April (Most of it) (04/18/2011)

These past couple of days have been spent on vacation due to Kmai New Year. I spent all of the New Year at site, but before New Years I did a little traveling, mostly to Phnom Penh for some awesome free books for the school library. The other traveling I did involved scenic biking, some mountains, forests, leeches, lots of leeches, sun, rain, and seeing some good friends. There are plenty of pics up on facebook. Let me know if you can't see them because they were taken by Peace Corps friends. Also, you should check out the leech vid, its a cute clip of my favorite foresty friends (on my leg).

New Years here was fun, but actually not so eventful. We ate a lot of good food and tons of fruit. At night we went to play some games, though I guess my host sister is still hanging with the hs kids. I feel a little out of place because I'm technically an adult. It's weird to feel out of place there, but kids in HS are just at an age of silliness that I can no longer purposefully imitate. I'm totally fine speaking nonsense and running around with/like the two year-old, but being one with the HS kids is just too close for comfort. I offered food to the monks at the Wat and sort of messed up, but he gave me a redo so my karmic points are all good. We also caught the ice cream moto man so it was a really good trip to the Wat. I also went to Siem Reap city for a few hours with my host sister and brother and I showed them around the supermarket.

At first, they were sort of hesitant to enter. Then even asked me if they could just go in to look and not buy anything. I was like...yea. Then I sprayed my host brother with some random Adidas cologn to show how much you can take advantage of the supermarket's hospitality. Then we went around and compared the prices of everything to our local markets. Of course, a lot of stuff in the supermarket you can't buy anywhere else, but they really do jack up the prices of things. When we were about to leave my host bro runs back to the Adidas section and sprays himself some more. I'm glad I picked out a fragrance that he enjoys. Then we went to this carnival place on the side of the road. I've been there a few times before, but this time we didn't go to ride the rusty ferris wheel. We went shoe shopping. Here, you can get a pair of used shoes for a dollar. Not used Cambodian shoes, you can't really sell those used cause they fall apart in a few weeks. You got italian shoes, korean shoes, other random country shoes. I'm sorta thinking that expats decide to throw away their shoes and they somehow end up here and I end up buying them for a dollar. Though I actually didn't buy anything this time. I feel like, for a dollar, these shoes better be perfect so I'm waiting for a time in the future.

At the carnival we met up with a classmate of my sister's at midwifery school. In Cambodia, midwives a licensed medical professionals with responsibilities similar to those of nurses and with the complete lack of doctors they usually take the place of doctors in most Health Centers. I'm pretty sure there's some kind of gender barrier for women that want to study to be nurses. For sure, no men are midwives because men can't possibly deliver babies in this country, the gender roles are too strict in this area. Anyway, we meet up with her and her dad drives her here on his moto. I feel sort of bad because my bro just waits for us the whole time. I thought he'd go do something fun...

So we finish, and I think we're heading home, but we end up eating Mee Cha for dinner. This is a dish sort of like stir-fried noodles. Can't really describe how it's different from chinese takeout noodles, but it's different. I'll make some for you guys when I get home. The girls' dad pays and then we head off again, only to stop once more at the girls' house. It's only polite because her dad paid for dinner. We chit chat a bit and by we chit chat I mean I go through the usual first meeting blurb with the parents, while the kids play on the new laptop (its a typical first year of college Dell, actually sent from Boston by a relative, hopefully it won't go the way of Kerry's laptop). Near the end of the convo the dad asks me a question. I'm not sure I get it so I ask him to repeat. Then I repeat the part I'm sure I understood" You need how much ___(blank)___ to get a wife?" The word in the blank was money. I had heard correctly the first time, but cultural differences made me unable to comprehend. I responded that you don't need to give money for a wife, though in some cases I guess that can be debated. He understands instantly, "Oh you marry for love". I heartily agree with firm nodding of head. I ask him, "how much does it cost for a wife in Cambodia?" His wife replies, "10,000....Dollars" I was like ")*@#*(@&# shit" That is a fortune. Anywhere, but especially in Cambodia. I think she notices my shock and quickly tells me that sometimes its only 5000 or if they are really poor sometimes 200. But, I guess that the value of a woman's life here.

