The first 8 months (its about time to send this out)

a map of Cambodia, I currently live in Kampong Cham Province

If you want to know the time or weather here, click here:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=199

I apologize ahead of time about any spelling errors, grammatical mistakes or run- on sentences. I really dont like to edit... sorry !  I guess since its been 8 months already, it feels like Im writing about my normal everyday experiences, which are starting to feel less and less unusual.

I havent written a blog up until now, but a lot has happened. I was very tired and my brain was so exhausted each day in the beginning, that I really didn’t have the energy to re- hash everything at the end of the day in a blog. ( plus I didnt have my computer until the end of the two month training period)  But I thought that since I had some decent material building up,  including the interesting misunderstandings Ive had lately , I thought Id finally send out a summary of some important subjects like trash and eating. I realize that my host family and most of my community have no realistic idea about who Americans are, about me or where I come from. Why do I like to stay in the house so much? Why do I brush my teeth after I eat? Why do I like to exercise when I can just ride a moped, and why cant I just BUY a moped, surely I have so much money!  why do I eat so many vegetables, dont I know they will make me fat. Why do I drink water? That too will make me fat. I guess its just as strange to them as it is to me that they would question these things. The people here are great, they are patient and they dont get into confrontational agruments and they really seem happy that Im here.   So, after 8 months Im starting to try and be more of an American again, I shouldnt have to dress, eat and act the way Cambodians do ALL of the time, as long as Im being appropriate and not putting myself in danger, I can be myself.  Ive been showing them and telling them a little more about why I do certain things. I have compromised my way of life quite a bit already, but I realize in the beginning I couldnt just tell them everything they were doing was wrong. Now I have some credibility in the 'hood' so I can start to influence them on thier health and hygiene. But up until now, ive had been just trying to get to know the people, getting them used to seeing me around. Ive had to try to think the way they think in order to understand why in the heck they do certain things, or act certain ways. Thats been interesting. They still use traditional healers for things, not everyone, but alot of people. They believe in ghosts and reincarnation. They dont believe in showiong alot of negative emotion. Thier culture is like a mix of modern and 3rd world.. .basically everyone has cell phones, but some may have no electricity. From appearance they often look like the average income kind of person, but when you go to thier house, it could be a shack with no running water (well thats standard) but thier house may be made of tree branches... and cows living under thier house, or in thier common living area... and chickens running around everywhere. 

current volunteers and our training director greeted us at the airport

my house. The bus is out for the day, cows out grazing.

 The first two  months

my bedroom

Pannet's underwear are red. Thats one of the first things I learned how to say that was funny, so now its our inside joke. I said it a hundred times, and have to say it when I see them now, to make them laugh.

Language Class

a typical Wat from the outside

Ive been here 8 months now. The first 2 months were spent with a training host family. 50 of us came over, and there were 35 other volunteers already here serving thier first year. 18 of us were placed in 3 different villages. We were given a special welcome by the community at the local Wat  (Pagoda) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wat
(Buddhists place or worship and community hall) The chief of the village spoke and informed us there had never been any foreingers to live in this village and the people were very excited, and curious. The monks also chanted, blessing us and then one by one we were called to the front to meet our host families. What a nervous time. I couldn't speak their language, they cant speak English.  The pictures peace corps took are really funny. Then peace corps dropped us off at our new homes one by one. Each time someone got out before me, I would giggle in anticipation as to what I could expect too, some peoples houses were nice, others weren't so nice. I have a picture of one guy who got dropped off at the end of a flooded muddy road, "Ok, see ya later Andy"   Here is Andy on this day.

But what would my house be like? my family? my bedroom? Finally i got dropped off and my house was pret-ty Shabby. I saw cows under the house and my bathroom was outside, behind the house.

the dreary kitchen where i sat that first night- Yikes
the basket is to store food so critters cant get to it

