(post written October 14)
I'm in my permanent site now, but I didn't get a chance to post this last post until now, and I haven't had enough time to write another legitimate post actually about my permanent site now that I'm here. I am safe and sound, though, and everything here seems like it's going pretty well. And for those of you hanging in suspense, I did get the rest of my speech written before the big swear-in day, and it went as smoothly as possible for someone who doesn't love love love giving speeches. They had some kind of cool fruit at the reception, too, whose name I can't remember now for the life of me but that looked kinda like a fig on the outside but then on the inside had lychee-textured white flesh. And the skin kinda left a latex-ey residue. Anyone know the name? At all?
Before coming to my permanent site, I went to Phnom Penh for one night, which was nice, since I got to spend time with the people I really like from my training village before we went our separate ways to different provinces and entered three-month provincial lock-down. I also ate mint chocolate chip gelato and pizza while there. Delicious.
Anyway, back at the ranch, my host family is warming up to me day by day, and they are even starting to understand my passion for vegetables. My host mom and friends from my training village still call pretty frequently, and I am starting to make new friends in this community. When you come visit (BECAUSE I KNOW YOU WILL), you can meet all of them.
After arriving here the 5th, I went with my school director the following day to our provincial town, where I bought a battery so that I can charge my phone, etc. here in my house (as my district does not have electricity). I didn't get to explore much, but it was nice to see it, even just for a little bit. I plan to go next weekend again so that I can pick up a package that I have waiting for me there (my address is going to be the same, it seems, for all time, and Peace Corps in Phnom Penh will ship stuff to our provincial capital about once a month. Send me mail! Send me packages! If you don't have my address here, you can email me, and I'll tell you!). It's apparently a really beautiful town, and there are a few Western restaurants, one of which serves apple pie. So I know where to go if I get any intense cravings.
Here in my permanent site I have come to realize the joys of living in a super tiny town, mainly legitimately being able to know basically everyone and having some of the most gorgeous scenery I've ever seen in my life--huge expanses of green rice fields dotted with palm trees and accented by stone mountains in the background. I'll take some pictures one of these days and post them so you can see what I'm talking about. I'll also take some of my living space, which is all decorated and organized, now that I bought some bamboo bookshelves last Sunday in the town of a fellow volunteer located about 14k from where I am. Woo! It is pretty homey now, which is nice.
Observation of classes at the high school here is going well, too; I sincerely think I am going to enjoy working with the English teachers here, and I think the administration seems very competent and effective. I look forward to actually setting up my schedule and getting started with teaching next month!
Ok, it's late here, and I'm going to get up at 4:30 tomorrow to bike early to a town 17k away that has internet, so I'm going to go on and stop this post now. Sorry I haven't posted in so long! I will make every effort to impose some sort of regularity on them from now on.
Friday, October 17, 2008
long-awaited wellness post (written oct 4)
Soooo, I'm better now, officially, as evidenced by my most recent blood test, which came out normal, despite it's having been taken the day after a night of birthday festivities. And now, for more fun and exciting things!
Since the last time I posted, a lot has gone on. I found out the location of my permanent site before I left Thailand; then, once I got back to Cambodia, I went on a shortened site visit because of being sick (4 hours to get there, 4 hours there having lunch and hanging out with my family, my future co-teacher, and the school director, and 4 hours to get back to Phnom Penh). I'm going to be living with a couple and their two small daughters in a small town in the southern part of Cambodia.
My future 'Bong Praw' (big brother) is about 35 or so and is an elementary school teacher, and his wife, my 'Bong Sarai' (big sister), is 25 and as far as I know currently is not working in order to spend more time with the kids, who are 7 and 1. They all live together on the first floor of my future home, and they are giving me the entire second floor (a closed room, a porch, and an inside common area) to have as my personal space. When I went to visit it seemed like a pretty sweet set-up, especially concerning the fact that it's way breezier there than in my training site.
My future co-teacher is a woman about 30 years old who has been teaching for about ten years. She speaks English quite well, and seems to be a friendly person in general. I look forward to working with her and getting to know her better...starting OCTOBER 5 WOOOO when I arrive there.
After my mini-visit to my permanent site, everyone else came back from their normal 4-day site visits, and we all met up in Phnom Penh. We did a really fun scavenger hunt in teams by permanent site provinces that led us all around the city to find the places where we can buy all sorts of stuff that we might miss or need while in-country, and my provincial team won wooo! Currently, the Phnom Penh staff owes us one (1) pizza party redeemable whenever.
Once we did all that good stuff, it was back to our training villages for our last few weeks before moving to our permanent sites. During that time, I celebrated my birthday, the Cambodian holiday P'chum Ben, and Rosh Hashanah.
We did my birthday up big at my house, with like 5 extra people helping make num koum s'nol doung, these super delicious little dessert ball things that you make with fresh shredded coconut, sugar, and some roasted peanuts and sesame seeds encased inside sticky rice powder dough and folded into a pyramid shape into individual portions in banana leaves. I should have taken pictures, but I didn't. I'll try to get some num koum on camera at some point. I did receive birthday presents from a bunch of the Khmer people I invited, including two pairs of super sweet hawaiian pants/shorts. You can see them above if I can get the slow internet here to let me load the photos of them.
For P'chum Ben, I went to several different wats with my mom several different days, as we got time off from studying Khmer because our teachers had time off to go home to their families to celebrate it. At the wats, we did a number of things, from giving money to the monks and receiving a blessing to plopping spoonfuls of rice into special beautiful pots to listening to meditation to repeating the things the monks said to (this was a special honor) passing around the collection pot for everyone to give money to the wat. My host mom also gave me things to give to the other Yays (the women who are a little older and either live at the wat or go there every day--the more observant ones observe basically the same rules as the monks except the one about carrying money--I'll tell you all about those rules another time.), all of whom gave me lots of blessings. So my karma is in really good shape right now, hopefully--cayna hara.
