December is here already. Wow. First off, apologies for not having pix yet, I’ve been a bit under the weather. And a bit lazy. But anyway, hoping to have everything ready before I head home for Christmas, which is only about two weeks away! So excited, but so much to do. Things have been about the same. The small children are adorable, but a bit lacking in hygiene, so I’m getting to build up my teacher immunity the hard way. I’m thinking of asking their parents to pay for my Tylenol. Just kidding. Sadly, they had a Christmas recital which I couldn’t attend because I was sick. Boo. But overall things are going well. I can form complete sentences in Chinese, perhaps not correctly, but I can order noodles to go, purchase the world’s smallest tins of vicks vapo-rub, and ask for half a kilo of beef. Of course the market ladies are all very kind and tell me how good my Chinese is. They’re lying of course, but given our initial encounters I have made substantial progress.
One of things that I’m just now getting used to about China is how quiet the motorbikes (honestly they’re more like glorified mopeds) are. In Cambodia, they were gas-guzzlers, but here most of them are electric. Most buildings have electrical outlets on their outside walls so people can plug their motos in. You might think that these quiet, battery powered machines would be much nicer to deal with than the gas-powered ones, with their revving and exhaust and whatnot. I suppose if you’re sitting in your house, that’s perfectly true. But if you’re on the street they have a way of sneaking up on you. They might be going the wrong way down the sidewalk, and if you are not looking where you are going they are liable to run into you. Another fun thing that makes Chinese traffic awesome is that they can text. In Cambodia, most phones don’t support Khmer script so most people couldn’t text. But all phones support Chinese characters. So people riding silent scooters the wrong way while texting. It makes life an adventure
Because it’s turned cold, it’s time to get out the space heaters and… cook. Many people who operate stores don’t want to go back and cook in the kitchen, it’s much more efficient just to put pots on your space heater. Thus most storefronts smell really delicious this time of year.
Ah the cold. I have missed it, apparently my lungs don’t. I really can’t complain however. At night I curl up in warm clothes under mountains of blankets with a heating pad. The construction guys working behind my house have a tent. They are most likely from more rural villages, not from the city. This makes them illegal (people can’t just decide to move, their citizenship papers are only valid in their mother’s district) so they basically have no rights. Most of them speak their local village dialects, not Mandarin which puts them at a disadvantage. Since they and they’re children are illegal (even thought they’re all Chinese citizens) they don’t have access to schools or clinics or decent housing. Another problem is their bosses can basically treat them however they want. They might promise them a certain salary, and only pay a small portion, saying the rest will come next month. Of course it doesn’t come next month, but because they are illegal, they have no recourse. Very sad stuff.
But I wanted to end on a bright note. Thus I will tell you about possibly the coolest group of people in the neighborhood. The old ladies who do tai chi. On the basketball court. With swords. That’s what I call aging gracefully. My downstairs neighbor is one of indelible gals. Tai chi starts at 8, same time I’m supposed to be at work. Clearly neither my neighbor nor I are morning people, so we often meet on the stairs, booking it to be on time. It’s so surreal to see this basket ball court, where young guys play basket ball all day, being taken over by their grandmothers. They are extremely graceful, they do their warm ups, then some of them bust out what look like smaller versions of samurai swords. Wow. My neighbor has a hard time pulling open the door to our building because it is pretty heavy, but then she just goes down to tai chi and whips out her sword. Do not judge a book by its cover my friends.
04 December, 2010
14 November, 2010
It's fall!
It’s fall!!!! It’s fall! Its fall! I’m only a little excited about that fact. Leaves are brown, it’s chilly sweaters and slippers weather. Oh how I’ve missed fall. The only thing missing is getting up at ridiculously early hours to go eat Little Debbies in woods, waiting for deer to emerge. I must say, without camo, fluorescent orange clothing, and muddy pick up trucks it just doesn’t really seem like fall. But it is cold and there are brown leaves, things I haven’t experienced in a couple years. So I purchased some fur-lined boots and heating pad and they make me happy. In an attempt to try to readjust to the cold I held out on using any sort of heating device. And then I got a terrible cold. So I did the adult thing and got more blankets and turned on the heat.
My house is painted! Hopefully I will the light fixtures and art up within the next week and then I can post pictures. It really looks great. I am excited.
With fall comes nasty bugs and no one spreads nasty bugs as well as first graders. Many of them were sick this past week, so hopefully the weekend gave them a chance to get better.
Thanksgiving is coming. We do have school Thursday, but we’re off Friday. There is a western store that will order turkeys, but I’ve been promised one at Christmas so I will wait until then. If I tried to fry a turkey in my apartment I might end up burning the whole building down.
That’s about all for now, hopefully will have pix soon!
My house is painted! Hopefully I will the light fixtures and art up within the next week and then I can post pictures. It really looks great. I am excited.
With fall comes nasty bugs and no one spreads nasty bugs as well as first graders. Many of them were sick this past week, so hopefully the weekend gave them a chance to get better.
Thanksgiving is coming. We do have school Thursday, but we’re off Friday. There is a western store that will order turkeys, but I’ve been promised one at Christmas so I will wait until then. If I tried to fry a turkey in my apartment I might end up burning the whole building down.
That’s about all for now, hopefully will have pix soon!
24 October, 2010
chi fan le ma?
That means "Have you eaten rice yet?" Like Cambodians, the Chinese are far more likely to ask you about your food situation than how you are doing. Which I like a lot. Honestly, when we say to someone "How are you?" we really don't care how they are. We are being polite, merely acknowledging their existence. I think this is a much less pretentious greeting.
I think cities have it in for me. It took a couple years for me to get really sick in Cambodia. I have been in China for less than 3 months and have already gotten sick twice. Good times. So my dear mother has reminded me that I haven’t updated in a while. A lot of this has to do with the fact that I work mainly with Americans and other westerners now, so I don’t have nearly as many fun and exciting stories.
However, if you ever do up and decide to come to China, here are a few things you might want to keep in mind. I mentioned before that China is a strange mixture of America and Cambodia, so case in point: Like Cambodia, almost all toilets are squatters. And like America, they don’t have basins of water for clean-up purposes, people use toilet. Unlike America, the paper is not provided. Ever. If you go to Cambodia you can’t stay quite clean because of all the water, you just have to deal with a wet spot on your pants. But here that is not the case. If you don’t have any paper you are slam out of luck. And restrooms are generally filthy. While they always flush theoretically, usually (in order to conserve water) the pressure is pretty minimal. So imagine a public toilet that hasn’t been flushed in a few days. I’ll go in the bushes thank you very much. Also, and to be fair I have only seen this one time, there was a bus stop where the stalls had no doors. It was not pleasant. If you have a problem with people staring at you because of the color of your skin, I don’t suggest entering a doorless restroom. It is strange because there are people all over the place cleaning up streets and sweeping and scrubbing traffic dividers. No one cleans the bathrooms. Everyone has to have a job here; it’s the law. Unfortunately public toilets got the short end of the staff list.
Fortunately at school the bathrooms are much better, and we have awesome cleaning people. Our cleaning/maintenance people are pretty cool. We can’t really communicate but they smile a lot and help whenever they see I’m having problems with Chinese appliances.
Instead if just working with English Language Learners like I thought I would, I work with pretty much all of first grade. It’s a fun mix, but first graders are certainly a handful.
I’m enjoying living on my own. I can cook a few different meals and the veggie stand across from house has excellent stuff. The funny thing is that I don’t really know how to cook a lot of western food. I’m much better at making rice-related dishes. Although I did recently purchase a Jiffy cornbread mix and am planning to make it in my rice cooker. Will let you know how that turns out.
A parting note: congrats to both the Rangers and the Tigers for reeking of excellence.
I think cities have it in for me. It took a couple years for me to get really sick in Cambodia. I have been in China for less than 3 months and have already gotten sick twice. Good times. So my dear mother has reminded me that I haven’t updated in a while. A lot of this has to do with the fact that I work mainly with Americans and other westerners now, so I don’t have nearly as many fun and exciting stories.
However, if you ever do up and decide to come to China, here are a few things you might want to keep in mind. I mentioned before that China is a strange mixture of America and Cambodia, so case in point: Like Cambodia, almost all toilets are squatters. And like America, they don’t have basins of water for clean-up purposes, people use toilet. Unlike America, the paper is not provided. Ever. If you go to Cambodia you can’t stay quite clean because of all the water, you just have to deal with a wet spot on your pants. But here that is not the case. If you don’t have any paper you are slam out of luck. And restrooms are generally filthy. While they always flush theoretically, usually (in order to conserve water) the pressure is pretty minimal. So imagine a public toilet that hasn’t been flushed in a few days. I’ll go in the bushes thank you very much. Also, and to be fair I have only seen this one time, there was a bus stop where the stalls had no doors. It was not pleasant. If you have a problem with people staring at you because of the color of your skin, I don’t suggest entering a doorless restroom. It is strange because there are people all over the place cleaning up streets and sweeping and scrubbing traffic dividers. No one cleans the bathrooms. Everyone has to have a job here; it’s the law. Unfortunately public toilets got the short end of the staff list.
Fortunately at school the bathrooms are much better, and we have awesome cleaning people. Our cleaning/maintenance people are pretty cool. We can’t really communicate but they smile a lot and help whenever they see I’m having problems with Chinese appliances.
Instead if just working with English Language Learners like I thought I would, I work with pretty much all of first grade. It’s a fun mix, but first graders are certainly a handful.
I’m enjoying living on my own. I can cook a few different meals and the veggie stand across from house has excellent stuff. The funny thing is that I don’t really know how to cook a lot of western food. I’m much better at making rice-related dishes. Although I did recently purchase a Jiffy cornbread mix and am planning to make it in my rice cooker. Will let you know how that turns out.
A parting note: congrats to both the Rangers and the Tigers for reeking of excellence.
11 September, 2010
one month in...
I’ve been in China over a month now. In many ways it’s a lot like Cambodia. You can throw chicken bones on the floor, wear clothes that don’t match, spit on the street, and drive however and on whichever side of the road suits your fancy. In a lot of ways it’s different, there are roads, and cars, women wear high heals, and everyone has a washing machine. Sometimes this combination throws me off. I have sort of compartmentalized my life into Cambodia and America. For example, staring, in Cambodia I’m a foreigner and everyone stares so I’m used to it. But I’m used to it when I go to an open air market with a mud floor where people are throwing fish at me. Not so much in.. say … an international airport. Or WalMart. China does have a plethora of locations where vendors are enthusiastic about their wares in a more outdoorsy kind of environment, by the area of the city where I live is not one of those. Because it is so developed my brain goes into America mode, where large numbers of people staring at you mean you’ve probably broken some important social convention. I definitely don’t get stared at nearly as much here, but because of the setting it is still very strange to me. Also, I work mainly with other Americans. They are wonderful people, but being American they kind of assume I know how Americans are supposed to act and to be honest, I’ve kind of forgotten. It’s not that I’ve completely forgotten, when someone goes to shake my hand I don’t bow to them or recoil in terror, I’m just very unsure of my social skills. These were never really my strong point before, and two years in completely different culture hasn’t helped. When small children hear more than on language growing up, they will usually be able to speak both languages and distinguish between the two, but if they hear the languages mixed together, they become language confused, unable to distinguish grammar and vocabulary of the languages. I think I have become culture confused. I’m sometimes not sure what is appropriate; I do or say something and then realize that isn’t something you can do in Western culture. For example while I would never call a person I know fat, I will sometimes refer to overweight people as fat in the same way that I might refer to someone who has brown hair as a brunette. Luckily most people here can’t understand me and if they could they probably wouldn’t mind. But this tendency does bother foreigners a bit.
So aside from this sort of reverse culture shock I’m doing well. I’ve picked up some Chinese, enough to go shopping, order take out, and refuse offers of peach flavored condoms. However, I still don’t understand the majority of things that are said to me, so depending on the level of importance I can say I don’t understand, or use elaborate sign language, or simply smile and nod. That skill has come in quite handy over the years.
So China. I live in Kunming, which is surrounded by mountains. There is virtually no place in the city where you can’t see mountains. There are a couple WalMarts, a German equivalent of a Sam’s Club. There are a couple of lakes and several beautiful parks. There isn’t a lot of old, however. They tear down any building over 50 years old and build new ones. People can actually own their own homes, but if those homes are more than 50 years old the government will tear them down. Kunming is by far one of the nicest places in China. It is a very wealthy town, especially the area where I live. I do admire the Chinese devotions to the aesthetic. This is a new development, in the past all the building were the same sort of industrial design. But now almost every apartment complex (and there are lot of those) can be distinguished by it’s own unique colors. The upside of everyone having a job is that you have get creative in giving people jobs to do. There are sweepers everywhere. They sweep every inch of roadway, including six lane overpasses. Sometimes you see people scrubbing road dividers. There is a definite if not love then appreciation of nature. They go to great lengths to ensure greenery is everywhere. A lot of this has to do with the government’s energy reduction campaign. But like all countries, it is dealing with modernization. China is now a first world country, as the 60 mile traffic jam outside of Beijing proved, but it conflicts with a lot of cultural values. It is basically, like America, a nation trying to balance it’s love of nature with it’s love of tall buildings.
A typical day for me in China goes a little something like this:
My alarm goes off at 6:30, but it’s still dark, so I am unmotivated to move.
I finally get up sometime before 7 and have breakfast, usually yogurt and fruit
At work by 8:00, molding young minds. *Read: trying to get them to put periods at the end of their sentences.I have 6 students, Koreans, a “Canadians,” (Canada only requires one year of residency to get citizenship, so a lot of Chinese move there for a year, to get their kids Canadian passports, people with Chinese passports can’t attend international schools), Japanese, and some who are have parents from two different countries. While I only have 6, I work with all of first grade, which is a lot of fun. Some kids speak 3 or 4 languages, some are new to China, it’s a really diverse group.
I try to pack a lunch, but that doesn’t always happen. They have Chinese and Korean lunch at school.
Chinese food is a lot of meat and veggies stir fried, the rice is just a filler, eat at the end of the meal.
Korean food is basically spicy pickled cabbage called kimchi that is used to season everything. The other day there were kimchi burritos. If you are ever offered this particular dish, it would be a good time for you suddenly develop a burrito allergy.
There are usually meetings after school, so when I get home I play with my cat and listen to music to recharge my brain.
In the evenings I make dinner, or go to dinner with friends, or go to the park, or watch tv online.
That’s pretty much my life.
In the exciting news department I just bought my ticket to go the US for Christmas! I’ll be there from the 19th – 29th.
So aside from this sort of reverse culture shock I’m doing well. I’ve picked up some Chinese, enough to go shopping, order take out, and refuse offers of peach flavored condoms. However, I still don’t understand the majority of things that are said to me, so depending on the level of importance I can say I don’t understand, or use elaborate sign language, or simply smile and nod. That skill has come in quite handy over the years.
So China. I live in Kunming, which is surrounded by mountains. There is virtually no place in the city where you can’t see mountains. There are a couple WalMarts, a German equivalent of a Sam’s Club. There are a couple of lakes and several beautiful parks. There isn’t a lot of old, however. They tear down any building over 50 years old and build new ones. People can actually own their own homes, but if those homes are more than 50 years old the government will tear them down. Kunming is by far one of the nicest places in China. It is a very wealthy town, especially the area where I live. I do admire the Chinese devotions to the aesthetic. This is a new development, in the past all the building were the same sort of industrial design. But now almost every apartment complex (and there are lot of those) can be distinguished by it’s own unique colors. The upside of everyone having a job is that you have get creative in giving people jobs to do. There are sweepers everywhere. They sweep every inch of roadway, including six lane overpasses. Sometimes you see people scrubbing road dividers. There is a definite if not love then appreciation of nature. They go to great lengths to ensure greenery is everywhere. A lot of this has to do with the government’s energy reduction campaign. But like all countries, it is dealing with modernization. China is now a first world country, as the 60 mile traffic jam outside of Beijing proved, but it conflicts with a lot of cultural values. It is basically, like America, a nation trying to balance it’s love of nature with it’s love of tall buildings.