It's almost New Years!

Edit: Pics are up on facebook!


Yepp, New Years is almost here. It'll be here in about a week and I'm not really sure which year it'll be but its definitely a new one. This'll be my third new year in Cambodia so far and not only is it a New year, but somehow Khmer New Year lasts three whole days! I'm anticipating a ton of food and parties around twon starting this Wednesday. School has already stopped and won't start again for 3 weeks. Unfotunately, or fortunately, the Health Center doesn't close for quite so long. I think we get 3 days of vacation time. More updates on that as the days roll on.

In other news, I finished my first major/minor project! I've done some other things but I think this is my first project where a start and finish are easily identifiable. Though, as with any project, you don't want it to ever really end because you hope that the change will last forever. Anyway, what i did was a reading contest at the local primary school. A few months ago I started hanging out at the primary school because my khmer tutor taught private english classes there 5 days a week to the high school students. Every once in a while the library would be open late enough for me to hang out there a bit. It's a fairly new library, very cute and well stocked. It's the perfect environment for young children to hang out, play games, and read some books. But, I rearly saw other kids there. So, I remembered that during summers at home in NYC I'd go to the library every week. Mostly because i was a nerd and I loved to read, sometimes I went multiple times in one day. But also because the library would have summer reading contests where you read as many books as you can over the course of the summer and you qualify for prizes. Along the way you have to record your books, give either a verbal or written summary, and have it checked by the librarian.

This project costs relatively nothing, just costs for prizes and photocopies. For prizes I gave some pens and some cute notebooks. In total, about 3 dollars per winner for 4 winners, and that was a splurge on my part. I proposed it to the school director in early February and he agreed immediately saying that he wanted to do something similar, but he couldn't think of a less labor intensive way. His idea was for each child to provide a lengthy oral summary of each book, which actually could be a great contest on it own. I remember we used to have storytelling contests in elementary school. So my plan was that my khmer tutor and I would make out a standard recording form, and write out directions, and photocopy everything. After that, it was up tot eh teachers to explain the contest and the librarian had to approve every sheet that the students turned in. At the end of two months I would collect back all the forms and figure who won. The top kids in each grade level would get a prize and all participants would get a certificate. At the end of the two months, the school would also organize, on their own, an award ceremony for the kids. So mostly all I did was work out the logistics with the school director and make a lot of photocopies. The school handled the rest and I tried really hard to trust them.

It all came down to last week. I sat down with all the forms, organized them, and wrote out about 90+ khmer with the help of one of my host cousins. She's 8 and has better handwriting than me... I was really happy overall because we had about a 25% participation rate in the end, if you count the kids that cheated. Which is a hilarious anecdote of its own. So i first became suspicious when I noticed some of the forms were photocopied. I thought that maybe they just wanted it to look neater. Then I realized that the forms were the same, which really was obvious because the handwriting was so distinct. Some of the kids literally took the form, photocopied it, then crossed out the names and put their own. Some were a little more highclass and used whiteout. Most of these kids were in 3rd grade, so in a way its understandable.

I had the school director make the decision on those and surprisingly he made the same decision I would have made and I didn't even have to lead him in that direction. He told me to just leave them out, even when it was obvious who made the original and who made the copies. At first he wanted to give the originals the certificates, but since it wasn't always clear he just made it a blanket ruling. Which in my mind is the most fair. My khmer tutor did protest, saying that these were just kids. And it made me hesitate, just a bit, but then I said that kids will never learn if you let them get ways with it all the time. And maybe he agreed. But part of me does feel really bad about the 3rd graders.