 I finally got out of the van, and my host mom and sister, pictured above, took my things and took me into the house, where they showed me my room. My Peace Corps trunk had already arrived and they ripped open the bags that contained my sleeping mat, mosquito net, blanket and pillow. They set it all up for me, and then told me to shower. They 'told'me to shower alot. Do i have to be reminded? Its so humid and muddy, and hot. Trust me I want to take a shower. Its ok, they knew I was clueless.  So the first few hours were very awkward and i just watched them cook, in the kitchen pictured above. Our conversation consisted of gesturing and pointing, smiling, laughing.  I became great at charades during the first few months.  As they were cooking, they offered me some food, it was a cold bowl of corn, with so much sugar on it - ok, I can eat this, this one time, to be polite. it wasnt horrible but all the SUGAR!?
 Now I realize that they put sugar on things we would never need to put sugar on, because we like those foods salty, or the sweet food is already plenty sweet. Here, why not, dump another few teaspoons of sugar on it. They put salt on sweet things like fruit.... So I continued to watch the girls in the family cook our first meal,  the lighting was pretty bad, and it was dreary in there. Within a few hours or so, Peace Corps came to check in. One of our language teachers. I was so relieved.He could speak English.  But about 20 minutes later, he had to leave, and left me all alone with these people. Couldnt he stay longer? Please!  We had been trained on meal time etiqitte, so I wasnt too worried about my first meal with a Cambodian family, but I was worried that i would  be served something I couldnt bring myself to force down. I cant remember what we ate, but within 2 months Id lost 9 pounds. I was probably dehydrated too. The water has to be boiled, but they used a smokey fire to boil it, which made it tastes like burned flavored water. There was sometimes still ants in it too. I was given a water filter by the peace corps that I use now. We add bleach to it, and our families often look at us like we are trying to kill ourselves using laundry bleach in our drinking water... Since there were 18 of us living in a village, and everyone knows everyone, it was interesting hearing how fast one host family would tell another host family something, "Erinna, (insert name and add -a- ) did you know Billy eats 3 bowls of rice everyday? And your friend so and so was smoking, and that other girls' clothes are too tight.." Im sure it was nice for the families to be able to ask eachother questions about the strange things we Americans did.  They call us Barangs, which means a person from France - they dont know the difference.  Each day consisted of waking up around 5 am to the sound of my host dad vomiting, I think from drinking the night before or maybe he had an ulcer? who knows. Then he would start up his bus which was underneath our house. The floors in Cambodian houses often have planks of wood, with gaps so you can see through to the ground, the cows, the bus and big enough for my host family to spit things through. So the fumes from his bus would gag me out of my sleep. I usually fell back asleep quickly, maybe from the fumes? Alot of nights, i would hear dog fights, i think there were 100 dogs just in a 2 block radius. Sometimes the other volunteers close by would text and say something funny about the noises. Do you hear that dog fight? What the heck is that flashing light and is it a funeral or a wedding?  There were a million funerals and weddings and other parties. The music was heard for miles. So loud, painfully loud.  Once I woke up in the morning, I would peek out the door, wait until it was clear to exit, and sneak out with my chamber pot from the night before. I had to use it because we had no other choice at night as the bathroom in the kitchen was primarily used for doing the dishes and it had no door, and the other one was downstairs and outside across the yard (dirt not grass).  Next it was time to put on my Sarong, (Cambodian robe) and shower. In Cambodia thats at least 2 times a day, you get pretty dirty with all the dust and sweating and it feels good when its so hot.   At first the bucket showers were difficult and cold. The bugs, spiders, frogs and cobwebs scared me but later I didnt notice anymore. One of my host sisters helped me out one day, when I saw a huge , huge spider. Unaware if it would bite me or not, leaving me dead in my shower... I asked her to  get rid of it. she couldnt really understand why i was afraid of it. She just told me in her cute broken English "Erin, no afraid, it see you,  RUN"  so I kept reminding myself, that it was more afriad of me than I was of it. We arrived in the hot rainy season of July, so we got muddy and sweaty alot so I quickly became buddys with that scary bathroom and the critters living in it. After showering, I would either ride my bike to the market to meet the other volunteers for breakfast,at the one cafe we would ever go to, or try to make something on my own- which was an ordeal. Using our small gas grill, Id boil and egg or make some hot cereal.  Then I would walk or ride my bike (equipped with a nice nerdy helmet) to my language teachers house. She too was only living in this village for a few months to teach us. She too had a host family. She was from the city so she also had some adjustments to make to village life. She would be so tired some nights, and we assume she stayed up listening to all the noises, animals like we had. She lived only a few blocks away from the 4 trainees she was assigned to teach. But the first few days it felt like a maze getting to her house. We lived on a dirt road and had to turn down another dirt road to get to her house, with no real landmark to tell me where to turn. Sometimes another volunteer who lived a few houses down, would stop by and we'd go together. We were warned early that being seen with a male alone could be seen as inappropriate and we didnt really know much else about that topic, so we didnt want to be rude, so he would walk 5 steps ahead of me. Looking back, its silly. But we didnt know. Once at the teachers house, we would study for about 4 hours. Sometimes there was a really loud funeral or wedding so we would have to move locations, to the coffee shop, which wasnt much quieter. Or, we would have people gather to watch us learn. They would giggle listening to us try to pronounce words, which was slightly distracting. We had a sense of urgency when we were learning, because we knew we only had 2 months to learn, and that we had to pass an oral exam.  It was frustrating at times, our teachers english was not perfect and it was hard to understand or ask questions. Another complication is that we were not being taught how to read or write, so everything we learned had to be sounded out as we heard it and written down. For example, Prey Chorr could be written lots of ways, depending on how you hear it.  Our teacher, we came to realize, used a French phonetics style. Putting S's  where there was no S sound and so on. And some Khmer words we just dont have any combination of letters to create the sound.We always ate lunch with our host families. No matter where everyone was, they would return home for lunch and then go back to where ever they were. After a nap, or zoning out time, I would head back to a classroom, all 18 of us, where we would learn about traditions, learn about the health care system or other health problems in the area that we may be able to focus on once we get to our permanent home. We definately had a lot of cross cultural exchange classes, it was interesting sharing with our Khmer teachers about our traditions for weddings, funerals, relationships, the school systems, marriage ect.
My host dad has a bus route that goes into the 'state' (Province) capital each day. Kampong Cham is the name of the Province I live in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kampong_Cham_%28City%29   Alot of my host dads income was bussing us 18 Volunteers to Kampon Cham for meetings once a week. Us volunteers would all meet in the market of our village first, have breakfast which usually consisted of pork and rice. It cost $.75, (and we were getting ripped off !) We also usually drank an iced coffee with sweetend condensed milk which cost another $. 35. Then we would pile onto my host dads dirty bus in our nice traditional Khmer clothing (we were asked to wear this anytime we visited certain places including where are trainings were held each week) The long skirt is called a Sampot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampot  Once in the city,  we would see the other 30+ volunteers and feel so happy and relieved to see them.  We liked to vent alot too as you can imagine. During these weekly trainings we learned more about culture or Safety, or got vaccinations. Usually someone was really sick, diarrhea or something else. So Far Ive had many rounds of vaccinations; Rabies, Japanese Encephalitis, Tuberculousis, Hepatitis A+B and H1N1 Tetnus.  Here in this city we could get items out of our luggage that were being stored there, stock up one food or things we needed that we couldnt get in the village and use the internet. I would usually always walk to the convenience store and buy soy milk and crackers, peanut butter, and pumpkin seeds. I would stash it at my bedroom for emergencies, which was usually everyday after dinner.I lost 9 pounds, and felt like I was starving. Im sure I wasnt but it felt like it. Some days I would have fish broth with rice because the other food made me sick to smell it. I would smell what i now know as Fish Sauce, and want to vomit. It smells like garbage at a landfill. My host family also used a fresh herb that smelled like gasoline. Each time they used it i knew thats what it was, but still had to check in the kitchen to make sure there wasnt a gas leak. Each week Peace Corps was kind enough to have a catered lunch. As hungry as I was, my body just rejected anything Khmer for awhile. The smell was just too bad. I was beginning to get worried I couldnt make it at this point. Could i keep eating this way for 2 years? As much as I care about being healthy and eating well, I couldnt possibly. Each time we went to the capital Phnom Penh, I would pig out, sometimes order two meals. I was really hungry and trying to stock up on healthy food. I knew it would only be a few months... and hoped that my permanent family would allow me to cook, or that they would have better taste in food.  After 2 months we had a language test to make sure we were ready to be released on our own.  It was a five minute interveiw with a Khmer person. Then we had our big Swearing-in ceremony in capital city of Phnom Penh. We were officially Peace Corps Volunteers.

The US Ambassador spoke, the Director of peace corps Cambodia, and representatives from the Cambodian government came. Cambodian TV reporters came aswell.  The Prime Minister Hun Sen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hun_Sen  was supposed to come, it was rumored, but that same week he was invited to the US for something much more important Im sure. I even had a traditional wedding- special occasion outfit hand made for the event.I knew i would need one eventually because there would be so many parties, from what we were told.  

our swearing -in ceremony, with some staff, language teachers

The past 6 or 7 months 

Creating a tower of veggies at a salad bar in Phnom Penh. You could only go up once so we made it worthwhile.

Host sisters first Christmas, thanks to my Mom for sending cookies, skittles, and a tree along with presents for her.

laundry can be quite a chore

Lots of unique fruit

playing in the haystack, why not?

a good selection of vegetables now theres no excuse not to eat them

My new family

an impromtu Wedding photo shoot during Matt's visit to my old training familys home

Things arent always that rough

a bike ride through the village, no need to worry about the 10 month old passenger, the driver is a pro.

my bathroom. A step up from the last house. The pink bucket is for "showering"

The bathroom at my 1st house

  Ive been living with my current family for a little more than 5 months. Its not too far from my first village, which is nice. Other volunteers live up to 8 hours away. (If there were decent roads, or highways it would probably only be 3 hours away)
My typical day is like this.  I wake up at 5am to the sound of either someone taking a shower or the tv on the loudest volume. I don’t get out of bed, but fall back asleep after they have gone out to open the family store, so its not too bad. I wake up at about 630am for good, I put on my Kroma (robe) and head out of my room (God forbid I be seen by my host dad in short shorts and a tank top) I wash my hands carefully before putting in my contacts (I don’t want to get this terrible eye infection I was warned about by our medical staff- it was strongly advised not to wear contacts here, but have you seen my glasses? ) Then I get dressed and go out to the store where our kitchen is, to make some breakfast. I watch the people come and go from the store, the same people each day basically. One little baby always cries when he sees me. I just laugh now. Slowly hes starting to smile at me sometimes. Another little girl yells my name from across the street everytime she sees me, “ Elin!”  We have a camping stove for cooking, and I usually cook oatmeal and quinoa (which was sent to me from home) and put in some bananas or almonds.  Or I just eat cereal that I bought in the capital city, but we only have warm milk, eww.   Then I ride my bike to the health center around 7:45-  8AM. By this time, everyone is camped out in front of their houses, selling what they sell or just lounging. Many of them say hello to me along the way, more and more as the days go by. I usually cut through the local Wat (Buddist place of worship) since the path to the health center is so bumpy, its not good for a bike. The monks at the Wat, who are mostly 14- 30 years old, usually say  “hello“ to me. Now that they know my name, sometimes they even yell "Hello Elen !"  They know some English and like to practice. I dont know alot about monks just yet, but when we first arrived, i was terrified of them. Dont stand up in front of them while they are sitting, Dont say this, Do say this... In Khmer there are a lot of special ways to treat Monks including special phrases that you only say to Monks. The words for walk, eat and hello/goodbye are different and girls are not supposed to really look them in the eye. I am always adjusting my shirt, taking off my hat and trying to be very polite to them but they must be fairly modern monks.  The head Monk likes to block my path along the way forcing me to stop, and speak english with him.How can I not look at him in the eye now?  He has even asked me if I have a facebook acoount. He doesn’t but he knows a lot about modern things. The monks arent supposed to have nice things, thats why they wear the orange robes, and cant eat after thier 11 am lunch.  Many monks used to be normal people, even many criminals joined the monkhood, interestingly enough. Some men chose to be a monk for just one year as a sacrifice, intending to leave after the that year is up.  The Wat near my house is next door to the health center so, a 5 minute bike ride and I get from home to work.  Sometimes I beat the staff there, but there are already patients hanging around usually.  So I park my bike out front, they stare at my bike, and me, and my sunglasses as I walk in. Then I get my materials out, posters, brochures, games and place them around so people can look at them. If they can read, they usually look. But they arent as interested as Id want them to be... its not like in the US, where you have brochures and the internet to find the answers to your questions. I figured they be dying to look at them. Ha. Sometimes the purpose is just to give the bright shiny paper to thier baby who eats them or tears them up ! I typically only have one copy of each so I m not happy when that happens. Ive had to gather these materials on my own over the months. Recently I lamenated them all with tape to try to preserve them. There are usually only about 30 patients a day, within the 3 hours Im there. They croud around the reception desk, no line, no organization. The receptionist doesnt seem to mind at all. Then they try to croud around the consultation desk, during a consultation with another patient, its common to see another patient just walk right in and ask for what they need. The person being seen already doesn't seem to notice either.  The patients pay $.25 to see the consultation nurse. I call him the "guess- timator"  Im not confident he is giving out accurate diagnoses, after all there are no reference manuals or internet for him to cross reference. There are a ton of babies born here. My Commune has 24 villages, and one health center. There are about 14,000 people in the Commune, So that's probably at least 3,000 women. There is a hospital 10 minutes away, but it doesn't have many services either, and the real hospital in this Province is 30 minutes away, but there are no ambulances really. These women have their babies in what seems like minutes. I guess by the time the pregnant moms arrive, its because they are ready to deliver. Thats a risk because if its in the middle of the night, they must call the midwife and she has to wake up and come into the health center before she can help.  I rarely hear any screaming coming from the room when they deliver, its so interesting. Ive sat in the room while a few moms delivered and  didn’t hear anything much at all, I was amazed. No drugs,  no heart rate monitor,  just mom and her friends or relatives, and a midwife or two.  Occasionally monks chanting from the Wat next door. Thats pretty neat when that happens. What a way to have a baby I thought.  Ha. ha. 
   Recently the health center director pulled out a piece of paper with all of the staffs names and thier income. I was almost embarrassed because thats not something we could do in the US.

