Im in town again- my school is on holiday for three days this week because of 'bon om duk' which means water festival in Khmer. So far over my three day vacation in the provincial town I have repeatedly stuffed myself full of western food, hung out with other PCVs, celebrated Halloween by watching scary movies on tv and eating snake from a road side stand (our plan was to eat spiders, but they were out), and gotten a manicure. When I was getting the manicure I asked the girl who was doing it to choose my color for me because I was curious what the outcome would be... Now I have what I have deemed 'Barbie Nails'. My finger nails are painted a bright pink covered in silver sparkles. Im pretty sure the glint can be seen from miles away.
I have gotten pretty good at getting reliable transportation to and from my site- Basically I stand at a crossroads in my town until a sturdy looking pickup truck rolls along. I ask if its going to my provincial town, hop in the back, and hope for the best. The ride in/back only costs the equivalent of a dollar, but at one point on one of my journies I was sandwiched in between a fruit seller's daily quota of pinapples, three Khmer women going to town, and four sacks of rice for about an hour of the journey. Cheap? Yes. Dangerous? Not really- unless the pinapples go air-borne. Beautiful? Of course: I get full 360 degree views of the jungle and rice fields surrounding my village. Dusty and hot? Very. However, it allows me ample opportunity to get to know people in my community on the two hour ride to or from my site. When I get to the taxi stand in my provincial town which no foriegners ever go to, all the men driving the taxis know exactly who I am and start shouting the name of my town and pointing to the pickup trucks headed back to my site. All of this, after only five weeks of living in my village.
Back in the village I have finally settled down into a good routine, which has made my adjustment to life there infinitely easier. My daily schedule generally looks something like this:
6am: Get up, boil water, drink coffee in bed
7am: grab some stall-food from my vendor lady friends for breakfast and bike to school
7-11am: teach class/ sit in the teacher's lounge and talk with the teachers
11am: eat lunch with my host grandma and grandpa
11:30-1/2pm: rest because its hot as hell outside, generally this is when I lesson plan for the next day's classes or read books
2 pm-5pm: more teaching/talking with teachers
5pm-6pm: teach English to some of my teachers who want to learn basic conversational English
6pm: dinner with the fam
6:30 pm: "shower"(bucket shower with rain water)
6:45 pm: under the mosquito net in bed to read books and/or listen to music till I fall asleep around 8 or 9.
Its pretty shockingly different from the schedule I was following before I left the United States, but so far Im pretty content with it. This schedule changes on the weekends and on Tuesdays when I work at the health center, but for the most part this is about it. Its feels really good to finally be teaching, and to be busy.
I am running out of ideas to write about, so if yall have any questions feel free to email me or post them in comments and Ill address them the next time I have internet access. Please let me know, and ill try my best to tell you!
As always, I hope everyone is doing well out there. Much love.
-k
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
the saga of a seven year old at dinner time
My youngest host brother, Pia, is seven. He loves to ride his bike around town, play games with his friends, and reap havoc everywhere he goes. To prove that seven year olds are the same no matter where you are I will [roughly] translate a conversation that takes place at least three times a week under the cooking hut where we eat dinner between Pia and my host grandmother:
Grandma: [yelling across the street] Pia! Its time to eat!
Pia: I'm not hungry!
Grandma: Pia! Get over here! The rice is getting cold!
Pia: I want to play with my friends!!
Grandma: [sternly] Pia. Get over here.
Pia: [gives up and slowly drags himself across the street as if he is walking towards his death] Fine. But im still not hungry!
Grandma: [dishes out rice for Pia] Eat.
Pia: [silently fools around with his rice but doesn't eat] *hums to himself*
Grandma: Pia! EAT YOUR RICE.
Pia: [takes four huge mouthfuls, chews them slowly] ok im full now grandma.
Grandma: Ok Pia, time for a bath.
Pia: But my friends are still playing across the street!!
Grandma: I don't care Pia. Go take a bath.
Pia: [thinks very hard about how to get out of this predicament] But... im not dirty!
Grandma: [looks him up and down] Pia, you have mud all over you.
Pia: [smiles very largely] Oh! I didn't notice!
Grandma: Pia. Really. Go take a bath.
Pia: [resigned] Fine.