Anyway, the day of the ceremony rolls around and I really have no idea what to expect. I go to work for 2 hours in the morning and then I walk over to the school. To my delight, there's a huge crowd of kids. Some desks neatly organized. Flowers in vases, even a megaphone! Some teachers are there to help. I enlist some in taking pics, which will be up at a later date. The whole thing is a huge success. The certificates even go the official school stamp and signatures on them. The kids were all super happy and when I go home I saw my 8 year old showing off her certificate to everyone. I made a speech, the director made a speech. He even bought the water for everyone like we arranged and had an actual receipt which i had asked for! The clouds wnt away and the sun was shining, but it wasn't too hot. Everything was so perfect.

Overall I thik the project was a success. I'm hoping to see book borrowing rates increase and this project definitely solidified my relationship with all the teachers and students at the primary school. Some things I would have liked to fix : 1)  having the school come up with the idea on their own or asking me for help to make their idea happen instead of me proposing the idea. I tried to emphasize open communication in all my meetings and my speech so maybe this'll be better later on. 2) increased participation in 3rd and 4th grade with no cheating. I think it's really important to get people reading early on and these grades had the lowest participation rates. I think partly because they don't really know how to read. My host mom, a 5th grade teacher, told me once that her students didn't know all the vowels. Granted there are like 20+ vowels, but still...This is a problem that won't be addressed by a reading contest necessarily. I think this contest really will only push kids that were on the edge toward being better readers. Kids that just needed a little more motivation to go to the library regularly. It won't teach kids to read.  3) The library at the high school is not very good so after 6th grade there are no age-appropriate books available to the kids. That sort of just kills the sustainability right there.

In a week I hope to go to Phnom Penh to pick up some books from Asia Foundation which will then be donated to the library. I'm also hoping for some health education books because I haven't seen any of those in Khmer around. Pics will be up soon! I promise.

Forgetfulness

Lately, I've realized that funny things happen to me all the time, but I forget them pretty quickly. It's not because I'm getting used to it. On the contrary, when something unusual or funny happens I always remark on it, but the sheer quantity of these happenings is so overwhelming that I just can't remember them all. As a result of this epiphany, I've tried extra hard to remember some funny things that have happened this past week. For example, I was at the HC as usual when this man comes up to pay the fee because his wife had given birth that morning. The receptionist goes through the usual spiel, but when she asks him for his wife's name he falters. He actually has to run back to his wife, who's resting in a "room", and ask her for her name. Now I'm not exactly sure why this occurs. Presumably they've been married for at least 9 months, but apparently this phenomenon is common in Cambodia. After observing this occurrence I tried to investigate by asking some patients. Usually they didn't understand why I was asking them these strange questions about names and marriage. Mostly, we just ended up talking about why I wasn't married yet.

Yesterday, I spent 10 hours trying to go about 300km to Phnom Penh for a meeting. I woke up at 5:30 and did the usual routine. Then I left my house at 7am to go meet the taxi. I sit in the taxi for 30min. Then the taxi drives around my town in circles for 30 min. Then we go to the next town over and we wait 20 min for some women to buy snacks. We keep going down the highway, but for some reason the police and the Cambodian Red Cross student groups are out in full force this Sunday. We get pulled over 2 or 3 times for the usual reasons that I will let you infer...Then we finally finish the 30k ride to the city and we end up driving around for another 30 min dropping people off, switiching cargo. At one point I could literally have just gotten out of the car and walked to the bus station and I would have made it faster.

Then I got to the bus station after 2.5 hrs in the taxi and I get on a very Khmer bus. Usually I take Sorya but I got ambushed and ended up on another bus line. The problem with this is that the less foriegners on a bus the more stops the bus makes, at least this is the correlation I drew from my observations. We must have stopped a total of 50 times between SR and PP. For example, the lady next to me got up about 5 min into the ride, after we left 30 min late, and made the bus stop to pick up two giant bags of rice. Every 20 min someone would want to get off and new people would get on. By the end of the ride we had about 10 more people than seats. Children had to sit on laps. I'm not talkin' bout 5 year olds either. But somehow we still made it in 6.5 hrs. Not sure how that happened.