The health center staff

   The staff at the health center make between $40- $90 each per month. The director makes the most, the reception/intake girl makes the least.  They have other incentives sometimes, that could add up to 20 more dollars per month. So, they don’t make much. So they aren’t very motivated sometimes. I make as much as they do, but my food and housing are already paid for.  I try to interact with the people and kids while Im at the health center. Its taken some months to memorize some phrases that they can understand, but they usually just stare at me, probably at my nose? Because after the blank stare, they comment about my nose. They love our noses and white skin.  I don’t  think the staff would put out any educational information if I weren’t there. I  am trying to work on that.  The staff don’t spend much time with the patients and may not realize how important it could be to just take 2 minutes to explain something to explain something. If a mom comes in with a rash, and brings her kid, maybe they should look at the kid too while he's there. I like to feed on what the people think, and thats that I must be a doctor !  I joke with the kids, ask them if i can see thier teeth, then tell them they should brush more. Some people rarely come to the health center, or wait until they are pretty sick, or thier wound is pretty infected. So thats another reason I feel its important to have information available incase someone wants to learn more.  By 1030am the place is empty and I ride my bike to the market down the street. It consists of a small group of shacks that sell vegetables and meat( pigs head, still intact, all that kind of stuff) I look over the fruits and then try to get some vegetables for my lunch because sometimes we don't have any, or not enough for my liking.  Then I head home, about a 10 minute bike ride. They same people yell "hello".  Then we eat lunch around 11:30, but since my host mom has no clock, ( and usually doesn’t even know what day of the week it is )  we could eat anywhere from 11- 1230pm. The family has a small TV in the kitchen in the store. The host daughter has become glued to the tv lately, watching Thai soap operas. They are becoming more modern, and will do so even more over time.   After lunch, I do a variety of different things but napping is usually first. I dont know if its the heat, eating so many carbs or eating MSG on everything, but Im wiped out. It is kind of exhausting talking to people in another language for even 2 hours. So I take a mental break in my room, and watch some tv. Since Ive been here  ive watched a few seasons each of 24, Rome, Deadwood, Nurse Jackie and a lot of movies.  Peace Corps office has a nice library of movies and books. After my nap,  sometimes I have peace corps work to do (working on health manuals for us to use as a reference, and for future volunteers, doing reports on what we've done and how many people have attended our activities, or  making games and exchanging ideas for activities with other volunteers ) The Peace Corps is always sending us emails on opportunities for grant money, and eventually I'll get to that too.  Sometimes I'll just get on my bike and “dall- ling” (go-play)  around town or stop and drink coffee.
I can spend a whole afternoon doing that.At first I thought I was really wasting my time only working 3 hours a day but I realized that letting these people become familiar with me, seeing me around a lot actually lets them trust me more, they will be more willing to hear what I have to say or join an activity that I may do. We were told this in the beginning by the staff and former volunteers, but I didnt want to believe that Id have to spend nearly a year before feeling productive. Either way I always turn something in to a health lesson, those of you who really know me, i love to do that right? 
  Ive become friends with a village health volunteer who is 25. (there are 24 villages and 2 volunteers in each village who can help relay information to the people, but have limited resources and knowledge) This girl, is who I brought to a Peace Corps meeting in the capital a month back. It was a meeting to help motivate them to work with us and plan some activities. Many of them have never done an activity before. It was held at a nice hotel in the Capital and we were served a banquet style lunch, and sat in a nice air conditioned meeting room. The waiter put the napkin on our laps and everything. She didn’t know how to use the bathroom poor girl, or turn on the faucet . she had trouble at the buffet, not knowing what to do with all that food, including a lot of foreign food. I warned her about the coffee too. Its much stronger than Cambodian coffee, sure enough she had a headache, she was dizzy and couldn’t sleep that night. (either could I because I just couldn't resist) She was given 55 dollars to come which covered a hotel, if needed, and a stipend for making the trip in. She probably has never made that much money. She is 25 single, lives at home still and has no job. (she has a lot of chores at home like feeding the chickens and helping  around the house ofcourse, but no official job)  Around 5 I go home and shower and wait for my 4-10 students to come over and study English at around 6pm most days a week. I feel more useful doiing the tutoring since just going to the health center for 3 hours a day isnt much.   At 7 the students leave (and so do the other 5 random kids who hang out and watch- they usually talk and laugh and distract our studying, but they just want to see whats going on)   I try to be nice, but I don’t  have the ability to concentrate with so much noise and other distractions.They are used to it because their classrooms are so big, and theres not alot of quiet there, nor does the teacher demand they sit and be quiet. Part of what Peace corps is doing in the classroom is teaching the teachers new strategies, learning games, keeping the kids interested and being a little more authoritative.

