Saturday, August 21, 2010

Highlights of the past two weeks

*Disclaimer – since I’m without internet at my training village, I’ve been writing blog posts and have not been able to post them. I’m going to go ahead and post a few things for your enjoyment. Ready, set, enjoy!*

Hello again from Kampong Cham! It’s been almost two weeks since my last internet foray, but I’ve got the whole day off in the “big city” today, so I’m going to try and even upload some pictures. No promises. What do people want to see? Pictures of my host family and village, pictures of the other Peace Corps people, or maybe pictures of the giant horned beetle that was hanging out on my roof the other night? And what is interesting to hear about? Can I start taking requests?

A few highlights of the recent bit of training:

- Being on a bus that broke down for three hours on the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere. This might be more of an ‘important points’ highlight than a ‘best things ever’ highlight, but it turned out to be something of an adventure. About 8 of us were on the same bus coming back from our site visit, and we all found it at least moderately humorous to be stranded in the middle of nowhere in Cambodia. An elephant being walked down the main highway passed our bus. Like you do.
- The plate of crickets that showed up at my table at dinner the other night. Now, I’d actually eaten a cricket when I came to Thailand and Cambodia back in 2004. A bunch of Peace Corps-ers also tried them (along with palm-sized grilled tarantulas) the second day we were here at a bus stop. For some reason, though, having them put in front of me at dinner was still hilarious. They’re really not bad.
- The spider that was wandering our classroom on Wednesday carrying an egg sack the size of a silver dollar that hatched tiny little spiders all over the backpack of another PC-er. Let me tell you, those buggers are FAST.
- My trip last weekend (by ‘weekend’ I mean our day off on Sunday) out to the fields around our village. With my family on a series of motorbikes, I rode my PC-issue mountain bike out through the big rubber plantation just outside of town to a series of dirt paths winding through a massive set of corn, soybean, and pineapple fields. (Pineapple fields, by the way, just look like very tidy rows of spiky pineapple tops. The pineapples grow underground. Who knew?) Because the fields are built on a higher patch in mostly pancake-flat Cambodia, you could see for miles. The soil around this province is supposedly notoriously rich, and, at least last weekend, it was dark red-brown and very moist-looking. Not too shabby if my food is actually coming from there. Anyway, the fields were beautiful, but we were actually headed out to a temple back in the forest. It turned out to exceed my wildest dreams, emphasis on the wild. What seemed to be the main temple was built inside of a mock pirate ship in the middle of a lake/moat where some children were playing and some ladies were washing clothes. On one side, a series of giant lily pads created a walkway up to another temple, this one in a more traditional form outside. Also part of the complex were a giant statue with one figure pointed skyward and an even more giant statue of a rabbit. Why the rabbit? I have no idea, and my family couldn’t tell me either. But we have some excellent pictures to prove it.

Normalcy

So now that I’ve been in Southeast Asia about a month, certain things pretty much normal, for example, seeing a pickup truck full of fish unloading at the market or having gigantic spiders wandering around the classroom without anyone flinching or watching 5 people riding a single motorbike or having children run to the road to scream Hello!!! Hello!!! when I ride by on my bike. A lot of ‘normal’ things from home are also now extremely rare. The big one here: Internet. Let me lump in with the Internet any source of general information. I could be debating with some of the other Trainees in my village about what exactly Dengue rash looks like, for example, but we can’t really Google it or have someone look it up on their iPhone or even go to a library with books on the topic. (Speaking of Dengue, yes, they have it here. Yes, three people in our training class have already had it. Yes, there is a fairly decent chance I could get it, but it is survivable).

Anyway, that said, the internet is magical for short period of time. When you’re sitting in front of a computer all day, even TMZ, Facebook, and Gchat can’t deliver enough information to keep you occupied. In Cambodia, I get to log on to a week’s worth of news, decide what’s really important enough to warrant loading with a 5Kbps connection (as opposed to trolling TFLN or MLIA for 2 hours), and then I get to forget it and interact with real people most of the time.

As you can imagine, things like hot showers, air conditioning, Pringles, ice cream, toilet paper, and going outside past 6pm are also luxuries to be had once in a while whenever we’re in the ‘big city’ (aka Kampong Cham, a town of about 60,000 people).

