Out With the Old...

So, it’s the last day of 2013, and I haven’t updated this thing in over a month. Why? Because I’ve been really busy.

In the last month, a lot has happened:
- I’ve started to teach English at the primary school. I had a meeting with the Primary School Directors on the 17th, and was informed I would start teaching 4th, 5th, and 6th grades the following day through the week. I’m now teaching at the school around 5 hours a week. They know I want to teach health, so I’m going to trying implementing a two-weeks-English, one-week-Health thing, and I’m going to do the Health lessons in Khmer AND English. We’ll see how that works out.
- I’m now on the Gender and Development Committee, which is awesome, right up my alley, and comes as no surprise to anybody who knows me in real life.
- I had lice that refused to go away for two weeks. When we first discovered it, we pulled out over 50 adults and 100 babies from my hair. My hair, by the way, is over a foot and a half long. Combing it was the worst. Here are some pictures:

Look at those little buggers!

This is the length of my hair. Too long!

- Christmas came and went, along with an incredibly crippling bout of homesickness that left me crying for a majority of the 3 days before Christmas. Not only did I get to Skype with my extended family on Christmas morning (Christmas Eve for them) to partake in a tradition that I can’t even remember the beginning of, but my host mom saw how sad I was and threw a Christmas party just for me, complete with special food, and neighbors and students. And beer. It was really special.
- I’ve been sick the past few days. According to my symptoms, the medical officer told me I had a pretty bad bacterial infection. I thought I was better today, but stomach cramps and exhaustion had me home from work in less than half an hour. I’m now surviving on Oral Rehydration Salts. Hopefully I’m okay for a trip I’m supposed to go on tomorrow.

So that’s what I’ve been up to. And now, a reflection on 2013:

2013 started off okay and continued on pretty normally, if a bit hectic between working and school. I almost forgot to write about being selected to do an "Alternative Spring Break" down the shore by MTV. Cool swag, being followed around by cameras, making friends with the most awesome of people (Wolfpack!!), free trip to Six Flags... how could I forget that?! And of course, my trip to LA to see Shaked graduate (my grandlil... I feel so old!), and see my friends and sorority sisters.
Really, the biggest thing that happened this year was receiving my Peace Corps Invitation in March, getting all of my final clearances, and finally boarding the plane to come to Cambodia in July. I was also excited to take my NJ -> Orlando -> Toronto -> NJ trip the weekend before I left for Cambodia, even if it left me a little tired. I finally got to go to Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and I got to add Canada to my list of countries I’ve visited (finally!). And the party I had before leaving showed me how much love was already in my life. I’ve never felt more supported and loved than I have as I’ve started and continued through this Peace Corps journey.
Honestly, when I got my invitation, I had huge doubts about coming here, even crying once I processed that Africa was no longer in the picture. However, Placement knew exactly what they were doing, and my time here so far has proven how very wrong my initial feelings of doubt and sadness were. I love it here. I love my host family. I’m sure I probably would’ve enjoyed other places, but everything about Cambodia is perfect for me. I’ve been sick somewhere around 5 times here, and I still have no complaints.

Sorry if this is a bit all over the place, I’m still recovering from being sick!

Normalcy/Settling... and Some Stories

I know I haven’t updated you in awhile with what I’ve been doing in my everyday life, but that’s because it has become almost normal. Yes, the frustration I feel with my language on an hourly basis has become normal. Yes, rice with every meal has become normal. Yes, bucket baths seem more normal than showers at this point, because of all of the water that is saved. Yes, putting up my mosquito net every single night has become just one more normal pre-bedtime ritual. But that’s not to say I’ve settled.

In fact, I don’t think I, personally, will ever be “settled” anywhere. I recently read two things that have me convinced of this: one was on a Reddit thread about “best quotes” and the other one was towards the end of “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” and had to do with dreaming and nostalgia about the places that we have lived or visited. Both of them talked about how a traveler’s soul is never settled. Honestly, from all the moving around I’ve done, I think that it is 100% true. I missed NJ when I was in California, I missed the US when I was in Tanzania, I missed California when I was in Ireland, and I missed LA when I was in NJ. I’ve been to a lot of places and I’ve seen a lot of things and met a lot of awesome people, and I carry them with me wherever I go. You can’t rid yourself of travel, true travel, true integration, once you start with your first trip, because it changes you in ways you don’t realize until long after you have left. 