A jam packed classroom, I helped another volunteer do a health lesson one day

Matt joined us for a tutoring session. The kids come over almost everyday to study English

a standard classroom size. Maybe 50-70 You may have noticed the girls in front, some people are Muslim here, but most are Buddhist.

the family store, host sister and cousin 'hanging out'

The family I live with eats dinner around 730pm, as they are getting ready to close their store.  The kitchen is kinda dark and dreary at that hour, Its hard not to be able to see what you're eating ! Then we go into the house around 8, where my host mom counts all of her money for the day. 
After that they watch more Thai dubbed soap operas until they go to bed around 9. Sometimes I can hear someone outside the house, well after the store closed, yelling at the top of thier lungs, my host mothers name, because they need to buy something. Sometimes she sells it to them,but mostly she just answers that she doesn't have any of what they want.  I usually go to my room after dinner and get ready for bed, watch some dvds or tv shows on my computer or IM with Matt or others. I'm beat by this time of night, and everyone at home is just waking up, or getting to work. 
   The closest volunteer to me is Mira who lives a 15 minute bike ride in the nearest town. She will be leaving in 3 months though, her two years is up. She used to live further away,  but she was really having a hard time in her village, so she convinced Peace Corps to let her move.  she moved and is much happier. She wasn’t really teaching anymore, wasn't eating with her family anymore and was just unhappy.  A handful of volunteers have moved, both first year and second year volunteers. Its good to know that if I had some issues, I could potentially move.  The next closest volunteer to me is Sam and she lives about 1 hour bike ride, a 30 minute  taxi.  Lauren lives in my old training village which is about 30 minutes away. Its not that bad of a distance, because I had expected everyone to be hours away.  About every 3 weeks I see more than one volunteer on average. I can easily flag down a van/shared taxi in front of my house and go a number of places. I can really just stand by the road and when I see what looks like a mini van, I wave my hand and they stop, usually within 5 minutes.. I tell them how much I want to pay and they say yes or no, we negotiate.  (These taxi’s are usually jammed with twice the occupancy it should) The capital city is 2 1/2 hours away. The ‘state’ or Province, I live in has a small capital as well, and is only 20 minutes away. I can get decent American style food there, find many other foreigners , shop at semi decent market places.  On the weekends, there are two other English speaking people I can visit and ask questions to. One is a university student and one is a  local English teacher who has 2 other jobs but is free on Sundays. Peace Corps has cut our budget for tutoring sessions so now the local students who know english will be my best bet for getting any more language training.

Income

Elen (Erin) how much money do you make? How much did your shirt cost, how much does your mom and dad make back in the US? How much money Does your sister back back in the US?  They arent shy about talking about money here. Ive started shying away from the questions, I pretend I dont understand them.  I am given about $190 dollars a month from Peace corps, 100 of it goes to my family for food, electricity (my electronics and fan almost double thier bill each month ! ha) I personally make 3 dollars a day, whoa. (although peace corps pays me a lump sum of money once I finish my two years, I am accruing that money as we speak)  The average family only makes something like 400$ a year. I tend to spend about 1 dollar a day, on either coffee (.25 cents, or less if i don't get milk or ice). A small bag of fruit probably costs a dollar.  I also spend a little money just bumming around, buying a coffee here, so I can chat with the lady who owns the place, or buy a fried banana so I can sit and talk to that lady. (sometimes I dont buy anything because I dont feel like sitting and chatting, its exhausting)  But schmoozing with the market stall ladies or the store owners has started to become a routine and has lead to me getting in touch with people who can help me do my job. People that have free time and can give me information or come with me to talk to important people. Or help me write something in the Khmer Language since I have no idea how and dont plan to learn. This is a sample of their writing…

ប្រទេសកម្ពុជា ជាប្រទេសមួយដែលស្ថិតនៅក្នុងភូមិភាគអាស៊ីអាគ្នេយ៍ ខាងជើងជាប់នឹងប្រទេស ថៃ,ឡាវ ខាងកើតជាប់នឹងប្រទេសវៀតណាម និង ខាងត្បូងជាប់នឹងសមុទ្រ។ 

Can you see why I dont want to learn?  Their language is simple in some ways. If you want to say  “ I am going to the store”   you say in Khmer,  “I go store.”   “I go store now”  “yesterday I go store” "tomorrow I go store"  “I happy”  “she happy”  “I hungry”  “yesterday I hungry"   The pronunciation is much more difficult though. I have to do lots of exercises with my mouth to form some of these sounds.  I know that the students learning English suffer the same thing. They cannot say a lot of sounds in the English language like "th" and they dont pronounce the endings of words like "peace", they would say "pea" and they put S's where there is no S. The's Book's belong Erin.  So I gave the students some tongue twisters just for fun.  Rubber baby buggy bumpers…  Sally sells seashells down by the seashore.  They loved it.

 I feel like my family is benefiting from having me here, or atleast its not putting them out entirely, even though thier daughter doesn't have a bedroom anymore.  She sleeps in the living room. During my visit 
here initially, before moving in, this 10 year old daughter slept in my bed with me. I was up most the night, wondering if she thought she was going to sleep here the whole 2 years I was here ! I was texting my language teacher that night, asking for her help. Please tell me that this family knows I cant share a room with the 10 year old for two years, Please tell me they know this.  Turns out the family told her to sleep there because they thought  I might be afraid to sleep alone. Was I afraid of ghosts?  Kind of sweet I guess, but don't they realize Im 34 years old now? Ive been living on my own for about 16 years! (wow 16 years?) No they dont realize that because I could not really express that to them with my language skills at first. Now I can, but being able to express myself still doesn't seem to clear things up for them. Villagers also don't tend to move away from home or live with anyone other than family until they get married. (the city folks are different, things are changing there quickly)  Its really nice in that way, because everyones uncles and cousins and extended family live really close by. So much to the point that I recently found out my host parents are first cousins and 2 other siblings are also married to their first cousin who they no doubt grew up with their entire life. But I don’t have much control of my life sometimes, (Im slowing taking it back though)  Im more like a teenager whose parents (who are younger than me)  tell me what to do and what to wear and who its ok to be friends with, and who is not. I knew a really nice college student who needed help with her English occasionally, she would come over and study. My host mom had the nurse at the health center tell me she didn’t want her to come in the house anymore because her father was a thief and they were afraid she was too.  I try to help tutor the ten year old host sister whenever I have a chance. She goes to an English school once a week and has been learning fast. She usually likes to watch tv after dinner however (becoming more Western like Americans maybe?) so our study time is hit or miss, maybe at dinner a little here and there. Sometimes she criticizes my Khmer pronounciation, as much as I appreciate her trying to correct me, she sometimes does it to be a brat. So I tell her to say Toothbrush and when she says, like most Asian people, “toof brus “I simply point out that its difficult to pronounce words sometimes, because our languages have sounds we've never heard before. She usually gets the point. They have some sounds such as “sngeum Sngut”and its really hard to say, it almost hurts to say some words.  I try to help sweep around the house and clean things up, sometimes doing the dishes.  They don’t take pride in having a clean house  really, they sorta sweep up, into a pile that stays there for a day or two.  Lots of cobwebs or pieces of food laying out. Ive learned they don’t mind cob webs and spiders because they eat the mosquitos.  I know we have mice in the kitchen/store and Ive seen them while eating. Host mom asks, after I react to seeing the mouse, "Don’t you have mice in America”?  I just answer yes, but don’t have the heart to say we don’t typically have them in the kitchen or the house. When I had my little Christmas tree set up during the holidays, we decorated it and strung a few starburst candies from the tree, but the next day those things were destroyed, completely ripped down by the mice.They even ate a whole in her box of coloring books and markers my mom sent.


         EATING

A family dinner with the other family, during Matts visit. We sit on the floor with our legs to one side.

Looks like a typical dish, just needs some rice

The group who met us at the airport when we first arrived had funny signs. In Cambodia, its a common greeting to ask "have you eaten rice yet?" We didnt know that at the time.

my former host mother preparing dinner

a family dinner during Matts visit "Chol Kayo" (Cheers) Ten year old drinkers not pictured, thankfully.

