Sometimes happenings are artistic. Or they are semi-organized events that make a point, but here in Cambodia a lot of things just happen to me. Here's a list of things that have happened to me:
1. I biked about 30 k through floods, rain, and intense sunshine from Siem Reap City to my village, Sasar Sdam. While I did plan to bike home, I didn't realize that the torrential rains everyday had flooded the national highway. I also did not account for the fact that I would encounter torrential rain during my ride. Everytime I got to a cloudy patch I tried to peddle a little harder and get to a dry patch. When I got to the dry patch it would be intensely hot and my clothes would dry only to bike into another rainy patch. My bike was also stuck on a really high gear so near the end of my ride I was being passed by women biking in skirts with 50 pound rice bags on the back of their bike.
2. My job mostly consists of conversing with patients about almost anything. Last week, I talked to this woman for an hour because she was worried I would be kidnapped on my morning runs, which I hope she is exaggerating about.
3. Almost everyday I get asked, "Are you bored?" by at least 3 people multiple times. At first I would always say no because I wasn't bored. Everything was so new to me. Now I admit I am sometimes bored because it's a slow process to find enough projects to keep me busy like I used to be in America, but I also ask people if they're bored. And they are. They are very bored all the time and sometimes I wonder why they don't do something about it. I'll go on a bike ride or visit a neighbor, but some people just watch TV all day.
4. For some reason, really old Jackie Chan movies are really popular on tv. I watch at least one a week and sometimes they have chinese/english subtitles. And let me tell you, Jackie Chan movies are hilarious. It's way better than Rush Hour at combining action and comedy. At one point in a movie, Jackie Chan was dressed as Chun Li and mimicked her mannerisms perfectly.
5. One of my crowning achievements so far came one night while watching the usual werewolf soap opera from the Phillipines. One very short lived character made a joke and for the first time I fully understood a joke on tv, thought it was funny, and laughed because it was funny. It's rare to laugh because I think something is worth laughing. Usually, I laugh because I notice other people laughing. I have only a partial idea why and mostly I just want to fit in.
6. A few days ago I wore a hoodie in a tropical country and it was good. It's weird the things that make me feel at home, but I guess after 4 years in maine heavy clothing makes me feel at home. With my hoodie on I can almost pretend it blizzarding outside and I have a paper due in 5 hours and the campus just lost electricity due to falling branches. To this day, i still don't really understand how so many branches can fall everytime it blizzards. By the fifth blizzard there shouldn't be any branches left!
Friday, October 29, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
funnies
I keep putting heavy boring things on this blog because that's whats on my mind, but plenty of funny and cool things happen too!
Some time in the past 3 weeks, my host mom shaved my face with a razor and I'm not talking about a razor with a plastic handle. It was just a razor. Luckily, she sent someone for a new one right before it was my turn so no risk of any diseases if i get accidentally cut. Originally, it was just to shave my eyebrows. Something I agreed to because I needed it. And she did a really good job with all the other girls. I told her that in America we pluck eyebrows all the time and we don't shave. Her reaction was that plucking hurts like hell and why would people ever want to do that? Which is very logical. Though having a razor next to your eye also seems to carry some risk. After she finished the brows, she kept going. I didn't know I had hair on my cheeks but they were shaved. She did my whole face, but really I couldn't see the difference afterwards. I don't think I had that much hair on my face outside of the eyebrow area to begin with, but clearly she thought it was necessary to remove it all. Will I do it again? Probably not the whole face shave. But the eyebrows, definitely.