A typical day for me in China goes a little something like this:
My alarm goes off at 6:30, but it’s still dark, so I am unmotivated to move.
I finally get up sometime before 7 and have breakfast, usually yogurt and fruit
At work by 8:00, molding young minds. *Read: trying to get them to put periods at the end of their sentences.I have 6 students, Koreans, a “Canadians,” (Canada only requires one year of residency to get citizenship, so a lot of Chinese move there for a year, to get their kids Canadian passports, people with Chinese passports can’t attend international schools), Japanese, and some who are have parents from two different countries. While I only have 6, I work with all of first grade, which is a lot of fun. Some kids speak 3 or 4 languages, some are new to China, it’s a really diverse group.
I try to pack a lunch, but that doesn’t always happen. They have Chinese and Korean lunch at school.
Chinese food is a lot of meat and veggies stir fried, the rice is just a filler, eat at the end of the meal.
Korean food is basically spicy pickled cabbage called kimchi that is used to season everything. The other day there were kimchi burritos. If you are ever offered this particular dish, it would be a good time for you suddenly develop a burrito allergy.
There are usually meetings after school, so when I get home I play with my cat and listen to music to recharge my brain.
In the evenings I make dinner, or go to dinner with friends, or go to the park, or watch tv online.
That’s pretty much my life.
In the exciting news department I just bought my ticket to go the US for Christmas! I’ll be there from the 19th – 29th.
09 August, 2010
My house is pink.
Ok, my building is pink, or perhaps it is more rust colored, but all the buildings in my apartment complex are yellow and rust colored. This is convenient, as it makes the place easy to spot from a distance. I don’t know my way around yet, so I spend a lot of time wandering.
On Wednesday I left Cambodia. The night before I stuffed myself on Cambodian food for the last time. I managed not to cry until I was on the way to the airport. My Cambodian friend came with me, so at least I wasn’t alone. I was able to stop crying by the time I arrived at the check in counter, but after I got checked in I waited with my friend before I had to go through security and just started bawling. People were definitely staring but I’m used to that by now. Walking up the stairs was hard. Getting on the plane was hard. I feel bad for the people who sat next to me. I was definitely crying most of the way to China.
We landed in Guangzhou. Thus began my 7 hour layover. In Phnom Penh they told me that my luggage was checked all the way to Kunming. At the transfer counter in Guangzhou I learned there was some sort of misunderstanding. So I had to go back through customs, back to the luggage carousel, and retrieve my bags. I already knew my bags were overweight and that I would have to pay extra for them, so I arrive for the second time at the transfer counter, ready to pay for my bags. Alas there was another misunderstanding. As the staff spoke rather poor English, and I speak zero Chinese, I understood that the bags had to be paid for before they could be checked in. And the paying happens on the 3rd floor. So I get in the elevator, only to find that there is no 3rd floor button. I wander the second floor trying to ask staff where I’m supposed to be going. Each person tells me to go somewhere else, when I arrive somewhere else, I am told to go elsewhere yet again. Did I mention my luggage was heavy? The staff was very eager to help, but the language barrier was a bit too much.
And then I had a bit of meltdown. I was lugging my heavy bags through a deserted hallway. My mind was racing, wondering why I left a place I knew, people I loved who loved me, to come wonder to a strange place all alone. I have never been so lonely in my life as I was at that moment. I just sat down on my bags and cried. Two guys drove by on an electric cart and asked if I needed to go anywhere. I’m a foreigner, alone in an empty hallway, sitting on luggage, crying her eyes out. I can’t imagine what a sight I must have been to them. I just shook my head, opting to attempt to pull myself together before any more social interaction. I finally find my way to another part of the airport, where lo and behold there is an elevator the third floor. The third floor was huge and bustling with people, I felt a lot better. Surely I could pay for my excess baggage here. I hunt for a promising counter. First I go to international overweight luggage. They tell me I’m in the wrong place, and point me to domestic overweight luggage. Domestic overweight luggage tells me I have to check in first, and I attempt to explain that the check in people told me I had to pay first. He sends me to CDE. I wasn’t sure what that meant so I just wandered some more, looking for any signs written in English. By now I’m feeling rather fantastic. It’s as though I’m playing some of airport counter scavenger hunt, go to as many counters as you can in seven hours. I am clearly dominating this game. I see a counter marked oversize luggage and give it a shot. Finally light is shed on my situation, it is the wrong counter yet again, but the guys manages to get across that CDE isn’t a special counter, it means that I can check in my luggage at counters C1-C20, D1-D20, or E1-C20. Yay! So it turns out the bags could be checked in, but just not downstairs. So I finally check in my bags! They weigh them and write the excess weight on a ticket, and hold my boarding pass hostage until I pay and bring them the receipt. I am more than happy to do this, elated at the idea that I have finally found someone willing to take my money. So after three hours of trying, I finally get rid of my checked bags.
Success. Time for McDonalds. The McDonalds is about the size of a closet. There are a total of three menu items: ice cream cones, oreo mcflurries, and spicy chicken sandwiches. A balanced meal if I ever saw one. I got a mcflurry and a sandwich. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit how delicious they were. Seriously it tasted just like they do in America. Granted I have been gone a while, but still. It made me ridiculously happy. So I napped until it was time to board the plane.
The flight was uneventful, until we got over Kunming. The weather was bad, so we circled the airport for about half an hour. Then the pilot decides it’s just too dangerous, so we land at another airport and wait there for over an hour. I felt terrible because I knew someone was waiting for me, and had been since my plane was supposed to arrive at 9pm. By the time we finally arrived in Kunming it was 1am.
But I made it to China. Kunming really is the nicest place in China (I haven’t actually seen any other places, but I’m assured by everyone that it is) and I believe it. It’s incredibly clean. Women with brooms are everywhere, sweeping. And there are trash can placed conveniently around the city so you don’t have to through trash on the ground. Nice. My apartment is wonderful, I definitely hit the jackpot as far a first apartments go. I have a big master bedroom, and two smaller rooms (so you can come visit!) in addition to a large living room, smaller kitchen, and a laundry room. I have 3 loveseats and a cushioned chair that are ocean blue. I have running (hot) water, a washing machine, and a bathtub. No dryer or AC, but those are really unnecessary. The weather here is great. The only times I’ve broken a sweat have been during exercise. Yay. The apartment complex has over 80 buildings. It’s really huge. The school is less than a ten minute walk away from my building. There are tons of convenience stores, fruit stalls, and various other small shops in the complex. There is even a coffee shop with wireless. The grounds are beautiful. There are tons of gardens and ponds and trees. In the mornings I can watch old people doing tai chi or bringing their pet birds out for some fresh air. There are gazebos and benches for hanging out, and random exercise equipment for anyone to use.
The school is ballin. The classroom are air conditioned and the entire campus has wireless. My room has a 3D image projector. You put anything inside this little box and it projects a 3D image of that object onto the screen. The new teachers all seem to be great. They’re all quite a bit older than me and more experienced. Which is good because I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m working with a guy named Jeff who has worked with underprivileged kids in Chicago for several years. He and I will basically be making sure the non-native English speakers in 1st and 2nd grade can keep up. The school is very progressive as far as teaching techniques. My instructions were to do whatever will help the kids learn, if standing on my head helps the kids learn than I should do that. So we’re probably going to move the desks, and get rugs, pillows and beanbag chairs to make it feel more comfortable. I’m thinking of maybe getting a play kitchen, and maybe even a classroom pet.
So that’s about it. I still need to go shopping and buy house stuff, and learn Chinese so I can buy stuff without it turning a game of charades.
I love and miss you all, and please come visit if you can!
On Wednesday I left Cambodia. The night before I stuffed myself on Cambodian food for the last time. I managed not to cry until I was on the way to the airport. My Cambodian friend came with me, so at least I wasn’t alone. I was able to stop crying by the time I arrived at the check in counter, but after I got checked in I waited with my friend before I had to go through security and just started bawling. People were definitely staring but I’m used to that by now. Walking up the stairs was hard. Getting on the plane was hard. I feel bad for the people who sat next to me. I was definitely crying most of the way to China.
We landed in Guangzhou. Thus began my 7 hour layover. In Phnom Penh they told me that my luggage was checked all the way to Kunming. At the transfer counter in Guangzhou I learned there was some sort of misunderstanding. So I had to go back through customs, back to the luggage carousel, and retrieve my bags. I already knew my bags were overweight and that I would have to pay extra for them, so I arrive for the second time at the transfer counter, ready to pay for my bags. Alas there was another misunderstanding. As the staff spoke rather poor English, and I speak zero Chinese, I understood that the bags had to be paid for before they could be checked in. And the paying happens on the 3rd floor. So I get in the elevator, only to find that there is no 3rd floor button. I wander the second floor trying to ask staff where I’m supposed to be going. Each person tells me to go somewhere else, when I arrive somewhere else, I am told to go elsewhere yet again. Did I mention my luggage was heavy? The staff was very eager to help, but the language barrier was a bit too much.
And then I had a bit of meltdown. I was lugging my heavy bags through a deserted hallway. My mind was racing, wondering why I left a place I knew, people I loved who loved me, to come wonder to a strange place all alone. I have never been so lonely in my life as I was at that moment. I just sat down on my bags and cried. Two guys drove by on an electric cart and asked if I needed to go anywhere. I’m a foreigner, alone in an empty hallway, sitting on luggage, crying her eyes out. I can’t imagine what a sight I must have been to them. I just shook my head, opting to attempt to pull myself together before any more social interaction. I finally find my way to another part of the airport, where lo and behold there is an elevator the third floor. The third floor was huge and bustling with people, I felt a lot better. Surely I could pay for my excess baggage here. I hunt for a promising counter. First I go to international overweight luggage. They tell me I’m in the wrong place, and point me to domestic overweight luggage. Domestic overweight luggage tells me I have to check in first, and I attempt to explain that the check in people told me I had to pay first. He sends me to CDE. I wasn’t sure what that meant so I just wandered some more, looking for any signs written in English. By now I’m feeling rather fantastic. It’s as though I’m playing some of airport counter scavenger hunt, go to as many counters as you can in seven hours. I am clearly dominating this game. I see a counter marked oversize luggage and give it a shot. Finally light is shed on my situation, it is the wrong counter yet again, but the guys manages to get across that CDE isn’t a special counter, it means that I can check in my luggage at counters C1-C20, D1-D20, or E1-C20. Yay! So it turns out the bags could be checked in, but just not downstairs. So I finally check in my bags! They weigh them and write the excess weight on a ticket, and hold my boarding pass hostage until I pay and bring them the receipt. I am more than happy to do this, elated at the idea that I have finally found someone willing to take my money. So after three hours of trying, I finally get rid of my checked bags.
Success. Time for McDonalds. The McDonalds is about the size of a closet. There are a total of three menu items: ice cream cones, oreo mcflurries, and spicy chicken sandwiches. A balanced meal if I ever saw one. I got a mcflurry and a sandwich. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit how delicious they were. Seriously it tasted just like they do in America. Granted I have been gone a while, but still. It made me ridiculously happy. So I napped until it was time to board the plane.
The flight was uneventful, until we got over Kunming. The weather was bad, so we circled the airport for about half an hour. Then the pilot decides it’s just too dangerous, so we land at another airport and wait there for over an hour. I felt terrible because I knew someone was waiting for me, and had been since my plane was supposed to arrive at 9pm. By the time we finally arrived in Kunming it was 1am.
But I made it to China. Kunming really is the nicest place in China (I haven’t actually seen any other places, but I’m assured by everyone that it is) and I believe it. It’s incredibly clean. Women with brooms are everywhere, sweeping. And there are trash can placed conveniently around the city so you don’t have to through trash on the ground. Nice. My apartment is wonderful, I definitely hit the jackpot as far a first apartments go. I have a big master bedroom, and two smaller rooms (so you can come visit!) in addition to a large living room, smaller kitchen, and a laundry room. I have 3 loveseats and a cushioned chair that are ocean blue. I have running (hot) water, a washing machine, and a bathtub. No dryer or AC, but those are really unnecessary. The weather here is great. The only times I’ve broken a sweat have been during exercise. Yay. The apartment complex has over 80 buildings. It’s really huge. The school is less than a ten minute walk away from my building. There are tons of convenience stores, fruit stalls, and various other small shops in the complex. There is even a coffee shop with wireless. The grounds are beautiful. There are tons of gardens and ponds and trees. In the mornings I can watch old people doing tai chi or bringing their pet birds out for some fresh air. There are gazebos and benches for hanging out, and random exercise equipment for anyone to use.
The school is ballin. The classroom are air conditioned and the entire campus has wireless. My room has a 3D image projector. You put anything inside this little box and it projects a 3D image of that object onto the screen. The new teachers all seem to be great. They’re all quite a bit older than me and more experienced. Which is good because I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m working with a guy named Jeff who has worked with underprivileged kids in Chicago for several years. He and I will basically be making sure the non-native English speakers in 1st and 2nd grade can keep up. The school is very progressive as far as teaching techniques. My instructions were to do whatever will help the kids learn, if standing on my head helps the kids learn than I should do that. So we’re probably going to move the desks, and get rugs, pillows and beanbag chairs to make it feel more comfortable. I’m thinking of maybe getting a play kitchen, and maybe even a classroom pet.
So that’s about it. I still need to go shopping and buy house stuff, and learn Chinese so I can buy stuff without it turning a game of charades.
I love and miss you all, and please come visit if you can!
28 July, 2010
Insects and why you should eat them
An ode to insects
I love the market. There is food, tons of activity, and did I mention the food? I can sit there for hours drinking coffee and watching the action unfold. It’s better than TV. Today a woman was carrying a basket full of mudfish when one of them decided to make a break for it. She had to put down all of her other stuff and go chasing after her fish. These are the fish that can sort of walk. They look like catfish and can survive out of water for a while. During the dry season they sometimes scamper about on land to look for food when the ponds dry up. Luckily for the fish it is rainy season and the floor of the market is basically a thick layer of mud, so he was in his element. I like it when food fights back.
You can also meet lots of people at the market. They can get really friendly, asking for your phone number after knowing you for five minutes. You can get felt up at the market, too. It is an extremely homo-social culture, and personal space doesn’t exist. Your friends will come up to you and hug you, lay on you, hold your hand, admire your arm hair, grab your boobs to see if they’re real, etc.
This may make me a bad person, but I think the best part of the market is that if you sit there long enough, someone will give you crickets. I love crickets. We in the US are seriously missing out in our fastidious refusal to eat creepy crawlies. I’m sure most of you don’t consider insects to be a food source, unless you’re maybe starving in a cave or are an anteater. But you really need to broaden your horizons. Insects are packed with protein, low in fat, and like Lucky Charms they are magically delicious. Crickets fried in hot pepper oil are a dime a dozen in rainy season. Cambodians will tell you to take off the heads and legs before eating, but I think that this detracts from the crunchy goodness so I leave them on. Coming in a close second in the most delicious insect contest are ants. They have a certain kind of flying ant here that is huge and sweet. This is often served as main dish, rather than a snack. The best thing about ants is that they put larvae, juveniles, and adults all in the same package, so you have a plethora of ant choices. Rice and larva. Definitely better than it sounds. Another incredibly delicious insect is tarantulas. They are also fried, and served on a stick like a lollipop. A big juicy lollipop. The problem with tarantulas is that they’re kind of hairy. Sometimes they singe the hair off, but sometimes they don’t, and if you take a big bite the hairs can get caught in your throat. I think crickets have a lighter, more delicate flavor than tarantulas, but tarantulas are very filling. You could almost make a meal of them.
