Some Pictures

 This is my sister from training. She lived in Phnom Penh but would come to visit every now and then.  Her English was fantastic and it was so nice to have her around.

 This is my mom from training.  She was absolutely wonderful.  She's an amazing woman.

 This was my tree.  My host brother carved my name into it.  Well, they carved what they thought was my name, "Hether".  I almost cried when I saw it.

 This was during swear in.  I love that shirt more than any other possession in the world. 

This was my language group.  My LCF (language and cross cultural facilitator) Savin (the one in the middle) was the most amazing Khmer teacher.

These are my friends and my first LCF Sam On that was my first Khmer teacher here.  He was hilarious and tons of fun.

 This was the day that I climbed the mountain.  It was a pain in the butt to climb but it was so rewarding once we got up there. From where I was sitting I could see Vietnam. And I couldn't have climbed up this mountain without the help of my friends who encouraged me the entire way. 

These are my two best friends and some little kid that we stole to be in this picture.  Behind us is the view that I got to see everyday when I left the house.  It was amazing.

My first Khmer wedding

So I went to my first Khmer wedding.  I didn’t actually go to the wedding ceremony part but from what I’ve heard it’s not that exciting.  You just wait around while the bride and groom change outfits 20 times while performing various small pieces of the ceremony.   But I went to the reception part.  I was seated at a table full of people I did not know and proceeded to not talk to the people at all for the entire duration of the 6 course dinner.  The guy who was sitting next to me though did talk to me to find out if I spoke Khmer and then I told him I was a teacher here and he knew I worked for Peace Corps.  He actually works for the Provincial Office of Education, Youth, and Sports (POEYS) in Takeo so he works where we did training.  We would go to the POEYS every week during training and he knew my training village and one of the people who was our lead Khmer teacher.  Small world.  Anyway, we ate  a delicious meal which was served in about 6 courses and all of which were amazing.  The Khmer people laughed at me when I used chopsticks though because I guess they think foreigners are incapable of using them but I proved them wrong by masterfully using them throughout the meal (except for one time when I was trying to pick up something round and it just wasn’t working so I stabbed it with one of the chopsticks and ate it…they got a kick out of that).  After the meal, everyone at my table got up and left. So my host dad, who finally acknowledged that I was there, brought me over and sat me with some women.  They were awesome.  They treated me like I was an idiot and didn’t know how to do anything which is perfect.  I need some people taking care of me and making sure I’m doing things right.  They were leading me around telling me what I should be doing and it reminded me of my training mom which was nice.  My new host family leaves me pretty much alone and thinks I can do everything on my own which is good in some respects but I like it better when they help me so I can make sure I’m doing things right and not making an idiot of myself.   I guess I’ve never really been without a mom.  During my senior year of high school I didn’t live with my real mom but I lived with my friend’s family and her mom treated me like one of her children so I had a mom then.  When I went to college my mom lived 20 minutes away so I had her whenever I needed her.  During training my mom treated me like one of her children and loved me like one of her children so I had that, but now my new mom is only 28 so she’s not really a mom to me and, like I said before, they leave me alone for the most part. So I no longer have a mom.  I guess I need to grow up and be a big kid now but I’m only 20.  I feel like I’m entitled to a little bit more mommy time.  Oh well, back to the wedding story.  The best part is coming up so don’t stop reading.  We threw flowers at the bride and her father as they walked down and aisle.  Well, I threw flowers, most people pelted the flowers full force into the bride’s face.  I guess they thought it was funny but it was like this poor bride was running the gauntlet.  She was being attacked with these flowers.  Anyway, we did that and then the bride and groom walked around a table with fruit a few times and then they fed fruit to the bride’s parents and then fed fruit to the groom’s parents and then fed fruit to each other, hugged, and then kissed on the cheek.  All the while, the women who my dad sat me with had left and they were replaced by this super creepy guy that teaches at the same school I teach at.  He had talked to me before but tonight he decided he was going to follow me around the rest of the night.  So I went back to sit near my host dad and he sat with me and he was telling me things like “You are dressed like a Cambodian woman tonight.  I’ve never seen a foreigner wear Khmer clothes like you do.  You look like a real Cambodian girl…but prettier”.  So this is when he started getting uber creepy.  He put his hand on my leg which is really uncommon and forward for a Khmer person.  Girls and boys should not touch at all and even handshakes can be a little too much physical contact between a girl and a guy.  However, on a side note, touching within the same sex is completely ok.  The boys here touch all over each other.  I look at them and think they are all gay because they all wear super tight pants and glittery flowery shirts.  But that’s just the way the guys here dress and act.  The girls are a little touchy feely, especially older women touching me which I have addressed in a previous post.  But not to the extent that the boys touch each other.  Ok, so back to my story, this guy was being really creepy and then he asked me to dance and everyone around me told me I should go do it so I did.  It was really easy to get the hang of dancing.  The music is awful and the dances are repetitive and boring but it was fun nonetheless.  Everyone just dances in a circle so I wasn’t one on one with the creepy guy…until the song changed.  Then I was facing him dancing and it was super weird.  While we were dancing around the fruit table he picked up a pumpkin and told me that the pumpkin represents the king.  I just nodded and smiled.  Then he pointed to the eggplant and asked if I knew what that represents.  I didn’t know but I knew that I didn’t want to know.  I apologize in advance for the language I’m about to use but he leaned in and whispered “It means a dick”.  That would be out of line for anyone to say to someone they hardly know but it’s even worse in this culture. I don’t even know this guy’s name.  So I stopped dancing with him as soon as I could and just then my dad was leaving so I had a nice out.  My tuk tuk driver was sitting outside for me (this guy is so awesome, I might post about him later) and I got in and went home.  I called my friend immediately to tell him about the craziness and while I was on the phone talking about the creepy guy guess who rides up next to my tuk tuk and starts trying to talk to me while we’re moving…that’s right…the creepy guy.  Then he finally drove off and said goodnight.  Crazy wedding night. 

