Moving to Traing

Today we leave our hub site in Takeo province to move in with our host families! We leave here around 8:30 in groups, and will take a couple of vans each to get to our villages. Mine is called Traing, and it's about 10 km from our hub site, where we will all be meeting once a week for technical training together. There are two other training sites that will also host volunteers, one about 10 km away and the other about 40.

I am really excited to meet my host family, and, of course, nervous. It will be a pretty drastic jump, moving from staying in "guest houses" where there's running water, internet access, and a western style toilet, to a Khmai house where water comes in the form of rain or a well, there's an outhouse, and likely no electricity. So if you don't hear from me for a while, don't think I'm being negligent; I may just not have the means to stay connected for the time being.

We will be in our PST (pre-service training) villages for the next two months, until we swear in as official volunteers on Septemper 23rd, at which point we move to our permanent sites.

When we get to Traing today, my group will go to a Wat to be greeted by the monks in a welcoming ceremony where they bless us with water and throw flowers on us two by two. I am almost more anxious for that than moving in with my host family; there's so much ritual involved and certain ways you have to sit, look (not look in my case, since I am a woman) at the monk etc. Hope I don't screw up! ;)

Now it's time for my last Western shower and a quick ride to the market for breakfast before we leave. Joom riep lia! (Goodbye!)

We're here!

So, we made it to Phnom Penh! After 21 hours of travel, a layover in Tokyo (during which I made it a priority to find some Koala yummies), and an overnight in Bangkok, we've finally made it. We've only been here for a couple of days, and so far everything has been fairly overwhelming, but I can try to give a few general first impressions of Phnom Penh as my jet-lagged brain will allow. Phnom Penh is crowded... There are so many people packed into one place, so naturally there's a lot of trash everywhere, it's noisy, there are mopeds speeding around every corner. But surprisingly, it doesn't smell. The people here are very friendly, especially the tuk-tuk drivers who are eager to be the ones to take you from point A to point B. Things are extremely inexpensive for Westerners; a five minute tuk-tuk ride from our hotel to our training sight costs about a quarter per person. I've enjoyed the Cambodian cuisine I've tried so far, which is a big plus as most of you know I love food! Lots of fresh fruit, including lichee which may possibly be a new favorite of mine.

We had a language assessment today at training, which was funny... My Khmai is limited to three phrases: "joom reap sua" (I'm spelling these phonetically since they aren't really spelled out in anything other than Khmai), which is the formal way to say "hello," "owkun," which means "thank you," and "chewy pong!" which means "help!" I know, fairly impressive. It is such an interesting sounding language... Hard and harsh in a way, but also lyrical and sing-songy in another.

As with any developing country, the contrast between the classes here is pretty striking. The rich are extremely rich, and the poor, extremely poor. The Khmer rouge killed most everyone with a formal education past grade nine, so the country has been in a state of rebuilding, pretty much from nothing, since the late 70s. Those who are rich in Cambodia like to flaunt it. They drive Lexus' which not only have the Lexus logo in small print on the back of the car, but sometimes will have it plastered on the side in large print, in case you might have missed it. We've been told Phnom Penh "isn't really Cambodia" which makes sense to me, since we say in America that New York or L.A. aren't really representative of most places in America. I'm excited to know the real Cambodia.

View from the second to top floor of Central Market, downtown Phnom Penh

Market vendor selling corn

Tomorrow we leave for Takeo province, south of Phnom Penh. We're traveling by bus, on what should be about a three-hour journey, so we'll hopefully be there by mid-afternoon. Then training continues! We move in with our host families four days from now... I am really excited! I hope they have little kids who can help me with my Khmai. :-]

Love and miss you all. Keep me updated on your lives please!

Waiting is the hardest part.

Well, the time is almost here, folks. I leave on Friday to begin this journey with the Peace Corps! I am excited, nervous, and all emotions in between and around... It just doesn't feel real. And how can it? As I write this, I'm sitting at my lovely kitchen table in my nice suburban home in Manhattan, KS. Friday morning begins before 6:35 AM, which is when my plane takes off from Manhattan airport, laying over in Dallas before arriving in San Fran around noon. I'll be there for one day before leaving for Cambodia on the 23rd. There are 62 health and education volunteers in my group! Much larger than the group of 17 my friend Courtney in Senegal is experiencing.

I can't promise I'll be diligent about blogging, as I am new to this and still have not decided whether or not I want to keep a blog, but I will keep everyone posted one way or another whenever I have internet access, and stories to tell.

I'll be in Takeo for pre-service training, located in the south of Cambodia:

Rice fields in Takeo, Cambodia

I'll live with a host family, and probably one or two other volunteers. We will be studying the language and learning about the culture pretty much all day every day. So, there we have it! That's about all there is to say before the adventure starts. More to come...