It’s flabbergasting (I maintain that I am supposed to be immersing myself in a new language and have no requirement to use English correctly) how quickly little things can make your day, really, when you’re even a little bit used to a routine. Sitting in my bed under my mosquito net listening to music and doing Sudoku in my sarong has become a treat a few times a week. A couple days ago, my little 2-year-old host cousin (my mom’s sister’s grandson who lives next door) came over and sat in my lap for about 5 minutes. That was the most human contact I’d had in one day since I left home, and let me tell you, it was awesome. Speaking of awesome, this week also led to the discovery of a little thing we like to call Ahvultihne tuk dah goh tuk gah (iced Ovaltine with), also known as liquid cake. It is roughly the tropical equivalent of hot cocoa on a cold, snowy winter night and is extra good because it is drunk through a bendy straw. I am not ashamed to admit that I spend a decent amount of time planning my afternoon trips to the ‘coffee shop’ to get a glass. Come to think of it, pretty much any delicious food can make my day – tropical fruits, occasional French-fry like potatoes at dinner, fried noodles, or maybe some grilled rice and bananas wrapped in banana leaves. Hands down the most delicious thing I’ve eaten here so far is this the pumpkin and coconut milk soup (baw baw l’peu) that I’ve had twice. The second time I got to make the coconut milk for it by soaking and squeezing shredded coconut through what I’m fairly sure was a pillowcase. Yeah.

Peace Corps now

In a bit of the bigger picture, training goes on. I’ve now been in the country just about a month. I’ve been living with my host family a little more than three weeks, and I’ll be with them another 4-5 weeks, until the end of training. After that, I’ll be moving in with another host family…somewhere in the country of Cambodia. Granted, Cambodia is about the size of Oklahoma, so there is not a whole lot of difference from one side of the country to the other, but there are big and small towns, big and small families, etc. A week from now, I’ll find out where in Cambodia I’ll be living for the next two years. It might seem surprising that I don’t that yet, but to me it actually seems very soon to be finding that out. I’ve had at least one dream this week about getting a placement hours and hours away from everyone else, although in reality, I’m pretty sure there aren’t many bad sites to be had. In western Cambodia there is Battambang (big-ish city) and the Thai border, towards the north Siem Reap and the Angkor temples, west is the border with Vietnam, and south could be one of the coastal provinces. We’ll see!

This week, the teaching trainees among us (about 2/3 of our group of 55) got to actually get into the classroom and do 6 days’ worth of practice classes. Teaching is pretty fun, but doing it every day is EXHAUSTING. Em and Andy, if you’re reading this, I have a not-really-newfound respect for what you guys do. Maybe it is especially tiring when your class consists of 60 Khmer teens crammed 3 to a desk learning from books that are far too advanced for their knowledge of English. Still, I only had to teach an hour a day - well, that and watch two other hours of teaching, speak slowly to the brave students during breaks, and pose for pictures one by one with a good portion of the girls in my class. Now next week sounds like a breeze. I just have to sit back and learn again.

Word of the week

My favorite word this week: playch chung. Playch means ‘to forget’ and playch chung as a phrase means something roughly akin to ‘oh man, I totally forgot, my bad.’ I learned this on Tuesday and proceeded to use it immediately in a variety of very important scenarios. Act I, Scene I: Kaitlin is trying to help her host mom cook dinner, like she does every night. We are having for the second time this week a half-vegetable half-herb that smells very fragrantly terrible when cooking but tastes yummy. Kaitlin has to ask for the umpteenth time what the name of it is. “Playch chung.” Act I, Scene II: Kaitlin’s language teacher asks her to report back on the homework assignment for last night – to ask a family member a few particular questions. Oh no! “Playch chung!” Act II, Scene I (the finale): Kaitlin’s family has finished eating dinner and is sitting casually chatting about the day. They start to look at Kaitlin expectantly. See, Kaitlin usually takes her second shower of the day (Why doesn’t she take three? That silly foreigner.) before dinner, but today she was busy helping to cook. Now they are trying to gently say, “Kaitlin, dear, we’re sorry, but you’re starting to smell. Please go throw a few buckets of water on your head.” Ahhh. “Playch chung.”
~The end~

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Internet!

I finally have internet for a few hours! There are already plenty of stories to share, but I don't know where to start. To give you some orientation, here's an idea about a typical day right now with my host family in my training village...

5:30/6:00 - Wake up in my mosquito net tent/bed to some morning noises - pigs, dogs, loudly blasting wedding music. (Yes, they start at or before 6am, even though it isn't wedding season.)

6:15-ish - Crawl out of bed, put on a sarong and kroma (checked scarf/cloth) to cover my shoulders while I walk to the bon dub tuk. In the bon dub tuk, pour about 15 bucket dippers of cold water over my head, shiver, lather, rinse, and repeat.

7:00 - Hop on my gong and head the few hundred meters to my teacher's house for class. Along the way, encounter the HELLO!!!! HELLO!!!s of the local children, be laughed at for my funny helmet, and, if it has rained the night before, try to avoid getting too much mud on my sampot.

7:10 - Maybe stop by the p'saa and grab some noodle soup, fruit, or baguette for breakfast.