 Eating is a fun topic.  My family eats rice , of course, with every meal.  Rice is the staple, it has a lot of history in their culture, and if you don’t eat the actual rice, you will be doomed. There is usually some sort of stew or stir fry and usually it consists of pork. I think I ate pork every meal for 2 weeks once.  The food bowl is set in the middle of the table, and eveyone is given rice. Then we all begin by dipping our spoons into the soup/stew, taking only as much as a bite. (taking a lot more isnt polite) So, during each meal, each person likley dips thier spoon in about 20 times. Thats not very sanitary you're thinking? I know, I had a hard time with that at first. Now if someone is sick I'll take alot more, or put a clean serving spoon in to hint for them to use it. They do have Palm Sugar here,hich is made from Palm trees and its used in many different ways. Its also really really good in solid form, almost like peanut brittle. My host mom likes to use it to fry the pork and its delicious. One day I noticed that there was meat drying out in the sun, infact I notice it a lot now. It’s the pork, I guess its more tender that way, I just know that eventually its cooked very well, so Im sure its ‘safe’ to eat. The pork she sells at her store sits out all day and ive noticed alot of flied and children playing with it throughout the day. yuck.  They do eat alot of fish too. Its cheap and available. It usually a whole fish, stuck into a pot of soup. Trying to pick the bones out of the fish is hard for me, and my family knows it. Sometimes they just spare me the trouble and serve me some, already de-boned. My host dad just looks at me like im an idot, and says, " whats the problem?  No Problem !"and i just roll my eyes. A common ingredient to any dish is something called prohoc, its made from fermented fish (fermented for up to a year sometimes) is call Prohoc. its a bunch of little tiny fish thrown into a tub with a lot of salt and fermented. It smells rancid But I have found that mixed with peanuts and using raw vegetables and dip them in, its not terrible.

making fish paste, prohoc, a common ingredient to Khmer dishes. A neighborhood event. Now just have to clean them, dump them in a bucket for a few months, up to a year, and its ready to eat !

http://www.unspecial.org/UNS602/UNS_602_T20.html Chicken is more expensive and we dont eat it that often (even though we raise them, probably have 30 of them in our yard right now) We probably eat it once every 3 weeks. But the problem is that they chop it up into so many small pieces, bone and all, that it takes me forever to eat, worrying i'll chomp down on a sliver of bone, its happend many times ! We usually eat half of the chicken at a time, the other half hangs from a nail in the kitchen til the next day.  One of our chickens got hit by a car a few months ago, guess what we had for dinner? During the training months, I lost 9 pounds, and felt like I was starving. Im sure I wasnt but it felt like it. Some days I would have fish broth with rice because the other food made me sick to smell it. I would smell what i now know as Fish Sauce.  It really does smell like garbage at a landfill. My host family also used a lot of a fresh herb that smelled like gasoline. Each time they used it i figured thats what it was, but still had to check in the kitchen to make sure there wasnt a gas leak. Horrible. 

Future meals, our baby chickens, right now they are much bigger

 Beef is the most expensive. I don't prefer to eat it anyhow because it is really chewy and tough. Another night as I was about to scoop up some food, what looked like white beans, my host sister said they were Ant eggs, I withdrew my spoon immediately. I am not very adventurous with foods like that.  No thanks. Ive seen the food at the market and its sometimes scary, as the seller is beating a live fish over the head with a  club as i walk by.  My host mom likes to cook when she has time, understandably, but she always seems to cook 2 hours before we eat so everything is cold. Cold fish is not good. cold fish with a million tiny little bones is really not good. cold eggs arent good either. I really get a kick out of my hosts moms logic sometimes, she will  serve us cold food sometimes, and then heat up the food after we eat !?  I asked why one day, trying to hint that it tasted better hot, she says its to keep it from going bad between dinner and lunch the next day. yikes. Its true, it probably will help, but what about the germs in it before I ate it?   Sometimes I make a salad and I mean a big salad, the family is always welcome to eat it too, but they never do. They are afraid of getting sick. Understandable, but I make sure to clean them well, with clean water not the well water. But they always ask how many people this salad is supposed to feed… I say just one usually. They are shocked at the amount of vegetables I can eat. They definitely don’t know alot about the food groups and consider rice as the food you need to stay alive and everything else is basically just a condiment. Usually Cambodian families sit on the floor or a large table,  My host family is pretty young and modern though, they have a table and chairs. Usually the oldest daughter serves the rice. Typically to the oldest person first.  In our case either she doesn’t know Im older than her mom and dad, or the man in the family gets first dibs. Whatever.  Usually my host dad eats so fast I barely get started and hes scarfed down his food and has gone back to the café where he spends a lot of his day. Or he sleeps in his Cambodian lazy boy chair. Im still not sure what line of business he's in. They seem pretty well off. But he sure does relax alot, at home or at the cafe.
 As far as food from restaurants, there are about 3 restaurants, and many market stalls that sell food for breakfast in my village. The market stalls are a little dirty for my liking, but sometimes I go just to be 'social'  There's only a few places to eat for lunch. Everyone just eats at home. If you go to a place that serves food in the village, you rarely get a menu, you just ask for what you want and see if they happen to have it.  Rice and pork, chicken and rice, noodle soup or rice porriage are the standard breakfast menu items. I hesitate to call it a restaurant because  a lot of times its just a shack that serves food or a mobile restaurant that’s attached to a moped that drives around and sets up just for the day, or the evening. Hours later, theres no trace of it, and the next day it reappears again.  When you first see these mobile restuarants, you think it’s a restaurant for children, the plastic chairs and tables are all mini sized, for a preschool aged kid. But you’ve got grown adults sitting there as if there were no other size for a chair, it’s a funny sight to see. 
A lot of adults cannot seem to read very well.(that’s a whole other problem for me at the health center) I imagine the literacy rate at this point for adults  has something to do with the Khmer Rouge era when education wasn't a priority, and many people my age and older dropped out.  http://answers.yourdictionary.com/answers/history/facts-khmer-rouge.html   If you look on the labels on a lot of things, its in English or Thai or something, not as often in the Cambodian language. That is kind of scary if you ask me. Medicines, pesticides and labels on things like  Raid, the roach, pest killer. It is a common product to have around the house here since there are a lot of those pests. They have no regard for it being an unhealthy thing, rather its almost as if they think of it as a combination glade room freshner/ pest killer. yuck.  Another volunteer sent me a frantic text message once,  "Erin, I just saw my host mom use raid as if it here Pam cooking spray, then she laid the fish on the pan to dry in the sun, what do I do?"   One day I  saw my former host sister blowing the ants off some day- old meat she was about to serve me. I politely said I was full and didnt eat it. How dare she?  Now ants don’t really bother me because they are everywhere , and because an older American guy I met while Matt was here, informed us that he studied ants in college (so nerdy)  and in fact they are not dirty bugs, they are anti bacterial, and dont transfer germs and (unlike flies that land on poop and then on your food)  Now Im not afraid when I see them at the bottom of my water glass or in/on  my food.  As long as they are dead. I wont flat out eat them, but if they were on my food, I can pick them out or eat around them.  Another traditional food here is boiled duck eggs with the baby duck still inside. fowl, but they like it. I cant knock it til i try it but I wont be trying it.  
When I try to cook its quite an ordeal although ive been cooking a lot. Not meals necessarily, but snacks, vegetables, breakfast.. . I spend alot of time searching for cookware or utensils though and we only have 1 burner so i have to plan to spend more time cooking than i normally would.  First I need to find a pan, I may have to wash it (by hand with rain water) or if I have a pan, I am looking for a knife, ( we really only have 1)  I may have to track it down and wash it because my host mother uses it to cut the raw pork she sells at her store.  Then I need a cutting board. It’s the side of two potatoes and usually dirty.  Then I look for the lighter to start the stove. I may have to go over to the Buddha shrine thats in the store ( and in the house too)  the family probably used the lighter to light incense earlier.  So now I can start cooking, but I  cant find a fork ( we probably have 2 forks) Then when the pan is hot, I have to find something to grab it with, we dont have a pot holder, so I usually use an old shirt or whatever is laying around.Sometimes i have to use a piece of paper. Then I have to endure the stares from the women coming in and out of the store, "whats the foreigner cooking now"? I know they are just curious. Never seen foreign food before, so i understand. They never want to taste what Im making.

Garbage

 

There are no garbage cans or trash pick up, atleast in the villages.  There is usually nowhere to throw garbage, you just toss it anywhere you want. I still have a hard time tossing just any old trash right in someones property right in front of them, but sometimes is the only option. In my first house, we had one specific window we would toss everything out from. Im pretty sure if i went looking after all these months, Id find my garbage there still. That family rarely burned their trash.  I remember them taking a piece of trash from my hand and showing me how to discard it, "Here Erin, just toss it out the window like this "  I used to love it, I could never do that at home. Now, I collect a bag in my room, but when its filled, I have to take it out to the burn pile in front of the house.  I mentioned before that I live on a busy road, where lots of bicycles and mopeds travel on.  Many times I notice my bag of trash has been ripped open, and all of the contents are right there for anyone to see. Could have been a dog,  Oh well,  everyone else does it too. Another volunteer once told me that after her family had gone through her trash a few times, salvaging usable items…so  she started to carry it with her on her way to the school and dump it along the side of the road. That solves that problem. Ive done that before too.  Its not uncommon while at the dinner table, for someone to just take a bone out of thier mouth and or piece of fat, and toss it right out the door as we sit and eat. Its pretty funny. Again, I enjoy it because it just cant happen at home.