Really exciting: My pregnant friend asked me to choose baby names for her. So I listed off a bunch of names in my family and she decided on John for a boy and Lelah for a girl. I’m sad that she won’t have the baby until January, so I won’t get to see, but hopefully she’ll be able to send me pictures. Naming the baby before it’s born goes against tradition, so I’m really proud of her for doing it. Cambodians are extremely superstitious, especially when it comes to kids. I think it’s because in the past infant mortality rates were so high. They say it’s bad luck to name the child before it’s born, because this alerts the evil spirits to the impending birth. After the baby’s born, and until it starts to walk, everyone who sees it must lament about what a hideous little creature it is. When the evil spirits hear this, they will think the baby is bad and leave it alone. If you compliment the baby and the spirits hear, they might try to steal it.
But that's all for now! Today is my last full day at site, sad story.
Love and miss you all!
I love the market. There is food, tons of activity, and did I mention the food? I can sit there for hours drinking coffee and watching the action unfold. It’s better than TV. Today a woman was carrying a basket full of mudfish when one of them decided to make a break for it. She had to put down all of her other stuff and go chasing after her fish. These are the fish that can sort of walk. They look like catfish and can survive out of water for a while. During the dry season they sometimes scamper about on land to look for food when the ponds dry up. Luckily for the fish it is rainy season and the floor of the market is basically a thick layer of mud, so he was in his element. I like it when food fights back.
You can also meet lots of people at the market. They can get really friendly, asking for your phone number after knowing you for five minutes. You can get felt up at the market, too. It is an extremely homo-social culture, and personal space doesn’t exist. Your friends will come up to you and hug you, lay on you, hold your hand, admire your arm hair, grab your boobs to see if they’re real, etc.
This may make me a bad person, but I think the best part of the market is that if you sit there long enough, someone will give you crickets. I love crickets. We in the US are seriously missing out in our fastidious refusal to eat creepy crawlies. I’m sure most of you don’t consider insects to be a food source, unless you’re maybe starving in a cave or are an anteater. But you really need to broaden your horizons. Insects are packed with protein, low in fat, and like Lucky Charms they are magically delicious. Crickets fried in hot pepper oil are a dime a dozen in rainy season. Cambodians will tell you to take off the heads and legs before eating, but I think that this detracts from the crunchy goodness so I leave them on. Coming in a close second in the most delicious insect contest are ants. They have a certain kind of flying ant here that is huge and sweet. This is often served as main dish, rather than a snack. The best thing about ants is that they put larvae, juveniles, and adults all in the same package, so you have a plethora of ant choices. Rice and larva. Definitely better than it sounds. Another incredibly delicious insect is tarantulas. They are also fried, and served on a stick like a lollipop. A big juicy lollipop. The problem with tarantulas is that they’re kind of hairy. Sometimes they singe the hair off, but sometimes they don’t, and if you take a big bite the hairs can get caught in your throat. I think crickets have a lighter, more delicate flavor than tarantulas, but tarantulas are very filling. You could almost make a meal of them.
Really exciting: My pregnant friend asked me to choose baby names for her. So I listed off a bunch of names in my family and she decided on John for a boy and Lelah for a girl. I’m sad that she won’t have the baby until January, so I won’t get to see, but hopefully she’ll be able to send me pictures. Naming the baby before it’s born goes against tradition, so I’m really proud of her for doing it. Cambodians are extremely superstitious, especially when it comes to kids. I think it’s because in the past infant mortality rates were so high. They say it’s bad luck to name the child before it’s born, because this alerts the evil spirits to the impending birth. After the baby’s born, and until it starts to walk, everyone who sees it must lament about what a hideous little creature it is. When the evil spirits hear this, they will think the baby is bad and leave it alone. If you compliment the baby and the spirits hear, they might try to steal it.
But that's all for now! Today is my last full day at site, sad story.
Love and miss you all!
16 July, 2010
Snakes check in, they don't check out
So it's monsoon season here. Which is awesome if you don't mind mud. I prefer mud to sweat, so bring it on, I say. Anyway it's been raining all afternoon. This tends to send humans and assorted critters into houses. Today our critter was tree snake. I just got home and really had to pee so I ran to the bathroom. A small tree snake beat me to it however. I don't know which of was more freaked out, me or the snake. I'm pretty sure my bladder was fuller, so I weigh my options quickly. I could just jump over the snake and hope that it doesn't attack me while I'm peeing, or I could try to catch it and throw it outside. In hindsight, given the fact that it was just a green tree snake, the first option probably wasn't a bad idea, but I went for the second. I stand there for a moment, not sure how to go about catching a small, wet snake on a slippery bathroom floor. What I'm sure of is that I'm not going to be one of those girls who goes crying to some man to take care of it. Tongs, I think. I need some tongs. By this point I've completely forgotten that I have to pee. I go downstairs to grab the tongs, but they aren't there. I look all over. Can't find them. I don't want to ask my family, because then they'll wonder what in the world I need a pair of tongs for when I'm clearly not cooking. Finally I give in. I go outside to inquire as to the whereabouts of our tongs. Just as I suspected, my host dad is like "Why do you need them?" I still want to do this myself, so I try to be as vague as possible. "I need to pick up something." He is surprisingly unsatisfied by my answer, at which point I break down and tell him there is a snake in the bathroom. "Forget tongs," he says "we need a big stick." "Ok,"I reply "I'll go get one." But it was not to be. We have entered man territory, where girls, especially foreign ones, dare not tread. We've got some snake-killin' to do. He grabs a big stick and rubber boots and runs to the bathroom. He crouches into stealth position, with a gaggle of kids noisily trailing behind him (which seemed to me to rather defeat the purpose of stealth, but whatever). He slowly pulls the door back and wacks the snake on the back. The snake was not expecting this, and screamed (I swear, I didn't know snakes could scream). The only one screaming louder than the snake was my host dad. It came right at him and he jumped on the toilet and proceeded to beat the living daylights out of the snake. A few minutes later it was all over, and he had the snake's body on a stick and was chasing his niece around with it. I was exhausted just watching the whole spectacle. There were several men around and now they're all retelling the story like it was some sort of mutant python.
I also learned today that in some of the poorer regions men like eat fried cow and pig testicles when they drink. Yummy. Glad I am not their friend.
I also learned today that in some of the poorer regions men like eat fried cow and pig testicles when they drink. Yummy. Glad I am not their friend.
10 July, 2010
Almost time....
I guess I haven’t written in a while. It’s not so much that I don’t have anything to write about, more like the last few weeks have been a bit introspective, and maybe a little boring. While in the US I accepted a job offer to teach ESL at an elementary school in Kunming, China. It’s a school for expatriate children (expatriates are foreigners who reside in another country, as opposed to tourists who are just passing through). So I won’t actually be teaching any Chinese students. All the classes are in English, so I will be helping the non-native English speakers (Koreans, Indians, Italians, etc) to keep up. I am really excited, but as always when you leave a place that’s become home, feelings are mixed. I do love my village a lot. My friends are fun, kind, and generous. I can’t even imagine how much I will miss them. I definitely wouldn’t still be here if wasn’t for a few amazing people in village. However, Cambodia as whole is beginning to wear on me. In my village people know me. While they still do and say things that would be considered rude by American standards (ex. Stop eating so much rice or you’ll be too fat to find a husband!), I know that for the most part they consider me a member of the community and they look out for me. If someone is rude to me, someone will tell him/her off. No one tries to rip me off because I’m a foreigner. But that is unfortunately not the case when I leave my village. People are rude because they think I can’t understand them, and they are so certain I’m rich that they get angry when I refuse to pay double what the price would be if I were Cambodian. A cart-taxi driver tried to charge me double the price when I reach my destination, I refused and he tore up the money I offered him and threw it in my face. I taped it together and bought breakfast with it the next day, he basically gave me a free ride. He sure showed me. But things like that I think I can do without. They are really the hardest part about being here. The lack of electricity, running water, or internet isn’t really a big deal. It’s amazing how quickly you get used to it. But being treated like some sort of sideshow freak can become a bit annoying. But the flipside is that when you meet people who can appreciate you as an individual, and not as a source of entertainment, it means a lot. I’m sitting here in the disaster area that is my room, trying to decide what to do with all my junk. It’s strange going through two years worth of accumulated stuff. I’m doing good now, and haven’t cried in almost three days. I have less than three weeks here at site, soon I will go with some of my students to a pre-workshop training, stay in Phnom Penh to finish up paperwork and then fly to China.
The best way to describe my relationship with Cambodia is it’s like being part of a family. It can be irritating beyond belief, but at the end of the day they’re there for you. Before leaving America two years ago, I remember thinking “How can I go for two years? How much will I miss?” I did miss a lot of things. I missed my great-grandmother’s funeral, weddings, births, birthdays, and anniversaries. That was incredibly difficult. But the truth is I would have missed so much more if I had stayed. The Olympics, Heroes, the rise of Lady Gaga, aren’t things I particularly regret missing. But caring about people who’ve never really mattered to anyone, and having them care about me is something that I can’t imagine living without. Many of my friends in Cambodia are getting married, having babies, changing jobs, etc. So we’re all starting new things in life and it does make me sad that I won’t get to see them. I’ve done a lot of growing up here. I’ve learned a lot about myself. Not all of it good, but I guess 24 is a bit young to be perfect. I’d hate to make everyone jealous.
So basically I’m just trying to enjoy a brief break from teaching English, and spending as much time as I can with my friends, as well as reading. I think I’ve become a bit too Cambodian. I can sit on my porch with a book in my hands and never look at it; I can just sit there staring into space for hours. Seriously. I get annoyed when people expect me to show up to places on time. When I have to work more than three hours in a row I act like a deserve some kind of medal. Clearly this has no connection to what normal people would consider to be reality, so I’m sure it’s good that I’m going back to the real world now before this kind of behavior becomes permanent. But there’s just something so wonderful about just walking down the road and people stopping you to hang out with them. They’re like “Here eat this.” Cambodians are very uncomfortable being around people who aren’t eating. They feel like they’re somehow being inhospitable. If you show up when they’ve just run out of food they will buy you some more.
I went to visit my host family from training a couple of days ago. It’s always fun to go back, my language skills are much better, they tell me, but I’m still not thin. They are masters of the obvious. I was welcomed by drunk women meeting me on the road and kissing me. Well, in Cambodia kissing is more akin to sniffing, but whatever. One of them came by my house a little later with a two liter soda bottle that used to be full of palm liquor. Alas, by this time it was almost empty. Tragic. So this woman comes up to me and shows me that just a few drops are left in the bottle. This is clearly very upsetting. The woman is on the verge of tears, running around yelling “It’s empty! It’s empty!” and begging everyone around for money to remedy the situation. She comes up to me, and as politely as I can I tell her I don’t have any money. And she’s like “No, you don’t understand, my bottle is empty.” I offer to pour her some tea and she walks away in disgust. Then it’s time for the funeral. I have no idea whose funeral it was, but that’s not important. It wasn’t the real funeral; it was the seven day later funeral. Basically monks chant, neighbors come bearing gifts of money and incense, and then the family of the deceased serves rice porridge to guests. Traditionally white shirts are worn to funerals, but as long as you bring the money it doesn’t really matter. The best part of a funeral is that the monks’ chanting is blasted on a loudspeaker until midnight, and then starts up again at 4am. Fun. The real purpose of a funeral seems to be specifically for old people to get drunk. They are kind of the stars at funerals, helping out the monks and what not, sometimes they take over the chanting to give the monks a break. The best chants actually happen around 9pm, because the old folks are giving the monks a break, but it is sooo past their bedtime, and they’re really drunk, so they have no idea what they’re saying. I can’t really understand the chanting, because it’s done really fast, and they use a lot of religious words that I don’t know. But I think that sometimes the monks get bored and start chanting whatever pops into their heads because no one’s really listening. I swear they went on for longest time about fried noodles.
And that’s my life as of now. I will continue to blog from China, fear not. I love and miss you all!
The best way to describe my relationship with Cambodia is it’s like being part of a family. It can be irritating beyond belief, but at the end of the day they’re there for you. Before leaving America two years ago, I remember thinking “How can I go for two years? How much will I miss?” I did miss a lot of things. I missed my great-grandmother’s funeral, weddings, births, birthdays, and anniversaries. That was incredibly difficult. But the truth is I would have missed so much more if I had stayed. The Olympics, Heroes, the rise of Lady Gaga, aren’t things I particularly regret missing. But caring about people who’ve never really mattered to anyone, and having them care about me is something that I can’t imagine living without. Many of my friends in Cambodia are getting married, having babies, changing jobs, etc. So we’re all starting new things in life and it does make me sad that I won’t get to see them. I’ve done a lot of growing up here. I’ve learned a lot about myself. Not all of it good, but I guess 24 is a bit young to be perfect. I’d hate to make everyone jealous.
So basically I’m just trying to enjoy a brief break from teaching English, and spending as much time as I can with my friends, as well as reading. I think I’ve become a bit too Cambodian. I can sit on my porch with a book in my hands and never look at it; I can just sit there staring into space for hours. Seriously. I get annoyed when people expect me to show up to places on time. When I have to work more than three hours in a row I act like a deserve some kind of medal. Clearly this has no connection to what normal people would consider to be reality, so I’m sure it’s good that I’m going back to the real world now before this kind of behavior becomes permanent. But there’s just something so wonderful about just walking down the road and people stopping you to hang out with them. They’re like “Here eat this.” Cambodians are very uncomfortable being around people who aren’t eating. They feel like they’re somehow being inhospitable. If you show up when they’ve just run out of food they will buy you some more.
I went to visit my host family from training a couple of days ago. It’s always fun to go back, my language skills are much better, they tell me, but I’m still not thin. They are masters of the obvious. I was welcomed by drunk women meeting me on the road and kissing me. Well, in Cambodia kissing is more akin to sniffing, but whatever. One of them came by my house a little later with a two liter soda bottle that used to be full of palm liquor. Alas, by this time it was almost empty. Tragic. So this woman comes up to me and shows me that just a few drops are left in the bottle. This is clearly very upsetting. The woman is on the verge of tears, running around yelling “It’s empty! It’s empty!” and begging everyone around for money to remedy the situation. She comes up to me, and as politely as I can I tell her I don’t have any money. And she’s like “No, you don’t understand, my bottle is empty.” I offer to pour her some tea and she walks away in disgust. Then it’s time for the funeral. I have no idea whose funeral it was, but that’s not important. It wasn’t the real funeral; it was the seven day later funeral. Basically monks chant, neighbors come bearing gifts of money and incense, and then the family of the deceased serves rice porridge to guests. Traditionally white shirts are worn to funerals, but as long as you bring the money it doesn’t really matter. The best part of a funeral is that the monks’ chanting is blasted on a loudspeaker until midnight, and then starts up again at 4am. Fun. The real purpose of a funeral seems to be specifically for old people to get drunk. They are kind of the stars at funerals, helping out the monks and what not, sometimes they take over the chanting to give the monks a break. The best chants actually happen around 9pm, because the old folks are giving the monks a break, but it is sooo past their bedtime, and they’re really drunk, so they have no idea what they’re saying. I can’t really understand the chanting, because it’s done really fast, and they use a lot of religious words that I don’t know. But I think that sometimes the monks get bored and start chanting whatever pops into their heads because no one’s really listening. I swear they went on for longest time about fried noodles.
And that’s my life as of now. I will continue to blog from China, fear not. I love and miss you all!
07 June, 2010
odds and ends
Sorry haven't been able to write in a while, so here are some tidbits to tide you over until I can properly blog.
I fell of a buffalo cart. The water buffalo were rather perturbed at having to cart us up a mountain. We had a picnic of rice, fried pork, and raw beef, then climbed a mountain at noon, when it was prop 110degrees. Most of the students were wearing jackets. They're afraid of getting a tan. I don't know how they don't die.
When asked why I won't marry a Cambodian I responded because they're unfaithful and like to beat their wives. A woman told me you can't be angry at them for this, too many women, too little time. I wanted to throw up.
