in Cambodia, it was really too much. We saw "He's just not that into you", ate popcorn, and then had subway and baskin robin for dinner. It was fantastic. It was a bit diffifcult to get used to things like crosswalks, and forming orderly lines, and not bargaining for everything you buy.
Then we went to Taman Negara. It means "National Park" in Malay. Their creativity with names is less than astounding, but it was really too wonderful for words. It was hard to get to, as no one could seem to agree on where the bus station was, but after many navigational misadventures, we arrived in Jerantut. This is the town with a bus that goes to the rainforest. And a KFC. And that was were things got really interesting. There were two guys sitting across from us at KFC. They stared and made kissing noises, but that didn't bother us because we get that in Cambodia all the time. We didn't think anything of it. And then we boarded the bus. One of then comes up to our window and points to a pick up. His friend is sitting in the driver's seat. Neither speaks English. We figure out that he wants us to get in the truck. He tells us that they will take us to our destination for free. At least we think that's what he was trying to say. After suspending sanity and consdiring it for moment, we decide that would be one of the most stupid and dangerous things we could do. So we stayed in the bus. They drove off (or so we thought) revving the engine as they went past the bus. After a few more minutes the bus takes off. Suddenlly, the two guys are behind us. Maybe they just happen to be going this way, I thought. Then the bus stopped to pick up another passenger. And the truck stopped too. Maybe they have arrived at their destination. Negative. They waited for the bus, and then continued following. It was funny for the first 20 minutes. Then we were a little creeped out. Thankfully, about halfway to our destination, they stopped. Then it started raining again. The windows on the bus were down, and some wouldn't stay closed, including mine. So one of the teenage boys who had been staring at us came over and held my window closed. The whole bus cheered for him. It was priceless. He continued to hold the window closed for a good ten minutes. His name was Azman; he didn't speak much English, but he was adorable. We were sad when he and his friends got off the bus.
So we get to the little resort town. We have no idea where to go. So we just look for a place to get out of the rain. We literally stumble upon a small hostel, ran by a Bob Marley fan named Zeck. Zeck was a pretty cool guy. He's Malay, but he has worked in Scotland for 7 years. He came back to help friends run a hostel. We played rummy with him. He usually lost. When he wasn't there, there was a kid name Ihi. He was a 19 year old from another city who had been sent to help family work at the resort. He was bored and lonely (as he repeatedly told us) being away from all his friends and family.He really liked us a lot. He didn't speak much English, but he taught us some malay words. Adorable. And then there was the jungle... We took in well over 11k (I've forgotten how to use miles, you figure it out) and that's just distance, not elevation. First of all, I can't even describe what it's like being in the oldest forest in the world. You are complelely surrounded, cut off from anything. everywhere you look there is green. We took a small side trail accidentally at first. Thankfuly it was a loop and we ended up back where we started. When we got there, there was a tour group. Knowing we had to uphold our reputation as Peace Corps Volunteers, we raced them to the next stop on the trail. They were unaware of this fact. And then they took a different (easier) trail and it didn't really matter. But we still felt good about winning. The whole point of this exercise was to get to a rope bridge in the canopy. Which meant climbing a really steep hill. But we did it. And then... the rope bridge. You know how on movies, people cross vast casms in the earth on rickety rope bridges? I did that. Except it wasn't really a vast casm. But we were really high up. We walked on a mile's worth of rope bridges suspended above the rainforet canopy. Wow. At first, I was pretty much freaked out. The first bridge (they were laid out in a series of about six) I could barely look down. They move a lot, especially when other people get on them. But by the third bridges it was really easy. I was hundreds of feet obove the ground, looking down at the Malaysian rainforest. Just wow.
And that was only the first leg of our trek. After that, there was a mountain. We didn't actually realize it was mountain at first. We just saw a said that said that there was something down the trail to our right. So we thought, "why not check it out?" Um...It was definitely a mountain. A REALLY steep mountain. It was nearly vertical in may places. We had to stop several times. But the view from the top was worth it. It was like being in national geographic. And then we had to go down. Going up a sheer mountain isn't easy, but getting down can be downright dangerous. But we are peace corps volunteers, and we don't let little things like mountains stop us. We slid down on our butts a couple of times, but we were victorious in the end. After that, we felt we deserved lunch. So we ate. And then we went to a cave. At first we were a bit worried. The trail seemed nearly vertical, and we were tired from the morning's adventures. But then it got remarkably easier. We even came upon a local village. We didn't go in because it seemed impolite, but it was super to see people just coming and going, from huts, in the rainforest. And when it isn't raining, the rainforest is a mudforest. And leeches like mud. I don't like leeches. I only got bit once, Kelsey twice. I think that's respectable. Thankfully, there are no leeches in caves. The cave was narrow, and we had my tiny flashlight (thanks Maw-Maw!). So we crawled around and I held the flashlight in my mouth. We are hardcore (not really). Anyway, we slipped and slid on the rocks. They were blue and metallic. But it was the bats that really made it special. They were all over the roof of the cave. We really shouldn't have been surprised, being in a cave and all. It seems sort of obvious really. But imagine yourself suddenly surrounded by bats. Hundrends of thousands of bats. Everywhere. Alas, were thwarted by bats. We got to a point where the bat poop was so thick that the rocks were too slippery to climb on. It was just a little gross. When we came back out of the cave, we were disgiusting. We were covered in mud and bat crap. But it was definitely worth it. Our last rainforest adventure was leaving it. We took a two hour boat ride up the river to the bus station. It was really realaxing. And we are not even halfway through the trip. At 1am, yes, in the morning, our train leaves for our next destination, the Perhentian Islands, which are supposed to be the most beautiful in the world. I'll let you know.
Also, for the family: I received Maw Maw's and the Nannies' birthday boxes. AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks so much! AND I can recieve phone calls from Cambodia here in Malaysia, so it you want to try and call, you might get through!

