The Invitation

  Possible Peace Corps Volunteers are recieving their invitations right now asking if they would like to become a member of the K7 class of PCV Cambodia.  I know this because they have started posting in our Facebook page asking ridiculous questions about whether or not they should cut their hair before they come (really?).  Anyway, in an attempt to establish kinship with future volunteers, I remember when I got my invitation to join the Peace Corps.  At the time I was living in New Orleans finishing up school at Tulane.  I got my invitation in mid-May, the day before my last final (you can guess how that last final went) and about a week before graduation.  I had just gotten home from my second-to-last final and went into my room with a book-sized package from Peace Corps (which I had been expecting for a week or so) and opened it to find a large blue envelope with the words "Peace Corps Invites You" (because the US government is so subtle and all).  I opened the invitation to discover that my assignment was Community Health Education Extension Agent in the country of Cambodia and I immediately thought the exact same thing that everyone thinks as soon as they hear what I'm doing, "Where is Cambodia?"

  After a quick google maps search and gaining of Wikiknowledge for my future country of residence, I called my mom.  "CAMBODIA!" she said to me when I told her. "How cool!" (my mom is cheerleader #1).  Later that evening when I spoke to my dad I was reminded of how alike we are - he said, "So Cambodia, huh? Where is that?" and then followed the generic dad-questions involving safety and security issues.  I had a little less than two months to wrap up, plan, and pack my life into two suitcases before jetting off to the Kingdom of Wonder and from the moment the invitation arrived at my house there was no doubt in my mind that it was what I was going to do.

  I have been here for a little less than a year, absorbing Khmer culture and rice (something I think it can be done via osmosis in Asian cultures, after much research) and relishing the American inside of me.  Possibly because I am currently sitting on my wooden bed typing on my broken computer wishing desperately for rain to cool of the weather in time for dinner aka rice, people tend to think that I am an expert on Peace Corps and giving advice about it.  While it's true that I have more experience with Peace Corps than you probably do, unless you are an RPCV reading this out of boredom, I am not sure I am quite the person to give advice on it.  That said, I also remember frantically searching websites and blogs of PCVs and travelers, trying to figure out what to pack and what to leave behind, if I would have contact with people back home or be living in a hut in the middle of nowhere.  When I look back, and when I look in my suitcase, it's easy to see that I shopped and packed like I would be camping for two years. 

  While I try not to give advice, I will answer questions honestly.  And so when I am contacted by a friend, family member, Facebook acquaintance, LinkedIn connection, or old AIM buddy to talk to their sister's-cousin's-best friend's-brother who is thinking about joining the Peace Corps, obviously I say "yes".  Because then I get to talk about me and there is no subject I like more. (just kidding...but seriously)

  Many people that email me or ask questions or post on our Facebook page are just getting out of college.  Maybe they don't know what they want to do with their lives and they are thinking about joining PC for various reasons.  I have always considered myself lucky in that I have always known what I want to "do" by way of career "when I grow up" and so unfortunately I cannot identify with someone who is lost down that road of their lives.  I can however identify with people who are drawn into PC by their ads promising "adventure", "travel", "resume building", some sort of "changing the world" type thing, and the kind who want to "build" themselves or "grow".  They always ask a ton of questions about things like what I do on a regular day (sweat and eat rice) and do I speak the local language (very poorly but yes) and inevitably, using many different words and phrases, they all end up asking me the same thing, "why did you join Peace Corps?" and "is it worth it?"

  If I were with them in person I imagine myself giving them a patronizing look and pretending to be all full of wisdom and experience, mysteriously answer by not answering something like, "you just know".

  In truth, my answer does not matter to their decision any more than my decision would influence theirs.

  It's not the Peace Corps, or the country of Cambodia, or even my job educating that makes my experience what it is: it's me.  I have laughed when I wanted to cry and cried when I wanted to laugh, stumbled through Khmer and switched to English, and begun speaking to my American friends in Khmer before realizing that I'd forgotten my native language for a hot second. I've been more sweaty and dusty and frustrated and more hungry than I ever thought I could be.  I have also never been happier, or more content with what I am doing.  Peace Corps really is "one of those things" where you get out of it what you put into it.  And I'm a Hoosier-I go big or I go home.  As you have been reading, I'm not home yet.

  But before I came to contentment in this Khmer country, I had a lot of questions too.  So, ok future Volunteer, go ahead and ask if you should cut your hair before coming here because after all, you don't know what's appropriate and what's not and maybe one of the reasons you joined the Peace Corps was to find out.  If I want to be honest, I had ridiculous questions before I left too.  I called the language "Kee-mer" instead of "K'mai" and had to look Kampuchea up on the internet to figure out where it was.  I google searched "Cambodia" more than I've google searched anything, and I made packing list after packing list after packing list before actually packing and then re-packing and then re-packing yet again.  I thought I would be cut off from the world with postcards as my only form of communication and I pictured myself talking to my family once every six months on an old-school cell phone Zack Morris style.  In reality, I get crappy internet at my site and use my cell phone every day.  Sure, I don't have constant electricity or hot water - but now I know that most of the world doesn't.  It's America that locked me in a state of luxury expectation before I realized that hot water was a luxury.

