Kampot Adventure!

This past weekend, I went to Kampot with a group of volunteers. In the southwest of Cambodia and set on the Gulf of Thailand, Kampot is mountainous and beautiful. After staying overnight in Takeo, we set off around 6 AM in a "lan touri" (a van, basically, except that these are similar to Marry Poppins' bag in that they can fit 25-30 people in them, but dissimilar in that they do not have endless space), and got to Kampot around 8. We dropped our stuff off at the guesthouse where we thought we'd be staying (more on that later), and set off to find breakfast. We'd heard there are a lot of Western style restaurants in Kampot, so we made it our first order of business to find them.

We did, fairly quickly, and ate at a restaurant called "Sister's," a breakfast establishment owned by two Cambodian women who grew up together in an orphanage in Sihounouk. They learned to cook from an American woman when they were young, and were able to open up a restaurant together when they got older. They now own three restaurants: one in Sihounouk, one in Kampot, and one in Phnom Penh, and have plans for more. They even bring girls from the orphanage to learn to cook from them and work at the restaurants, when they are so inclined. It's a great opportunity for those whose options for work might otherwise be looking pretty grim, and sometimes even dangerous and illegal.

After breakfast, we waddled back to the guesthouse, where we'd thought enough time had passed to where we could now check in. Low and behold, our rooms (that we'd previously reserved), were still occupied by those who'd been staying in them the night before, and the guests were saying they weren't wanting to leave that day after all! To our Western minds, this turn of events was pretty incredible. After cursing to ourselves and thinking negative thoughts for a few moments' time about the unjustness of it all, we got over it, and lugged our stuff to a nearby guesthouse, where there was room. Unfortunately, though, this is what started seeping out from underneath my bed, after I'd sat down on it for a few seconds:

I tried telling myself it was just coke or tea, but that didn't help much when the puddle continued to grow, and I could not, for the life of me, find its source...

Despite the huge, scary bathroom, the hour or so when the power went out, and the unidentifiable liquid, the guesthouse was really fine! After a couple of meals of heavy, delicious, buttery, dairy-y food, a couple of us decided it was time to go on a hike. Bruce, Christin, and I set off to find the Wat near the base of the mountain, which we were told would lead to the ocean.

 

We started by crossing this bridge, a very odd site because of its many different styles of architecture. It's been built and rebuilt many times due to its destruction during the Khmer Rouge.

We walked through many villages, and past many rice fields. The scene turned greener, and the ground, more orange.

We stopped and "ongkoy lang"ed (sat and chatted) with a group of Cambodians who ushered us over to their hut to rest for a while.We started to pass salt flats and we knew we were on the right track. We attracted a Cambodian man, who took it upon himself to act as our guide, following us closely on his bicycle, encouraging us to peer into the salt flats when we expressed curiosity to see the inside of them, offering us fruit from nearby trees, and encouraging us that the ocean was "jut" (near), whenever we became doubtful. 

  

Our Cambodian friend, Christin, and Bruce walking along the path

 

After nearly two hours of walking, we finally were close, and then we were there.

 The mountains across the Gulf belong to Kep and Rabbit Island, home to sandy beaches and stilted bungalows. This is the spot some of the other volunteers traveled to this past weekend.

We promptly sat down, exhausted and exhilerated, our Cambodian guide following suit. It started to drizzle slightly, which came as a relief to our tired, overheated bodies.After a few moments of sitting and taking in our surroundings, we gazed around at each other. "Time to go?" Yep. We had a long way to backtrack. We didn't get back to Kampot until after 6:30, after the point at which we had to start using the lights on our cell phones to guide our way home. Christin and I especially were exhausted, our feet blistered, our muscles strained. (Turns out, Birkenstocks aren't the best shoes for a twelve mile hike!) I think I was literally limping by the time we got back to the guesthouse, but the whole journey was worth it. We came into contact with some great people we otherwise would have not, and were rewarded with inspiring views along the way.

The celebrations for Pchum Ben are still going strong! We're in the home stretch of the holiday at this point- Pchum Ben Day is tomorrow- and it's really within the last few days when the festivities are all day affairs anyway. This morning, at 3:00 AM, I got up to go to the Wat with my Khmai teachers and a few other volunteers. We brought sticky rice, which you throw into wooden bins around the Wat as an offering to ancestors, and lit incense and candles during a ceremony in which the monks chant, praying for and blessing the ancestors.

Preparing our plates of sticky rice before the start of the ceremony

 

Adding our plate to the pile. That's Kanhurin, holding the plate of rice: my Khmai teacher!