Some time in the past 3 weeks, my host mom shaved my face with a razor and I'm not talking about a razor with a plastic handle. It was just a razor. Luckily, she sent someone for a new one right before it was my turn so no risk of any diseases if i get accidentally cut. Originally, it was just to shave my eyebrows. Something I agreed to because I needed it. And she did a really good job with all the other girls. I told her that in America we pluck eyebrows all the time and we don't shave. Her reaction was that plucking hurts like hell and why would people ever want to do that? Which is very logical. Though having a razor next to your eye also seems to carry some risk. After she finished the brows, she kept going. I didn't know I had hair on my cheeks but they were shaved. She did my whole face, but really I couldn't see the difference afterwards. I don't think I had that much hair on my face outside of the eyebrow area to begin with, but clearly she thought it was necessary to remove it all. Will I do it again? Probably not the whole face shave. But the eyebrows, definitely.
Wear and tear
10/10/10
Sometimes I wish i could just spend all day watching DVDs in my room. That much hasn't changed about me. It's weird to think that I've been here almost 3 months already. It seems long, but not in comparison to how long I will be here. And yet each day passes at its own pace. I have no control over the movement of time, but only of my perception of how it moves. A slow day is slow because I think it is. Because I haven't been able to think of a way to make it pass quickly. Being here has really been a mental battle at times. This being most evident at night time. In the 'middle' of the night, which here is about 11 or 10 pm, I'll half wake up and all the things that bother me during the day will just manifest itself. Some nights i'll be hopelessly itchy, thinking that ants or mosquitos are all over me. Some nights, I'll wake up midsentence, voicing the negative thoughts that I keep inside all day.
All of these things are just inside my head. Taken objectively, none of these things alone are really worth worrying over. A few ants, some mosquito bites, they're all part of life. Nothing huge, but everything adds up. All the pressures, annoyances they become the easy way to deal with the larger hardships. The fact that most days I'm practically mute. People, whether conciously or unconciously, don't speak to me because they know I won't understand. And I, choose not to speak to them because I don't have the ability to. This is not an issue I can fix except through persistence and continuous learning. A long and slow process, but the effects of my ineptitude are felt everyday.
In a way, I'm caught in an awkward transition stage. During training, I was a baby. Learning the necessities for survival. My family knew this and they treated me as such. It was continually rewarding because each small baby step I made was instantly praised. I could see the effects of learning a single new word immediately. Here, it's different. I'm expected to be an adult, to do a job. I have the mindset of an adult. The ability to observe, learn, and analyze as an adult, with a college level education at that. But in this country, I speak like a toddler, my best friends are children because they don't rely on language to bond, and I'm completely illiterate. The act of learning to read, of memorizing the alphabet, an exercise that seemed second nature to me as a child, is proving to be more of a task than I could have imagined.
As I write this entry, I have been living in my village for two weeks already. It seems like an eternity at times and I have to keep reminding myself that friendships and relationships take more time than that.In that time I have accomplished a lot already. I've started going to work everyday, which consists of observing the Health Center for 4 hrs a day. I've already started teaching English to my coworkers at the Health Center and I've found that the bonds there are slowly growing. At home, I play "basketball" with some kids with a ball I bought and some days I teach a mix of yoga/aerobics. There's some confusion with my language tutor, but, as with everything, I'm just dealing with it as I go. I've biked to my nearest neighbor for a visit (16k each way) and another neighbor has biked to me (30k each way).
Hopefully, when I write my next entry I will have accomplished so much more and will have found comfort in my new routines. Though really, as with life anywhere, you can't really predict what will happen. For example, this weekend was a 4 day weekend which could have been immensely boring. The first day I biked to my friend's house and when I got back I found out that the 6 people living with us (students of varying ages that live with us to be closer to school) were going to Siem Reap City for 2 days. The next day was slow as expected but I got some errands done. The third day everyone returned much earlier than I thought they would and somehow I ended up going to Angkor wat with my aunt. We packed 8 people comfortably into a toyota camry. The concept of seating is drastically different here. In fact, the Peace Corps vans have seats in the trunk so people can ride back there. I once saw a moto strapped to the back of a van with a person riding on on the moto instead of in the van. After angkor wat we had a picnic and went to a random carnival. There, on a full stomach, I went on a really fast ferris wheel and another ride. All of this was totally out of the blue, along with my host sister's departure for Phnom Penh tomorrow.
