Kru-ah-saah (Family)

   By far my favorite part of my permanent site is my new host family.  You might recall my training host family with the Khmer quizzes and the new baby.  Wholly different, but equally awesome, I am having a blast getting to know the people who have opened their home to me for the next two  years.
    My immediate host family this time around is small, consisting of my host mother and my two boan brohs (little brothers).  Initially when Peace Corps asked us for input regarding sites and families, I had no preferences.  I was a little hesitant about living with small children because it's not something I'm used to. You, like me, may have heard horror stories regarding little terrors and temper tantrums.  Regardless, I told Peace Corps to send me where they will, trusting in my own patience and bicycle skills for escape.  Luckily I got a great family.
   The best thing about my host mom, other than her constant cheery nature and patience with my language, is her ability to cook amazing Khmer food.  I had thought during training that I didn't like Khmer food. Nope, I just didn't like my other family's cooking.  My host mom is an amazing cook.  She makes these dishes that are so delicious that I keep eating even after I'm full because they're just too good to go to waste.  Also, somewhere in the back of my head I'm thinking who knows what the next meal will taste like so might as well get as much of the good stuff as possible.  She never fails me though, every meal is as delicious as the last.  Which is awesome because my hungry escalates quickly from hangry to homicidal.  It's not a pretty sight.   Another great part is that she takes allowances for me wanting to eat American food and she has a really open mind to trying it.  After three weeks of rice all day, I asked her if I could try making myself some American food (I knew I was desperate then, because I'm not a cooking kind of girl).  She said that was fine and the next day I went and bought some bread, brought it home, and whipped out this great big jar of peanut butter that Supermom sent from America.  I proceeded to make a peanut butter sandwich (it's almost the extent of my abilities as a cook) and shared, of course.  Maak doesn't like bread though, and though she doesn't like peanut butter, she did try them together before making this statement.  Since then, I come home from the health center at lunch time and find a loaf of bread sitting on my peanut butter, waiting to be made into a delicious sandwich.  I nom on my pb while they eat rice and a veggie/meat concoction, no doubt delicious but definitely no peanut butter.  
   Remember when I started walking the distance to my house after being dropped off a million miles away by the bus from Phnom Penh and she rode to my rescue on my bike like a white night rides a noble steed?  Problem fixed. Maak's got connections at the stop, and so now when I go to the main rode, I can ride my bike and leave it at a local haang bai (road stand where they sell rice) until I return so that I have a way to get around that isn't my feet.  
  My host mom is great but I can't deny that my boan brohs are my favorite people in Cambodia.  Soktchea is 11 years old, and very quiet but very clever.  He speaks a little bit of English and busts this out at the most random times.  I'll be struggling to explain to my mom the difference between "no" and "know" and Soktchea will sit somewhere near, silent and apparently playing a game or reading a book when all of the sudden he'll spout, "the difference between negation and verbs" and I'm a little taken aback.  Sometimes when I'm out running I'll lose my sense of time and it starts to get dark.  When this happens usually I turn a corner and Soktchea is sitting on the road on his bike waiting to follow me home as if he is my bodyguard.
    Man Kheang is a whole different marble.  He is 6 and sometimes forgets that I don't speak Khmer, chattering to me (or maybe to himself) away in a stream of words I neither recognize nor understand.  He will climb on top of me or squeeze next to me in the hammock and just lay, giving me Khmer kisses and asking if I'm tired.  "Bong!Bong!Bong!Bong!" are his favorite words when I'm around - "bong" is short for "bong srai" which means "big sister" in Khmer, and this is the respectful way to address someone older than you.  He loves showing off for me, bringing me a small coloring book that he's completed, or displaying his vast knowledge of ninja moves.  Once I was riding my bike down the road and spotted him coming back from school.  He stopped when he saw me.  "Bong!" he yelled proudly as he placed his hands on his hips, "where are you going?" When  I answered that I was riding to a different village and would be back for dinner, he gave me the okay and I kept riding.  "That's my Bong" I heard him tell the kids walking next to him, "mine."
    I leave for weekends to Sihanoukville to run errands and my favorite part is coming back because they always welcome me with such open arms and big smiles it's kind of taken a piece of my heart. My host mom tells me that they miss me when I'm gone and are always asking where I'm at and when I'll be back.  There is really nothing in the world like coming home to two little Khmer smiles and mischievous grins.  It's truly a treat to be able to be their Bong.  Plus I'm getting really good at playing Power Ranger Ninja Warrior.  

