Today I ate an ice cream sandwich. Unlike the weak excuse for an ice cream sandwich you may be picturing, (two brown, paste-like sheets with ice cream in between) this, my friends, is the real thing. Seriously, it is like an ice cream sub. Imagine, if you will, a baguette, much like you would see at subway. That’s right, real bread, with a scoop of ice cream in it. It sounds weird and slightly disgusting. But believe me, it was yummy. I suggest you try it at home (although the bread needs to be kind of sweet). Another thing I suggest: fried breaded bananas. Cut a banana in half length-wise. Wrap it in plastic wrap, then use a rolling pin to roll it flat, about1/4 inch thick. Then, coat it in pancake batter and fry (remove the plastic wrap first:). These are fantastic and I am slightly addicted to them.
Yes, Cambodia is full of culinary marvels. I learned of the ice cream sandwiches today at a volleyball game. My students won, 3-2. I was extremely proud of them. It was a very close game. They handily won the first round, but when they switched sides in the second round, the sun was in their faces. So basically, whoever was not facing the sun won each round. By the final round, they had them switch sides halfway through so it was fair to everyone. My school is now eligible to compete in a national tournament in Battambang at the end of March. It will be stellar.
Also, it is hot. Yes, I know you are shocked. But really, I’m worried about April. The heat makes me excessively lazy. Perhaps I will build up incredible heat tolerance. One can only hope. I am concerned that I will return to the US with the cold weather tolerance of a Texan (friends from Texas, you know that while I tolerate your state, I really love you). And then all my Texan friends will make fun of me. I guess I have it coming.
Speaking of cold weather tolerance, I finally managed to get a Khmer person to understand why we don’t eat rice as much in the states, it was a miracle. They assume that since we don’t eat, we must not like it. Whenever I meet, new people, they always ask if I can eat rice. And they are very surprised when I say yes. Over the course of about three conversations, I managed to get my friend to understand that most states are too cold or too dry to grow rice, ergo, we don’t produce nearly as much of it. Understand that most Khmer people eat rice 3x a day, 7 days a week. I didn’t know that there was so much rice in the entire world. Well, I explained to my friend, when it gets cold, water freezes. Since rice plants live in water, they would be frozen in the ice, thus they would die. This was an earth-shattering piece of information, let me just tell you.
Other things they can’t believe: people choose to live on their own, when a couple gets married, they don’t live with bride’s family, weddings are only one day, there are poor people in America, that girls and boys stay in the same dorm, supermarkets aren’t wooden market stalls, we have traffic laws, we work forty hours a week, this list could go on forever. I miss all of you, see you in 19 months!