  One of my summer jobs when I was in college was selling books door-to-door (awesome job) and one of the most important lessons I learned from that job came from a higher-up who told me, "you don't make 'right' decisions.  You make a decision, and then you make it right."  I think he was right about that (get it? eh? eh?).  When I make a decision, whether I spend too much time thinking about it or if it's a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing, I don't dwell on it and wonder if I should have gone the other way - I make it fit me.  I mold myself and the decision to work together.  So if you, dear blog reader, are trying to make a decision about whether or not you want to join the Peace Corps, move across the world to a third world country for two years of your life with everything you think you'll need crammed into two suitcases by yourself with your only companions being other people that you have never met in the same exact situation...then just make a decision.  And then, after you've made it, make it right.

Best of luck!
xo-Amanda

aaaaannnnndddd just in case...here are some links that give some great info about Cambodia and the Khmer. Not that you should stop reading my blog because obviously I'm an excellent, unbiased, completely objective third party observer with no personal interest in what I'm reporting.

Wikipedia

Cambodia.org

Here's a map!!!

facts and whatnot

The Great Pancake Debacle

I tried to make pancakes for my family last week. It was a huge disaster.

  You might be thinking to yourself, “but Amanda, pancakes are the easiest of foods to make! All that is required is batter, a pan, a little flippy flop, and syrup or butter (if you’re into that sort of thing)” and I would respond, “Optical illusion, my friend.” 

Let me begin at the beginning. 

  In Phnom Penh I bought the “just add water to this line” pancake batter.  Those are my favorite recipes to make, the “just add water” kind.  I am rather fond of the “vent and cook on high 3 minutes” kind generally found in the frozen foods isle as well.  These meals should give you an idea about the person that I aim to be.  Anyway, I also got some syrup to accompany what I thought would be the finest pancakes my village had ever seen.

  Back in my village a few days later during hope bye trong (lunch time), I got out the flattest pan I could find – which wasn’t a pan at all, it was a wok.  So instead of the oil I was using as a substitute for butter coating the inside of the pan in even amounts, it pooled in the center.  Next I poured the batter into the wok, not directly into the center but a little bit on the sides.  This was great because when I went to scratch it off of the pan with the spatula, it was quite easier than it might have been were all of the batter in the center of the wok.  By this time my host mom had wandered back inside to see what I was doing to her cookware, and watched me pour a second attempt onto a different side of the wok with the same results: uneven cooking, some burning, not a whole lot of flipping, followed by scraping and re-oiling.  I thought to myself, that’s ok, the first two don’t need to turn out…that’s what the tent h is for! But my host mom didn’t agree.  She had taken the spatula from me and tried herself to make the pancakes, already gathering what I was attempting to do.  She, however, tried to do it a little easier than I did.  She poured the batter directly into the bottom of the wok, in the middle of a pool of hot oil.  What do you think came out? Yes, that’s right.  She put some fried dough on the bowl in front of me which I dipped into syrup and put in my mouth.  I was hot and a little pancakey and very delicious for a bite.  Man Kheang stood next to me, trying to see over the counter at what all the fuss was about and I handed him a bit of fried dough and told him to dip it into the syrup.  He grinned at me after eating it – at least this treat agreed with someone. 

  My host mom tried again and again and again (at least ten times) to make the pancakes while I stood beside her offering brain waves of encouragement.  The tenth pancake saw me watching the fried dough pile up and Man straight up spooning syrup into his mouth. 

  When the batter was finally all fried up, my host mom gestured to the bowl and told me to eat some lunch, probably thinking that this is what Americans eat for lunch: a bowl of fried dough with syrup when they get bored with peanut butter sandwiches.  I sat next to it for a few minutes before escaping to my room to make lunch out of some care package goodies sent from Mom and Dad in the States.  You can bet that the patron saint of the Post Office gets a ton of “thank you” prayers.  That night my host mom took the bowls over to the health center to give the midwives some snacks.  The fried dough/syrup combo got a great approval rating.

  Well, this story doesn't seem like much of a debacle when I'm not telling the tale with animations, tonal changes, and mounds of exaggerations...but pretend that your encounter with Western food has been little to none for the past few months and you're attempting to share your culture with your host family.  After months of rice, getting fried dough instead of pancakes will seem like enough of a cruel joke that exaggerations are no longer necessary.

  I haven’t cooked since then, but lately I’ve begun to think that it’d be hard to mess up tacos.  After all, I just have to do is throw together ingredients and if the boys or my host mom does not like it, well, that’s on them!  Any suggestions? 

Bon Appetit!

Xo-Amanda