For Rosh Hashanah, the celebrations were a little more low-key--I got some apples and asian pears and pomegranate from the market (my BFF fruit seller actually gifted them to me), and my mom hooked me up with some apparently super-pure honey bought from one of the Yays. It was more watery than the honey I'm used to, but I think it will bring everyone who had some a sweet year all the same.
While all the festivities were going on, a lot of people came into town to stay at my mom's house--some of her cousins' kids. They seemed pretty nice, and I went to visit the Boribo creek again with them. Having them in town made it easier to leave my mom all alone in the house, because at least she wasn't going to be alone right when I left. Even so, the morning of the 1st we both cried a bunch when she and the other family peeps dropped me off at the restaurant by the market where we were going to catch the taxi-van. It was intense. But it did result in an amazing photo in which you see both of our chromas (the multi-purpose checkered cloths that people use for everything from male loincloths to drying your hair). Check it out after I upload it! It was hard to say goodbye to everyone, but especially to my mom and to Sutjeeah. I will miss them a lot when I'm in Kampot having to build new relationships.
Right now I need to stop writing, because tomorrow we have our official swearing-in ceremony, and I still haven't finished writing the part of the speech that I have to give. Whoops.
Since the last time I posted, a lot has gone on. I found out the location of my permanent site before I left Thailand; then, once I got back to Cambodia, I went on a shortened site visit because of being sick (4 hours to get there, 4 hours there having lunch and hanging out with my family, my future co-teacher, and the school director, and 4 hours to get back to Phnom Penh). I'm going to be living with a couple and their two small daughters in a small town in the southern part of Cambodia.
My future 'Bong Praw' (big brother) is about 35 or so and is an elementary school teacher, and his wife, my 'Bong Sarai' (big sister), is 25 and as far as I know currently is not working in order to spend more time with the kids, who are 7 and 1. They all live together on the first floor of my future home, and they are giving me the entire second floor (a closed room, a porch, and an inside common area) to have as my personal space. When I went to visit it seemed like a pretty sweet set-up, especially concerning the fact that it's way breezier there than in my training site.
My future co-teacher is a woman about 30 years old who has been teaching for about ten years. She speaks English quite well, and seems to be a friendly person in general. I look forward to working with her and getting to know her better...starting OCTOBER 5 WOOOO when I arrive there.
After my mini-visit to my permanent site, everyone else came back from their normal 4-day site visits, and we all met up in Phnom Penh. We did a really fun scavenger hunt in teams by permanent site provinces that led us all around the city to find the places where we can buy all sorts of stuff that we might miss or need while in-country, and my provincial team won wooo! Currently, the Phnom Penh staff owes us one (1) pizza party redeemable whenever.
Once we did all that good stuff, it was back to our training villages for our last few weeks before moving to our permanent sites. During that time, I celebrated my birthday, the Cambodian holiday P'chum Ben, and Rosh Hashanah.
We did my birthday up big at my house, with like 5 extra people helping make num koum s'nol doung, these super delicious little dessert ball things that you make with fresh shredded coconut, sugar, and some roasted peanuts and sesame seeds encased inside sticky rice powder dough and folded into a pyramid shape into individual portions in banana leaves. I should have taken pictures, but I didn't. I'll try to get some num koum on camera at some point. I did receive birthday presents from a bunch of the Khmer people I invited, including two pairs of super sweet hawaiian pants/shorts. You can see them above if I can get the slow internet here to let me load the photos of them.
For P'chum Ben, I went to several different wats with my mom several different days, as we got time off from studying Khmer because our teachers had time off to go home to their families to celebrate it. At the wats, we did a number of things, from giving money to the monks and receiving a blessing to plopping spoonfuls of rice into special beautiful pots to listening to meditation to repeating the things the monks said to (this was a special honor) passing around the collection pot for everyone to give money to the wat. My host mom also gave me things to give to the other Yays (the women who are a little older and either live at the wat or go there every day--the more observant ones observe basically the same rules as the monks except the one about carrying money--I'll tell you all about those rules another time.), all of whom gave me lots of blessings. So my karma is in really good shape right now, hopefully--cayna hara.
For Rosh Hashanah, the celebrations were a little more low-key--I got some apples and asian pears and pomegranate from the market (my BFF fruit seller actually gifted them to me), and my mom hooked me up with some apparently super-pure honey bought from one of the Yays. It was more watery than the honey I'm used to, but I think it will bring everyone who had some a sweet year all the same.
While all the festivities were going on, a lot of people came into town to stay at my mom's house--some of her cousins' kids. They seemed pretty nice, and I went to visit the Boribo creek again with them. Having them in town made it easier to leave my mom all alone in the house, because at least she wasn't going to be alone right when I left. Even so, the morning of the 1st we both cried a bunch when she and the other family peeps dropped me off at the restaurant by the market where we were going to catch the taxi-van. It was intense. But it did result in an amazing photo in which you see both of our chromas (the multi-purpose checkered cloths that people use for everything from male loincloths to drying your hair). Check it out after I upload it! It was hard to say goodbye to everyone, but especially to my mom and to Sutjeeah. I will miss them a lot when I'm in Kampot having to build new relationships.
Right now I need to stop writing, because tomorrow we have our official swearing-in ceremony, and I still haven't finished writing the part of the speech that I have to give. Whoops.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)