I had to explain to a drunk man why when it's day in Cambodia, it's night in America. He couldn't quite grasp the concept of the world being round.
Yesterday we had a ceremony to inaugurate a new Buddha shrine at the high school. There is already a shrine less than a hundred feet away, but technically it belongs to the junior high, so in order to ensure that we at the high school receive full benefits, we had to spend $500 (which is about the same amount putting walls in the classrooms would cost, but whatev) making a bigger and better shrine. Ours even had gold spray paint. That's how we roll. Honestly I think it was all just a big excuse to get drunk and have a party.
I was told that I would miss the heat when I get to china. That is definitely not something I will miss. Things I won't miss: People watching over my shoulder as I use the computer or text, Cambodian men, and the heat. I will however miss the cheap, delicious food, afternoon naps, and basically owning a small town.Love and miss you all
I fell of a buffalo cart. The water buffalo were rather perturbed at having to cart us up a mountain. We had a picnic of rice, fried pork, and raw beef, then climbed a mountain at noon, when it was prop 110degrees. Most of the students were wearing jackets. They're afraid of getting a tan. I don't know how they don't die.
When asked why I won't marry a Cambodian I responded because they're unfaithful and like to beat their wives. A woman told me you can't be angry at them for this, too many women, too little time. I wanted to throw up.
I had to explain to a drunk man why when it's day in Cambodia, it's night in America. He couldn't quite grasp the concept of the world being round.
Yesterday we had a ceremony to inaugurate a new Buddha shrine at the high school. There is already a shrine less than a hundred feet away, but technically it belongs to the junior high, so in order to ensure that we at the high school receive full benefits, we had to spend $500 (which is about the same amount putting walls in the classrooms would cost, but whatev) making a bigger and better shrine. Ours even had gold spray paint. That's how we roll. Honestly I think it was all just a big excuse to get drunk and have a party.
I was told that I would miss the heat when I get to china. That is definitely not something I will miss. Things I won't miss: People watching over my shoulder as I use the computer or text, Cambodian men, and the heat. I will however miss the cheap, delicious food, afternoon naps, and basically owning a small town.Love and miss you all
14 April, 2010
The Art of Doing Nothing
Hello again. I found myself doing real work for nearly two hours in row and decided that some procrastablogging was in order. I’m trying to prepare for the Foreign Service Oral Exam, so I’m basically trying to have some answers ready for the questions I know that they will ask. This mainly consists of telling the state department why I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread and why they’d have to be complete idiots for not hiring me. This should be easy, given my obvious attributes, but I find myself wondering, “Does the state department consider, say, the ability to quickly open a coconut with a machete, a particularly desirable skill?” What about the art of sitting around in a hammock? You must understand that this is not a joke. Anyone who comes here for any period of time will find themselves doing a lot of sitting around. Anytime you will be required to wait more than two seconds you be invited to angkui-leng, which means to sit down, just hang out and relax. When you go to visit people, this will be the principal activity involved. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent just sitting. Sometimes no one feels the need to make conversation. You can just show up at someone’s house, sit in their hammock for a couple of hours, and then go on about your business. It’s really quite fantastic. Sometimes you have fantastic conversations, and sometimes everyone just sits there awkwardly not saying anything. There isn’t really a word for “awkward” in Khmer, and I think this is because in order to have a concept of awkward, you would first have to have some not awkward experiences with which to compare. And I don’t think there are any not awkward experiences here. But the best way to avoid awkwardness is rice. People will always invite you eat rice. Always. “Have you eaten rice yet?” is the preferred way to start a conversation. If you haven’t eaten rice, that will shortly be remedied. Even if you show up at someone’s house as they’re finishing a meal and all the food is gone, they will still ask you to eat rice, and probably offer to cook more food for you. If you have already eaten rice they will ask you to eat more rice. If you show up unannounced at someone’s house at a non-meal hour, say 3pm, or even 3am, they will apologize for not having rice, and offer to make some for you. Any awkward situation can be remedied by giving people something to eat. Luckily it is mango season, and mangoes can substitute for rice at non meal times. In a given day I can eat anywhere from 3-12 mangoes. There are usually some at home, and you absolutely cannot go anywhere without being offered mangoes at this time of year. The problem is that Cambodians tend to like strong sour and bitter flavors, and thus eat a lot of green mangoes. This makes me kind of sad as ripe, yellow/orange, sweet mangoes are delicious and if you would just wait a while those gross sour things would become soft and delicious. And you can’t eat sour fruit without spicy salt. They mix salt and chili peppers to eat green mangoes. The best thing is that my host family likes to use Tony Chachere’s Cajun Seasoning instead of taking the time to mix the salt and chili peppers. I think this is hilarious.
Getting back to the point though. What does the State Department want from me? I have many mad skills, it’s true. Why just yesterday, after being fed a meal of rice and fried pork, at hiked up a mountain at noon, when it was probably in the high 90s/low 100s. Can you do that? Doubt it. Is it an advisable thing to do? Not really. I can understand ridiculously garbled Englsih. Ex “Yesterday me go party ghost grandmother for Sophea after face house for place sell cheese.” This means “Yesterday, I went to Sophea’s grandmother’s funeral. It was in front of the place that sells fish paste. “You go eat wedding?” means “Will you attend the wedding dinner?” “Where you from?” usually means “Where have you been?” I can avoid herds of water buffalo while biking, I can do local dances, I can use chopsticks for several different purposes, I can entertain myself for hours watching motos drive by my house. Clearly I am a highly adept individual. But will the government recognize this? We shall see.
In other news I was at the beach and didn’t actually get sunburned! Yay! Oddly enough I met up with one of my students there, this is odd because the beach is really far away from our village, but it’s a small world. So now all of my students will know that when I go to the beach I swim in my underwear (Cambodians don’t get the difference between underwear and swimwear, they swim fully clothed). But usually Cambodians buy new outfits for traveling and wear their nice, new clothes to go swimming. I’m just not up for that. The beach was a good time, but Katie (the volunteer who I was traveling with) had to get back to her village for a wedding. So I tagged along. Like all Khmer weddings there was plenty of alcohol, drama, and dancing. But this one had something special: FRENCH FRIES!! The fries were part of a dish called lok lak, which is sauted, peppered beef on a bed of lettuce, onions, and tomatoes. Sometimes they fry potatoes to go along with it. Sadly this dish was made special for the Muslims, as they can’t eat the pork dishes, so we didn’t get any. But we were not going to be left out, so we just changed tables and sat with the Muslims. We tried to make it look like we were just moving to be friendly, but I think they caught on when the fries disappeared and we started scavenging them from other tables. In our defense, no one else seemed to be eating them anyway. Katie has mad scavenging skills, and secured 3 two-liter bottles of sprite for me in various stages of fullness so I could have something to drink. The best part was toward to the end of the night when they brought a gigantic plate of fries to our table. The next day I came back to my village, where there was also a party. So my students taught me how to dance to Korean pop songs. Yet another unique skill that just doesn’t seem to fit on a resume.
So just trying to get through the next few days, which will be a total whirlwind. I really should get back to work. Thanks for listening to my rants! Happy Khmer New Year to everyone!
Getting back to the point though. What does the State Department want from me? I have many mad skills, it’s true. Why just yesterday, after being fed a meal of rice and fried pork, at hiked up a mountain at noon, when it was probably in the high 90s/low 100s. Can you do that? Doubt it. Is it an advisable thing to do? Not really. I can understand ridiculously garbled Englsih. Ex “Yesterday me go party ghost grandmother for Sophea after face house for place sell cheese.” This means “Yesterday, I went to Sophea’s grandmother’s funeral. It was in front of the place that sells fish paste. “You go eat wedding?” means “Will you attend the wedding dinner?” “Where you from?” usually means “Where have you been?” I can avoid herds of water buffalo while biking, I can do local dances, I can use chopsticks for several different purposes, I can entertain myself for hours watching motos drive by my house. Clearly I am a highly adept individual. But will the government recognize this? We shall see.
In other news I was at the beach and didn’t actually get sunburned! Yay! Oddly enough I met up with one of my students there, this is odd because the beach is really far away from our village, but it’s a small world. So now all of my students will know that when I go to the beach I swim in my underwear (Cambodians don’t get the difference between underwear and swimwear, they swim fully clothed). But usually Cambodians buy new outfits for traveling and wear their nice, new clothes to go swimming. I’m just not up for that. The beach was a good time, but Katie (the volunteer who I was traveling with) had to get back to her village for a wedding. So I tagged along. Like all Khmer weddings there was plenty of alcohol, drama, and dancing. But this one had something special: FRENCH FRIES!! The fries were part of a dish called lok lak, which is sauted, peppered beef on a bed of lettuce, onions, and tomatoes. Sometimes they fry potatoes to go along with it. Sadly this dish was made special for the Muslims, as they can’t eat the pork dishes, so we didn’t get any. But we were not going to be left out, so we just changed tables and sat with the Muslims. We tried to make it look like we were just moving to be friendly, but I think they caught on when the fries disappeared and we started scavenging them from other tables. In our defense, no one else seemed to be eating them anyway. Katie has mad scavenging skills, and secured 3 two-liter bottles of sprite for me in various stages of fullness so I could have something to drink. The best part was toward to the end of the night when they brought a gigantic plate of fries to our table. The next day I came back to my village, where there was also a party. So my students taught me how to dance to Korean pop songs. Yet another unique skill that just doesn’t seem to fit on a resume.
So just trying to get through the next few days, which will be a total whirlwind. I really should get back to work. Thanks for listening to my rants! Happy Khmer New Year to everyone!
25 March, 2010
On melted chocolate and electric keyboards from Korea
As I lay here under a fan I am perfecting a new skill. It involves opening a small chocolate snack; say a fun-sized kit kat, for instance, without spilling any of the melted chocolate, placing the whole package in my mouth, and then sucking every last bit of chocolaty goodness out of the wrapper. Some folks turn up their nose at melted chocolate. To them I say, “You are a bit of sissy.” It just takes a little more work, that’s all. You only wish you had mad skills like this. I’m pretty sure this ranks up there with sheep milking. But that’s a story for another day. The point is, I am a bit of a renaissance woman. Sadly, my many talents do not extend to the realm of music. This is unfortunate because the good folks of South Korea were considerate enough to provide many Cambodian high schools with electric keyboards. Mine was one of those lucky schools. What they did not provide was someone who knows how to play them. First I need to explain that Cambodians like noise. Things that we would consider annoying they think are fabulous. Whiney electric guitar riffs 24/7? Bring it. Playing whiney electric guitar riffs with your cell phone’s mp3 player at 2am when everyone is trying to sleep? Even better. Everything here, from weddings to deaths to purchasing ice cream must be accompanied by lots and lots of noise. There is so much noise that it does sometimes bother even Cambodians. But for the most part they grew up surrounded by it, so they don’t really understand the sanity-reducing effects if has on people who were not so fortunate.
This keyboard is possibly the strongest attack on my sanity so far. It sits in the teachers lounge, at a respectful distance from the Buddha statue. And it is loud. Riem can play a little. But no else one can. Not a note. Does this stop them? Absolutely not. It amazes me how they can persevere in their “musical” endeavors, but won’t go to class because it is too hot. These people are teachers. I would say they are grown men, but that would be true only on a physical level. The keyboard hadn’t been set up for ten minutes before someone compared the microphone to a penis. But the noise. Oh the noise. They pound away, playing with the settings (they really enjoyed the animal noises). What they really couldn’t understand was that I couldn’t play it. After all, the keyboard is foreign, and I am foreign, so clearly I have some mysterious foreign connection to it. Sadly no. Also, I was bit weirded out by them giving me the microphone after the penis joke.
I don’t mean to be crude, but when it comes to genitalia, people have the maturity level of middle schoolers. Everything that could even vaguely resemble a penis has to be remarked upon. A banana placed near two small round fruits will make for hours of amusement. And it isn’t just a passing remark. People will keep saying to each other “you know what this looks like? Hahaha?” I was at a meeting about improving poor people’s access to nutritious foods when a high ranking NGO staff member called his friend over to our table to look at his exciting (or maybe excited) fruit sculpture. And women can be even worse. I was teaching female NGO staff members when one of them came in with a bunch of bananas. Another immediately declared, “It looks like a man!” A really funny joke goes something like this “Women have breasts.” No kidding. It’s really funny. Sometimes when they really get on my nerves I decide to one up them by talking about periods. That shuts them up pretty quick. Yes, friends, sometimes it is difficult to have a mature conversation when fruit, water bottles, or ink pens are on the table. (Yes I said ink pens. I’ll leave that one to your imagination)
Completely unrelated: I’m 24. Almost a quarter of century. When I think about that it seems a little strange, and I don’t feel any more mature than the grown men who laugh at bananas. But my birthday turned out to be pretty fantastic. A few days before my b-day I got sick and had to go to Phnom Penh. I really don’t like Phnom Penh. I can’t really tell you why. Maybe it’s just that I like my village more, and being away from it seems like a waste of time. Anyway, my wonderful students planned a birthday party for me. And I was scared the doctor wouldn’t let me go home in time. It was a stressful weekend, because I was sick, my wallet was stolen, with the party money, my phone, and my bank card inside, and at first the doctor thought I had a really terrible disease (I didn’t, thank God), and I had no way to get money to my students for the party. But on Sunday some of the other volunteers who were in town took me out to an Italian restaurant and then some of us watched a movie in the hotel. It was pretty great. And Riem being the doll that he is paid for everything for the students’ party. I got back to site in time to watch the meal preparation (they don’t really trust me with knives, can’t say that I blame them) and have a fantastic party. I kind of wanted to get some Betty Crocker cake mix and make it for my birthday, but Riem assured me this was unnecessary. It was a good thing too, as very little of the cake was eaten; most of was used for a food fight. Which was fine by me. I had forgotten that no Khmer birthday party is complete without a food fight. Which makes for an unfortunate laundry experience, but totally worth it. I think the reason for this is because it is an acceptable way for boys and girls to touch each other (you can’t just throw the cake at people, you have to smear it all over them). And as fun as the food fight was, had they used a Betty Crocker yellow cake with fudge icing I would have cried.
And I received some excellent goodies from the states, so thank you everyone for your cards, chocolate, clothing and assorted other treats. They were much appreciated.
This keyboard is possibly the strongest attack on my sanity so far. It sits in the teachers lounge, at a respectful distance from the Buddha statue. And it is loud. Riem can play a little. But no else one can. Not a note. Does this stop them? Absolutely not. It amazes me how they can persevere in their “musical” endeavors, but won’t go to class because it is too hot. These people are teachers. I would say they are grown men, but that would be true only on a physical level. The keyboard hadn’t been set up for ten minutes before someone compared the microphone to a penis. But the noise. Oh the noise. They pound away, playing with the settings (they really enjoyed the animal noises). What they really couldn’t understand was that I couldn’t play it. After all, the keyboard is foreign, and I am foreign, so clearly I have some mysterious foreign connection to it. Sadly no. Also, I was bit weirded out by them giving me the microphone after the penis joke.