    Man Kheang right now is learning to write himself and that puts us at about the same level for Khmer writing (kindergarten/1st grade).  He's also learning his ABCs while Soktchea continues his own English study.  I don't have a tutor at site yet and so Soktchea and Man Kheang have taken it upon themselves to teach me some Khmer.  This is especially great for my language skills.  Likely my fellow K6 compatriots are gathering phrases that include the ability to do things like locate their sites for return from medical visits to Phnom Penh or ask for fruit in their markets.  Myself, I know essential Khmer words such as "slingshot" (jup ja plee-um), "ninja" (jao), "to tickle" (jet graw lin), and "I win!" (ch'naya).  Try to contain your jealousy, it's the business of assimilation.  

  My day isn't complete until, as I head upstairs to my room about 8pm, I hear a high pitch voice in my direction.  "Sup-ban la-aw" (sweet dreams), says Man Kheang.  "Sup-ban la-aw" I reply, and can rest easily, knowing I will wake up to greet my three favorite Khmer family members and continue my ninja warrior training via the best 6 and 11 year old boan brohs an American girl can possibly have. 

xo-Amanda

top: my awesome little brothers, Mankean and Soktchea
bottom: my host mom

The First List

I have only been in Cambodia for three short (long) months and while I do recognize similarities between my life in America and my life in Cambodia (I still eat three meals a day), there are a few drastic differences ("meal" = "rice").  Who doesn't like life lessons? So for your enlightenment and my sanity I have made a list of:
 

10 things I have learned living in Cambodia (thus far)

1- The bogey monster of socks is real and lives in every country! I do laundry by hand and hang the clothes up myself, never losing sight of any items and I still end up with an odd number of socks.  WHAT?! How does that even happen?! What happened to that one other sock that has disappeared so you are forever left with an unmatched sock? The world may never know. 

2- Some things just aren't meant to be - like electricity.  The electricity is a tricky thing here, more often then not it's just not working.  And since it's rainy season the sky is always overcast and thus solar power chargers have no solar to draw power from.  Thank you Johannes Gutenberg yet again for the printed word. 

3- You don't learn a language through osmosis - at least I don't. People think that just being in my village and listening to Cambodians speak rapid-fire Khmer all day every day makes me fluent in three months. What it does is make me confused, gives me a headache, and trains me in the art of zoning out.  Learning a language is hard and takes a lot of work. Don't even get me started on the written script with its consonants and subscripts and two sets of vowels that all sound the same with no spaces between the words. I would give up my American candy stash to be able to speak to someone in English once a week for an hour. And in rice-land, that's saying something.

4- Bugs will find you, they will bite you, and they will go after aforementioned American candy stash.  Long before I started missing home, I waged war on ants and smaller ants and red ants, and then flying things that I can't name.  Cambodian insects are magical ninjas and have found a way to evade the Ziploc bag and teleport (or something like that) to the sugary sweetness that my mother's care packages bring.  Luckily for me (or whatever), I have grown used to this and usually just wipe them off and eat my candy anyway. 

5- Priorities change (see: brushing off bugs in favor of candy). I won't pretend like my favorite part of the day isn't playing power rangers ninja warrior with my boan brohs, or hide and seek around the single-room house where there's nowhere for me to hide.  Working in the ANC room at the health center, I get to meet Cambodian mothers who will do literally anything to ensure their children are healthy - even listen to a young barang with broken Khmer tell them about serving food they may be too poor to buy. I travel to Phnom Penh or Sihanoukville and wander the streets to locate that one sandwich shop, or spend three days pay* and two days worth of being sick for a chocolate shake. Yes, it's worth it. You try going on a rice diet for three months and we'll see how judgy you are over a shake.