From Training to Site Placement

So far I have completed 9 weeks of training and living with a host family, been sworn in as a volunteer, and spent my first 2 weeks at my permanent site.  I’m approaching the 3 month mark of my service.  As of right now my date of return will be no later than October 3, 2013.  I have so much to share with all of you and I wish that you could be here to experience these things with me.  But in lieu of that I will just give you a brief (well, brief-ish) account of the last three months.

When I first got here I was jet lagged from over 2 days of traveling without much sleep.  The first day we got in we were already in meetings and orientations and tours of the city.  I really like Phnom Penh but at that moment in time I liked sleep so much more.  We only spent 2 days in Phnom Penh and then we headed to Takeo province.  We stayed in the provincial town for about 5 days and did a whole bunch of training things to get us ready to go our training villages.  So in less than one week of being in the country we were on our way to go live with a Khmer host family.  By the way, Khmer is actually pronounced K’mai but everyone spells it Khmer.  I don’t know how it came to be spelled so much differently than it is said but phonetics in this country are all notoriously bad.  So I found out beforehand that my host family did not have running water or electricity and that they actually wanted a boy.  I also found out that they have 4 cows, 3 dogs, and tons of chickens.  Needless to say I was less than thrilled at this news.  So I went to my family and they don’t speak a word of English.  Well, my 17 year old brother could say a few things here and there but nothing more advanced than “My name is…” and “I am …. years old”.  So I met my new mom (for future reference I will be referring to her as my mom and the guys that I lived with as my brothers just because it is easier to talk about my family that way).  I got blessed by the monks at the Wat which was cool but they make you sit in a super uncomfortable position for an extended period of time.  So anyway, I met my mom and we went home with another trainee’s family that lived next to my family.  My brother somehow managed to fit both of our bikes on the back of his little moto and drove 4 kilometers home with them.  It was one of the funniest sites I had ever seen.  So that night was perhaps the most awkward night of my life.  My family was sort of strange and they wanted me to eat before they did.  It was really uncomfortable.  And then I had to figure out how to take a bucket shower.  So my mom was just blabbering on and on explaining everything to me while I was just nodding my head and smiling for most of it. She did know what “I don’t know” means so I would just say that and laugh every few minutes.  But I finally figured out how to take a bucket shower and that night my brother and my mom basically hot-wired a fan connected to a car battery so that I could have a fan at night. It was the sweetest thing.  And my brother almost got electrocuted while doing it, that part wasn’t sweet, but the sentiment was.  And when I say that I had no electricity I don’t mean we didn’t have light.  At night they would hook up the lights to the car battery so we had 4 or 5 lights that worked throughout the house area.  So at first I was really bummed about the house I got because most people had electricity and most people had at least one family member that spoke a little English and most people had a better house than I did but all of my disappointments about my house and family were quickly forgotten.  I fell in love with my family and my house there.  They are amazing people and my mom there is an amazing woman.  She did so much for me during my stay there.  I had a mom and 2 brothers ages 17 and 19 that lived in the house. I also had a sister that lived in Phnom Penh and one that lived in the provincial town in Takeo.  Both of the sisters came to visit a few times and they were awesome too.  I lived in the middle of rice fields and outside my window I had coconut trees and a view of the mountains in the background.  It was absolutely beautiful.  The view from my front door was amazing too. I can deal with living in a shack on stilts as long as I can have that view every day.  My mom quickly discovered what food I liked and what I didn’t and she started feeding me really really good food.  Throughout my entire stay there I still ate first and alone but it became less awkward and time went on although I think I’m the only trainee whose family did that.   I asked them again and again to eat with me but I think the respect and hospitality is so ingrained in them that they considered me a guest the entire time I was there and wanted me to eat first to make sure that I got enough to eat.  The Khmer people have a preoccupation with food.  My mom would try so hard to force me to eat bowl after bowl of rice, and by the way, we eat rice at EVERY meal.  No joke. Every single one. There would be the rare exception when my mom would make me fried noodles (pretty much ramen noodles) for breakfast but that’s it.  And they don’t want you to eat just one bowl of rice, they want you to eat six.  And soup. And meat.  And vegetables.  They seem to compete with other families on how much their foreigner can eat. It’s insane.  My mom was never happy with the amount of food I eat and my brothers would always make fun of me only eating a little. I don’t see how these Khmer boys can force down so much food and still be so tiny!  