PARTIES
FUNERALS, WEDDINGS  (Whats the difference?)


weddings  http://www.ehow.com/facts_6851343_cambodian-traditional-wedding-clothes.html
funerals   http://www.einaudi.cornell.edu/southeastasia/outreach/resources/cambodiawebunit/culture.html#Funerals

funeral procession

some monks - maybe coming back from a funeral ?

My familys house warming party

dancing at a birthday party

dress made by my host sister

There are 4 basic parties here. House warming parties, Funerals, Weddings and Birthday parties.  Parties in general are going on at all times. You can barely tell the difference between them judging from the decorations and the music. Maybe Khmer people can, but I sure cant. For weddings and parties other than the first funeral for someones death, they get pretty dressed up. The make up is wild, and the hairstyles extravagant. (all for around 2  dollars) These events are catered, seemingly by the same caterers because the decoratoins and food are all about the same) Some people don’t know their birthday,  and others are having extravagant dinners with a live band. Neither family has any more money than the other either it seems. It just seems like there is some sort of event everyday in these villages. Theres always someone getting married, a funeral, a 7 day anniversary of a persons deayh, a 100 day anniversary of someones death, a 3 year anniversary of someones death and however many times you want to celebrate the persons death thereafter. I went to a 20 year anniversary of a death a few weeks ago and you would have thought it was a wedding reception. DJ, sit down 3 course dinner and monks.  For weddings, the ceremony lasts two days, there is a hair cutting and foot washing ritual that I have yet to witness myself. The bride and groom change fancy outfits atleast 8 times or more. These parties attract a lot of bystanders, people just wanting to watch from the street. I went with my family once, to watch another wedding. Probably 80 people hovering over the fence to see the people dancing.  There were vendors who came and sold food, clothes or drinks , as if it were a concert or something. When family had their house warming party on March 18. They invited 600 people. I don’t even know 600 people. Their invitations are very nice and formal with a purfume scent. They usually have the date and place listed in English as well as Khmer,luckily for me since I cant read Khmer. But our housewarming party invitations were written to say Wedding Reception, not housewarming party. I didn’t have the heart to tell the family and i doubt anyone else noticed. Just a mix up on the English- ( Its what we call ”Engrish". Very poor English. Tshirts, fancy invitations, signs, ect are often seen with poor grammer like this shirt.)   

it says "this is prolly my amcsomest made"

So my family had been making preparations for weeks. They cut down some trees to make room for the stage for the stage/ live band  (this tree happens to be the tree that holds the light for when I tutor so now I don’t know where we will study) They have been painting, installing  lights, staining the woodwork and leveling the piles of rocks in our yard that have been there since they built their house. They even cut down part of the neighbors trees since the party will use their yard/dirt too. Its part of the deal with being a neighbor here I imagine, and goes along with their commune lifestyle. The party took up three families yards. It was alot of fun. They hired a band and 5 or so scantily clad back up singers and WAY too many speakers, I had to run and get my earplugs it hurt so badly.  My two friends, other volunteers who live near by came. The religious music started at 415am according to my clock, I thought, this is going to be one - long - day.  By the time I opened my door after waking up,  the hairdressers were already here,  to do everyones nails and hair. The monks came to bless the house around 9am. There were about 40 people at this part of the ceremony. Then we ate the traditional rice porraige. Then we started preparing for the party to begin at 330pm. Many of us, since its so humid, had to get our hair re-styled, including me. plus my make up had melted off by then too. As guests started arriving my friends and I were requested at the front entrance, to help the hostess, my host mom,  hand out trinkets to the people coming in. I think in a way my host mom got a kick out of having three foreigners help greet people. It was understood that I would wear this  green dress, pictured above, and not wear a black and white dress I had from home. i didnt mind, it was a nice dress that I borrowed from her. I guess I could wait to wear my own dress from home another time.We ate dinner, and then the dancing started. We danced a song here and there,  but as the men got drunker, they began pulling us out to the dance floor more and more, some of the Cambodian women did the same. My arm actually hurt the next day. They do not take NO for an answer. It was fun dancing but got hot sometimes and we just needed to rest, but we couldnt be seen outside or they would grab us to dance again.  Many of the community members have not really met or spent time with a foreigner so they enjoyed dancing with us. We hosted about 10 people that night, sleeping all over the house on mats, including about 5 grandmothers.  They slept on our living room ceramic floor, they fell asleep during the extremely loud music.  One granny was half way on a mat and her sister was on the other half. They are tough old ladies, still getting around, can sleep anywhere obviously. 

typical granny, they shave thier heads alot of times

  Recently my family added on to their store, which is in front of our house, where they sell everyday items, some food, car supplies and gas. Its along a busy road. ..where the wife works all day 7  days a week 12 plus hours a day… maybe I mentioned that already but its worth mentioning again. They added such a big addition onto the store that you can barely see the beautiful house anymore. During the renovation, the family slept outside to guard the store, for atleast a week. I respectfully declined to join them.  

its customary to leave your shoes at the door

 Manners and inappropriate comments


I have yet to figure out whats actually rude in this country.  I know I should greet elders with the formal greeting when I first meet them, and if someone is younder than me they should initiate that greeting with me. I know that I should remove my shoes before going into a home, a Wat and sometimes a store. I know that I should remove my hat before riding through the grounds of the Wat and technically should not ride my bike through, but walk my bike through.  But some things I still have a hard time with, what is rude to say to someone? Here the whiter the skin the better, but we tend to wish for a tan in the US. They love to tell me how great my white skin is, but I am starting to feel a little uncomfortable with it, I wish they would just like thier own skin. The women here have mentioned that they want arm hair (?)  Why? i ask,  I don’t  like it, usually we try to get rid of hair or cover it up.  If youre fat or have zits or are wearing an ugly shirt they tell you to your face over and over and just giggle. Not in a mean spirited way, just part of thier nature.  If you’re skinny you’re probably poor so theres a fine line of thin, and skinny.  Some of the larger volunteers have been brought to tears by the comments some people make about thier weight,  day after day, being told, Hey You're Fat, just as if they were saying, Hello how are you !  Today I actually had a zit, one zit. I cant count how many people pointed it out to me. What happened to your face Erin? What is that on your face Erin?  If my freckles fade a little, which they do when I dont go in the sun much... they tell me how much more beautiful I am now than when I had the freckles. Some days Im fat, and they tell me, other days Im thin. Which one is it? They will tell me somedays that Im more pretty than I used to be, and the next day tell me that I used to be more pretty before. ha ha. Its NOT a language barrier, I fully understand what they are saying. Ive realized that it must be something they do to make conversation.  I took another volunteer to visit my first host family one day, and we sat down and they introduced themselves and quickly pointed out to my friend that she was fat and had a lot of zits , meanwhile having big smiles on thier face. My friend started to cry and ended up leaving and meeting me later, she was so irritated. I felt so bad but I realize they weren’t trying to be mean, just matter of fact kinda people.  I don’t get it sometimes though,  the standard attire for village women is a hodge podge of different prints, stripes, polka dots, with socks and flip flops, or striped socks with dress shoes, with their PJ's. My host mom sometimes comments on what Im wearing, I can tell she doesnt like it, whether its too revealing/tight, or she just doesnt like the print. I just stare at her polka dot pants with a striped pj shirt and laugh to myself. (shes not poor, thats not why she's wearing that, its the 'style') When its hot, I wear short sleeves, I think its cooler, but they insist that wearing long sleeves in the heat is cooler, even a hat, long pants and socks? even turtlenecks?   At the health center, whether its thier own baby or someone elses, they will say, Look that baby is too dark-skinned" within an hour after its born... Which by the way the moms give birth and are allowed to go home within hours after birth. One lady left an hour after she had her baby.  Yikes. Their infant and mother mortality rate is still pretty high here, Id say letting them ride a moped down a bumpy dirt road back to their village where they are miles from the health center, isn’t such a good idea. There is no ambulance here and the health center is the only facility close by, which closes basically after 2 pm. To be fair there is an elderly watchman who guards the place and can call a nurse if needed. 