6- Happiness depends on food. If you have been following my blog and can read English, you should be able to tell that my days begin and end with the thought of food. What am I going to eat today? Does it involve rice? and, how do I avoid rice? are all questions that I wake up with. Cambodians don't live to eat like we do in America, they eat to live. What a tragedy. Moving from the attitude towards food New Orleans has to the rice-laden culture of Cambodia might be the hardest thing I've ever experienced. And I'm a Cubs fan! Truly, if I've learned anything about myself thus far it's that the way to my heart is through my stomach.  Have you ever heard the term "hangry"? It's when you're irritable and angry just by virtue of being hungry. And then you eat a delicious falafel sandwich all stuffed with hummus and onions and maybe even fries and suddenly all is right in the world and you've just sponsored a Cambodian child with a cleft lip for a mere two cents a day. Congratulations, you have overcome hanger. 

7- Check your shoes. This applies in the literal sense and as a metaphor. Every day I go running but before I do, I turn my left running shoe upside down and knock out the toad that takes up residence there every night (I've named it "pleitchurn" ...it means "shoe" in Khmer - I'm very original). A few weeks ago I washed mold off of my favorite pair of sandals and put them in the sun to dry - only there is no sun because it's constantly raining and thus that was the end of those shoes (tear). The cork and leather flip flops I trudged home in that fateful dentist visit day have turned from brown to red on the main road of my village.  My shoes take me everywhere I want to go and that makes them my most valuable possession. Forrest Gump's mother said that you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes; where they've been and where they're going. In Cambodia you take your shoes off before entering a building so EVERYONE gets to see your shoes and your feet.  They really do say a lot about where you've been, and it's hard to know where you're going if you don't know where you've been.

8- Little things are just that: little. There are going to be big things to get upset about: the ridiculously intelligent precocious student who has to work in the rice fields instead of going to school to earn money for dinner, the corrupt police who halt the women's empowerment project you've been working on for six months, those kids in the next village over who aren't getting enough rice to eat. You can't let the little things get to you too. You'll go insane and end up back in America...where apparently all of the crazies reside (see: American politics).

9- Flexibility is key.  I'm not talking about being able to climb through Cambodian architecture with a small child to get into that room you accidentally locked yourself out of.  I'm talking about the mental capacity to be able to let the little things go and pick up a tease of an idea enough to make it into something good.  There is no shortage of excuses in the world.  When someone can swallow their excuse and keep on keeping on - that's someone you want on your team.  I know I'd want them on my team.

10- Most things in life can be accomplished while laying in a hammock (new verb: "hammocking").  I find I am mildly suspicious of anything or anyone who tries to imply otherwise. 

Life remains good.
Xo-Amanda 


*Ok, I'll admit it, I exaggerated for effect. It's probably more like a day and a half of pay. But still.

There's Water in the Air.