So now for my cat story.  There was a tiny cat that showed up at our house one day and my mom started to feed it and it was the cutest kitten ever.  One morning I woke up with it curled up in my bathroom.  It was adorable.  So one day I come home and my brother is sitting in the hammock (which are god’s gift to man, I’m certain) and he says “The cat is dead”.  I’m shocked.  I asked him what happened and he really didn’t understand me but explained in Khmer what happened.  The dogs ate my cat. I was devastated.  I almost cried! He seemed to think it was funny though.  I guess things like that happen all the time.  Maybe if my family fed the dogs and they weren’t so emaciated they wouldn’t have eaten my cat so I don’t know if I can really blame the dogs but it was a sad situation all around.  Just another day in Cambodia.  Don’t worry, I have much happier stories too.

Now a word about grandmas.  In Cambodia they are called yeeys…or yays…however you want to spell it.  They pretty much run the house.  No one messes with the yeeys.  They are hardcore ladies that wouldn’t hesitate to cut you if you cross them.  Probably because they all survived the Khmer Rouge which makes you pretty much a badass to begin with.  These women usually have no teeth, no hair, babble incoherently at you and they walk around doing whatever they want.  Some choose to walk around naked.  But no one says anything because you just don’t mess with them.  My yeey came around a few times.  My yeey was younger than most.  She came up to me and started grabbing me all over.  The old ladies tend to do that.  I think it’s because they want to know if a white person feels the same as a Khmer person or maybe they think I look extra squishy so they want to test the theory for themselves.  I really don’t mind though.  After a few weeks of not being touched by anyone we were all a little starved for affection so I take it where I can. My yeey was awesome.  I saw her again during Pchum Ben (a 3 day holiday here) and I went to the Wat with her. 

Here’s my Wat story.  We went to the Wat and for some reason everyone there thought it was hilarious that I rode my bike there.  Peace Corps doesn’t allow us to ride on motos  (which EVERYONE in Cambodia drives) so we all are issued bikes and told to deal with it.  Some families have cars but not usually the ones we tend to live with.  Peace Corps doesn’t like to put you with a really wealthy family because they don’t want us to be ostentatious.  They want us to live with a modest family.  Of course the family has to have some qualifications in order to house a volunteer but they aren’t very high standards.  Anyway, we went into the Wat and I was immediately surrounded by people.  There was a group of 10-20 kids that would follow me around but every time I tried to talk to one of them or ask their name they would run away.  It was the craziest thing.  Then I went with my yeey to visit the other old ladies that live at the Wat who are basically the equivalent of nuns but for Buddhism.  Oh, I forgot to mention, pretty much everyone in this country is Buddhist and so was my training host family and the Wat is the Khmer word for Pagoda.  So when I went to see these old ladies I got groped more than I ever have in my whole life.  They like to grab my butt for some reason and squeeze my arms and then I sat down and one old lady started to tickle my feet.  So I moved my feet to the other side and she followed and continued to tickle my feet.  This went on for a good 20 minutes until my mom saved me and we went to go give gifts to the monks.  There was a lot of chanting while sitting in an uncomfortable position for a long period of time.  Then they had me give something to the monk (which has to be done in a certain way which I wasn’t aware of so I think I pissed off a monk if that’s even possible and everyone had a good laugh about it) and we lit incense and candles and it was a big thing.  All the people at the Wat were really interested in me and they were all really nice and told me that my Khmer language skills were very good.  I don’t think a foreigner has ever been to their Wat before.  We all had classes in a Wat everyday but that Wat was in the middle of town and the Wat that my family went to was way out in the country.  But it was definitely a notable experience.