the guard at the health center

The people have a strange sense of humor, things they get away with saying to eachother and to me.  When Matt came to visit we were at a café, and a bigger lady ( for Cambodian standards)walked by, someone said ”look at her she’s fat” just as we turned around to look.  The ‘fat’ lady said, while laughing, Hey what are you looking at?  The person replied “we were just saying that you are fat”   After I translated for Matt, he couldn’t stop laughing about that, he still makes jokes, we could never say that about someone at home. The ‘fat’ lady didn’t seemed bothered by it at all and kept walking, maybe it was his sister or another family member.   There little regard for time here it seems.  If they say they will be somewhere at 3,  assume 5.  If they say you will go to a wedding together tomorrow at 3, assume its not with that person at all, and more like 5 oclock, the following day. That happened to me a few times, and I got very frustrated. The first wedding I went to, I was very excited, and they were late but then hurried me along so fast that I barely got there before I had to leave ! We stayed at the wedding maybe 30 minutes is all.  I had gotten my nails done, my hair, my makeup... I was so confused ! Turns out, there are SO many parties that people cant possible spend the whole evening at each one. Imm starting to realize that, BUT if im going to pay my 'entrance fee' to the wedding, id prefer to enjoy it a little longer.  A student was nice enough to invite me to a carnival thing once, they wanted to ride bikes there around 3 the following day, and said they’d pick me up then. The student came over instead at 9 am, and said they were ready to go now. So I declined because I was actually busy, preparing so that at 3 I could leave. I was upset because I didnt think I was going to be able to go afterall. But my family also agreed that they would be going at 3. But at 3, they were
no where near ready to go.I grew frustrated again. Usually I would just go somewhere by myself and meet others there, that way i can come and go when I want to. Here I cannot really do that. At 6pm that night we finally went to the carnival, we got there by packing 15 people into a moped taxi that is meant for 4 people. It turned out to be fun.  Most of the time, i find, people dont have money on thier cell phones (they are all pre paid cards) They will call and then hang up so that you will have to call them back and spend YOUR  money. If I dont call them back right away, they will keep calling and calling. Even if they are using thier own money, and you dont pick up the phone when they call, they will call over and over, since there is no voicemail. Wow it took some getting used to.   After our house warming party, my family spent the whole day obsessing over how much each guest gave as thier gift (entrance fee bascially). They looked at the list over and over. From what I understand, someone has a party, then when they go to that persons party, they give however much money to that person, that the person gave to them. They will tell all of thier friends how much another friend gave them. Here I am hesitant to say how much anything costs or how much money I gave, because Im afraid they will just tell me I got ripped off or that I didnt give enough, or if I gave too much, they may assume I must be really rich. 

Where we come from, telling something to someone to their face is considered polite and that way its not gossiping, which we look down upon. Here,  going behind the persons back  is considered more polite. Confronting someone, especially infront of a person inferior to them can cause them alot of problems, its called losing face. The term ‘saving face’ is something we were taught about when we first got here. Its taken seriously by the people and losing face is not good. People will lie about knowing how to do something, just to save face. That can cause me issues, when i ask "do you know how to save that really imporant document on the computer Mr. health center director?" Ofcourse Erin  he'll reply.  The people here talk alot, they dont have much going on so maybe they just like talking to pass the time, but information(not gossip) spreads like wild fire. ( for example I went to the market the day after our house warming party and everyone there knew that we drank 130 cases of beer at the party)   So, what i comes down to, If Im not happy about something or want someone to know something, I tell one of their friends in casual conversation, knowing they will tell the person and then there is no confrontation. They don’t like confrontation, its not respected and they will cower down if they are confronted. I don’t either so it works out. In the US its not good to confront people either, its puts us in attack mode. Ok enough rants, that was my rant section. 

Peace Corps Visit

Yesterday Peace Corps came to visit me. They try to visit each of us every 5 months or so to check in with the family, make sure our living conditions are suitable, that our water is clean, help us with any issues we're having, such as the over use of MSG or not feeding us enough vegetables. They also give us medicines and supplies if we need them, and deliver mail if we have any. First they met with the Health Center director and then we headed to my house where they talked to my host parents. They checked in with them on their hygiene practices, reminded them that Americans are different, in this way or that way, and we aren’t mad at them if we go to our room and shut the door, its just that we enjoy reading or being alone more than Cambodians seem to. ALOT more than Cambodians seem to. They are used to being in groups and having people come and go all day. They are a very very communal society.   Things had been a little weird with the family for about a week, just quiet I guess. But that visit from the Peace Corps really helped. The Peace corps person was a Khmer doctor, so the family listened to what they said. I think they've cut down on the MSG finally.  Yeah. Maybe thats why ive had a headache for a few days now.   Since my host mom has a store, the doctor took it upon herself to remind her that I love and need to eat vegetables. She  grabbed some vegetables and handed them to my host mom, including some advice as to what she may want to cook for me. It was funny. My host mom didnt bat an eye.   As they left, they gave me thier left over banana bread from a nice coffee shop in Phnom Penh, and some Papya.  I think the doctor saw me eye-ing it and felt sorry for me. Either way it was delicious (Phnom Penh has every kind of food i could ever want, Its a great place to get away.)