Kampong Cham and Phnom Penh

This past week was pretty epic. I went down to Kampong Cham for the weekend and visited my first host family. I think I ate twice the number of meals I normally eat and had a fruit shake for every meal. The reason for all this is because I went with Saeed, who was my neighbor during training. His host fam and mine are related so he's sort of like my cousin. After I eat at my house I end up at Saeed's house eating a second meal. It's actually a pretty good deal. I also had a ton of free time so we went running every morning and played bball every afternoon. Playing 1 vs. 4 kids is actually really fun because even though they can barely make a basket they force you to be quick on your feet. Little kids can turn on a dime though they have some trouble anticipating your moves.Yea, the highlight of my trip was hustling little kids. I'm not ashamed though maybe I should be.

After Kampong Cham I headed to Phnom Penh for IST (in-service training). Which was basically a series of meetings, informative and boring. Though really, no one can make these meetings interesting all the time so there's no one to blame. We did get to have two days of it in a super nice hotel. Like 5 star hotel...maybe. My standards for hotels have changed drastically since I moved here. We had a free 22 dollar buffet both days and free snacks and tea/coffee during breaks. It was awesome for us. Unfortunately, the second day was a conference with Cambodian counterparts. Some of the people at that meeting had never left their provinces and had never had Western food before. It really made me realize how ridiculous the hotel was. Even though we were in their country, the Cambodians were the ones that probably felt the most uncomfortable. Cambodians would be the ones asked to leave if they acted the way Cambodians normally act. The presence of hotels like that are preposterous.

02/21/2011 the heat and the kids

Well hot season has started. I'm not sure i'm ready to call it dry season though. In the mornings it feels pretty humid still, but no one can deny that the dust and sand is out of control. It pretty much hasn't rained in the last 3 months, probably more but I didn't keep track. Instead of sinking into the mud I sink into the sand. No longer do I need to avoid puddles and splashes from passing trucks, but I do need to hold my breath and close my eyes to avoid being suffocated and blinded. The ants have gone insane too. I'm not entirely sure why because it's not like any rains are driving them nuts. Maybe overpopulation...Anyway they're all over my room. There was a time where I wouldn't mind this because usually they got what they wanted and would leave. But now it's war and I'm probably gonna lose. Now, they just want to live here. There's no food in my room. I have strict rules. Any food is in a ziploc bag which has been a time tested repulsant of ants. I've cleaned and even flooded them with hand sanitizer. I think sometimes the ants get drunk off the ethanol or at least knocked out. But its all just temporary. Today I stepped on a fire ant hill. That was painful. I literally was only on it for a second, but they are vicious and I didn't have any water around. So I pretty much just jumped around and threw off my shoes. Then jumped around some more. It's funny because I was with a 12 year old and a 6 year old and they were both unfazed by the ants.

Progress report on my biking skills: there is clear improvement. I am not bad at biking standing up now though I still only do it when I'm alone. I'm scared of falling and knocking other people over. I can bike over 30k and my butt doesn't hurt like crazy anymore. After biking a while, my arms are more tired than my legs. I think using a super huge city bike for 2 months and all that practice using a squat toilet has really improved my leg strength. Even doing the laundry isn't such a workout now. I puposefully use laundry time to practice my squat instead of sitting on a small seat.

I've started playing volleyball with  some kids this past week. The first time it was almost all girls and most of them had never learned how to play before. I did some basic drills with bumps, but for some reason everyone wanted to set. Except, they didn't know how to do it. So I tried to teach them, but the concept of fingertips was hard to get across. In Kmai the word for hand and arm are the same.

