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!

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.

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!