__________________________________________________
10/16/10
I'm in the city so I can post this entry today. In the past week, not much has changed, but a lot has changed. With my sister gone and school starting up, not many people are around for my usual yoga sessions. I'm definitly on my own a lot more. I came into the city to get my bike fixed, which has been a source of constant aggravation. More people than I can count have tried to fix my bike, but unfortunately a mountain bike is a bit difficult to understand. It's funny, but most of the time people don't even see the problems with it when I first show them. But, to me it's obvious. The chain touches the sides of the cage on some gears, the bottom of the cage on others. But, most people initially just change the gears until they find on that works and they're like OK it's fine. I think they don't always realize that ALL of the gear combinations are supposed to work. Not just 5 out of 24.Anyway, I'm trying really hard to just let it go and ride it out until i can get a new bike. It's really understandable why people think this way. One, they don't usually have mountain bikes and nobody has told them how it works if they do buy one. In fact, I went to a store selling tons of brand new mountain bikes and they really had no idea how to fix my bike, though they proceeded to do so for an hour. Two, I look around most people's bikes and realize that they get really beaten down. Bikes cost a lot and they are the main, and sometimes only, form of transport. A simple bike can last for years and if the chain still moves the wheels when you pedal then that's awesome. Weird sounds, such as the chain rubbing against some metal, are common place. Which is probably why no one saw a problem with my bike and everyone said it was fixed. I'm the only one that knows that my bike should run silently, that parts should not rub against each other like that, that with a two month old mountain bike all the gears should still work. It seems strange that getting this bike fixed has been one of the most frequent reoccurring instances of the cultural gap and it's the one that makes me angry most easily too. There's just a culmination of all my frustrations. Cultural, language, and realtionship issues all come into play. Everytime I start getting upset I have to keep reminding myself that it really is not a big deal. if it breaks, I'll get a new bike. That's that. shit happens. But, sometimes it's just so hard to stay objective and reasonable ALL the time.
Sometimes I wish i could just spend all day watching DVDs in my room. That much hasn't changed about me. It's weird to think that I've been here almost 3 months already. It seems long, but not in comparison to how long I will be here. And yet each day passes at its own pace. I have no control over the movement of time, but only of my perception of how it moves. A slow day is slow because I think it is. Because I haven't been able to think of a way to make it pass quickly. Being here has really been a mental battle at times. This being most evident at night time. In the 'middle' of the night, which here is about 11 or 10 pm, I'll half wake up and all the things that bother me during the day will just manifest itself. Some nights i'll be hopelessly itchy, thinking that ants or mosquitos are all over me. Some nights, I'll wake up midsentence, voicing the negative thoughts that I keep inside all day.
All of these things are just inside my head. Taken objectively, none of these things alone are really worth worrying over. A few ants, some mosquito bites, they're all part of life. Nothing huge, but everything adds up. All the pressures, annoyances they become the easy way to deal with the larger hardships. The fact that most days I'm practically mute. People, whether conciously or unconciously, don't speak to me because they know I won't understand. And I, choose not to speak to them because I don't have the ability to. This is not an issue I can fix except through persistence and continuous learning. A long and slow process, but the effects of my ineptitude are felt everyday.
In a way, I'm caught in an awkward transition stage. During training, I was a baby. Learning the necessities for survival. My family knew this and they treated me as such. It was continually rewarding because each small baby step I made was instantly praised. I could see the effects of learning a single new word immediately. Here, it's different. I'm expected to be an adult, to do a job. I have the mindset of an adult. The ability to observe, learn, and analyze as an adult, with a college level education at that. But in this country, I speak like a toddler, my best friends are children because they don't rely on language to bond, and I'm completely illiterate. The act of learning to read, of memorizing the alphabet, an exercise that seemed second nature to me as a child, is proving to be more of a task than I could have imagined.