7:30-11:30 - Attempt to learn to speak Khmer. This probably involves sitting with my teacher and group of 5 students under the shade of some fruit trees and playing some memorization games, periodically taking breaks to have a (glass) bottle of coke from the little stand on the corner or have some fried banana chips from bananas farmed, harvested, sliced, dried, and fried by the family whose house we use for class.

11:30 - Hop back on my gong. HELLO!!! HELLO!!!

11:45 - Arrive home and be ushered out to the table at the back patio. A tray appears with 3-4 dishes, usually some sort of soup with veggies, a plate of little fish with very small bones, and probably an omelet or hard boiled eggs. Sit down with my host mom, a tailor, and Lai, a 21-year-old who is essentially apprenticing with my host mom and lives at our house. Spoon a spoonful at a time of one kind dish onto my bowl of rice, 1-2 large plates of which are eaten at each meal. (Apparently I'm lucky in this, since some of my fellow trainees are being encouraged to eat three or more!) Try to describe or answer some questions about what food/clothes/people/houses/families are like in America.

12:30 - (Optional, once or twice a week) Attempt to do some bow ka aow (literally "throwing shirts and pants") which involves a struggle between me and an unwieldy bowlful of soaking wet clothes and water and soap in my little bathroom. By the time I have scrubbed each item, rinsed twice, and wrung out my clothes, I'm usually soaked myself. I hang up the wet stuff on the balcony upstairs and try to remember it when the afternoon rains start to threaten.

1:15-4:30 - Hop back on my gong. Have some sort of afternoon session about teaching English or the like.

4:30 - Head to the local coffee shop for a tea with sugar and condensed milk over ice or a durian fruit shake.

5:00 - Maybe stop by the p'saa again to buy some of the fruit that is in season right now - pineapple, longan, rambutan, durian, watermelon, mini bananas, dragon fruit, mangosteen, etc.

5:15 - Arrive home after a strenuous ride the length of town the few blocks along the main road from the p'saa to my house. Try to ask if I can help with cooking dinner. Be told to go take a shower. Throw another 15 buckets of water over my head and change into casual clothes. Maybe get to help with some of the minimal food prep after I look a little less grimy. Visit with the neighbors, most of whom are family of my host mother's, who roam in and out. Say hi at least to some of the regulars - two of my host mother's nieces, my host mother's sister, and various children. These include a little host cousin who may be the most adorable child in the world after my niece and one I've named Uht Tmun (Toothless) who is a bit older and helps me with some Khmer by reading the phrases I point to and ask about.

6:00 - Sit down to another dinner at the table on the back patio consisting of 3-4 dishes of fish, veggies, and eggs to be spooned over a bowl of rice. Depending on the particular day, I might be eating with my 24-year-old host sister and her 5-year-old son or, on the weekends, my host father (when he is back from working in the city) in addition to my host mom and Lai.

6:30 - After dinner, try to help with the dishes. Will probably not be successful, since after we are finished eating, a stream of visitors suddenly appears. This probably includes some more family and maybe some neighbors curious about the barang lady living at the house. Usually we move up to the third floor to sit on the roof patio and enjoy the breeze and view of the 'mountains.' (Cambodia is very flat, but we are lucky to have two small hills near our village that seem to be the pride of town.) For the rest of the evening, I sit on the floor with Lai and my two high-school-aged cousins who are studying English. They practically force me to bring out my Khmer grammar book to do some practice while they learn some English in the process.

8:00/8:30 - Be asked if I am tired. Take this as my cue to go down to my room. Refill my water filter so I will have my very own clean water to drink. Try to arrange any wet items to dry overnight. Climb back into my mosquito tent and enjoy the clean feeling of the new mattress, new sheets, new blanket, and new pillow issued to me by the Peace Corps. I have to say, being and feeling clean is a wonderful feeling when you're a little (or a lot) sweaty and dirty all day. Review notes, listen to music, or do Sudoku. (I happened to have this Sudoku book when I moved out of my house, and I've suddenly become a Sudoku fiend at night in Cambodia. I can't explaing it.)

9:30 - Realize I can't keep my eyes open anymore and turn out the flashlight on my cell phone (WHY DON'T U.S. CELL PHONES HAVE FLASHLIGHTS?!) so I can get some sleep.


We've only been in our training villages a week and a half, but this routine seems like it will be more or less accurate for the next 8 weeks or so. After that, all bets are off. I won't actually find out where I will be placed in country for a few more weeks. For the next three days, though, we're headed out around Cambodia to visit some current Peace Corps Volunteers at their sites. Myself, I'll be going somewhere near Pursat for the weekend. I may not have internet for another fair bit, but I trust if you've managed to find me here, you can take a look at it on Google maps if you're interested. For now, li howi.