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.