As I write this entry, I have been living in my village for two weeks already. It seems like an eternity at times and I have to keep reminding myself that friendships and relationships take more time than that.In that time I have accomplished a lot already. I've started going to work everyday, which consists of observing the Health Center for 4 hrs a day. I've already started teaching English to my coworkers at the Health Center and I've found that the bonds there are slowly growing. At home, I play "basketball" with some kids with a ball I bought and some days I teach a mix of yoga/aerobics. There's some confusion with my language tutor, but, as with everything, I'm just dealing with it as I go. I've biked to my nearest neighbor for a visit (16k each way) and another neighbor has biked to me (30k each way).
Hopefully, when I write my next entry I will have accomplished so much more and will have found comfort in my new routines. Though really, as with life anywhere, you can't really predict what will happen. For example, this weekend was a 4 day weekend which could have been immensely boring. The first day I biked to my friend's house and when I got back I found out that the 6 people living with us (students of varying ages that live with us to be closer to school) were going to Siem Reap City for 2 days. The next day was slow as expected but I got some errands done. The third day everyone returned much earlier than I thought they would and somehow I ended up going to Angkor wat with my aunt. We packed 8 people comfortably into a toyota camry. The concept of seating is drastically different here. In fact, the Peace Corps vans have seats in the trunk so people can ride back there. I once saw a moto strapped to the back of a van with a person riding on on the moto instead of in the van. After angkor wat we had a picnic and went to a random carnival. There, on a full stomach, I went on a really fast ferris wheel and another ride. All of this was totally out of the blue, along with my host sister's departure for Phnom Penh tomorrow.
__________________________________________________
10/16/10
I'm in the city so I can post this entry today. In the past week, not much has changed, but a lot has changed. With my sister gone and school starting up, not many people are around for my usual yoga sessions. I'm definitly on my own a lot more. I came into the city to get my bike fixed, which has been a source of constant aggravation. More people than I can count have tried to fix my bike, but unfortunately a mountain bike is a bit difficult to understand. It's funny, but most of the time people don't even see the problems with it when I first show them. But, to me it's obvious. The chain touches the sides of the cage on some gears, the bottom of the cage on others. But, most people initially just change the gears until they find on that works and they're like OK it's fine. I think they don't always realize that ALL of the gear combinations are supposed to work. Not just 5 out of 24.Anyway, I'm trying really hard to just let it go and ride it out until i can get a new bike. It's really understandable why people think this way. One, they don't usually have mountain bikes and nobody has told them how it works if they do buy one. In fact, I went to a store selling tons of brand new mountain bikes and they really had no idea how to fix my bike, though they proceeded to do so for an hour. Two, I look around most people's bikes and realize that they get really beaten down. Bikes cost a lot and they are the main, and sometimes only, form of transport. A simple bike can last for years and if the chain still moves the wheels when you pedal then that's awesome. Weird sounds, such as the chain rubbing against some metal, are common place. Which is probably why no one saw a problem with my bike and everyone said it was fixed. I'm the only one that knows that my bike should run silently, that parts should not rub against each other like that, that with a two month old mountain bike all the gears should still work. It seems strange that getting this bike fixed has been one of the most frequent reoccurring instances of the cultural gap and it's the one that makes me angry most easily too. There's just a culmination of all my frustrations. Cultural, language, and realtionship issues all come into play. Everytime I start getting upset I have to keep reminding myself that it really is not a big deal. if it breaks, I'll get a new bike. That's that. shit happens. But, sometimes it's just so hard to stay objective and reasonable ALL the time.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Going to Permanent Site
Today, I took the bus up to Siem Reap city. Tomorrow, I'm heading to my permanent village. I'll be there for the rest of my time in Cambodia and hopefully I'll like it there. I'll be living in my village with a new family and a new town and a new job to get used to. To top it all off I'll be in the village alone, as in the only volunteer. The next volunteer is about 15k away. Pretty much, my job is whatever I make of it. The first few weeks/months I'll just be learning to live again and getting to know people. I have to report to the health center every day, but I really can't do much yet because I need to learn a lot more k'mai. At the schools, it's a little easier to get started because they have a set national curriculum and also english speaking teachers. At the health center, a lot of it is just up to me and my own initiative. It's easy to just sit and give up. I have to make the right connections, identify needs, think of projects, start them, and finish them. There's not really a boss looking over my shoulder to make sure everything is going according to some grand plan. I hope I'm ready for that kind of responsibility because I know some days will be hard. Those days will be the ones where I'll be able to kick myself in the butt and make myself go to work and do what needs to be done.
