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!