  I've mentioned a few times that it's rainy season in Cambodia right now and for most of the country that means constant overcast and generally rain a few times a day if not all day long.  Here there's a saying, "mayk jong plee-ung" or "the sky wants to rain" which I say a lot - when I'm not saying "it's raining".  There are a lot of things that change in a life so pervaded by rain.  You might be thinking, "wow, you have to put a raincoat on every time you go outside, big deal," but constant rain has a strange impact on parts of life I never would have suspected if I did not experience them for myself.  
     For one thing, it is always humid.  Humid, or muggy, or foggy, or whatever word there is to describe constant wetness in the air.  Life during rainy season is just damp .  There is really no other way to describe it.  The best way to I can think of to convey this is that I can feel it in the paper.  You know (or not) when there is dampness in the air or you have a sheet of paper that is damp but not wet - that's how all of my paper products feel.  I can feel it in the paper.  
  Another way the damp pervades life is in my clothes.  I hang my clothes up to dry and maybe sacrifice some precious candy to Buddha for a few minutes of golden sunlight shining on the line.  This rarely happens (ComeOn Buddha). More often than not, the clothes get moved to a line under protection of a roof or awning, and they sit there. For days. Until they drip dryish, and even when I pull them down I wouldn't describe them as "dry".  More like, "not wet".  So it goes. This doesn't apply to any of the dry-fit shirts my mother has sent me.  They actually dry in about a day even if it's raining - now that's magic if I ever saw it.  
  I have thrown away shoes that sat under my bed for two nights and grown mold (this actually made me cry...I'm not ashamed to say I love my shoes), my hair is never completely dry, and it seems my skin is forever enclosed in this kind of sweat/oil/rainy sheen that washing does not really get rid of.  
  A kind of funny way this wet air has entered my life, and the first time I laughed out loud about it was when I discovered that it invaded my envelopes.  All of the envelopes I have in my room have sealed themselves shut due to the moisture in the air activating the glue on the flap.  Ever resourceful, I have tried boiling water and then steaming them open to reuse them...but in case anyone receives letters bound by hopeless amounts of scotch tape- now you know why.  Memo to self: seal all future envelopes in air-tight ziploc bags or tupperware (and I never thought that would be something I would use a plastic bag for).
  It's just a way of life here - the rainy season has it's disadvantages just like it has advantages: I can bucket shower to my hearts content because there's so much water! I can drink tea, and instant coffee, and water with crystal light packets until I can drink no more.  Running in the rain is 10x better than running in the heat - I feel like I could run a marathon (not that I know what running a marathon feels like)!  And the rain brings breezes sometimes.  Even though it's hot here, it's a comfortable kind of hot where I don't have sweat running down my back as soon as I step away from the fan.  There are good things and bad things about the rain - I've just discovered a few. I'm not excited for rainy season to end because I know I haven't discovered them all.  

Stay dry!
xo-Amanda 

"Yes" to Everything You're Thinking

 The other day I finally told the medical officer that I had a wicked toothache and she brought me into Phnom Penh for a dental checkup.  Keep in mind that I am about a four hour bus ride from the city (approximately...in Khmer hours which means the time of the bus ride ranges from three to six...but generally I find four to be a nice round number for describing my trip in).  She tells me this on a Sunday morning so I have Sunday afternoon to prepare myself to ask my host mom for help in obtaining a bus ticket...and locating the bus stop.  I dutifully look up the words for "ticket" and "to need" - no worries, "toothache" and "dentist" have already been mastered oddly enough and for good reason apparently - and after gathering my basic-English-speaking boan broh (little brother) in case of emergency, I think I tell my host mom that I have a toothache and need to go to Phnom Penh to see the dentist the following day.  What I do know is that she understood that I had a toothache. What I am still unsure about is if she thinks I wanted to bike into Phnom Penh with an umbrella that she thinks she talked me out of doing (I know the oddest words in Khmer).  What matters is that the following morning at about 8am, I was on the crossroads of the main street waiting for a bus to stop on its way into the city with a bus ticket in my hand and my host mom by my side. Success! you might be thinking. Yes, young grasshopper, as did I. 

    Does anybody like trips to the dentist?  I personally have had the luxury of the same dentist throughout my entire life.  The same tooth doctor who watched me lose my baby teeth, try to glue paper clips to my teeth (in the third grade I thought braces were cool...yea, I was that girl), actually acquire braces, fill my cavities, and see me when I came home from college has watched me grow up.  Needless to say walking into a Khmer dentist office where I had to remove my shoes in favor of some white croc-like options was a little more than intimidating. Regardless of the country or culture, not being in the relative comfort of the dentist office I had grown up in, I wished I had looked up "Can I see your credentials?" in Khmer.