I don’t mean to be crude, but when it comes to genitalia, people have the maturity level of middle schoolers. Everything that could even vaguely resemble a penis has to be remarked upon. A banana placed near two small round fruits will make for hours of amusement. And it isn’t just a passing remark. People will keep saying to each other “you know what this looks like? Hahaha?” I was at a meeting about improving poor people’s access to nutritious foods when a high ranking NGO staff member called his friend over to our table to look at his exciting (or maybe excited) fruit sculpture. And women can be even worse. I was teaching female NGO staff members when one of them came in with a bunch of bananas. Another immediately declared, “It looks like a man!” A really funny joke goes something like this “Women have breasts.” No kidding. It’s really funny. Sometimes when they really get on my nerves I decide to one up them by talking about periods. That shuts them up pretty quick. Yes, friends, sometimes it is difficult to have a mature conversation when fruit, water bottles, or ink pens are on the table. (Yes I said ink pens. I’ll leave that one to your imagination)
Completely unrelated: I’m 24. Almost a quarter of century. When I think about that it seems a little strange, and I don’t feel any more mature than the grown men who laugh at bananas. But my birthday turned out to be pretty fantastic. A few days before my b-day I got sick and had to go to Phnom Penh. I really don’t like Phnom Penh. I can’t really tell you why. Maybe it’s just that I like my village more, and being away from it seems like a waste of time. Anyway, my wonderful students planned a birthday party for me. And I was scared the doctor wouldn’t let me go home in time. It was a stressful weekend, because I was sick, my wallet was stolen, with the party money, my phone, and my bank card inside, and at first the doctor thought I had a really terrible disease (I didn’t, thank God), and I had no way to get money to my students for the party. But on Sunday some of the other volunteers who were in town took me out to an Italian restaurant and then some of us watched a movie in the hotel. It was pretty great. And Riem being the doll that he is paid for everything for the students’ party. I got back to site in time to watch the meal preparation (they don’t really trust me with knives, can’t say that I blame them) and have a fantastic party. I kind of wanted to get some Betty Crocker cake mix and make it for my birthday, but Riem assured me this was unnecessary. It was a good thing too, as very little of the cake was eaten; most of was used for a food fight. Which was fine by me. I had forgotten that no Khmer birthday party is complete without a food fight. Which makes for an unfortunate laundry experience, but totally worth it. I think the reason for this is because it is an acceptable way for boys and girls to touch each other (you can’t just throw the cake at people, you have to smear it all over them). And as fun as the food fight was, had they used a Betty Crocker yellow cake with fudge icing I would have cried.
And I received some excellent goodies from the states, so thank you everyone for your cards, chocolate, clothing and assorted other treats. They were much appreciated.
08 March, 2010
Today, as many of you sexist Americans seem to be unaware, is International Women’s Rights day. Because the UN said so. How do I know you are sexist? Because I bet most of you will go to work on Monday morning. Here in Cambodia, women’s rights are celebrated by not going to work and getting drunk. Unless of course you are a market seller, or a housewife. Then you still have to work just like any other day. What do housewives and market sellers have in common? They are women. You only get to take the day off if you work for a bank, a phone company, or a school. Basically, if you are man, you celebrate women’s rights day by doing nothing. And if you are a woman, well, you get to celebrate your rights to cook and clean and do laundry and pick up after your drunk male relatives. And all you American men are probably at work and sober at 9:00am on a Monday. Clearly you have no understanding of how to properly celebrate women’s rights day. Being the liberated woman that I am, I celebrate women’s rights day by typing this blog for you all, beloved readers. And I may do some laundry later.
Seriously speaking I have already attended two women’s rights day events. My students and I were invited to speak about our leadership workshops to people in remote villages. It was the first time such a celebration had taken place in either village. It very humbling, as much as I like to think I’m hardcore, I’m really not. My house has running water and electricity most of the time. I live across the street from the market, so I can easily get most anything I need. There is decent cell phone service and periodic internet access. The villages we went to were not so fortunate. The first one took an hour and a half to reach. We had to travel a road that was nothing but sand, over a mountain, and cross a river. In the rainy season it is nearly impossible to get there. Because of the transportation difficulties, the people can neither sell their goods outside the villages, or buy goods from outside. Most of the villagers who attended walked several miles because they can’t even afford bicycles. There is no school, so nearly the entire population is illiterate. I was glad my students were able to see it as well. Living in the market town, we may not have very much, but it’s a lot more than nothing, which is what these people have. Like all Cambodian “celebrations” a few important people sat at a table facing the audience and made long, boring speeches. They asked questions to the audience, and anyone who answered received a prize of soap or toothpaste/toothbrush. I’m not going to tell you that the audience cared about women’s rights. Most of them didn’t. They came for the free stuff. And I was a little disturbed by the way the NGO staff herded the people like cattle, gave them the stuff, and then yelled at them to get out of the way. Had I gone just for that, I would have been disappointed, if not a little sickened. But the truth is no one would have come just to hear about women’s rights. And maybe they didn’t pay much attention, but they did here ideas that they had never heard before, so I hope some kind of seed was planted. But what made it worth it for me was my students. The NGO staff was disappointed that the girls and I didn’t speak longer. But people tuned out the long speeches. They paid attention to us. Granted I am rather attention grabbing. But the girls talked about what they did and what they learned, and everyone really seemed to pay attention. The girls were nervous but they all spoke really well. I have never been so proud of them. Because we didn’t speak very long, the girls and I had a lot of downtime. We played sudoku, chided the monks for smoking, they asked the English word for “breasts” and we sized up the men. They thought the driver was very polite and handsome, but he was rather old. The other NGO worker was younger, but his cheeks were too puffy and he looked like he would be rude. Portraits from the two days of celebrating women’s rights: A little girl using a (needle-less) syringe as a pacifier. A crying baby placed in a cardboard box, he then becomes very excited and tries to eat the box. 9 Cambodians all speaking at the same time about the relative ripeness of mangoes and bananas. The deputy director of women’s affairs stopping the car to get out and collect leaves for soup, while still wearing her celebration finery.
This past weekend was rather busy. I went with my host sister and some of her friends to take a scholarship exam in the provincial town. The next day there was a soccer game, we lost 4-1 but I got an excellent tan, much to the distress of the Cambodians. I get home from the soccer game and my host mom tells me that I need to go to Phnom Penh with her and translate for some Indian guy who wants to buy wood from her. Well the Indian guy turns out to be Pakistani, who doesn’t speak English well. It was awful. We picked him up at his hotel, went to one house to get wood, and then went to another house to look at the wood, which he didn’t like. So went back to the first house (the trip to the second house was a complete waste of time) except on the way back to the first house we got lost. I couldn’t even imagine what this guy was thinking. If I were him I would have just gotten out of the car because clearly these people have no idea what they’re doing. I was quite visibly angry. And then when I tried to explain something to my host mom she told me to shut up. I was livid. And then the man wanted to start bargaining, except he had misunderstood when I told him that the wood was five hundred dollars a kilo and thought it was five thousand. So that took time to explain. It all worked out in the end and I calmed down after I ate a muffin. But he shows up at my house unannounced today wanting more wood. He shows up right as I’m getting out the shower to get ready to go to a meeting. So the grandma (the new one, who is not the brightest crayon in the box, not the old one) is telling me to come downstairs immediately, seemingly not aware of the fact that I am naked. I tell her I should put clothes on first, and she’s like, oh that’s a good idea. Anyway, he seems rather upset that I’m busy, but I’m rather upset that he just showed up without telling anyone, so we’re even. So I go to my meeting with an NGO director. Who is a no-show (probably too busy celebrating women’s rights). It was a rather infuriating morning. I think what made it even worse was the irony that had I been a man, most likely neither my Pakistani friend nor the NGO director would have treated me like that. Happy women’s rights day to me. I really need a muffin.
Small joys: I had two cups of coffee this morning. My spoiled little host sister yelled at me to get out of the shower (which while rude to us, is even more rude for a Cambodian as I am old enough to be her mother) so I took my time. Finding that my grandma is doing laundry so I have to wait til later to do my own laundry. Darn. The props accorded me by the construction workers next door as they watched me jump a fence since the gate was locked. A fan. Bathing up to 8 times a day. Discounts. Sugarcane juice. A soft pillow. Being the only foreigner for miles. Wearing my tried and true (which the unimaginative might call old and worn) flips flops everywhere to the embarrassment of my host family. Coconuts. Assorted vegetables. Cute dogs. Sudoku. Fried bananas. Pajamas. Silence.
One of the things on this list is being the only foreigner. Most people don’t understand how I can enjoy this. To them I ask, how could I not? I can do whatever I want. Clearly I am the most beautiful, and I speak the best Khmer, simply by virtue of being the only one. I would hate to have to compete with someone for those titles. I am the ultimate authority on western culture. Why are you wearing those old shoes? Well because in America everyone wears old shoes. It is also a fantastic excuse for when I don’t want to do something: Well in America women beat up men when the men get drunk, so it’s probably best if I don’t attend your drinking party, but thank you anyway. I am the undisputed princess. I have but to make a suggestion and it is obeyed. Wouldn’t it be excellent if that trash were burnt? Yes ma’am. And in a few minutes the trash will be burnt. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if there were some sugarcane juice? It certainly would, coming right up. I think I need 3 boxes of thumbtacks, 20 bottles of bleach, and nail clippers. Why of course you do, one moment. I have a mystique. I see this as the payment for people staring at me and being rude. While many things, like calling people fat, aren’t as rude to Cambodians as to Americans, they do sometimes forget that foreigners are people too, not just circus attractions provided for their amusement. I’ve also noticed that some people seem view it as a way of getting even with me for being from a rich country.
I should say that I really do love Cambodia and Cambodians. But like all relationships that are truly loving, you have to be able to see the faults of the ones you love. After all, if a person were faultless, then they everyone would love them and it wouldn’t really mean much. Cambodia clearly has its faults. However, I myself have many faults and Cambodians seem to love me in spite of them. While hearing about how fat I am, how rich I am, and how I would be thinner and find a husband easier if I didn’t eat so much, are all extremely annoying, they really aren’t the point. Some people are just jerks. But I’ve discovered most of the Khmer people whom I dislike, are also disliked by the population in general. All of the my friends have at some point told me I’d be prettier if I weren’t so fat. But because I know that they are good-hearted people who are trying to give me useful advice I can deal with it.
I’m off to continue celebrating women’s rights with noodles and a nap, love and miss you all. Come see me in Tulsa if you get a chance!
Seriously speaking I have already attended two women’s rights day events. My students and I were invited to speak about our leadership workshops to people in remote villages. It was the first time such a celebration had taken place in either village. It very humbling, as much as I like to think I’m hardcore, I’m really not. My house has running water and electricity most of the time. I live across the street from the market, so I can easily get most anything I need. There is decent cell phone service and periodic internet access. The villages we went to were not so fortunate. The first one took an hour and a half to reach. We had to travel a road that was nothing but sand, over a mountain, and cross a river. In the rainy season it is nearly impossible to get there. Because of the transportation difficulties, the people can neither sell their goods outside the villages, or buy goods from outside. Most of the villagers who attended walked several miles because they can’t even afford bicycles. There is no school, so nearly the entire population is illiterate. I was glad my students were able to see it as well. Living in the market town, we may not have very much, but it’s a lot more than nothing, which is what these people have. Like all Cambodian “celebrations” a few important people sat at a table facing the audience and made long, boring speeches. They asked questions to the audience, and anyone who answered received a prize of soap or toothpaste/toothbrush. I’m not going to tell you that the audience cared about women’s rights. Most of them didn’t. They came for the free stuff. And I was a little disturbed by the way the NGO staff herded the people like cattle, gave them the stuff, and then yelled at them to get out of the way. Had I gone just for that, I would have been disappointed, if not a little sickened. But the truth is no one would have come just to hear about women’s rights. And maybe they didn’t pay much attention, but they did here ideas that they had never heard before, so I hope some kind of seed was planted. But what made it worth it for me was my students. The NGO staff was disappointed that the girls and I didn’t speak longer. But people tuned out the long speeches. They paid attention to us. Granted I am rather attention grabbing. But the girls talked about what they did and what they learned, and everyone really seemed to pay attention. The girls were nervous but they all spoke really well. I have never been so proud of them. Because we didn’t speak very long, the girls and I had a lot of downtime. We played sudoku, chided the monks for smoking, they asked the English word for “breasts” and we sized up the men. They thought the driver was very polite and handsome, but he was rather old. The other NGO worker was younger, but his cheeks were too puffy and he looked like he would be rude. Portraits from the two days of celebrating women’s rights: A little girl using a (needle-less) syringe as a pacifier. A crying baby placed in a cardboard box, he then becomes very excited and tries to eat the box. 9 Cambodians all speaking at the same time about the relative ripeness of mangoes and bananas. The deputy director of women’s affairs stopping the car to get out and collect leaves for soup, while still wearing her celebration finery.
This past weekend was rather busy. I went with my host sister and some of her friends to take a scholarship exam in the provincial town. The next day there was a soccer game, we lost 4-1 but I got an excellent tan, much to the distress of the Cambodians. I get home from the soccer game and my host mom tells me that I need to go to Phnom Penh with her and translate for some Indian guy who wants to buy wood from her. Well the Indian guy turns out to be Pakistani, who doesn’t speak English well. It was awful. We picked him up at his hotel, went to one house to get wood, and then went to another house to look at the wood, which he didn’t like. So went back to the first house (the trip to the second house was a complete waste of time) except on the way back to the first house we got lost. I couldn’t even imagine what this guy was thinking. If I were him I would have just gotten out of the car because clearly these people have no idea what they’re doing. I was quite visibly angry. And then when I tried to explain something to my host mom she told me to shut up. I was livid. And then the man wanted to start bargaining, except he had misunderstood when I told him that the wood was five hundred dollars a kilo and thought it was five thousand. So that took time to explain. It all worked out in the end and I calmed down after I ate a muffin. But he shows up at my house unannounced today wanting more wood. He shows up right as I’m getting out the shower to get ready to go to a meeting. So the grandma (the new one, who is not the brightest crayon in the box, not the old one) is telling me to come downstairs immediately, seemingly not aware of the fact that I am naked. I tell her I should put clothes on first, and she’s like, oh that’s a good idea. Anyway, he seems rather upset that I’m busy, but I’m rather upset that he just showed up without telling anyone, so we’re even. So I go to my meeting with an NGO director. Who is a no-show (probably too busy celebrating women’s rights). It was a rather infuriating morning. I think what made it even worse was the irony that had I been a man, most likely neither my Pakistani friend nor the NGO director would have treated me like that. Happy women’s rights day to me. I really need a muffin.
Small joys: I had two cups of coffee this morning. My spoiled little host sister yelled at me to get out of the shower (which while rude to us, is even more rude for a Cambodian as I am old enough to be her mother) so I took my time. Finding that my grandma is doing laundry so I have to wait til later to do my own laundry. Darn. The props accorded me by the construction workers next door as they watched me jump a fence since the gate was locked. A fan. Bathing up to 8 times a day. Discounts. Sugarcane juice. A soft pillow. Being the only foreigner for miles. Wearing my tried and true (which the unimaginative might call old and worn) flips flops everywhere to the embarrassment of my host family. Coconuts. Assorted vegetables. Cute dogs. Sudoku. Fried bananas. Pajamas. Silence.
One of the things on this list is being the only foreigner. Most people don’t understand how I can enjoy this. To them I ask, how could I not? I can do whatever I want. Clearly I am the most beautiful, and I speak the best Khmer, simply by virtue of being the only one. I would hate to have to compete with someone for those titles. I am the ultimate authority on western culture. Why are you wearing those old shoes? Well because in America everyone wears old shoes. It is also a fantastic excuse for when I don’t want to do something: Well in America women beat up men when the men get drunk, so it’s probably best if I don’t attend your drinking party, but thank you anyway. I am the undisputed princess. I have but to make a suggestion and it is obeyed. Wouldn’t it be excellent if that trash were burnt? Yes ma’am. And in a few minutes the trash will be burnt. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if there were some sugarcane juice? It certainly would, coming right up. I think I need 3 boxes of thumbtacks, 20 bottles of bleach, and nail clippers. Why of course you do, one moment. I have a mystique. I see this as the payment for people staring at me and being rude. While many things, like calling people fat, aren’t as rude to Cambodians as to Americans, they do sometimes forget that foreigners are people too, not just circus attractions provided for their amusement. I’ve also noticed that some people seem view it as a way of getting even with me for being from a rich country.