Well, being in a Muslim nation there hasn't been much talk of easter. I didn't actually realize it was easter til I checked facebook and saw everyone's status'. So happy easter everyone! Love and miss you all!

So I celebrated my 23rd birthday in style; we had a cake and everything. My students and my coteacher bought me a cake and got me presents. They sang happy birthday, and afterward, we had a food fight with the cake icing. It was very exciting. I put some of the icing in one of the boy’s hair, and then all the girls thought that was an excellent idea. So they all started putting icing in the boys’ hair. At first the boys were upset; they spend way more time on their hair then the girls do. But they made the best of it and used the icing as styling gel. They came up with some pretty fantastic hairdos. It was awesome. My gifts included stuffed animals, towels, shampoo and children’s books. Definitely one of the best birthdays I’ve had. Then they went home and went to bed, because the 12th graders had to get up early for the final semester exam the next day.

About the exam: in America, they would all fail. It’s not because they are unintelligent, but because they cheat. There is no problem with students copying each other’s work, talking about questions, yelling answers across the room. None. Officially, they aren’t supposed to. But in reality, I’m the only one who cares. The only thing most of the other teachers do is take away some of their cheat sheets. I, being a mean teacher, made them give me all their non test materials, stay seated (sometimes they stand up to get a better look at their classmates paper) and keep the talking to a minimum. By the end of the three day exam process, students dreaded seeing me. Oh well. Grading the tests was a trip. They had to write about funerals in Cambodia. Most either didn’t write anything or copied from a book. There were some rather unfortunate misspellings. The main one was leaving the ‘r’ out of the word ‘shirt’. In Cambodia, people wear white shirts to funerals.

Also, there was hail. This was a huge deal. It started raining really hard during one of the exams. I heard a loud noise on the roof. I thought it sounded like hail, and then remembered I was in Southeast Asia. Probably just a coconut. Then one of students informed me that ice was indeed falling from the sky. We all went outside. The male teachers all ran out and grabbed ice so I could see there was ice in Cambodia too. They were exceedingly proud of themselves, as though they had created the hail themselves. One of them was drunk. He kept remarking about how cold the tiny ice chip in his hand was. I noted that it is ice, and by definition cold. This fact was lost on him. Anyway, they hail was tiny and didn’t do any damage. So it made me happy.

This keyboard is very difficult to use, thus I apologize for any typos. And my hands are tired. But I love and miss you all!

In case I haven’t mentioned it enough, it’s hot. Just had to get that off my chest. By the way, happy International Women’s Rights day to all you women out there. I realize that it was Sunday, and it is now Monday, but here in Cambodia, you can’t let a good holiday go to waste. Since women’s day fell on a Sunday, and that’s already a holiday, everyone took today off. Yesterday, all the students in Grade 10A had a party. It had very little to do with women’s rights, but it was extremely fun nonetheless. I take that back, there wasn’t enough room at the table so the girls made the boys sit on the floor. Women’s rights in action. We ate yummy food and then played games. We played the Khmer version of “duck, duck, goose”. In this game, everyone sings a song. The “goose” has a knotted up towel and walks behind everyone, just like in the American version. To goose someone, you drop the towel behind them. Then, that person, and the person to their right get up and run. The goose takes the place of the person who they goosed. The “goosee”grabs the towel, and chases the person to their right around the circle. But they don’t just chase, no, that would be boring. As they chase, they repeatedly flog the person with the towel. The goosee generally looses because the person to their right has a head start, but at least they get to beat that person first. Then we went to the river and threw each other into the water. It was so much fun. They had sand fights, they would throw each other to the ground and sit on each other and put sand in each other’s shirts. It was a very good day. The students really had a lot of fun. It is so cool to watch them playing and fighting and laughing. There was this big tractor; it must have been 40 years old. It no longer worked, so we all climbed on to see how many people we could fit on it. About 20. Granted, being Khmer teenagers, they were all really tiny. It was one of those days that reminds me why I came here.