Only a few more days left with my family. I leave, with the other volunteers, for Phnom Penh on Thursday, and will be moving in with my new host family on October 4th or so. I'm really going to miss my training family. They've helped me through the initial shock of being here, and I think will continue to be a great support for me as I settle into my new home. 

I'll keep you posted on the unfolding of events in the coming days!

P'tea T'mai! (New Home!)

Last Saturday, we found out where our permanent sites will be! I will be living in Pearaing, a district town in Prey Veng province in the south of Cambodia. My province is small- only three volunteers were placed there beyond the volunteer who is already living there- and putatively the poorest and most densely populated in all of Cambodia, but don't let that fool you. It is beautiful: filled with palm trees and a lake, extremely green from all the rain it gets, with the added bonus of being a repellent for tourists!

The view just accross the street from my house

On Sunday, I left Takeo with the other two volunteers who are in my province to meet up with the current volunteer who lives there to hang out for an evening before going to our respective villages in the morning. We met up for dinner and all was going smoothly until the end of our meal, when a rat darted out from the kitchen, was chased around the restaurant by a dog, bounced off a leg of our table and was clutched by the dog, who thrashed the rat around in his mouth as we stared on, horrified... Luckily, Taylor, the other volunteer, did not seem too pleased with this chain of events, either. I think we all would have been a little more freaked out had she reacted as if it were a perfectly normal occurence to see a rat mauled in the middle of a restaurant...

View of the lake in Prey Veng. Yes, the lake is beautiful, but more importantly, it is a congregation spot for mosquitos, so my room is mosquito free!

In the morning, I met my new host father and traveled back to Pearaing with him from the provincial town. Before we went to my house, though, we stopped at the school so that I could meet the school director, at which point I was ushered in to a monthly staff meeting of all forty or so teachers who work there! I met the three English teachers, and the "English Monitor" who also teaches grade twelve. My school director speaks fluent french, and my dad speaks a little too, so that will be a huge help as an intermediary when my limited Khmai is not enough.

Then was lunch. I went to my vice school director's house, and was greeted by many who I'd just met at the school during the staff meeting. We ate shark fin soup, shrimp curry, and a dish with octopus in it. I explained that I'd never eaten shark before, which everyone thought was pretty funny. Shark fin soup is a delicacy here, but also a source of controversy because of its rarity. Not wanting to be rude, I did eat it, and must admit, it was delicious. The shark meat is cut into strips, and you cook it by grabbing it with your chopsticks and dipping it into a boiling soup over a single burner for a few seconds.

The guy in the tan on the far right is one of my co-teachers, and the man to the left of the kid in the yellow is my new "boc" (dad).

I really like my new host mom and dad. It's only the two of them, since all three of their sons are grown, so the house is much quieter than where I currently am, but I think I can grow to like this. My host dad has kind of a terse air about him; if you aren't talking directly to him, he's sort of staring off into the distance with an aloof look on his face. At first, this sort of intimidated me, but I've realized it's just his "neutral" face, and just as quickly transforms into a warm smile. My host mom thinks I'm hilarious. She pretty much just laughs maniacally at everything I say or do, which works for me since making a spectacle of myself is mainly how I've been able to endear myself to most here in Cambodia: "She's drinking a coffee!"; "She likes rice!"; "She's going to bed!" Apparently I am a great source of entertainment.

Right now is Pchum Ben in Cambodia, a Buddhist celebration which lasts about fifteen days and honors ancestors. The second day I was at my host family's house, my mom and I went to the wat to donate food and money to the monks, and socialize, by which I mean, I was stared at unabashedly by most in the room. Staring in Cambodia is not considered rude, unlike in the states. Many have never seen a foreigner before, so to them, I am kind of shocking. Thus, it's okay to stare for a couple of seconds... Or an hour.

This little boy didn't find me too intimidating to jump right into my picture, though.

Here is my new room; notice the fan, and the real mattress!

And now for something completely different!

Check out this picture we laminated and put around our market to educate on the purpose of the trash bins we've installed. Designed by one of the volunteers, the blurb at the top says "Love the Environment," and the one at the bottom, "Love yourself." :)

 

Community Project

Alright, so update! The LPI ended up going fairly well... I passed the necessary requirements to be able to swear in to become an official volunteer, and before they decided to bump up the scores from the other tester's group because her questions were putatively harder than my tester's, I had the best score in my village! I felt pretty good about that.

This past week we've been working on our community project. We had very little time to prep for it, so we've been scrambling to get things together, but we've been able to decide on three primary projects. The first is sort of the equivalent to a "Career Fair" in the states, with various people from our community of different professions coming to talk to the kids at the high school about what they do, what made them decide to do it, and how they got to where they are today. It's cool because there are all kinds of different people who will be talking: teachers, a school director, a mechanic, a mid-wife, the lady who just opened up an internet cafe in our village, a construction worker, a forester, a tailor, and a cosmetologist. So it gives kids ideas about a lot of different career options to look into, not just those which require a lot of education, and the means to acquire it.