I should say that I really do love Cambodia and Cambodians. But like all relationships that are truly loving, you have to be able to see the faults of the ones you love. After all, if a person were faultless, then they everyone would love them and it wouldn’t really mean much. Cambodia clearly has its faults. However, I myself have many faults and Cambodians seem to love me in spite of them. While hearing about how fat I am, how rich I am, and how I would be thinner and find a husband easier if I didn’t eat so much, are all extremely annoying, they really aren’t the point. Some people are just jerks. But I’ve discovered most of the Khmer people whom I dislike, are also disliked by the population in general. All of the my friends have at some point told me I’d be prettier if I weren’t so fat. But because I know that they are good-hearted people who are trying to give me useful advice I can deal with it.
I’m off to continue celebrating women’s rights with noodles and a nap, love and miss you all. Come see me in Tulsa if you get a chance!
11 February, 2010
My students make better paper airplanes that yours
First things first: Geaux Saints!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Shout out to all of Louisiana, this is the most exciting that has pretty much ever happened. And if you’re a Colts fan you shouldn’t be.
Second: Exams are not fun. Period. Thankfully I was a bit under the weather so I didn’t have to proctor the semester exams this time. Yay! The students were quite glad, as I’m the only teacher that doesn’t let them cheat. And by that I mean I don’t let them get up from their desks to go look at their friends’ papers. It is ridiculous the cheating here. I know I’ve talked about it before, but I’ll talk about it again. No one cares. Students yell answers to each other from across the room. They have conversations. They make paper airplanes with their exam papers and fly them over to classmates. I wish I were joking. They have all sorts of cheat sheets, many of them ripped pages out of their textbooks. And NO ONE CARES. I take away their cheat sheets and make them sit still. But it is impossible to stop them from talking. I can’t fail them, I really have no power over them. But they don’t like to make me angry, so that helps. But cracking down on cheating seems like a straightforward solution, so why isn’t there more of an effort to do this? It’s complicated. Number one, that would require more work of the already grossly underpaid teachers (if they’re paid at all). It’s much easier just to ignore the cheating. Another issue is that cracking down on cheating would need to be implemented nationwide. It would be unfair to judge the exam scores of students who freely cheated against those who weren’t allowed to. Well, they should just study harder. True, like many American students, some Cambodian students are lazy or unmotivated. But there is another side to the coin, and that goes back to the problem of teacher salaries. Often teachers’ already low salaries ($40-$80 a month) are a month or two late. And the teachers get paid this ridiculously low amount whether they actually show up or not. So often teachers choose the latter option. The problem is that they make tests based on the material they should have covered if we had school everyday and they showed up to class everyday. So sometimes students will have only had a couple of class sessions in a particular subject the entire semester, and are then tested over the entire book. So it’s kind of hard to tell them they can’t cheat, when the whole system is screwing them over. At my school, there is only one math teacher for grade 12, and the grade 12 national exam (basically their ACT/SAT) is on March 23rd. This math teacher is quitting teaching and going to work as a surveyor for the forestry service because it pays more. So with a little over a month left til the exam, the grade 12 students have no math teacher. And math is the most important subject on the exam. And then there are the questions themselves. I wrote a lot of the test, so it was a lot better than last year’s, but some sections were not run by me first. For example:
Have you seen a cup anywhere? We seem to be ___________ a) see b) missed c) lose d) found
What’s the correct answer? If you said e) none of the above – you are right! Unfortunately the students were not given option E. Having said all this, there are often comical aspects to an exam. This is what my students have to say about life:
When we fart in a crowded room, we feel excited. (It should be When we fart in a crowded room, we feel embarrassed)
The usually students play football on weekends
If she had become a politician that is why the police fined him
The boy was broken by the window (It should be The window was broken by the boy)
My daughter was cooked (It should be The food was cooked by my daughter)
I bought a bike. It was intelligent.
On Cambodian history:
Angkor Wat was attacked and decorated by Thailand.
Angkor Wat is one of the largest religious collapse in the world.
The king decorated the region
On the things money can buy:
Big clothes
A husband
A young womn
Honor
A good score on the exam
Modern (Modern what? Dunno)
Family happiness
A trip to the moon
And some of the questions on the exam weren’t exactly wrong, but certainly unusual. If the students filled in the blanks correctly, they would make these sentences:
If people did not die and leave the earth, the earth would be too crowded.
If the animals came when they were called, the people would have caught them easily without running.
So yeah. That’s examination Khmer style.
On a victorious note, I cleaned my room today. For those of you who are unaware of my tidiness-related habits, suffice to say they are non-existent. My dear mother spent 18 years of her life trying to get me to keep my room clean, alas with little success. That is not to say I am complete slob, I hate having food or anything that harbors mold and nasty bugs. But the simple act of folding my clothes and putting them away eludes me sometimes. This is not helped by the fact that I moved recently, and while I have a 5’x5’bed, I only have an 8’x8’ room. Meaning if I have a 1 foot wide walkway that leaves about 4 square feet of storage space. So today I went to the market and spent over $15 on storage items. That is almost a week’s salary.
But the problem is solved and now my room is clean, if not spacious. Walking back from the market, arms loaded with plastic storage apparati, every marveled at the sheer amount of things I bought. So now everyone knows that I have lived at the new house for four months and am just now getting around to cleaning my room. I know that I have integrated into my community because people now gossip about me in the same manner as they do each other. Sometimes people come through who don’t know me, and the only way I can think to describe is like the scene in Toy Story when Buzz and Woody land in the alien toy grabber machine and all the little alien toys are like “Strangers! From the outside! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” It’s kinda like that. And that can get annoying. But thankfully people are pretty used to seeing me. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve been asked how much bread I eat (I’m white, which clearly means I’m French, and clearly the French eat bread all the time, so it’s a logical question). The locals even correct out-of-towners when they ask “Who’s the French chick?” and the locals are like “She’s not French, she’s American, they’re different.” The revelation that French/English/American are all completely different astounds many people here. All white people are called French and it is assumed that they speak English.
Getting back to gossip, the market is like high school for old ladies. Every goes around telling everyone each others business. One day two market ladies will be best friends, the next not speaking to each other. It’s like a soap opera, but better. I get to just sit there and sip coffee while it all happens around me. The other day, my former host mom, to whom ascribing the term vain would be a gross understatement asked a police officer who was prettier, she, or her friend the rice seller. The police officer, who was obviously not born yesterday, says they’re equally pretty. This enrages my former host mom. She goes on about how she buys expensive (and slightly slutty, though she didn’t say that) clothes, wears make-up, gets her hair done, gets manicures, pedicures, the works (side note, she always talks about how she has no money, but every day she wears a new shirt to the market). Given all this, she should be significantly prettier than the rice seller. The rice seller just looks at her own chest, pulls her shirt down a bit, and simply says “mine are bigger.” That made my morning.
I have to laugh when people talk about how rich Americans are. Yesterday the market ladies were all comparing their $3 shirts. I, on the other hand, was wearing clothes I’d found in the give-away bin at the Peace Corps office. The majority of my wardrobe consists of things found in the give-away bin or purchased for fifty cents from a thrift store. I wouldn’t be caught dead paying $3 for an item of clothing. It’s an upside down world over here. But I have learned to read, at least a little! The language has 33 consonants and 27 vowels. Most of those vowels have two different sounds depending on what consonant they’re with. And the vowels are written above, below, to the left, and to the right of the consonant. And each consonant has another form (like how we have capital letters and small letters) that can be written underneath another consonant to shorten the sound. So there are 122 possible phonemes. Which is why after living here a year and a half I have attained an approximately 2nd grade reading level. But I can read most signs, and I can write small words (an excellent party trick) so I consider myself successful. One last comment, the warning label on my eyedrops has informed me that possible side effects include bone marrow depression and/or newborn infants. What will happen? Will my bone marrow fall into a state of depression? Will newborn infants randomly appear? Stay tuned for more details. Love and miss you all!
Shout out to all of Louisiana, this is the most exciting that has pretty much ever happened. And if you’re a Colts fan you shouldn’t be.
Second: Exams are not fun. Period. Thankfully I was a bit under the weather so I didn’t have to proctor the semester exams this time. Yay! The students were quite glad, as I’m the only teacher that doesn’t let them cheat. And by that I mean I don’t let them get up from their desks to go look at their friends’ papers. It is ridiculous the cheating here. I know I’ve talked about it before, but I’ll talk about it again. No one cares. Students yell answers to each other from across the room. They have conversations. They make paper airplanes with their exam papers and fly them over to classmates. I wish I were joking. They have all sorts of cheat sheets, many of them ripped pages out of their textbooks. And NO ONE CARES. I take away their cheat sheets and make them sit still. But it is impossible to stop them from talking. I can’t fail them, I really have no power over them. But they don’t like to make me angry, so that helps. But cracking down on cheating seems like a straightforward solution, so why isn’t there more of an effort to do this? It’s complicated. Number one, that would require more work of the already grossly underpaid teachers (if they’re paid at all). It’s much easier just to ignore the cheating. Another issue is that cracking down on cheating would need to be implemented nationwide. It would be unfair to judge the exam scores of students who freely cheated against those who weren’t allowed to. Well, they should just study harder. True, like many American students, some Cambodian students are lazy or unmotivated. But there is another side to the coin, and that goes back to the problem of teacher salaries. Often teachers’ already low salaries ($40-$80 a month) are a month or two late. And the teachers get paid this ridiculously low amount whether they actually show up or not. So often teachers choose the latter option. The problem is that they make tests based on the material they should have covered if we had school everyday and they showed up to class everyday. So sometimes students will have only had a couple of class sessions in a particular subject the entire semester, and are then tested over the entire book. So it’s kind of hard to tell them they can’t cheat, when the whole system is screwing them over. At my school, there is only one math teacher for grade 12, and the grade 12 national exam (basically their ACT/SAT) is on March 23rd. This math teacher is quitting teaching and going to work as a surveyor for the forestry service because it pays more. So with a little over a month left til the exam, the grade 12 students have no math teacher. And math is the most important subject on the exam. And then there are the questions themselves. I wrote a lot of the test, so it was a lot better than last year’s, but some sections were not run by me first. For example:
Have you seen a cup anywhere? We seem to be ___________ a) see b) missed c) lose d) found
What’s the correct answer? If you said e) none of the above – you are right! Unfortunately the students were not given option E. Having said all this, there are often comical aspects to an exam. This is what my students have to say about life:
When we fart in a crowded room, we feel excited. (It should be When we fart in a crowded room, we feel embarrassed)
The usually students play football on weekends
If she had become a politician that is why the police fined him
The boy was broken by the window (It should be The window was broken by the boy)
My daughter was cooked (It should be The food was cooked by my daughter)
I bought a bike. It was intelligent.
On Cambodian history:
Angkor Wat was attacked and decorated by Thailand.
Angkor Wat is one of the largest religious collapse in the world.
The king decorated the region
On the things money can buy:
Big clothes
A husband
A young womn
Honor
A good score on the exam
Modern (Modern what? Dunno)
Family happiness
A trip to the moon
And some of the questions on the exam weren’t exactly wrong, but certainly unusual. If the students filled in the blanks correctly, they would make these sentences:
If people did not die and leave the earth, the earth would be too crowded.
If the animals came when they were called, the people would have caught them easily without running.
So yeah. That’s examination Khmer style.
On a victorious note, I cleaned my room today. For those of you who are unaware of my tidiness-related habits, suffice to say they are non-existent. My dear mother spent 18 years of her life trying to get me to keep my room clean, alas with little success. That is not to say I am complete slob, I hate having food or anything that harbors mold and nasty bugs. But the simple act of folding my clothes and putting them away eludes me sometimes. This is not helped by the fact that I moved recently, and while I have a 5’x5’bed, I only have an 8’x8’ room. Meaning if I have a 1 foot wide walkway that leaves about 4 square feet of storage space. So today I went to the market and spent over $15 on storage items. That is almost a week’s salary.
But the problem is solved and now my room is clean, if not spacious. Walking back from the market, arms loaded with plastic storage apparati, every marveled at the sheer amount of things I bought. So now everyone knows that I have lived at the new house for four months and am just now getting around to cleaning my room. I know that I have integrated into my community because people now gossip about me in the same manner as they do each other. Sometimes people come through who don’t know me, and the only way I can think to describe is like the scene in Toy Story when Buzz and Woody land in the alien toy grabber machine and all the little alien toys are like “Strangers! From the outside! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” It’s kinda like that. And that can get annoying. But thankfully people are pretty used to seeing me. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve been asked how much bread I eat (I’m white, which clearly means I’m French, and clearly the French eat bread all the time, so it’s a logical question). The locals even correct out-of-towners when they ask “Who’s the French chick?” and the locals are like “She’s not French, she’s American, they’re different.” The revelation that French/English/American are all completely different astounds many people here. All white people are called French and it is assumed that they speak English.
Getting back to gossip, the market is like high school for old ladies. Every goes around telling everyone each others business. One day two market ladies will be best friends, the next not speaking to each other. It’s like a soap opera, but better. I get to just sit there and sip coffee while it all happens around me. The other day, my former host mom, to whom ascribing the term vain would be a gross understatement asked a police officer who was prettier, she, or her friend the rice seller. The police officer, who was obviously not born yesterday, says they’re equally pretty. This enrages my former host mom. She goes on about how she buys expensive (and slightly slutty, though she didn’t say that) clothes, wears make-up, gets her hair done, gets manicures, pedicures, the works (side note, she always talks about how she has no money, but every day she wears a new shirt to the market). Given all this, she should be significantly prettier than the rice seller. The rice seller just looks at her own chest, pulls her shirt down a bit, and simply says “mine are bigger.” That made my morning.
I have to laugh when people talk about how rich Americans are. Yesterday the market ladies were all comparing their $3 shirts. I, on the other hand, was wearing clothes I’d found in the give-away bin at the Peace Corps office. The majority of my wardrobe consists of things found in the give-away bin or purchased for fifty cents from a thrift store. I wouldn’t be caught dead paying $3 for an item of clothing. It’s an upside down world over here. But I have learned to read, at least a little! The language has 33 consonants and 27 vowels. Most of those vowels have two different sounds depending on what consonant they’re with. And the vowels are written above, below, to the left, and to the right of the consonant. And each consonant has another form (like how we have capital letters and small letters) that can be written underneath another consonant to shorten the sound. So there are 122 possible phonemes. Which is why after living here a year and a half I have attained an approximately 2nd grade reading level. But I can read most signs, and I can write small words (an excellent party trick) so I consider myself successful. One last comment, the warning label on my eyedrops has informed me that possible side effects include bone marrow depression and/or newborn infants. What will happen? Will my bone marrow fall into a state of depression? Will newborn infants randomly appear? Stay tuned for more details. Love and miss you all!
My students make better paper airplanes that yours
First things first: Geaux Saints!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Shout out to all of Louisiana, this is the most exciting that has pretty much ever happened. And if you’re a Colts fan you shouldn’t be.
