a free day's pleasures

Life in Cambodia is good. We’ve been in the training village for over a week since my last post; during that time I taught English for 45 minutes for 5 days (with my own lesson plans) to students in the community, and continued building relationships in the community. Today is Sunday (I’m going to the Hub Site main town tomorrow and will get internet then.), so we didn’t have language class or any work or anything at all. I still got up at 5 AM, though! (Yes, if you know me well, you can insert your surprise here.)

I got up so early because I wanted to wash a buuuuunch of clothes before going to breakfast (I got these ‘khmer cakes’ which are actually basically waffles made with a waffle iron over an open fire with a batter made of coconut milk and flour and peppered with seeds that look like black sesame seeds but don’t taste like them at all.) and playing soccer with a few of the other Peace Corps Trainees (we’re not ‘Volunteers’ until after swear-in), several of our Language and Cultural Facilitators, and a bunch of the kids we’ve been teaching English. After that, I got water, went home, had lunch, did a little more laundry, and then went on a bike ride to a swimming hole with a bunch of trainees (There were kids from our English classes there, too.). After that, I went to my friend Sutjeeah’s house and then to her sister (who is incidentally one of the other trainees’ host parent)’s house to have a bite to eat. Then I came home, took my clothes off the clothesline, and had my actual dinner. It was a loooong day, but a good one.

Sutjeeah lives close to me and is really nice. She likes to talk a lot, and she is friendly and pleasant. She has a daughter who’s 17 named Chantrea; this upcoming week after I get back from the Hub Site I’m planning on teaching her and a few other kids English for a few days.

Both Sutjeeah and her sister work in the market here; Sutjeeah sells vegetables, and her sister sells coconuts. I always make sure to visit Sutjeeah when I go to the market and fill her in on stuff/at least say hi.

Oh, speaking of the market slash Sutjeeah, since I last posted I have been invited to eat meals at three houses other than my home: my Poo (uncle) Lai’s house with his family [We had frog as one of the options. It was pretty darn delicious.], a neighbor’s house with my mom [There were like 50 bazillion people there, and it was only lunchtime.] and Sutjeeah’s house [I went there for the special dinner they had Friday night for a Chinese holiday in honor of dead ancestors. I brought my Shabbos stuff with me and did the prayers there.] It’s really nice to be invited to other people’s houses because of the visiting/making connections factor, as deliiiiiicious as my food is at home [My host mom always makes tooonnns of vegetables for me.]

My back and neck are sore from all the exercise I did today, so I don’t want to write that much more. But I will definitely make sure I get to post more pictures when I post.

Ooh hey! In case you don’t know this and have been trying to call me, I never have my American phone with me during the day, and when people do call it only shows up as having received a call from either ‘007’ ‘008’ or something like ‘7017’. So, instead of calling my American phone, try texting me on it, and then I’ll tell you my Cambodian cell number and you can call that one if you really want to talk. (I think it’s cheaper for both of us that way, too,)