In the last few days of my stay with my training host family I really bonded with them. I was finally acclimated to living there and taking bucket showers (I’m the bucket shower master now) and using a squat toilet and not having electricity.  And my mom and I got into a routine.  Even though we don’t speak each other’s language we still managed to communicate and she learned how I like to do my laundry and how I liked to eat and spend my time.  We came to so many mutual understandings without even speaking.  We spent so many nights sitting under the house with the dictionary trying to have a conversation and that’s when I bonded with her the most. The last few weeks I was there were so smooth.  It felt like home. The last day there I gave them gifts and my mom gave me a shirt and a sampot (traditional khmer skirt) that she had sewn for me.  It was really sweet.  My family is very poor rice farmers and yet they still gave me all that they could and I was touched more than I can ever say.  Like I said before, my mom is amazing and caring and loving.  I found out that she had survived the Khmer Rouge as well.  She was very young when they were in power but she still has memories of the soldiers forcing her to do manual labor and she is deathly afraid of earthworms (because the earthworms here are monstrous) and they would make her step on them with her bare feet while she worked even though she told the soldiers she was scared.  It was hard not to cry when she was telling this story.  It was a very powerful moment and I think that also helped us get closer.  She always made sure that I was as comfortable and as happy as possible.  When I left she started crying which made me start crying and she gave me a hug (which Khmer people don’t normally do.  Hugging isn’t really part of their culture) which was really awkward because she’s probably 4’9’’ and I’m 5’6’’.  And she gave me a kiss.  Khmer kisses are super weird though.  They don’t kiss with their lips.  I’ve actually never seen anyone kiss each other on the lips here.  Maybe some of the younger couples do it but I haven’t seen it yet.  The kisses that they give are on the cheek and they aren’t so much kisses as they are sniffs.  They put their nose up to your cheek and give you a big sniff.  It’s super weird. So I got one of those on each cheek.  Well only one made it on my cheek after I bent down a little because the first one ended up on my neck because she’s so short. It was a really sad goodbye but I plan on visiting her a lot during my service.  Plus, her food is a lot more delicious than my new mom’s food.  So that’s reason enough to go back for visits. 

So now about the other parts of training.  We spent 3-4 hours a day learning the language and about 3 hours doing technical training and learning more about safety and the culture.  During week 5 we had practicum where we taught Khmer students in the classroom.  We were supposed to be teaching 10^th graders but our group somehow got a bunch of 7^th -9^th graders with absolutely no English skills so that was definitely a challenge.  But it all turned out ok in the end.  Sometimes the training sessions were monotonous and boring but some of them were very helpful.  It was like a 9 week crash course in everything you need to know to be a teacher and a 9 week language bootcamp.  At the end we had to have a language proficiency interview to determine if your language skills are good enough for you to be on your own at site.  I got a novice high which is the score we needed to get in order to pass.  We’ll have the same interview a few more times during our service to keep checking our language progress.  Training itself was not awful but it wasn’t always the most exciting thing in the world.  The best part about it was the friends I made.

I have 2 best friends here.  Gilbert and Les.  You’ll never guess what Les’s last name is…..it’s Miles.  Yes, that’s right, my best friend’s name is Les Miles.  No joke.  He’s from Iowa.  And Gilbert is one step away from being a GQ model.  They are what got me through training. It’s weird to have bonded so quickly with everyone.  We’ve only known each other for a few months and already I know that they will probably be in a part of my life for the rest of my life.  I guess it’s a combination of mutual goals, similar backgrounds, and being stuck with the same people for 9 weeks straight that builds such close bonds.

After training we went to Phnom Penh to do studious and cultural things that enriched our minds…hahaha….not really, we went there to party.  This was the weekend when we were going to swear-in as volunteers and finally not be trainees anymore. So we had a good 4 days of celebration.  I got an awesome shirt made (it’s blingtastic).  There are pictures of it on my facebook if you’d like to see it.  I love it.  It’s so Khmer and when I say that I mean it’s super gaudy and over the top which is what they love here.  Swearing in was fun and then I was off to my site.  My new site has electricity (that tends to work sporadically throughout the day but I have a pretty high powered fan that usually works all through the night so I’m a happy camper) and they just finished remodeling party of the house so now there is a bathroom with a shower head and running water.  AND I live at the BEACH!!!!!  I’m about a 15 minute bike ride from the beach and it’s amazing. I was sad because I thought that I would have to go 2 years without swimming but I ended up at the one site that has water that is safe to swim in.  Although no Khmer people really know how to swim so I’m going to take it upon myself to remedy that.  Swim lessons in Cambodia! I’m probably one of the luckiest volunteers.  Most people are in very remote villages and they have to wait til they come to Phnom Penh to get good western food of any kind but my town is full of it.  I have Western grocery stores everywhere and conveniences that no one else gets.  I feel like I’m not living in ‘real’ Cambodia though.  I’m not really a novelty at my site because there are so many tourists and all the Khmer people are really used to seeing them all the time.  And, because it’s so touristy, everyone speaks amazing English.  I don’t think my Khmer is going to improve much but I’m still going to try to resist the temptation to talk in English all the time.

I know I said this was going to be brief but I guess I lied. Sorry!  That’s about all that’s new with me though. I have tons of little stories of funny things that have happened to me while here but I’ll save that for my next update. 

Peace, love, and rice