Today I played with almost all boys. Deja vu. The girls/boys dynamics in sports is definitely the same way it is in America. Girls are easily intimidated and don't assert themselves when boys are around. Boys are exclusionary even though, skills wise, they are equal to the girls. Boys can hit hard and hit far, but they have no idea how to direct their hits. Girls learn technique faster because they can't rely on hitting hard to muddle through, but as a consequence they look worse playing the game since their hits are timid. These are purely my observations of these two groups playing, but it's exactly the same thing I experienced in high school. The frustrating thing is that these girls are good, but will probably never get to be better. Since they aren't amazing off the bat they get excluded. Being excluded means no practice time. No practice time means they will always be stuck at the playing level that they're currently at. This is exactly how it worked in my high school. The only way girls get better is if they can challenge the boys and kick their asses or if they get individual playing time.

Case in point, As I was playing with the boys today a tenth grade girl I knew came over. I invited her a few times to play but she declined. She kept telling me she didn't know how to play which in Cambodian can also mean she just doesn't like to play. Instead she joined the younger kids that I brought with me who also felt excluded. When the boys left for class I got my volleyball back and I taught her to bump. She already knew how to set pretty well. We played for maybe half an hour and she was late for class because she didn't want to stop. Out of all the kids I'd played with she definitely had the best control of the ball. She could direct it properly and knew how much force was needed. It was, by far, the best practice I'd had with the kids in my village. But without me spending extra time with her she would have just been stuck watching on the sidelines.

funnies

Some Things I do:

Today my kmai tutor asked me to explain what a blind date was. To do that I had to go back and explain what dating was. This was interesting since it doesn't really happen here too often. Neither does going out to eat dinner or going for a coffee with the opposite sex. Sometimes I had to refrain from saying that in America it doesn't happen very often either, but I didn't want to confuse him.

I color. As in coloring books. Some volunteers/tourists from another NGo gave me some coloring books before I left. They said it was for the kids in the HC and I've tried to follow their wishes. So I started with the coloring books and pencils they gave me and I gave them to kids that looked bored. This did not turn out how I expected. First, kids that are under 5 years of age cannot successfully use something as long as a colored pencil, so I bought crayons. Secondly, parents/and some kids think that there is some skill necessary to color. Sometimes parents think their kids are doing it wrong and they do it instead. But really, I think it's because the mom's never get to do anything and they want to color too. Slowly, this project became "Helen Teaches how to Color!" Sometimes I get the elderly to do it. Now, they are insecure about coloring. Some tentatively pick up a crayon and then put it down. Some color a little and then walk away. Some go nuts. Now I've found that I have to very firmly give someone a coloring sheet. Then I need to walk away for a while. Usually the kids get it by then and some moms are getting into it. And its a small insider victory for me because girls and guys color the same stuff whether its Thomas the train or Sleeping Beauty. I'm working on getting some health related stuff but I might have to draw them myself. Those of you that have seen me draw know that it's a disaster waiting to happen.

I've been imaginarily practicing William Tell overture on my imaginary flute because I think my tongue is becoming lazy. I can't really speak properly anymore and I needed to give my tongue some exercise.

A good day 02/10/2011

Today has been a really crazy, good day so far. I'll start from the beginning. This morning I woke up around 6. This is the time my family gets up. We're pretty lazy for a kmai family. In training, My family woke up every morning at 4:30am. Anyway, I get up and do the usual to get ready for my kmai lesson and work. I look at my watch and somehow it's only 6:30. I actually have enough time to go to the market today! So I mosey on over to the market and buy a whole bunch of bananas which costs about 25 cents here. Then I go over to my waffle lady. Now waffles in Cambodia are not the same as they are in America. First off, they're made from rice flour. Plus they tast totally different, but they look the same and they're hot off the griddle. I'm usually the first one in line so I get the first two of the day. I go back home and make a banana and peanut butter waffle sandwich. SO delicious. I eat it as I walk to the temple for my kmai lesson, which is abnomally productive.