Our second project is a trash clean up at our market. Our market is filthy; it's actually known in other villages for how disgusting and unkempt it is. Basically, the people who live around the market don't want to pay the 5,000 riel a month (just over a dollar) for the district governor to excavate the trash when it needs to be taken care of (that's supposed to be his job), so there is two years worth of trash that has slowly accumulated within. There are piles and piles, and two pot-bellied pigs that live in the midst of it all... So what we've done, at this point, is bought three large cement barrels to put by the heaps of trash, in hopes of teaching the community how the trash, when dry, can be concentrated within the barrels and burned so it doesn't pile up. Not the most environmentally friendly way to take care of trash, but since Cambodia has yet to have an adequate trash system, it's what works for the time being. Tomorrow we're going to the market to talk to people about the barrels, and will hopefully have a demonstration in the coming weeks of how we can burn the trash to slowly diminish the piles, and eventually eliminate them.

Lastly, we made boboa at our health center with the mid-wives there, and many mothers from the community who we rounded up before hand at the market (you can't plan for these things ahead of time; you have to just talk to people in the moment and say, "Hey! I'm doing this thing right now! Come see.")  Boboa is a kind of rice porridge- it's pretty much all I ate when I was sick- that's made with rice and water. It's great for when you have diarrhea and can't stomach much else, but it's pretty devoid of any nutrition, and so not the greatest for growing babies and kids. So the boboa we taught the mothers to make is more balanced; we made a savory one with pumpkin, fish, and carrots, and a sweet one with banana, dragon fruit, and egg. They turned out to be delicious, and we had a great turnout!

Me, with a cutie Cambodian babe at the health center. I swear, I'm not trying to eat her fingers.

Learning the benefits of healthy Boboa!

So, that's about it for this week! Unfortunately, I realized that I left my camera charger in San Francisco, and my camera is now dead, so my posts may be kind of threadbare for a while, until I'm able to get another charger (Thanks, mom!), so I apologize in advance for that. To make up for it, though, here is a picture I got from Arnoldo, one of the PCTs I co-taught with during Practicum week, of our class! This was on the last day, I think during the last hour, when we pretty much just played games the whole time. Don't be fooled by the kids' seeming passivity... The moment competition enters the mix, these kids are relentless. 

Love from Cambodia! :)

Next Saturday we will find out where our permanent site will be! That night, as a group, we'll stay in our provincial town, Takeo, and on Sunday we'll travel to our villages. For four days we will stay in our village and get acquainted with our families and our community. Knowing that finding out is looming, and still having another week of waiting, has made us all kind of crazy and unable to focus on anything. Yesterday, my group had our language class outside of a Wat. Not only was there a giant pot-bellied pig, snorting in the near vicinity in a mound of trash, but also, one of my group members brought Chips Ahoy! from a recent package. There was no way we could concentrate.

Later, after swine spotting and chocolate, we all convened to learn about Buddhism at the Wat from the monks who live there. One of the monks speaks English fairly well, as he's been to America several times for various lengths of time to host seminars on Buddhism. One thing you may not all know, which is kind of interesting, is that a man can actually decide to become a monk at any point in his life, and leave at any point. Some kids decide to enter monkhood so that they can get a good education, if they are poor and have few other options to do so. Some enter monkhood to honor their parents, as it is considered a high honor to have a monk in the family.

That's it for this week. It has been raining a lot the past few days, which means that the bugs (tiny biting ants that attack your feet when you're not looking, and of course, mosquitos), seem to multiply in unbelievable numbers. Rain during the day guarantees an interesting evening. Dinner will inevitably be spent by most of us in my family (excluding Ot dam, the three year old, who spends most of dinner running around screaming and throwing things), staring loathingly up at the masses of bugs swarming the single bulb that lights our faces and food. We've had a few occasions where we've actually had to move because it's gotten so bad with bugs falling into our food, and me being unable to hide my disgust to the point that my sister ushers us over to sit on the larger table that's usually reserved for bigger parties of people...

And a last bit of news: tomorrow is our practice LPI (Language Proficiency Interview), during which we are evaluated, based on a fifteen minute casual conversation, of our functioning level of Khmai speaking. Depending on how well tomorrow goes, I'll have somewhat of an idea of how I need to prepare to be able to pass the real test before we go to our permanent sites. Hope my Khmai is good enough! Send good thoughts my way.

More soon!