On a completely unrelated note, for those of you “old fogies” who think that hip hop music is corrupting the English language, you are absolutely right. The story begins innocently enough. As I have mentioned, we showed an HIV prevention movie to the students. Afterwards, we made them discuss. It was pretty simple; we divided them into groups and gave each group a discussion topic. They had 20 minutes to talk, and then one member from each group had to present. Well, things were going along swimmingly, until the representative from the “What spreads HIV?” group got up. These are his *almost* exact words “HIV spread by f***ing a lot of partner.” No kidding. At first I thought I misheard him. Then I looked at my co teacher and saw he could barely contain his laughter. And this was not an anomaly. In every single class, as I was walking through the aisles, I would see the f word on at least one student’s notebook. It got to where I would have to write it on the board, cross it out, and write “sexual intercourse” next to it. The students were incredibly surprised to find out that this word is impolite. Finally, I asked my co teacher, “How do they all know this word?” Apparently, because the word is so prevalent in a lot of western music, many students look it up. Thus, they learn that it means to have sex. But they don’t understand the context at all. So if you come to Cambodia, and meet a seemingly foul mouthed teenager, give him or her a break. It is highly possible they have no idea what they’re saying.

Thanks to Mom and Maw Maw for their valentine’s packages, as well as the Leonard Caring Clovers for the awesome candy and first aid supplies. Miss and love you all!

Thanks so much to Rebecca for this picture! I have been wanting to find a picture of the poultry moto for weeks. Here it is. This is a very common site in Cambodia, but it makes me smile every time I see it.

With people having so much economic fun in the US, Cambodia is seeming more exciting all the time. Anyway, not a lot is new. The students just took their semester exams, thus many of them consider school to be over (it doesn’t end til April). If the atmosphere at Cambodian schools was relaxed before, it is nearly comatose at this point. But we still have fun with the students who do come. Since school isn’t taken very seriously now, we can use this opportunity to do fun things that are really educational. Peace Corps wants us to set up things like workshops and camps, but it is really hard to get people to come to anything that requires a time commitment. So my coteacher and I took class time to show the students a movie about HIV/AIDS. It’s really cool; it is made just like a movie, not a documentary. The students loved it. I think the most rewarding thing on the planet is the raucous laughter of 50 Khmer teenagers. The movie had English subtitles, so I could read it, and it could technically be counted as English class. We had to watch it in the school office, so a lot of the teachers ending up watching it with us as well. We even had some students wander in from other classes. It made me really happy. It is estimated that 70,000 Cambodians have HIV/AIDS, the highest infection rate in Southeast Asia. Many people were infected during the war. Most men were soldiers, living away from home. More recently, the infection rate has skyrocketing among police. Most police officers do not live where they work. They live in dorms at the police station, only going home once every month or so. Another problem is the lack of female control over the use of protection. Even if a woman knows her husband is sleeping around, it would be unacceptable to for her to insist that he use a condom. Because of this, the infection rate is just as high among chaste, married women as it is among prostitutes. The rate of new infections is declining, however. There is a ton of education available now.

In other news, I moved this week. Apparently, my host family doesn’t actually own the house we live in. They rent it from a Cambodian woman who lives in the States. She is back for a visit so we had to scram. We now stay two doors down, and my in my new room I can see the stars at night. So that makes me super happy. I have also developed a slight obsession with sugarcane juice. Known locally as ‘tug empoa’, it is possibly the most wonderful thing ever on a hot day. Because it is heating up, tug empoa stands are everywhere. The best part is that a glass costs less than 13 cents. I love this country. I’m not going to lie, it does kind of look like pee, but it is super refreshing at 3 in the afternoon when temperatures range from 90-100. I drink one everyday. Sometimes I drink two.

What else? Ah, yes. My hand sewing has improved a great deal since I’ve been here. One day I was bored, so I bought fabric and made a skirt. By hand. In one afternoon. I think it turned out quite well. Currently, I’m working on a purse. My creative powers are being put to excellent use. My family doesn’t understand why I don’t just pay someone to do it.

Another thing that was kind of weird was going to the US Embassy. During our recent training session in Phnom Penh, we were invited to eat lunch at the Embassy. There were polished tiled floors, heavy metal doors, glass everywhere. Things were shiny. I afraid to walk in, for fear that I would sully this immaculate place with my shoes that had stepped in God-knows-what in my village. The tables and chairs were beautiful and *get this* NOT plastic! The really funny thing was that our counterparts were there too. Picture 30 Americans, who had been living in Cambodian villages, dining in this air conditioned splendor. Now picture 30 Cambodians being given a tour of this place. The tour didn’t last very long, as the cubicle area was all we were allowed to see. But needless to say, they were awed by the grandeur. It was kind of cool to think that they all got a chance to have lunch in America, seeing is that is the only time most of them will ever set foot on American soil.

On our last night some of us took our counterparts to Nike’s Pizza for an American meal. They liked it, although they felt the pizza and pasta were a little salty. But you should have seen the way they gobbled up the ice cream. It was pretty fantastic. We were planning on going to the western market for ice cream, but it was closed. So we decided to just head back. Lydia and I, being the only girls, were walking ahead because the boys were slow. We spotted a western gas station across the road. We wanted ice cream. Without telling anyone, we ran across the road. We didn’t know if the guys would follow, but eventually they did. 7 people shared two pints of ice cream standing in the middle of a gas station in Phnom Penh. It was nothing short of stellar.