    The dentist office was very business-like but like I said, I am accustomed to only one dentist office and thus my view of them is pretty narrow. I was finished with my visit and waiting in the sitting room for the report to take back to the Peace Corps office - the waiting room had beverages available to patients which was very thoughtful but seeing as how they were drinks like apple juice (mostly sugar) and coffee (doesn't it stain teeth?) it seemed a little counterintuitive if you ask me - when all of the sudden I heard a scream come from the dentist rooms, followed subsequently by loud sobbing.  I promptly looked around to see if anyone else in the waiting room was disturbed by this turn of events or if this was a common occurrence in Khmer dentist offices, not entirely sure which I was hoping to discover.  Luckily (well...it's a matter of opinion), I was not the only one whose eyes turned to saucers which leads me to believe that generally children don't scream in the offices of Khmer dentists.  I mean think about it - Asian eyes into saucers equals something unusual going on.

     The best part of this story (yea, it gets better) is the day afterwards when I headed back to site. A little bit of background: the buses go from Phnom Penh to other major cities - the major city in my province is Sihanoukville via National Road 4.  To get off at any stop along the road you have to tell the bus driver where you want to get off. Here's the kicker: you have to know where that stop is and where it is in Khmer . OUTRAGEOUS!  Keep in mind that my site is not on the main road, it is about 5-6km down a dirt road off of National Road 4. I know what you're thinking, "silly Amanda, she doesn't know what that stop/crossroads/little-road-to-her-village is called". And you know what, "yes" to everything you're thinking. I didn't know what that stop was called (I still don't), I didn't know how far it was from Phnom Penh (I have always been an "approximately" kind of girl), and I have a terrible sense of direction. SO. I'm standing at the bus station with two other PCVs, one of whom lives in my province and knows his way around.  He sees my panic and attempts to teach me one of the two names for my stop (I butcher the name and then write it in English phonetics on my palm) and then realizing the hopelessness of the situation, tries to tell the bus driver himself where I am to be getting off.  Yes, I do think he has descended from the heavens to help me so and no, I'm sorry to say I didn't kidnap him to go with me to ensure my arrival at my site.  I boarded the bus with confidence in my ability to have adventures and promptly took out my ipod for the drive.  About four hours in I started to watch the road, thinking that I might recognize my stop. Of course, the setting sun and speeding bus were not great aids but I think I've dealt with worse.  Hoping beyond hope that the bus driver wouldn't be driving too fast when I finally spotted my stop while at the same time attempting to read every single road sign that we passed, even the ones in Khmer (no, I can't read Khmer), I sat on the edge of my seat clutching my backpack in one hand and my phone in the other possibly unconsciously thinking that one would aid me.  I'm positive I at least gave the other passengers a good story to tell that night at dinner.  Hey, I win where I can. 

    When in the blink of an eye I spotted the road leading to my village, I stumbled up the bus to ask the bus driver why he didn't stop only to stammer out in atrocious Khmer what was left on my sweaty palm from 5 hours earlier.  I can't say I'm sad that he forgot my destination in favor of paying attention to the roads for five hours - I've learned to pick my battles here on the scariest roads on the PLANET.  Anyway, he pulled over while I weaved to the back of the bus to get my backpack and then hurry back to the front to get off, muttering "akoon" (thank you) while thinking, "shit" and "it's getting dark".  The bus attendant gestured to the empty road behind us. "Bei kilomait" he said, and I turned to peer through the dimming light.  Three kilometers back to my stop, no big deal.  I thanked him, hiked up my pants which had magically grown longer in the two seconds since I had exited the bus, and began my trek homeward.