On a lighter note, today my giant coach bus stopped by the side of the highway to pick up bags of cucumbers.
On a lighter note, today my giant coach bus stopped by the side of the highway to pick up bags of cucumbers.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
A few random things
Right now I'm sitting in a coffee shop in Phnom Penh. It's odd, but I never realized, until now, how much coffee shops remind me of home. The last two months I was in New York, I spent going from coffee shop to bakery to library in search of internet so I could study for MCATs and now I'm doing the same (except for the MCATs part, I'm pretty sure I never want to do that again). Wow, this internet is super fast (for Cambodia). I actually just loaded my first youtube vid in 2 months. And let me tell ya, the adrenalin rush was better than when I get stuck on the top of the rock wall and go into a blind panic.
Something else that reminds me of home is doing aerobics. Picture doing a workout dvd, except your not at home. Instead, your standing in the middle of a huge concrete/tile sidewalk that actually is just a giant divider for one of the busiest streets in the biggest city in Cambodia. There's random music blasting on the speakers and you are surrounded by 20 to 50 year old women and some men. There's about 50 people just sitting on their motos watching you. There's a skinny K'mai guy who looks about 15 doing dance/aerobics moves and everyone is following him in (almost) perfect sync. Depending on whose leading the group, this can actually be an intense workout. Not to mention that it's 90+ degrees/ 80% humidity every single day. I've heard that this type of public exercise is also really popular in China, but that's just a rumor.
Something else that reminds me of home is doing aerobics. Picture doing a workout dvd, except your not at home. Instead, your standing in the middle of a huge concrete/tile sidewalk that actually is just a giant divider for one of the busiest streets in the biggest city in Cambodia. There's random music blasting on the speakers and you are surrounded by 20 to 50 year old women and some men. There's about 50 people just sitting on their motos watching you. There's a skinny K'mai guy who looks about 15 doing dance/aerobics moves and everyone is following him in (almost) perfect sync. Depending on whose leading the group, this can actually be an intense workout. Not to mention that it's 90+ degrees/ 80% humidity every single day. I've heard that this type of public exercise is also really popular in China, but that's just a rumor.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Almost done! (with training)
This morning I left my training host family and got on a "van" to Kampong Cham town. My host mom and little brother started crying as we walked away. It seems strange because I feel like I should be going home to America now. Like I just finished a summer internship and I've learned a lot and now I should be going back to Bowdoin to cram for exams and run around in a snow storm. Instead, I'm going start this all over again. Part of me is really frustrated because I worked so hard to adjust and integrate into the community and right when I feel comfortable it all gets taken away again. The next 3 months will be harder than the last two, mostly because o I will be on my own. It's me and the village. That'll be a good book title.
So because I was leaving this week I decided to loosen my eating principles for a few days. That was a mistake. I think one night I ate so much rice that I had a stomach ache for about 2 hours after because it was just too much. They eat so much rice here. I'm talking a dinner plate mountainful of rice and then they go for seconds. And after the rice I had a pineapple smoothie. My host family has been making fruit smoothies for me for the past week except for a few days where our electricity was out. The last 2 days I've have double meals because I'll eat with my family and then my host aunt will invite me to eat again and I can't say no cause she'll be really disappointed. Also, I really like the food they make. This morning for breakfast I had fried rice with beef and then I had chicken curry with french bread. That's one of the things the french did right here. They left awesome bread behind. If only I could get whole wheat or 12 grain...