I go to work and people are cleaning and things are getting done. All because the US Ambassador to Cambodia decided to visit my site today! I found out a day and a half ago. Around 8:30 Am two giant white vans roll up in front of my health center. The Ambassador, her name is Carol, steps out and we chit chat. I give her a tour of the HC and describe the services. Answer some questions and what not. Act like I give tours everyday. Some kids are furiously coloring, the toddler that tried to eat my crayons runs into the Ambassador. Carol, because only on a blog am I on a first name basis with any politician, asks a woman how old her baby is. The woman quickly replies 7 months and then goes on a long spiel about how her baby has 'romuh' on his hand. It's a word I haven't found a satisfying translation to yet. It sometimes means an itch, but not always. Somewhere between a skin affliction/rash/itchyness. We eventually get to move on, but that baby had the saddest baby face I've ever seen. Usually, babies look pretty nonchalant even when they're suffering. But this one knew it was dealing with something extremely unpleasant while two strangers stared at him. The whole visit is over in an hour and it was a really fun hour. I like things that are pleasant and shake up my day. Especially if it's an opportunity to speak in a language I know fluently.

After that I go to this big meeting at the Commune Office. All the village health volunteers are there and we chit chat. I get an awesome sandwich out of it. In the middle of eating my sandwich the meeting starts again. Did I mention that because of the Ambassador I missed the first half? Trust me, that was a blessing. Anyway, the reason we have the meeting is because a new NGO is starting to work in my town and I get along very well with the Project Manager, who speaks excellent English and is the first Cambodian I've met that told me he wanted to go to Africa. Not only does he want to go to Africa, but he wants to help the people there. In the meanwhile, he settles for helping Cambodians in Cambodia. Anyway, he tells me to go sit in the front. A few minutes later I realize that he means in the front with all the important people facing the audience. So I between the Chief of Police and the Chief of my Commune. He's next to the Chief of another Commune and my Health Center Director. It's me and a bunch of middle aged/elderly Cambodian men. About 20 min into the meeting he asks me to talk to the group...I have no idea what to say and I thankfully did not have to say it in kmai. Usually, I do an OK job of speeches in kmai, but usually I practice before hand. Luckily, the project manager agreed to translate for me so I just said a short speech right there on the spot.The rest of the meeting isn't bad. The guy even said once that (I'm paraphrasing) " If we don't use the funds then Sudan will get it! Do you know where Sudan is?" I cracked up inside. By the time it ended it was 11 and time to go home.

I get home and a few minutes later the Peace Corps car rolls up just before lunch. I get 4 packages. One from PC, one from my fam, one from lawrence, and one from Amazon. The one from Amazon was a gift from a friend and was insane because I did not believe that Amazon could deliver to Cambodia. The shipping cost more than the gift but only by a few dollars. The one from PC was standard, some meds, some forms, a resource book I asked for, and 3 CHRISTMAS CARDS!!! I was so excited. At least one was postmarked December 15th...it took 2 months to get to me, but it finally made it. Thanks Nandini and Ian! The third is from my fam.  Package from Lawrence is full of awesomeness. Thank you so much! A letter is coming your way. I've already written it. The package from my fam was full of stuff I asked for. Including my makeup. Yea, its strange that even in Cambodia I need to worry about looks. It also included ear plugs. I'm convinced that in 10 years, Cambodia will have the highest rate of deaf youth/middle aged people in the world. I'm pretty sure no one here knows that loud music or sounds will make you go deaf. There's also no sense of privacy in Cambodia. Everyone knows everyones business, medical or otherwise. Also, you can play your music or sing karaoke as loud as you want and no one will complain. Cars and motos beep their horns to make sure you get out of the way before they almost mow you down.Anyway, even though I knew what to expect I still get great joy from opening it because i never know how my instructions will take physical shape. Thank you to everyone that sent me something and also for everyone that keeps in touch whether by calling or through the internet. It is awesome to have friends and family and I never want to be without either! Did I mention that for lunch we had pork instead of fish? Awesome!