Then Pia generally slinks off to the bathroom area where he plays with some toys or runs around until my grandma or grandpa finally ushers him into the bathroom with very loud orders to bathe properly and get all the mud off himself.
This saga has become a regular part of my routine when I get home from school every afternoon, and I have to say I always enjoy it. Pia has decided that he likes me, so he smiles a huge gap-toothed smile every time he sees me come home. Sometimes he will follow me around, pretending to hide behind corners when I turn around. This kid has totally won his way into my heart, and it will be so interesting to watch how he grows over the next two years of my service.
Grandma: [yelling across the street] Pia! Its time to eat!
Pia: I'm not hungry!
Grandma: Pia! Get over here! The rice is getting cold!
Pia: I want to play with my friends!!
Grandma: [sternly] Pia. Get over here.
Pia: [gives up and slowly drags himself across the street as if he is walking towards his death] Fine. But im still not hungry!
Grandma: [dishes out rice for Pia] Eat.
Pia: [silently fools around with his rice but doesn't eat] *hums to himself*
Grandma: Pia! EAT YOUR RICE.
Pia: [takes four huge mouthfuls, chews them slowly] ok im full now grandma.
Grandma: Ok Pia, time for a bath.
Pia: But my friends are still playing across the street!!
Grandma: I don't care Pia. Go take a bath.
Pia: [thinks very hard about how to get out of this predicament] But... im not dirty!
Grandma: [looks him up and down] Pia, you have mud all over you.
Pia: [smiles very largely] Oh! I didn't notice!
Grandma: Pia. Really. Go take a bath.
Pia: [resigned] Fine.
Then Pia generally slinks off to the bathroom area where he plays with some toys or runs around until my grandma or grandpa finally ushers him into the bathroom with very loud orders to bathe properly and get all the mud off himself.
This saga has become a regular part of my routine when I get home from school every afternoon, and I have to say I always enjoy it. Pia has decided that he likes me, so he smiles a huge gap-toothed smile every time he sees me come home. Sometimes he will follow me around, pretending to hide behind corners when I turn around. This kid has totally won his way into my heart, and it will be so interesting to watch how he grows over the next two years of my service.
A post in which I recount how I arrived in my Provincial Capitol today:
This morning I was sitting at the breakfast stall near where the busses come and go from my town awaiting the departure of the bus that was to take me to my provincial town that was already running an hour late. I didn't mind this though, because I was enjoying talking to the woman who ran the stall and playing with her three year old daughter who insisted on strutting around in her sparkily pink dress and pigtails and posing every so often so that everyone could see just how beautiful she was. Right about as I was finishing my noodle soup, a man from the bus company came up to me and said it was time to go and ushered me towards a small, dusty Toyota pickup truck. I asked if the roads were flooded again (as this happens from time to time with the dirt road leading to my site). The man said yes and that the bus could not make it through but this Toyota was going to my provincial capitol and I could get a ride with them. I trusted this man, because he had gotten to me to my provincial capitol two weeks earlier safe and sound, and taking share-taxis is something that is very common here, so I hopped in.
Imagine a small, early 90's model Toyota pickup truck. Now imagine nine people inside the cab of the truck (myself included), fifteen people sitting in the bed of the truck with lots of luggage, and about five more people sitting on the roof of the cab. As I sat making what little small talk I could with the woman practically sitting in my lap, I couldn't help but smile at the situation I had found myself in... one that has become familiar to me in my three short months here (I have taken a few share-taxis before this, but this one takes the cake for # of people in/on one vehicle). As we barreled down the dirt road, we came to the first flooded section which we passed through with relative ease. The second flooded section we came to had an odd looking make-shift bridge over the deepest part which some local entrepeneurs had set up seeminlgly overnight. They were standing at the entrance trying to charge cars and taxis that needed to pass over it to get where they were going, but they did not seem to be having much success at this scheme. The third section was nothing but a muddy quagmire that was probably two feet straight down in mud, but we made it through (this was nothing short of a miracle considereing how much weight we had in that tiny truck). From there it was pretty smooth sailing to the paved highway, and then on to the provincial capitol.
