Mangos and its really hot right now.

everyone has a mango tree

Some Mango trees in our backyard.

It is April - the Mango season, and the month of the Khmer New Year and the hottest month. Its more humid than the previous months and hotter too.  Everyone that doesnt know thier birthdate, which many dont,  turn a year older over the Khmer New Year.  My host sister wants to celebrate her birthday this year and have a party. On a side note, I saw her baby card one day, which has her real birthdate on it. I said to her "oh your birthday is in October, so you're ten". She looked at her mom and asked "really?  It is? I am?"  She must not have really cared, because she is having her very first birthday party at the end of April. Her 12th birthday party. Yes I mentioned that she is ten right now, and wont turn 11 until October of 2011 but she is celebrating her 12th birthday. Oh well. My host father went ahead and bought some very large, very loud concert strength speakers for the house, he says, for her birthday party. BUT he's been testing them out ever since he bought them, even at 5:15am this morning, and tonight during my language tutoring, I know they cannot read the knobs, so I turned down the bass a little just enough so that I dont have to wear earplugs, its really that loud, Im not just saying that.

This time of year, there are tons of mangos.  Mangos are available all year round, but they are usually in the unripe form, crispy and sour. People eat them with a salty mixture made from salt and usually a packet of ramen noodle seasoning. Sound gross? I thought so too, but over the months ive grown to like it. It takes the sour bite out of it.  But April has ALOT of mangos. Most people have a tree or two, and this is when the mangos are ripe and really tasty. I average one a day. They are as cheap as $ .20 cents. Did you know that the ripe mangos have a lot more vitamin A than the unripe ones?  now you do. Vitamin A is an important vitamin for your eyes and immune system. So, here there seems to be a lack of it in the diet so the health center does outreach twice a year to distribute it to the kids under 5 years old. My eyes are pretty bad, and I could use a little immune system boost around here, so I join in and take the vitamin A too. During this outreach they also give out De-Worming pills to the kids. I guess they assume most of them will get worms during the 6 month period since they were last de-wormed.  I have had my stools tested once already ( which is far less than some of the volunteers who seem to be sending thiers by taxi to our medical staff on a monthly basis)  Can you imagine getting that package? I was negative for any type of worms, ameobas, parasites thankfully. The reason they test you is because for one, it can be painful or make you sick, but especially for these children, it can cause malnutrition. One indication a child has worms or something else, is that thier belly swells up . I usually ask the child or its mom if the child just ate, if not I can probably guess its worms. They run around naked, with dirty hands, sticking thier hands in thier mouths, and even more disturbing is that there is no toilet paper here, they use a bucket of water, and thier HAND. If that child (or adult) does not wash his hands, and many definately do not, then thats how easy it is for them to get sick. But hey, if you cant see the germs, they arent there right?



  A typical bad day...

Some days are just bad. I realize looking back they are bad in such silly ways, that you may laugh.  But here's some details of my day today, that made me say, today was a bad day. 

1. I woke up at 515am for the second day, to our new speakers, with the loud bass, on a very loud volume, at 515am.

2. I was out of cinnimon and had to eat my cereal plain.  They lady that sells the tasty hot little breads I sometimes like, was sold out already.

3. My health center director, who just a few days ago, made a schedule for me to start going out into some villages in the afternoons, was not at work today. So I called him to remind him that he scheduled me to go out into a village and I wanted to confirm before I rode all the way out there- (its happend before that ive gone all the way out there and hes called just as i arrive to tell me to come back, he  forgot to call the Village health helper in that village) And today he also forgot, "maybe you dont go today Erin" but that left me with yet another afternoon of free time.But didnt he just make this schedule for me 2 days ago?  The schedule was kind of funny. His english is not so good to say the least.  He spent 15 minutes making the boxes and choosing the font.  The substance to the schedule was basically 

WHO:  ERIN      WHEN:  WEEK 1     WHERE : A VILLAGE     WHAT  GENERAL HEALTH

no time, date, name of the specific village( we have 24)  I had to laugh.  Thank you ! I said.


4. My lunch was not very good. When i have little control over what I eat, sometimes I get pretty annnoyed that Im eating overly fried fish and rice again, no vegetables. Had I gotten home earlier, i may have been able to buy some and cook them myself. Then after we ate, I saw a nice mango on the table that I thought we would eat, they are a dime a dozen but at my house I have never actually picked one. I asked my little host sister ( the 10 or 12 year old?) Lets eat the mango, which she responded.  "Its mine"and took it away. The little berries that she picked at her grandmas house. "They are mine too".  I told her she was selfish, because I share everything with her (i have no choice because she 'takes' it) 

5.  After lunch I thought Id nap, yesterday I felt sick and I just needed to nap a little and wanted to read some of the book I started (Water for elephants)  As soon as I lay down, the music started again.

6. After my 'nap' I went to a new coffee shop for something to do, because the one i used to go to is closed, the man and wife split up. They dont have hot coffee, never have, and they gave me coffee that had so much sugar in it I could not really drink it. I wanted to sit and relax and watch the tv (which had english subtitles, we dont have tv at my house- just tv for watching dvds) Like I would do at a coffee shop at home, I went alone, sometimes I just want to study or read. I cannot do that here, If Im alone, someone thinks Im lonely, so they sit by me and talk my ear off. The same questions (I love them for caring, and I realize they dont understand the concept of being alone...) whats your name, where are you from? how long have you been here, when do you leave? whats your salary? can you teach me english? why arent you married? why would you shave your legs? Do you know you have freckles?  Thats when they say " you sure know alot of Khmer", thats because I rehearsed those answers for months and months. Its darn near perfect now Im sure.

7.  My students came tonight to get help writing letters back to my sisters students. 4 or 5 little kids followed behind and distracted us the entire time, interrupting ERIN ERIN ERIN ERIN , until i answered them. ( i know they are just curious and want to try to learn as well) Then my host dad turned on the music again, very loud. So much for concentrating. Doesnt he realize we cant study with music like that on?  Then the neighbors lit the biggest fire to burn thier trash, it was enough to make me gag and want to go inside to hide from the smoke. Then for dinner we had cold fried eggs and rice for dinner (thankfully this time I had prepared a salad before my students came so I could have it for dinner)

8. Went into the bathroom to shower, and the water that my host dad filled up today, was so mirky brown, i knew Id probably be dirtier after my shower. Then I went to my room to relax, like i usually do after dinner, and the music started up again. Ha, ha.

All these things sound silly, even as I write, but building up all day, or sometimes for days, it turns into a bad day.