      A couple hundred minutes later I arrived at my stop and turned onto the dirt road that led to dinner and my bed.  Roughly six kilometers stood between me, clean clothes, some rice, and bed and I felt renewed at the thought of my Khmer home.  I took out my phone and dialed the local tuk tuk driver who did not answer, so I did what anyone does when they are at a loss for what to do: I called my (host) mom.  "Ja, Bong" I said to my host mother, "Knyom mao win, howee-nung nou plow" - I am coming back, and on the road.  She responded in some Khmer that I didn't understand, and asked me (I think) if I wanted a tuk tuk.  I told her that I had tried and had no luck (I think), to which she asked me about every other form of transportation (I think).  I want a tuk tuk, I said to her (I think), no, I can't ride a moto, haha yes I can gi-kong (ride a bike) or hutbraan (run), but I just want a tuk tuk (I'm pretty sure).  I heard a lot of Khmer on the other line, but, well, her Khmer doesn't sound like my Khmer and even on the best days I think that instead of asking her where I can find bread I am asking how to defeat vampires in Khmer...at least that's what her facial expressions lead to me to believe.  After about 4.15 minutes of this and a lot of laughter she hangs up, while I continue to walk towards my destination.  I had started to walk not sure if anything would happen - and I'm not very good at waiting.  Picture this: me in my yellow raincoat with a black backpack on my back and a small purse attached to my front with one earbud in and a phone in my hand while I hold both pant legs out of the mud, flip-flops flinging red mud all over my backside anyway.  By "road" I mean a sort of red clay that is slightly damp due to it being the wet season, and the sun setting faster and faster as I walk (briskly, or so I think to myself) in between the rice paddies.  It's muggy and foggy but the mosquitos haven't discovered me yet as the dim light turns to darkness.  I have walked about 1 km when the next best thing happens: it starts to rain.  And by rain I mean downpour, because it's the rainy season and Cambodian rain apparently goes big or doesn't go at all.  My earbud has fallen out of my ear and my pants are now more than a little muddy but have turned red in any case.  What this should teach you, as it taught me that fateful evening in the middle-of-nowhere Cambodia, is that it can always get worse.  Motos and tourys pass by and ask if I want a ride and I am struck suddenly with a memory of being very small in some sort of sports arena with my dad.  In my mind's eye I see him about twenty years younger crouch down to eye level with my little self (I'm wearing a puffy pink winter coat in this memory by the way) and he tells me, again it seems and in a very dad-like voice, that I am not to talk to or go with strangers and only hold his hand.  I chuckled at the thought of my father now, on the opposite side of the world telling me to avoid climbing into a van full of Khmer strangers in the dark.  

    At this point I am about 2km into the walk, continuing bravely but thinking sadly about the lost tuk tuk or my host family sitting and waiting for me to arrive, my host mother mistaking my Khmer "I need a tuk tuk" for "I want to walk home thankyouverymuch see-you-in-three-hours-don't-wait-up" when all of the sudden a moto light coming in the opposite direction stops and I faintly see my host mother awkwardly riding my bicycle towards me.  The moto belonged to an uncle (or uncle-like figure) on the police force, friend of my host mom, and she laughed as she handed me my bicycle helmet and took my backpack from me.  She climbed onto the moto to ride back with him while I rode back in front of them led by the light on the moto.  (It wasn't until I started riding that I discovered that I didn't have a bike light but like I said, picking my battles).  As I neared my house I saw that there were two cars in front waiting for my arrival with the lights on high as well as two more motos with men, and the house alight in the dark.  What was that about a village raising a child?  Because that night I'm pretty sure I proved that it takes a Cambodian village to locate an American.  That, or my host mom had a party and they were all just waiting for her to get back - in which case she and her friend left the party to come get me.  And THAT, my friends, taught me the even more important lesson that it always gets better.  

    I made it home, welcomed eagerly by my boan brohs, bucket showered, ate rice, and went to sleep.  The next day I sewed the pants I had been wearing (and ripped on my bicycle ride) into capris, and every single person that I met asked me about my toothache.  My escapade is still the talk of the town.  Thus instead of a blog about teaching Khmer children the importance of nutrition or installing a toilet into a poor home, you get a story about a bus ride. All of this for a toothache.  "Yes," to everything you're thinking.