Second: Exams are not fun. Period. Thankfully I was a bit under the weather so I didn’t have to proctor the semester exams this time. Yay! The students were quite glad, as I’m the only teacher that doesn’t let them cheat. And by that I mean I don’t let them get up from their desks to go look at their friends’ papers. It is ridiculous the cheating here. I know I’ve talked about it before, but I’ll talk about it again. No one cares. Students yell answers to each other from across the room. They have conversations. They make paper airplanes with their exam papers and fly them over to classmates. I wish I were joking. They have all sorts of cheat sheets, many of them ripped pages out of their textbooks. And NO ONE CARES. I take away their cheat sheets and make them sit still. But it is impossible to stop them from talking. I can’t fail them, I really have no power over them. But they don’t like to make me angry, so that helps. But cracking down on cheating seems like a straightforward solution, so why isn’t there more of an effort to do this? It’s complicated. Number one, that would require more work of the already grossly underpaid teachers (if they’re paid at all). It’s much easier just to ignore the cheating. Another issue is that cracking down on cheating would need to be implemented nationwide. It would be unfair to judge the exam scores of students who freely cheated against those who weren’t allowed to. Well, they should just study harder. True, like many American students, some Cambodian students are lazy or unmotivated. But there is another side to the coin, and that goes back to the problem of teacher salaries. Often teachers’ already low salaries ($40-$80 a month) are a month or two late. And the teachers get paid this ridiculously low amount whether they actually show up or not. So often teachers choose the latter option. The problem is that they make tests based on the material they should have covered if we had school everyday and they showed up to class everyday. So sometimes students will have only had a couple of class sessions in a particular subject the entire semester, and are then tested over the entire book. So it’s kind of hard to tell them they can’t cheat, when the whole system is screwing them over. At my school, there is only one math teacher for grade 12, and the grade 12 national exam (basically their ACT/SAT) is on March 23rd. This math teacher is quitting teaching and going to work as a surveyor for the forestry service because it pays more. So with a little over a month left til the exam, the grade 12 students have no math teacher. And math is the most important subject on the exam. And then there are the questions themselves. I wrote a lot of the test, so it was a lot better than last year’s, but some sections were not run by me first. For example:
Have you seen a cup anywhere? We seem to be ___________ a) see b) missed c) lose d) found
What’s the correct answer? If you said e) none of the above – you are right! Unfortunately the students were not given option E. Having said all this, there are often comical aspects to an exam. This is what my students have to say about life:
When we fart in a crowded room, we feel excited. (It should be When we fart in a crowded room, we feel embarrassed)
The usually students play football on weekends
If she had become a politician that is why the police fined him
The boy was broken by the window (It should be The window was broken by the boy)
My daughter was cooked (It should be The food was cooked by my daughter)
I bought a bike. It was intelligent.
On Cambodian history:
Angkor Wat was attacked and decorated by Thailand.
Angkor Wat is one of the largest religious collapse in the world.
The king decorated the region
On the things money can buy:
Big clothes
A husband
A young womn
Honor
A good score on the exam
Modern (Modern what? Dunno)
Family happiness
A trip to the moon
And some of the questions on the exam weren’t exactly wrong, but certainly unusual. If the students filled in the blanks correctly, they would make these sentences:
If people did not die and leave the earth, the earth would be too crowded.
If the animals came when they were called, the people would have caught them easily without running.
So yeah. That’s examination Khmer style.
On a victorious note, I cleaned my room today. For those of you who are unaware of my tidiness-related habits, suffice to say they are non-existent. My dear mother spent 18 years of her life trying to get me to keep my room clean, alas with little success. That is not to say I am complete slob, I hate having food or anything that harbors mold and nasty bugs. But the simple act of folding my clothes and putting them away eludes me sometimes. This is not helped by the fact that I moved recently, and while I have a 5’x5’bed, I only have an 8’x8’ room. Meaning if I have a 1 foot wide walkway that leaves about 4 square feet of storage space. So today I went to the market and spent over $15 on storage items. That is almost a week’s salary.
But the problem is solved and now my room is clean, if not spacious. Walking back from the market, arms loaded with plastic storage apparati, every marveled at the sheer amount of things I bought. So now everyone knows that I have lived at the new house for four months and am just now getting around to cleaning my room. I know that I have integrated into my community because people now gossip about me in the same manner as they do each other. Sometimes people come through who don’t know me, and the only way I can think to describe is like the scene in Toy Story when Buzz and Woody land in the alien toy grabber machine and all the little alien toys are like “Strangers! From the outside! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” It’s kinda like that. And that can get annoying. But thankfully people are pretty used to seeing me. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve been asked how much bread I eat (I’m white, which clearly means I’m French, and clearly the French eat bread all the time, so it’s a logical question). The locals even correct out-of-towners when they ask “Who’s the French chick?” and the locals are like “She’s not French, she’s American, they’re different.” The revelation that French/English/American are all completely different astounds many people here. All white people are called French and it is assumed that they speak English.
Getting back to gossip, the market is like high school for old ladies. Every goes around telling everyone each others business. One day two market ladies will be best friends, the next not speaking to each other. It’s like a soap opera, but better. I get to just sit there and sip coffee while it all happens around me. The other day, my former host mom, to whom ascribing the term vain would be a gross understatement asked a police officer who was prettier, she, or her friend the rice seller. The police officer, who was obviously not born yesterday, says they’re equally pretty. This enrages my former host mom. She goes on about how she buys expensive (and slightly slutty, though she didn’t say that) clothes, wears make-up, gets her hair done, gets manicures, pedicures, the works (side note, she always talks about how she has no money, but every day she wears a new shirt to the market). Given all this, she should be significantly prettier than the rice seller. The rice seller just looks at her own chest, pulls her shirt down a bit, and simply says “mine are bigger.” That made my morning.
I have to laugh when people talk about how rich Americans are. Yesterday the market ladies were all comparing their $3 shirts. I, on the other hand, was wearing clothes I’d found in the give-away bin at the Peace Corps office. The majority of my wardrobe consists of things found in the give-away bin or purchased for fifty cents from a thrift store. I wouldn’t be caught dead paying $3 for an item of clothing. It’s an upside down world over here. But I have learned to read, at least a little! The language has 33 consonants and 27 vowels. Most of those vowels have two different sounds depending on what consonant they’re with. And the vowels are written above, below, to the left, and to the right of the consonant. And each consonant has another form (like how we have capital letters and small letters) that can be written underneath another consonant to shorten the sound. So there are 122 possible phonemes. Which is why after living here a year and a half I have attained an approximately 2nd grade reading level. But I can read most signs, and I can write small words (an excellent party trick) so I consider myself successful. One last comment, the warning label on my eyedrops has informed me that possible side effects include bone marrow depression and/or newborn infants. What will happen? Will my bone marrow fall into a state of depression? Will newborn infants randomly appear? Stay tuned for more details. Love and miss you all!
Shout out to all of Louisiana, this is the most exciting that has pretty much ever happened. And if you’re a Colts fan you shouldn’t be.
Second: Exams are not fun. Period. Thankfully I was a bit under the weather so I didn’t have to proctor the semester exams this time. Yay! The students were quite glad, as I’m the only teacher that doesn’t let them cheat. And by that I mean I don’t let them get up from their desks to go look at their friends’ papers. It is ridiculous the cheating here. I know I’ve talked about it before, but I’ll talk about it again. No one cares. Students yell answers to each other from across the room. They have conversations. They make paper airplanes with their exam papers and fly them over to classmates. I wish I were joking. They have all sorts of cheat sheets, many of them ripped pages out of their textbooks. And NO ONE CARES. I take away their cheat sheets and make them sit still. But it is impossible to stop them from talking. I can’t fail them, I really have no power over them. But they don’t like to make me angry, so that helps. But cracking down on cheating seems like a straightforward solution, so why isn’t there more of an effort to do this? It’s complicated. Number one, that would require more work of the already grossly underpaid teachers (if they’re paid at all). It’s much easier just to ignore the cheating. Another issue is that cracking down on cheating would need to be implemented nationwide. It would be unfair to judge the exam scores of students who freely cheated against those who weren’t allowed to. Well, they should just study harder. True, like many American students, some Cambodian students are lazy or unmotivated. But there is another side to the coin, and that goes back to the problem of teacher salaries. Often teachers’ already low salaries ($40-$80 a month) are a month or two late. And the teachers get paid this ridiculously low amount whether they actually show up or not. So often teachers choose the latter option. The problem is that they make tests based on the material they should have covered if we had school everyday and they showed up to class everyday. So sometimes students will have only had a couple of class sessions in a particular subject the entire semester, and are then tested over the entire book. So it’s kind of hard to tell them they can’t cheat, when the whole system is screwing them over. At my school, there is only one math teacher for grade 12, and the grade 12 national exam (basically their ACT/SAT) is on March 23rd. This math teacher is quitting teaching and going to work as a surveyor for the forestry service because it pays more. So with a little over a month left til the exam, the grade 12 students have no math teacher. And math is the most important subject on the exam. And then there are the questions themselves. I wrote a lot of the test, so it was a lot better than last year’s, but some sections were not run by me first. For example:
Have you seen a cup anywhere? We seem to be ___________ a) see b) missed c) lose d) found
What’s the correct answer? If you said e) none of the above – you are right! Unfortunately the students were not given option E. Having said all this, there are often comical aspects to an exam. This is what my students have to say about life:
When we fart in a crowded room, we feel excited. (It should be When we fart in a crowded room, we feel embarrassed)
The usually students play football on weekends
If she had become a politician that is why the police fined him
The boy was broken by the window (It should be The window was broken by the boy)
My daughter was cooked (It should be The food was cooked by my daughter)
I bought a bike. It was intelligent.
On Cambodian history:
Angkor Wat was attacked and decorated by Thailand.
Angkor Wat is one of the largest religious collapse in the world.
The king decorated the region
On the things money can buy:
Big clothes
A husband
A young womn
Honor
A good score on the exam
Modern (Modern what? Dunno)
Family happiness
A trip to the moon
And some of the questions on the exam weren’t exactly wrong, but certainly unusual. If the students filled in the blanks correctly, they would make these sentences:
If people did not die and leave the earth, the earth would be too crowded.
If the animals came when they were called, the people would have caught them easily without running.
So yeah. That’s examination Khmer style.
On a victorious note, I cleaned my room today. For those of you who are unaware of my tidiness-related habits, suffice to say they are non-existent. My dear mother spent 18 years of her life trying to get me to keep my room clean, alas with little success. That is not to say I am complete slob, I hate having food or anything that harbors mold and nasty bugs. But the simple act of folding my clothes and putting them away eludes me sometimes. This is not helped by the fact that I moved recently, and while I have a 5’x5’bed, I only have an 8’x8’ room. Meaning if I have a 1 foot wide walkway that leaves about 4 square feet of storage space. So today I went to the market and spent over $15 on storage items. That is almost a week’s salary.
But the problem is solved and now my room is clean, if not spacious. Walking back from the market, arms loaded with plastic storage apparati, every marveled at the sheer amount of things I bought. So now everyone knows that I have lived at the new house for four months and am just now getting around to cleaning my room. I know that I have integrated into my community because people now gossip about me in the same manner as they do each other. Sometimes people come through who don’t know me, and the only way I can think to describe is like the scene in Toy Story when Buzz and Woody land in the alien toy grabber machine and all the little alien toys are like “Strangers! From the outside! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” It’s kinda like that. And that can get annoying. But thankfully people are pretty used to seeing me. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve been asked how much bread I eat (I’m white, which clearly means I’m French, and clearly the French eat bread all the time, so it’s a logical question). The locals even correct out-of-towners when they ask “Who’s the French chick?” and the locals are like “She’s not French, she’s American, they’re different.” The revelation that French/English/American are all completely different astounds many people here. All white people are called French and it is assumed that they speak English.
Getting back to gossip, the market is like high school for old ladies. Every goes around telling everyone each others business. One day two market ladies will be best friends, the next not speaking to each other. It’s like a soap opera, but better. I get to just sit there and sip coffee while it all happens around me. The other day, my former host mom, to whom ascribing the term vain would be a gross understatement asked a police officer who was prettier, she, or her friend the rice seller. The police officer, who was obviously not born yesterday, says they’re equally pretty. This enrages my former host mom. She goes on about how she buys expensive (and slightly slutty, though she didn’t say that) clothes, wears make-up, gets her hair done, gets manicures, pedicures, the works (side note, she always talks about how she has no money, but every day she wears a new shirt to the market). Given all this, she should be significantly prettier than the rice seller. The rice seller just looks at her own chest, pulls her shirt down a bit, and simply says “mine are bigger.” That made my morning.
I have to laugh when people talk about how rich Americans are. Yesterday the market ladies were all comparing their $3 shirts. I, on the other hand, was wearing clothes I’d found in the give-away bin at the Peace Corps office. The majority of my wardrobe consists of things found in the give-away bin or purchased for fifty cents from a thrift store. I wouldn’t be caught dead paying $3 for an item of clothing. It’s an upside down world over here. But I have learned to read, at least a little! The language has 33 consonants and 27 vowels. Most of those vowels have two different sounds depending on what consonant they’re with. And the vowels are written above, below, to the left, and to the right of the consonant. And each consonant has another form (like how we have capital letters and small letters) that can be written underneath another consonant to shorten the sound. So there are 122 possible phonemes. Which is why after living here a year and a half I have attained an approximately 2nd grade reading level. But I can read most signs, and I can write small words (an excellent party trick) so I consider myself successful. One last comment, the warning label on my eyedrops has informed me that possible side effects include bone marrow depression and/or newborn infants. What will happen? Will my bone marrow fall into a state of depression? Will newborn infants randomly appear? Stay tuned for more details. Love and miss you all!
01 February, 2010
A Cambodian take on accident prevention
Over the course of four weeks, four students at school were seriously injured, and tragically, one was killed. As you might suspect, rules regarding safety are enforced sporadically if they exist at all. Normally, we just joke about it, but sometimes the consequences are more serious. All the accidents but one involved careless driving. And the one exception was a girl who was refilling a gas canister (something prohibited by US law due to high risk of explosion). The thing is, there are some regulations here. There is even one speed limit sign in my town. But the only consequence of breaking the law is a fine. Which is handed to the cop right then so no need to mess with pesky paperwork and judges. The downside of basically bribing the police to let you off is that the police only work when they run out of beer and need money to buy more. So as long as you have enough money or the police are sufficiently inebriated you’re good. Until you crash because you see no good reason to drive at a safe speed.
But what is the response to this situation? More safety training? A call for better police enforcement? Nope. We will offer rice to monks. Clearly the problem is that God is mad at the school. So by offering food to the monks, we receive their blessing (they douse us with water) and all is good. This ceremony is called a flower ceremony, Each grade level made a tree out of gold or silver foil and hung money (flowers) from the branches. Then they took the trees for a walk around the school. Then they gave food to the monks. While I myself don’t think that this was the appropriate response to the situation (but who am I to judge, traffic accidents are the leading cause of teen death in the states, so we’re not doing much better), I have to admit the ceremony itself was a really fun day. Each grade took their picture with a money tree, and most asked me to be in the picture too. So then each student wanted an individual picture with me. And then one of them gave me a red scarf she had made in home ec class. The scarf is actually quite warm, which will be fantastic when I get home, but on 95 degree day it did feel like a bit much. I was already wearing the diamond bow-tie earrings that another grade had given me so I was looking quite stylish if I do say so myself.
Another exciting school related function was the soccer/volleyball tournament. It happened this past week in the provincial town. We played schools from all over the province. The students played surprisingly well, especially the volleyball team. They finished first in the province, the soccer team finished third. I was glad I was there, as I got to remind the other teachers to encourage the students and not be such jerks. It was a little ridiculous. Our soccer team played a team that had been practicing since the start of the school year. Here’s the thing, in Cambodia, practice happens during class hours, so the players don’t attend class. At all. Our team has only been practicing for three or four weeks. So their players may be better, but ours are smarter. It was fun to see them play, and the students were all very excited that I came. Whenever someone was like “What’s with the foreigner?” They’d be like “She’s our teacher!” I felt loved. The funniest part was when the soccer boys stole the first place trophy from the volleyball team so they could have their picture taken with it. They were so excited. Both teams climbed into the truck and cheered the whole way home. Whenever they saw people on the road they would beat the drum (a bucket) and start hollering to the rather surprised passers-by. And then there was no school on Saturday. So everyone was happy. Semester exams are about to start. Ironically this means students stop coming to school as they know they can learn more on their own than from class. So life pretty much stops for the students until after testing.