On a semi related note, in order to burn off a lot of the rice I've been eating I've been biking more. I'm very proud to say that I biked 15k on dirt, mud, and by the side of a lawless highway. Though I've biked further here, the 15k was at a fast pace for me and I was exhausted. Unfortunately, the nearest town to mine will be about 15k away so I'll get a lot of practice. Eventaully, I hope that I'll be less dirty and sweaty after 15k because I'm sure my friend's host family will not appreciate a sweaty smelly girl showing up every weekend.
In less than a week i'll be officially sworn in, but before I left this morning my host sister put my hair in pigtail braids and I put on my aviators. I'm going to leave you with that image and the word 'badass'.
So because I was leaving this week I decided to loosen my eating principles for a few days. That was a mistake. I think one night I ate so much rice that I had a stomach ache for about 2 hours after because it was just too much. They eat so much rice here. I'm talking a dinner plate mountainful of rice and then they go for seconds. And after the rice I had a pineapple smoothie. My host family has been making fruit smoothies for me for the past week except for a few days where our electricity was out. The last 2 days I've have double meals because I'll eat with my family and then my host aunt will invite me to eat again and I can't say no cause she'll be really disappointed. Also, I really like the food they make. This morning for breakfast I had fried rice with beef and then I had chicken curry with french bread. That's one of the things the french did right here. They left awesome bread behind. If only I could get whole wheat or 12 grain...
On a semi related note, in order to burn off a lot of the rice I've been eating I've been biking more. I'm very proud to say that I biked 15k on dirt, mud, and by the side of a lawless highway. Though I've biked further here, the 15k was at a fast pace for me and I was exhausted. Unfortunately, the nearest town to mine will be about 15k away so I'll get a lot of practice. Eventaully, I hope that I'll be less dirty and sweaty after 15k because I'm sure my friend's host family will not appreciate a sweaty smelly girl showing up every weekend.
In less than a week i'll be officially sworn in, but before I left this morning my host sister put my hair in pigtail braids and I put on my aviators. I'm going to leave you with that image and the word 'badass'.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Back in Phnom Penh
So I did the 3 days with the host fam and also some time back in Siem Reap town. Today we came back to Phnom Penh for the first time since we arrived in Cambodia. The bus took super long. Somehow the people that left an hour after us made it to the hotel before us. After we got to the hotel, Kurt and I tried to go to the Peace Corps HQ, but we ended up getting lost for an hour. It was an adventure. Walking around Phnom Penh, I definitely get the feeling that this is just straight up a city. If Siem Reap was Time Square then Phnom Penh is the nitty gritty business part, without the glitz and glamour. It's weird, but part of me prefers Siem Reap. It's a little more relaxed, with time to just walk around and look. Basically, I can be in a daze and act as touristy as I want in Siem Reap, but Phnom Penh is a bit more stress. One up side to Phnom Penh is that there is a chinatown here. Yea, strange. I had hand drawn noodle soup and dumplings for dinner today and both were really really good. Reminds me of home. Going away from training and Prey Chor really made me realize how easy I had it. I had a host family that understood me and I understood them. I knew how things worked at home and around town. Now I have to learn it all over again and that sort of sucks, but I just gotta deal.
Cute anecdote of the week: While I was with my host family, I was able to teach my baby niece to bow to me. Haha. She is so cute. She's about 1 and loves to run around in shoes that don't fit her.
So, I'll be in Phnom Penh for another day and a half. This means that I will probably be online, usually either early morning(in America) or early evening (in America). Hope to chat with some of you!
Cute anecdote of the week: While I was with my host family, I was able to teach my baby niece to bow to me. Haha. She is so cute. She's about 1 and loves to run around in shoes that don't fit her.
So, I'll be in Phnom Penh for another day and a half. This means that I will probably be online, usually either early morning(in America) or early evening (in America). Hope to chat with some of you!
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