So, life has been bustling and busy here for a while, but now that the school year is winding down I'm finally getting around to writing another post. Soooo, let's travel way back in time to March.
Uncle Mark and Jan came back through for another week or so after having traveled all around the country before splitting and heading to Vietnam. They were around for the final preparations for the national sports tournament in Battambang, the moments of excitement while the girls tried on new uniforms for the first time and had their final practices, all of which bubbled with excitement. One of the PE teachers at school took interest in the team, too, now that we were going to nationals, so he started coming around to practice most of the time. To be honest, it was a relief to have someone else around to coach with. I had planned to co-coach with one of my co-teachers, but he had ended up being a flake, leaving me alone with the girls and unsure of my skills at coaching or really soccer in general. But the days before we left, spent talking late at night with Mark and Jan and playing during the daytime with a growing gaggle of 8th, 9th, and 10th grade girls, shone.
Once we actually got to Battambang, after a 9-hour super-squished ride with 33 people in a normal-sized van, things were a little less bright. There was some drama right when we got to Battambang about where the students would sleep, whether or not a bunch of the wealthier ones 'knew how' to sleep in the place that was provided for us, a classroom at a high school in town where we had our meals and some volleyball games were played. But then after one night at a guest house, they decided to come back to the school to sleep because it was a pain to get back and forth for meals, practices, etc. So at least that happened. But then we lost every. single. one. of our games. We scored zero goals over the course of the ten days there. The girls pulled through and were still pumped about soccer when it all came to a close. I put a lot of emphasis on getting experience (the other girls' teams had played for years; we had only been practicing for two months) that would help us in the future.
Since we've been back, practice has been continuing and the girls have really been getting better and better, which is super nice to see. We're planning on doing a training for 7th, 8th, and 9th grade girls from our school and another one close by who are interested in learning how to play. A lot of interest was generated by a tournament that the guy coach organized while I was in Laos (more details on Laos later); it didn't end up too well for the girls. The guy coach used us as a show game to play against the winning boys' team (I was really super excited that the girls have now become brave enough to play against the boys!)...but then cut our game short to 20 minutes total, smiling as if to say, "Oh, girls! Thinking they can play soccer! Hah." as the girls' faces filled with embarrassment and disappointment.
It was still cool to see the girls excited about watching the games leading up to that big let-down. Hopefully the training session for the younger girls will help 'luu' their 'tuk chet,' or get their spirits up and boost their self-confidence. I'm working on getting a girls' team from Takeo, a nearby province, to come here to play us, which would probably help them get back in the groove, too.
After going to Battambang, it was Khmer New Year, a super-hot and dry part of the year here in Cambodia and one with two weeks of break for the kids from school. I spent it visiting my friends and host mom in my training village, then getting some new balls for the girls in Phnom Penh, then playing with Joe and his friend Joel first in my town for the New Year's celebrations (which were kind of a let down) and then in Kampot town. They opened up the road up Bokor mountain (it's been closed for a while because the Chinese are building a new one) for New Years, so the three of us took advantage of the opportunity and biked up it. 6 hours up, 45 minutes down. It was pretty awesome. Up at the top we checked out a misty view of the shore from the top of an old casino from pre-Pol-Pot days worn out by years of being raided and ignored, alternately.
Also, while we were up on top of the mountain, Joe sweet-talked us into eating lunch with a family of Khmer people just finishing up. We had their leftover rice, starving from our epic ride up, and had one of those great chats with them that makes you feel good about Peace Corps, the kind that makes you feel like when you walk away from the experience there will be little starbursts of you still flickering in the minds of people with whom you have interacted, little starbursts that make people think that all Americans can't be that bad, despite the realities of attitudes both on the policy and individual level both now and in the past. When I start to feel stressed out here in my site, worrying about projects I'm dreaming up or trying to keep in motion, I try to focus on those kinds of moments, the ones I have just visiting and hanging out with people here and making their lives and my lives brighter in the process.
Anyway, after Khmer New Year there were only a few weeks of class before another break, this time for the king's birthday and the Royal Plowing Festival. Joe and I headed to Laos via Siem Reap, flying to Luang Prabang and then boating up the river to a few smaller places, Nong Khiew and Muang Ngoi Ngeua before exploring Luang Prabang for a few more days and then heading to the south, to Pakse, the Bolaven Plateau (where they grow coffee...and durian!), Champasak (where there's an Angkorian temple), and the 4 Thousand Islands. The trip was a good way to step back from Cambodia and miss it, as well as a chance to work on building things that are important to me and to reflect on myself. Laos is a beautiful country with wide open spaces; its population is less than that of Cambodia but it's 50% bigger, and I think it has so far seen a lot less of the deforestation than Cambodia. I enjoyed playing and loving and laughing in those big open spaces and feeling small within them. I learned a little bit of Laos along the way, but when we first came back in contact with Khmer it was definitely refreshing to come back into familiar language waters and be enabled to converse with people again. It was in the 4 Thousand Islands where we crossed back over, meeting and hanging out with a few Khmer boat/fishermen who lived there. We had some really nice moments with them, moments of excitement about being able to communicate coming from both ends, moments of pride in Cambodia in a place not too far away from it, but a different place all the same.
Back at the ranch, Coconut's all grown up. She was acting all weird last week, squatting and really wanting you to pet her tush. My aunt informed my sister that she was 'looking for a male,' and she soon found one, a little male cat smaller than she is that lives across the street. I had given her human birth control on the recommendation of my family a few months ago but then decided to stop when I found information suggesting it might give her breast cancer or ovarian tumors. I looked into getting her fixed, but I won't be able to take her in for another few weeks at least...kittens might already be on the way! We'll see.
Right now it's the night before second semester exams start. and, though there is scheduled class between exams and the final day of the school year, things are pretty much petering out. I'm thinking about several products for the long official break, which starts at the beginning of July and runs until the beginning of October. Both the people who work at the district office (like the county government office) and the district education office seem interested in some kind of English lessons, I'm thinking of putting something together to encourage tourism in my district from the provincial town, connections with the village volunteers who are entrusted with going door-to-door to spread health-related info seem promising, and I have a lot of work cut out for me in trying to work on a girls' and women's leadership and development program to start in November of this year. Plus, my parents and sisters are going to come in town, and there will be rice planting, in which I'd like to take part at least a little bit, so my summer is looking like it will have plenty to keep me going.
The one thing that's not great about summer is the fact that the hot, wet days are starting to be filled with mosquitoes. Please wish me no dengue this year. I'm doing my best with sprays and nets to keep up my end of the deal, but your wishes might help me out, too. And now, it's time for this mammoth of a blog post to end and for me to go to sleep. I'll try not to wait so long before posting again...
