muddy sampots and fingernail paint

I am in my provincial town for a meeting this coming monday with the Provincial Office of Education and the rest of the PCVs in my province (hence the internet access). My belly is full of western food and drip coffee, I have bought necessary provisions to take back to site (a new sampot, a jar of nutella, and an electric kettle to boil water), and now I feel ready to recount some of the details of my new home:

My town is small and very out-of-the-way unless you are trying to get into Thailand via winding, pothole-ridden dirt roads. I arrived to greet my new family, and they accepted me with open arms. I live with an older couple whom I call grandma and grandpa, their youngest son, and their three grandsons between the ages of 7 and 14. The youngest grandson has finally started to warm up to me- we play a game of marbles everyday after I get home from school and before we eat dinner. The first day I went to my school, I was pretty nervous as I had only met my school director and one teacher previously and had absolutely no idea what to expect. I arrived to many stares, and a few hellos, but many smiles which seemed like a good sign- and it was.

I have lucked out at my site- most of the secondary school teachers (which is housed in the same buildings as the high school) are young and unmarried, and are mainly women. Most of them are close to my age, and the minute they found out how old I was and that I wasn't married and was going to be living here for two years, I immediately joined a sorority of sorts. In traditional Khmer society, is absolutely not appropriate for unmarried women and men to be friends. The evidence of this can be seen in the classes I teach as the girls and boys self-segregate to separate sides of the classroom and do not interact with one another. Attitudes towards this are changing somewhat in the larger cities, but that change has not come to my town just yet. So, the female teachers, who I now call "the girls", realized immediately that since I am going to be teaching with all men, and that I live with practically all men (except for my host grandma) I was going to be a part of their 'club'. This made me so happy- I was worried about being so isolated from other volunteers, and after only two weeks of being at site I can easily say that "the girls"will very soon become good friends of mine. We have already swapped fashion magazines (I gave them a copy of Elle that my mom sent me in the mail, and they gave me a copy of a Khmer fashion magazine) and painted each others' nails with super femmy sparkily colors. None of them speak English, but it gives me ample opportunity to practice my Khmer and gives me a great reason to improve it every day. They live in the teachers dormitory which is a small house at the back of the school. One room is for unmarried female teachers, one for unmarried male teachers, and one for a very young couple (both teachers) who just had a baby. They cook all of their meals together, go to the market together, and hang out together when they are not teaching. As one of the teachers put it ''it is a community of teachers, and we like each other because we all are here for the same reason [to teach]''. How could I not be ecstatic to have friends like that?!

My first official day at the health center was tuesday- I had a pretty good conversation with my health center director in Khmer, and then he showed me the facilities of the center, and introduced me to the rest of the staff. My health center director is a man in his mid sixites, and I am not sure if he likes me so much as he is amused by the idea of me, but ill take what I can get. My health center offers a few different things- they do HIV testing and counseling, deliver babies (they have two trained midwives on staff), have a pharmacy, and have a consulting doctor on staff five days a week in the mornings. There is also a traveling vaccination program that opperates out of my health center, which my health center director wants to include me on. They travel to different villages in my commune and give needed vaccinations to small children. I will not be giving the vaccinations, of course, but it will be a great opportunity for me to get to know the different villages and the people in them. All in all, this means that my health center is very well staffed and well stocked compared to many health centers in the country. I am extremely excited to see what will become of my time spent there, hopefully I can work together with the staff and health volunteers to get some projects started in the coming year.

My community is a small town, and as such it is just like a small town anywhere else in the world- everyone knows everyone, everyone wants to introduce you to their mother, their cousin, their uncle, etc. and within three days of me being there everyone seemed to know exactly who I am and what I am doing there. The members of my community have been so gracious and kind to me already that I know my next two years there will be great. It is challenging at times, and being far away from home is difficult, but my community has already done everything they can to make me feel at home that I cannot express my gratitude towards them enough.

I hope y'all are well. Keep me updated!!

much love,
K