In other news, a word about foreigners. Being a foreigner myself has given me an entirely different perspective on what it means to uproot your entire life and move to another country. I have an excellent community that has taken me in, but if I didn’t have that small town atmosphere, the sense of isolation would be overwhelming. So I encourage you, whenever you meet foreigners, be as nice to them as you can. Because nothing makes you feel worse than when people treat you like dirt just because you can’t understand what they’re saying. I chose to live in foreign country for two years, and could honestly go back home whenever I choose. But many people who immigrate to the states left their old lives behind permanently, they can never go back. And now they’re in a place surrounded by things they don’t understand. So go easy on them, because this is tough. And for those of you who think that people who live here should learn English, please try to learn a foreign language yourself first. I’m not trying to be ugly, but it’s way harder than it looks. I totally think that people who live here should try to learn. But after two month of intense language study and a year and half of immersion, I am still not fluent in Khmer, a language that is ten times easier than English. So when people speak to you in broken English, appreciate the fact that they are trying. And when they don’t understand what you’re saying, be patient. While I know my readers already know these things, it never hurts to have a reminder. Being a foreigner is one of the toughest things I’ve ever done. Because people treat you differently, and even though the people here think of me as a part of the community, I’m still not Cambodian and I never will be. And strangers either treat me either like royalty or like an animal. Hard to say which is more annoying. So life is hard for foreigners. Show ‘em some love.
That isn’t to say that being a foreigner is all bad. In many ways I can do whatever I want because people will just assume it’s an American custom. I can say whatever pops into my head because no one knows what I’m saying. I’m sure there are many habits that will need to be broken upon my return to the States. Like if I’m supposed to work at 7 then I should probably get up before 7. Here, no worries. 7:00 class doesn’t start til 7:15. What I really like is when I show up really late, but turns out I’m not late enough. I went to school at six thirty the other morning so I could ride the truck to the provincial town with the soccer players. I was half an hour late. Clearly I was confused. Should have been an hour and a half late like everyone else. And I probably should wear clothing other than my pajamas in public. And should probably not say whatever pops into my head. So if you see me when I first get back I say something very rude, I apologize in advance. My last word – Geaux Saints! Much love to all the Saints fans and if you are not one than you should be.
Love and miss you all
Brittany
Over the course of four weeks, four students at school were seriously injured, and tragically, one was killed. As you might suspect, rules regarding safety are enforced sporadically if they exist at all. Normally, we just joke about it, but sometimes the consequences are more serious. All the accidents but one involved careless driving. And the one exception was a girl who was refilling a gas canister (something prohibited by US law due to high risk of explosion). The thing is, there are some regulations here. There is even one speed limit sign in my town. But the only consequence of breaking the law is a fine. Which is handed to the cop right then so no need to mess with pesky paperwork and judges. The downside of basically bribing the police to let you off is that the police only work when they run out of beer and need money to buy more. So as long as you have enough money or the police are sufficiently inebriated you’re good. Until you crash because you see no good reason to drive at a safe speed.
But what is the response to this situation? More safety training? A call for better police enforcement? Nope. We will offer rice to monks. Clearly the problem is that God is mad at the school. So by offering food to the monks, we receive their blessing (they douse us with water) and all is good. This ceremony is called a flower ceremony, Each grade level made a tree out of gold or silver foil and hung money (flowers) from the branches. Then they took the trees for a walk around the school. Then they gave food to the monks. While I myself don’t think that this was the appropriate response to the situation (but who am I to judge, traffic accidents are the leading cause of teen death in the states, so we’re not doing much better), I have to admit the ceremony itself was a really fun day. Each grade took their picture with a money tree, and most asked me to be in the picture too. So then each student wanted an individual picture with me. And then one of them gave me a red scarf she had made in home ec class. The scarf is actually quite warm, which will be fantastic when I get home, but on 95 degree day it did feel like a bit much. I was already wearing the diamond bow-tie earrings that another grade had given me so I was looking quite stylish if I do say so myself.
Another exciting school related function was the soccer/volleyball tournament. It happened this past week in the provincial town. We played schools from all over the province. The students played surprisingly well, especially the volleyball team. They finished first in the province, the soccer team finished third. I was glad I was there, as I got to remind the other teachers to encourage the students and not be such jerks. It was a little ridiculous. Our soccer team played a team that had been practicing since the start of the school year. Here’s the thing, in Cambodia, practice happens during class hours, so the players don’t attend class. At all. Our team has only been practicing for three or four weeks. So their players may be better, but ours are smarter. It was fun to see them play, and the students were all very excited that I came. Whenever someone was like “What’s with the foreigner?” They’d be like “She’s our teacher!” I felt loved. The funniest part was when the soccer boys stole the first place trophy from the volleyball team so they could have their picture taken with it. They were so excited. Both teams climbed into the truck and cheered the whole way home. Whenever they saw people on the road they would beat the drum (a bucket) and start hollering to the rather surprised passers-by. And then there was no school on Saturday. So everyone was happy. Semester exams are about to start. Ironically this means students stop coming to school as they know they can learn more on their own than from class. So life pretty much stops for the students until after testing.
In other news, a word about foreigners. Being a foreigner myself has given me an entirely different perspective on what it means to uproot your entire life and move to another country. I have an excellent community that has taken me in, but if I didn’t have that small town atmosphere, the sense of isolation would be overwhelming. So I encourage you, whenever you meet foreigners, be as nice to them as you can. Because nothing makes you feel worse than when people treat you like dirt just because you can’t understand what they’re saying. I chose to live in foreign country for two years, and could honestly go back home whenever I choose. But many people who immigrate to the states left their old lives behind permanently, they can never go back. And now they’re in a place surrounded by things they don’t understand. So go easy on them, because this is tough. And for those of you who think that people who live here should learn English, please try to learn a foreign language yourself first. I’m not trying to be ugly, but it’s way harder than it looks. I totally think that people who live here should try to learn. But after two month of intense language study and a year and half of immersion, I am still not fluent in Khmer, a language that is ten times easier than English. So when people speak to you in broken English, appreciate the fact that they are trying. And when they don’t understand what you’re saying, be patient. While I know my readers already know these things, it never hurts to have a reminder. Being a foreigner is one of the toughest things I’ve ever done. Because people treat you differently, and even though the people here think of me as a part of the community, I’m still not Cambodian and I never will be. And strangers either treat me either like royalty or like an animal. Hard to say which is more annoying. So life is hard for foreigners. Show ‘em some love.
That isn’t to say that being a foreigner is all bad. In many ways I can do whatever I want because people will just assume it’s an American custom. I can say whatever pops into my head because no one knows what I’m saying. I’m sure there are many habits that will need to be broken upon my return to the States. Like if I’m supposed to work at 7 then I should probably get up before 7. Here, no worries. 7:00 class doesn’t start til 7:15. What I really like is when I show up really late, but turns out I’m not late enough. I went to school at six thirty the other morning so I could ride the truck to the provincial town with the soccer players. I was half an hour late. Clearly I was confused. Should have been an hour and a half late like everyone else. And I probably should wear clothing other than my pajamas in public. And should probably not say whatever pops into my head. So if you see me when I first get back I say something very rude, I apologize in advance. My last word – Geaux Saints! Much love to all the Saints fans and if you are not one than you should be.
Love and miss you all
Brittany
08 January, 2010
There's no such thing as a full pick-up.
Happy New Year everyone! While Cambodians don't really do anything for universal new year, never fear, for Chinese New Year is on the way, bringing with lots of firecrackers and all the fried noodles you can eat. And yes, no school. Well, it has started. We have put in enough school time, so the rest of the year will be looking for excuses to not have school. And we don't have to look too far. January 7 was victory day. It marks the official defeat of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. It's a one day holiday, on a Thursday. But Thursday is just one day. Obviously we have far too much partying to do to just take off Thursday. So how do you turn a one day holiday into a week off from school? Well that's the kind of thing they turn into an art here. The first step was to have a follow-up party on Friday. They don't even bother to call it a victory party. They call it a drinking party. You have snow days? We have Jonnie Walker days. One day down. And then, you move the Victory Day Ceremony to Tuesday, so you don't have to teach on Tuesday, and still get Thursday off. Two days down. Just to clarify: a week of no class only means less work for the teachers, as the students still have to attend the ceremony on Tuesday AND spend Monday cleaning the school and setting up for the ceremony. There are no janitors/maintainence people here. Each grade spends a certain number of hours a week doing labor instead of attending class. Soooo now we have almost the whole week off! Because my school is better than most at actually having class, we put in full day on Wednesday just for good measure. Yes friends, a school is dedicated to education when they choose to only take four days off to celebrate a one day holiday instead of five. And I'm not being sarcastic. But on that note: I love grade 11A! (Here each grade is divided into levels, 11A, 11B, 11C, etc. and those students have one classroom and stay there all day. The teachers rotate from classroom to classroom)I showed up for afternoon class on the ceremony day because... it's my job. I got there right as 11A was getting ready to go home because most teachers didn't show up(if a class decides they want to go home, they just all leave. And no one cares). They hurriedly run back into the room when they see me. So I chat with them for a minute and learn that because the speaker talked for so long in the morning, most of them didn't get lunch (it is now 2pm). It is incredibly hot and they all look kind of pitiful. So give them the option of going home (I'm a little worried they'll pass out from hunger and heat, because I sure would have. But they say no. They want to study. They pull out their notebooks. They are serious. I was so proud of them! I just played a review game, but despite their previous lethargy they really got into it and enjoyed themselves. While it is frustrating to have school treated as such a joke, it's moments like that which make it worth it.
There are some things that will never cease to amaze me no matter how long I live here. One of those is pick up trucks. So Wednesday, around 5pm, I learn that I have a dentist appointment the next day in Phnom Penh at 11:30. I tell them this is incredibly optimistic, considering the distance and road conditions from my site to the capitol. Whatever. So the next was Thursday, the aforementioned Victory Day. There were no taxis. Only pick ups. To give you some idea of size of these trucks, the Cambodian word for pick up is 'nissan'. How many people do you think could be carried by a Nissan pick up? First off, let me tell you that there were 9 people in the cab of the truck, 6 adults and 3 children. So we leave town at a reasonable hour. That is to say the truck moves about 500 feet. And we pick up people and things. And then the truck moves about a mile. And then it picks up more people and things. This continues for about 40 miles. How long did it take to cover 40 miles? 2 hours. From my site to Phnom Penh is about 140 nmiles. The trip took over 5 hours. Why? Because we don't just take people, but the things they bring to Phnom Penh to sell. Most people have at least two fifty lbs feedsacks filled with stuff. One woman had 8. Because these people don't live in towns, they just wait along the road for a truck to come by. So we a person and stop. And then the person and the driver bargain for the price of passage. And then they have to load all the things. So the all the people in the back of the truck have to get out. And once all the things are loaded everyone has to climb back in and arrange themselves. Also, snacks must be purchased every time the truck stops. Every. Time. And then we have to stop for brunch. And then we stop for the bathroom. Do we stop at the place that has bathrooms? Nope. We stop about a hundred feet before that and pee in the bushes. I should mention the drivers are always men, and they don't really take into account the fact that their female passengers can't just drop their fly on the side of the road. We finally arrive in Phnom Penh. I have missed my dentist appointment and have just enough time to get my swine flu vaccine (with complementary juice box!)and hop on a bus to the provincial town. Thankfully the bus only takes about 3 1/2 hours. So I'm spending the morning in the provincial town, getting some supplies for my girls club meeting tomorrow, and also avoiding the drinking party at site.
Saving the best news for last: When I arrived in the provincial town, boxes from Mom, Maw-Maw, Nanny Joni, and Jeanna Rutter were waiting for me. Thank you all!!!!!!!!!! So much food! A sampling of my loot: Life 2000-2009, a french press, tons of coffee, flavor blasted goldfish, gushers, candy canes, books, magazines, tea, little debbies, pajama pants, chocolate covered coffee beans, pop rocks, mint oreos, beef jerky, dark chocolate, hot cocoa, chritmas stockings, a light up snowman, a wind up santa, tony's seasoning, make up(perfect for wedding season!) a puppy calendar,and a snoopy notebook. Seriously I had to hire a motorized cart to get it all from the provincial volunteer's house. But wait, there's more! I recieved lovely Christmas cards and letters from Ruth Ann Holder (LOVE the barking dogs), Pam Chinn, Rose Ann Johnson, Lois McQuitty, Anne Keeks (sorry if I misspelled it), Marilyn Hartung, Marilyn Schoonover, Vic Comstock and family, Dennis and Sharon Smith, Shirley Grant, Jeanna Rutter, Maw-Maw, Nanny Joni, and Nanny Jan and Troy. A huge thank you to everyone. I know that many of you don't know me very well and some of you haven't seen me in a long time, but it really means a lot to me to know despite this you are praying for me and supporting me. While the people in my life know are wonderful and supportive, it's good to know that people back home are still thinking of me. So thank you everyone!!!!!
There are some things that will never cease to amaze me no matter how long I live here. One of those is pick up trucks. So Wednesday, around 5pm, I learn that I have a dentist appointment the next day in Phnom Penh at 11:30. I tell them this is incredibly optimistic, considering the distance and road conditions from my site to the capitol. Whatever. So the next was Thursday, the aforementioned Victory Day. There were no taxis. Only pick ups. To give you some idea of size of these trucks, the Cambodian word for pick up is 'nissan'. How many people do you think could be carried by a Nissan pick up? First off, let me tell you that there were 9 people in the cab of the truck, 6 adults and 3 children. So we leave town at a reasonable hour. That is to say the truck moves about 500 feet. And we pick up people and things. And then the truck moves about a mile. And then it picks up more people and things. This continues for about 40 miles. How long did it take to cover 40 miles? 2 hours. From my site to Phnom Penh is about 140 nmiles. The trip took over 5 hours. Why? Because we don't just take people, but the things they bring to Phnom Penh to sell. Most people have at least two fifty lbs feedsacks filled with stuff. One woman had 8. Because these people don't live in towns, they just wait along the road for a truck to come by. So we a person and stop. And then the person and the driver bargain for the price of passage. And then they have to load all the things. So the all the people in the back of the truck have to get out. And once all the things are loaded everyone has to climb back in and arrange themselves. Also, snacks must be purchased every time the truck stops. Every. Time. And then we have to stop for brunch. And then we stop for the bathroom. Do we stop at the place that has bathrooms? Nope. We stop about a hundred feet before that and pee in the bushes. I should mention the drivers are always men, and they don't really take into account the fact that their female passengers can't just drop their fly on the side of the road. We finally arrive in Phnom Penh. I have missed my dentist appointment and have just enough time to get my swine flu vaccine (with complementary juice box!)and hop on a bus to the provincial town. Thankfully the bus only takes about 3 1/2 hours. So I'm spending the morning in the provincial town, getting some supplies for my girls club meeting tomorrow, and also avoiding the drinking party at site.
Saving the best news for last: When I arrived in the provincial town, boxes from Mom, Maw-Maw, Nanny Joni, and Jeanna Rutter were waiting for me. Thank you all!!!!!!!!!! So much food! A sampling of my loot: Life 2000-2009, a french press, tons of coffee, flavor blasted goldfish, gushers, candy canes, books, magazines, tea, little debbies, pajama pants, chocolate covered coffee beans, pop rocks, mint oreos, beef jerky, dark chocolate, hot cocoa, chritmas stockings, a light up snowman, a wind up santa, tony's seasoning, make up(perfect for wedding season!) a puppy calendar,and a snoopy notebook. Seriously I had to hire a motorized cart to get it all from the provincial volunteer's house. But wait, there's more! I recieved lovely Christmas cards and letters from Ruth Ann Holder (LOVE the barking dogs), Pam Chinn, Rose Ann Johnson, Lois McQuitty, Anne Keeks (sorry if I misspelled it), Marilyn Hartung, Marilyn Schoonover, Vic Comstock and family, Dennis and Sharon Smith, Shirley Grant, Jeanna Rutter, Maw-Maw, Nanny Joni, and Nanny Jan and Troy. A huge thank you to everyone. I know that many of you don't know me very well and some of you haven't seen me in a long time, but it really means a lot to me to know despite this you are praying for me and supporting me. While the people in my life know are wonderful and supportive, it's good to know that people back home are still thinking of me. So thank you everyone!!!!!
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