Dance magic dance

Synchronized aerobic dancing on the Mekong river at dusk with a bunch of Cambodian ladies and 8-12 year-old boys may just be the best thing ever.

We're moving to our (first) host families today! Lots to be done in preparation so things have been busy and everywhere has been soggy with the monsoon rain. Cambodia is beautiful so far.

Joom reap sua

Between started to learn Khmer and getting all the details of our upcoming training, my brain is crammed full of new information at the moment. I think a lot of it must be leaking right back out at this point, but I've got a few basics down. What is your name? How are you? Have you eaten rice yet? Supposedly, most everyone I meet here will ask me those questions in that order.

Luckily, for now my only real job is to learn for a while. Actually, other than trying to learn too much all at once, things in Cambodia are surprisingly easy. Sure, it is a bit warm, but for example, right now I'm sitting in a room with two fans and doors open to the cooling rain outside. Not too shabby.

what time is it???

I think right now it's Thursday at 10pm here in Phnom Penh. My body and my computer are telling me otherwise. At any rate, we made it! In the past couple days...

- flew to San Francisco and met 54 other new Peace Corps Cambodia folks
- made a last run to Walgreens and slept a few hours in a hotel
- flew 14 hours to Hong Kong
- took the train into Kowloon for three hours to see the view of the city and check out the night market
- got asked for my fist "picture with a white person" photo of this trip
- slept for a few hours in a hotel
- flew 2 hours to Phnom Penh
- cleared customs and was greeted by a horde of Peace Corps people with signs and cheering
- had my first Khmer meal
- had a welcome session and an intro to the diseases that will threaten to smite us over the next two years
- got a bunch of shots (sadly not camera shots but the kind with a needle)
- walked around Phnom Penh and learned some crucial information (e.g. the Khmer names of mangosteen and rambutan, which I will be buying frequently)
- got more Khmer food with a group of more than 50 new, old, and current Peace Corps Cambodia Volunteers


Jet lag has been remarkably manageable...until around 4pm Phnom Penh time today. I powered through, but I have now reached my goal staying-up time. Goodnight!

and we're off

Hello blog readers. Thanks for your interest in my trip to Cambodia. I've been keeping the identity of my blog something of a secret for a while. Now it's just about time to start my Peace Corps adventure, so I thought it would be more interesting from here.

To recap, I'm getting on a plane in about nine hours. First, I'll be in San Francisco for a short day what Peace Corps calls Staging. We (the 55 Peace Corps Cambodia Volunteers) will be on another flight - this one more than 12 hours - the next day. We'll spend a short night in Hong Kong before heading to Cambodia bright and early the morning after. (Well, morning Hong Kong time, which will be evening where I am now.) In Cambodia, we'll spend one night in the capital, Phnom Penh, and four nights in a guest house in Kampong Cham, a provincial capital a few hours outside of the capital. After that first week or so, I'll be living in a village close to Kampong Cham with a host family and having two months of training. Sometime in there, I'll find out where I will be placed - i.e. where I will be living and working for the next two years.

I will have little access to internet during training these first two months and will apparently be pretty busy, so bear with me while things get started. Stay tuned!

excitement

Less than a week out now. Not thinking about that.

Everyone keeps asking me if I'm excited. The easy answer? Yes! Of course! This is something I've wanted to do for years, and I know it will be an unbeatable experience. Realistically...sometimes I'm excited. No more jumping and squealing at the moment. This is something I've wanted to do for years. I know it will be an unbeatable experience, but it's not easy to comprehend the prospect of picking up and leaving the world I know for more than two years. I've got pretty a good thing going here in DC. I live in an awesome, huge (not to mention cheap!) old house in a perfect location with pretty sweet roommates, a veg kitchen, a treasure trove of nerdy boardgames and opponents, and one unforgettable cat. I've got easy access to work, volunteering, cheap groceries, a slew of free museums, plus trails through the woods and other outdoorsy things. I have friends who have ended up here from all the different places I've lived. I'm not in a hurry to leave. In Cambodia, I'll probably be hot and sweaty pretty much constantly. I'll probably have to eat meat after more than 7 years of vegetarianism. There is a high likelihood I will get Dengue Fever and/or other tropical diseases. I don't know a single person in the entire country right now and speak only a few words of Khmer.

Still, I'm fairly sure it is going to be one heck of a good time.

preparations

Some of the things I'm doing to prepare:

1) Eating tons of American junk food. I've been basically rotating through CVS's weekly candy and junk food sale items. Dark chocolate Reese's Peanut Butter Cups? Yes please. Oversize bag of Sour Patch Kids? Check. Kettle cooked potato chips? I think a bag of those can fit in my desk too. What would a Cambodian person think of the sheer variety we have available of differently labeled and colored high fructose corn syrup?

2) Watching Hulu like it's my job. Maybe it could be my job. Wait, that isn't part of my job? I mean really, reality television is good preparation because it lowers my expectations of society. But can we talk about how they're shipping us out on the day of the Tahiti episode of The Bachelorette? Yes, I've seen the spoilers and know what's coming, but that confrontation with Frank, the sensitive goofy playwright from Illinois, is going to be priceless. I mean what? What just happened, someone must have hijacked my blog.

3) Lying around in air conditioned places. It's 99 degrees in Washington at the moment (high of 101). The high today in Phnom Penh was 98. If you have lived with me or are my sister, you know that I have a moderate distaste for air conditioning. Given that I'm going to be hot for the next two years, though, I think a little air con won't hurt.

4) Oh yeah, and studying Khmer on my lunch break. I figured I should at least try to look like I was doing something responsible to prepare. For the record, Khmer is nuts! It's kinda cool, too, like how in counting it's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, then 5+1, 5+2, 5+3, etc. Also, there are a few small things I've noticed that are taken from Hindi. Yes! I told you my random language skills would come in handy someday! Also, Khmer has no verb conjugation, no gendered nouns, and no plurals. On the other hand, the alphabet has about 100 different symbols that look each look like small drawings. Imagine, in a few months, I'll be spouting off Khmer like nobody's business.

two weeks

That is, two weeks from today, I will be on a plane to my Peace Corps staging. Technically, I won't actually be leaving the country until two weeks from tomorrow.

I spent today shopping for all those things I "need" for my time in Cambodia. I say "need" because many of these things I'm bringing with me will be out of reach to the typical person where I'll be going. Can't help but look around at all the clothes, golf clubs, video games, beauty products, toys, etc. being bought by the Americans who can afford them.

thinking too much

I've decided thinking too much is a bad thing. Must stay calm.
Two weeks of work left.

PANIC PANIC PANIC

I still have no idea how to imagine Cambodia in my mind. I have yet to conjure up a mental image of what it will be like to be there. Consequently, right now thinking about the future means thinking about grad school in two or three years or maybe a vacation to the Philippines. That plane in two 1/2 weeks might as well be taking me into a black hole.