After arriving in the city, and after I had walked off the terrible cramps in my back and legs from sitting in such an awkward position for two hours, I came upon a brightly colored tent set up in the middle of the road. Inside the tent was a band of about ten musicians playing many different traditional Khmer instruments at a deafening volume. I didn't care- I loved every second of it. I wandered by, and casually asked some of the men standing outside the tent what was going on. They were so shocked that I spoke a little bit of Khmer and asked what I did to which I replied that I was teaching English and working as a health volunteer in the village I live in. Their eyes got very large, and they exclaimed, "The man who is paying for this party is from that village! You must meet him immediately!". I walked inside the tent, and I bowed and greeted the old man as the men told him my story. He invited me to sit down, and we listened to the music while he shouted questions at me over it. I replied politely and smiled, and spent about half an hour in the company of his family listening to the music. I eventually realized that I had come into town to run errands that I had to get done today, so I made my exit and told them to find me the next time they were in the village.
Khmer hospitality is absolutely incredible. Really.
In other news, I started teaching this past week at my high school. I teach six classes, four 11th grade classes and two 10th grade classes. My classes are really large, the smallest is about 35 students and the largest is somewhere around 65. I have also started teaching about eight teachers at my high school who don't speak English but want to learn. The main goal for my trip into town this weekend was to find curriculum for the teachers to learn from, which I eventually had to order from Phnom Penh with the assistance of one of my co-teachers who was, amazingly, right down the street from me when I texted him asking him what I should do when I couldn't find the right books.
Sorry to end this abruptly, but I am tired. Ill try to update again tomorrow before I go back to site. As always, love to everyone and have a happy halloween!
Imagine a small, early 90's model Toyota pickup truck. Now imagine nine people inside the cab of the truck (myself included), fifteen people sitting in the bed of the truck with lots of luggage, and about five more people sitting on the roof of the cab. As I sat making what little small talk I could with the woman practically sitting in my lap, I couldn't help but smile at the situation I had found myself in... one that has become familiar to me in my three short months here (I have taken a few share-taxis before this, but this one takes the cake for # of people in/on one vehicle). As we barreled down the dirt road, we came to the first flooded section which we passed through with relative ease. The second flooded section we came to had an odd looking make-shift bridge over the deepest part which some local entrepeneurs had set up seeminlgly overnight. They were standing at the entrance trying to charge cars and taxis that needed to pass over it to get where they were going, but they did not seem to be having much success at this scheme. The third section was nothing but a muddy quagmire that was probably two feet straight down in mud, but we made it through (this was nothing short of a miracle considereing how much weight we had in that tiny truck). From there it was pretty smooth sailing to the paved highway, and then on to the provincial capitol.
After arriving in the city, and after I had walked off the terrible cramps in my back and legs from sitting in such an awkward position for two hours, I came upon a brightly colored tent set up in the middle of the road. Inside the tent was a band of about ten musicians playing many different traditional Khmer instruments at a deafening volume. I didn't care- I loved every second of it. I wandered by, and casually asked some of the men standing outside the tent what was going on. They were so shocked that I spoke a little bit of Khmer and asked what I did to which I replied that I was teaching English and working as a health volunteer in the village I live in. Their eyes got very large, and they exclaimed, "The man who is paying for this party is from that village! You must meet him immediately!". I walked inside the tent, and I bowed and greeted the old man as the men told him my story. He invited me to sit down, and we listened to the music while he shouted questions at me over it. I replied politely and smiled, and spent about half an hour in the company of his family listening to the music. I eventually realized that I had come into town to run errands that I had to get done today, so I made my exit and told them to find me the next time they were in the village.
Khmer hospitality is absolutely incredible. Really.
In other news, I started teaching this past week at my high school. I teach six classes, four 11th grade classes and two 10th grade classes. My classes are really large, the smallest is about 35 students and the largest is somewhere around 65. I have also started teaching about eight teachers at my high school who don't speak English but want to learn. The main goal for my trip into town this weekend was to find curriculum for the teachers to learn from, which I eventually had to order from Phnom Penh with the assistance of one of my co-teachers who was, amazingly, right down the street from me when I texted him asking him what I should do when I couldn't find the right books.
Sorry to end this abruptly, but I am tired. Ill try to update again tomorrow before I go back to site. As always, love to everyone and have a happy halloween!
Saturday, October 10, 2009
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
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