 I didnt know I was going to a party


One night, my host mom mentioned that the following  day they wouldn’t be opening their store, because they were going to a ceremony, and asked if Id like to go. I said sure, thinking that it was probably like any other ceremony, an anniversary of a death, and we'd be home in an hour.  At 7 am Dane, my host sister,  knocks at my door, and I was not even up yet. She says they are leaving NOW.  Apparantly I never asked what time they were leaving, and they didn’t realize I may need some time to actually get ready. So they allowed me to get ready, only  after my host mom picked out my outfit. She picked out the only fun Khmer shirt I have, but its baggy in the chest area, so I know why she chose it. After having some expericnes like this before, where i agree to go somewhere with them, shortly after realizing its much further, for a much longer time than i had expected.  I made sure to bring everything i may need. A hat, water, food, and money.  We rode out into a village down a dirt road, where Kea, her husband, my host father, is from. I had no idea why we were going to this ceremony, who or what it was for.  I found out eventually this was a yearly ceremony to pay respects to the grandparents and whoever else was buried in the family tombs on their property. They prepared a ton of food, huge bowls of fruit, 4 or 5 roasted pigs. There were probabaly 40 family members present.  We all made our way to the first tomb, where everyone lit incense and did their prayer, each person thew dirt on the grave and stuck colorful paper slips on to he roof of the tomb, with not glue, but sticky bread. works the same. they poured beers or coke for each person placed in the tomb, so I counted 5 or so in the first tomb. This is supposed to represent offering food to their loved ones who need it in their after life.  Everyone took their turn burning fake money (US dollars ofcourse) little toy cars, shoes, airline tickets, and other items their relatives may need in the after life. Then we carried the food back and went to a different tomb,  where we performed the same ritual. They said this tradition stems from China, and Cambodia has a lot of Chinese heritage. Afterwards  we all sat down to eat all the fruit and pork. I had to track down a spoon and a cup, there werent enough.   We made lettuce wraps with cucumber, and pork with a peanut, vinegar type dipping sauce. All of us sat in the middle of a village, in the yard, on mats, under a tree. Some of the men started to drink, it was about 10 am…then the kids started in. Sometimes the kids drink here and it disturbs me,  kids as in 8 and 10 year olds. They arent just being silly by trying some of the booze, they are in it for the buzz.  The families just laugh and the uncles cheer them on. These kids probably each had 2 full beers on this particular day. I tried to show my disagreement by joking that they would be brain damage, or that in the US i could go to jail for that. Then the pregnant lady had a beer, then the same uncle who cheered on the other kids poured beer into the ten month olds mouth, two or three times. Poor baby. Then the few three year olds also were talked into taking some drinks.  I had a few drinks myself, and was having a really good time. I was thinking to myself, i have to remember this. This is really unusual, and yet so normal for these people. Then came time to collect money from the families for the pigs and to buy more beer. The lady next to me, typical person/ villager, nothing told me she would have much money. I was wrong, she pulled out a stack of money – and gave out 450$ like it was nothing. The others pulled out their wads of cash too. I ve heard they don’t use banks really so that explains it. My host grandparents are said to have quite a bit of money, which they sometimes stash in the seat compartment of the moto they drive. Ive seen them pull out  HUGE stacks.  I never keep more that 20 bucks at a time. I can ride my bike 20 minutes to the bank for more if I need it. It also forces me to exercise.  So, back to the party, as we were finishing our food and drinks, a cart pulled up with big speakers on it, it was a DJ.  Loud music doesn’t seem to bother Cambodian people, I think they have lost their hearing already so they don’t even notice. It actually hurts my ears, my ears hurt right now as im typing this, 5 hours after being there. But the dancing was really fun, the men always force you to dance, and if you try to sneak away they catch you and jerk your arm. The dancing is non contact dancing so its ok but if youre tired and don’t want to dance it can be hard to keep them from dragging you out to dance. People got pretty drunk, and apparantly eating mangos helps. I notice alot of Asian men have allergies to alcohol. Thier faces turn bright red after only a few sips. There was also a baby powder fight too, that was interesting. Everyone was throwing it all over eachother. The village crazy showed up too, crying and begging, but I couldn’t tell if she was drunk or just crazy or poor. No one seemed to be too bothered by her.  She had on a fancy white shirt that Is usually worn to the Wat, over her pj shirt. Interesting look.  Not a good combo. Once the music stopped around 2 pm, everyone started playing cards, the kids and one or two uncles mainly, and others went to sleep. I first fell asleep on the tarp we had all eaten on, with others,  then went over to the hammock. But with my feet up straight in the air, it wasnt very comfortable either. The cows were right there, and actually once i fell asleep i woke up to the cow peeing it was kind of loud.   The hygiene today was questionable in SO many ways. Im not going to be surprised if I come down with something. Parasites, Protazoa , worms, who knows. The ice was filty, and kids were reaching in and grabbing It with their hands, they have large blocks of ice so someone has to chop it up into pieces, usually using a dirt ax or knife. They also share their drinking glasses a lot, parlty because there is a shortage and also because they are a culture of sharing…one large community bowl of food for everyone no matter if you’re sick or not, dips their spoon in and out of the bowl numberous times during the meal. The raw vegetables had been carried to two different tombs and set down during the ceremony. The flies were everywhere. The cows were too, so that means cow poop . flies are not particular, they will travel back and forth from poop to food and back to poop. They transmit all kinds of stuff that way.  I had to do what I had to do today, which was eat and drink what was offered because I had nothing else.  It was an overall really fun experience and I only wish I had brought my camera.

Exercising

sometimes the kids follow me on this road where I sometimes run.

When I first started to exercise, it was a really big deal. My host mom would ask “where are you going? why would you want to run? why do you ride your bike so fast? Thats a common question. Exerting yourself, (other than working in the fields) or going anywhere quickly isnt really part of the culture.

once I leave the house, I head toward a dirt road that leads out into the villages. Its also where my host mothers sister lives and has a store. That is my check point, and then i turn around and head back, and forth, back and forth. That way those people along the road are familiar with me. I live on a fairly busy road so I don’t want to run on this, it attracts more attention and the cars drive really really fast. They pass the schools zone and market going 70 mph sometimes. Its kinda scary.  Even when people see me riding my bike and always ask, "Why cant you just buy a moto?  (even here, they are over $1000, I dont have that kind of money)  I explain that Im exercising and so I dont want to ride a moto.  So once I start to run, there are a few people that may pass me on their bike or moto. While running, mostly women, are hanging around under their houses along the way, or in their hammocks, and they yell at the top of their lungs “ hello, come here and hang out for a bit”  “where are you going?”  Sometimes I carry a stick, because those village dogs are protective of their homes and they can smell a stranger a mile away. I usually find if I dart toward the dog and grunt, it scares the dog away, some wild guard dog they are. Ive never had to resort to the stick. But if theres ever a sneak attack, i'll be ready. Its been known to happen. I have been vaccinated for Rabies already but doesnt mean i wouldnt have to get more shots and /or stiches.   Sometimes the kids that live on this road will run with me, in thier bare feet, or ride thier bikes along for a little while. The first few times my host sister and her cousin would ring thier bells and tell me when to stop and go. They loved it.   Once I stopped, and hung out with some ladies who kept yelling for me to stop by, and right away, they brought out some potatoes with palm sugar for me. You cant decline something they offer, its just not that polite, so I ate it.  I didn’t think  it was the best thing if I were to keep running after that though,so that day I only ran about 3 minutes. oh well, I got to know some new people. Its usually worth it. Alot of times though, I just bike down the main road along my house, for about 20 minutes each way from my house to the next town over.  I have a mountain bike given to me by peace corps and I also have a junky cruise around bike for riding around. it has a basket so its easier sometimes. Plus no one wants to mess with it like they do with my mountain bike. 



Peace Corps 50th Anniversary Project

At the Wat, for a holiday called Pchum Ben.

 For the 50th anniversary of Peace corps, they allowed each of us to submit and idea for an activity we could do in our community using 50$.  I decided I would do a Health Fair at my health center. The problem was that I knew i wouldnt truely be able to count on the staff and I had few people who spoke enough English to explain what I needed to do. There was one teen who always likes hanging around the health center with me, likes to help talk to the patients, which is very helpful.  Since I also tutor from 4-10 kids, I brought it up to them and they expressed interest in helping. I couldnt do it without help ,I  need lots of helpers because I want to have an area where we can play the different health focused games we were given. One is similar to the game of Shutes and Ladders. If you drink unboiled water, you slide back down, if you wash your hands before eating you get to climb the ladder.  We will also have an area where the kids can watch a Health DVD as well as a hand washing area. Wash thier hands, and we give them a soap to take home.  I know it sounds so silly but hand washing really isnt thought of as very important and its seems mothers dont really care about teaching thier kids to do it. So, I have a game where I coat a ball with oil and put dirt or glitter on it so the kids can see the dirt/ germs and then a helper will explain washing hands, and when they should do it. I also have a poster board of a big mouth with fake bugs representing the germs, and candy for all the sugar they eat. If kids answer questions they can get a free tube of toothpaste or a toothbrush, soap or stickers.  I will also cook different kinds of healthy food for babies 6months to 2 years old. USually the moms give thier kids white rice porriage, with nothing else really in it. The baby cant develop properly and will likely be malnourised if they only eat that. So I will let the moms and babies sample some different types of food. I had a little meeting at my house last sunday, and about 13 kids showed up. I was pretty happy, and a few of them (the ones who spoke decent English) were happy that i let them help me . I figure, this is whats is all about, teaching them to do these things, they will be the ones living here in the community later, not me. They helped make a sign up sheet to see who wanted to help with what.  I taught them how to play the games and what questions to ask the kids about the different health topics. Much of it they didn't know themselves, so i was  happy to have taught them something. A few girls are coming back this Sunday to help me buy all of the food from the market, We have to go early, according to them, to get the good stuff.  We'll see how it all plays out, Ive learned that I cant really get too disappointed, and that i should not expect much because anything can happend at these types of things. I could have 300 people which would be a disaster, or 10 which would not be good either. Or it could rain.  Either way whoever comes may learn something. The attraction is sometimes as simple as, "Whats the foriegner doing over at the health center today?" Hmmm lets go check it out.  Word of mouth is a huge way to spread information so I didnt have to put out too many invites.

Peace Corps has finally gotten approval to let us ride on Moto bikes. They gave us a helmet and everything. Before, we were forbidden to ride, I wonder why? 

Matts visit to Cambodia

No we aren't about to do surgery, it was the dry season, so dusty!!

moving to our new homes, via "taxi" or tuk tuk. We had all of our belongings with us.