 I miss home a lot when I am here, but I know when I visit home and when I eventually go home for good, I’m going to miss a lot about here. I miss being able to see my family easily; talking through screens just isn’t the same. I miss fancy coffee drinks and nights out with my friends. I miss being able to understand everything that is going on around me. I miss shorts and tank tops. I can already tell you some of the things I will miss about Cambodia: the children shouting “Hello, Teacher!” (even if it does get annoying sometimes), bargaining for stuff in the market, the sunsets, the rain, the freshness of all of the food due to the lack of a refrigerator. 

So, those are my current thoughts. Here are some stories from the past few weeks, in no particular order:

- I walked up behind my one year old cousin, and she looked up at me, said “elephant,” in Khmer, and ran away.

- I had to go to Phnom Penh because I was having some ear issues. Getting there was fine, even though a child was crying on the bus for so long (the ride from my site to PP is 4+ hours), that I contemplated what the headlines would say if I actually threw the child off of the bus. [Side note: I’m not commenting on the parenting style of this woman. I felt so bad for her because she tried everything and this little girl would still not stop wailing. I was just tired and in pain and wanted the kid to just be quiet.] I got to PP, got lost trying to get to the Peace Corps Office, but eventually got that sorted out. Got everything checked out and fixed up in a sense, and thought that the drama was over. NO! The next morning was the worst morning here, but, as I retold the story, my tears turned to laughter and now it’s pretty funny. Basically, I tried to catch a bus that ended up being cancelled, had to fight about not riding a moto to buy a ticket for another bus, they tried to charge me $20 for that ticket, which ended with me in tears and them accepting the $9 that I had, then them trying to get me on another moto to get me to the bus, me crying again, getting my money back, and then taking a tuk-tuk to the PC Office. PCVL Katie was awesome at calming me down, and then I talked to a few staff and got everything sorted out, and was on my way home soon after lunchtime! 

- I went to visit Rachel at her site with my two French friends, two Brits, and my Cambodian friend. Fun times were had by all, the boat ride there was pretty epic, with us stopping to swim at a floating Buddha on the way. Her site was also gorgeous, with cool waterfalls, a fun path, and a pretty rickety bridge. Her family was really nice and fed me lunch! I love Cambodian hospitality. 

- The birthdays of both of my host sisters are in November, so we celebrated with a bunch of food and beer. Keep in mind, my sisters were 13 and 15, and it was them, their friends, my mom, my aunt, and me. Fun(ny) times were had!

- Went to PP for a 3 day weekend. Saw a bunch of K7s which was really awesome because I miss my training class! Saw Thor 2 in theaters with my friends Alice, Jon, and Michael, and it was a really good movie. Got a massage. Ended up meeting a fellow Trojan! Ate lots of American food. It was a great weekend overall.

- This past week, I was contemplating how awesome it was that I haven’t fallen in awhile, and I ended up stepping in a ditch at the health center and completely wiping out. Thank goodness nobody saw, but I did end up with a few scratches and bruises. Next time, I’m not going to think about it. Haha

- I am officially a full-blooded meat eater. Who knew that fresh beef tasted so good?! At this point, I’ve had beef and pork, but not chicken. I’m actually not a huge fan of the pork here, but maybe that’s just my own mental blocks against it.

- My mom had a serious talk with me about my sisters a few weeks ago. This was a turning point for me in 2 ways: 1) I understood about 85% of the conversation, and when I didn’t understand something, I was just tell her rather than guess, and she would rephrase things. 2) She trusted me to talk to about this, which made me feel like I was really fitting in. 

- Last week, some new people were at the health center and we were conversing in Khmer, even though they knew a bit of English. They asked me where I came from, but I misheard it as “Where is your health center director?” After we clarified, we all laughed for a good few minutes. Yay language barriers!

- I wrote a poem for the first time in awhile, and edited it until I like it. I want to post it, but I’m not sure. Would you all like to read my poem?

And last but not least:
- Today was super productive and I’m really glad. I did my laundry, finished a book, completely cleaned and reorganized my room, and then watched a movie. I wanted to get some other stuff done, but I figured I’d leave that for tomorrow. 

Hope everyone is doing well!

PS – If you want to send me holiday cards, here’s my address:

PCV Mary Walsh

Peace Corps

P.O. Box 2453

Phnom Penh 3

Cambodia

Skin Color

Today is a holiday, so I’ve been reading and doing the exercises in “Culture Matters: The Peace Corps Cross-Cultural Workbook,” which has led to me doing some thinking about diversity all morning, and especially, in light of something that happened earlier this week, skin color.

I’m about as white as a person from the United States can get: Irish-American decent, (dark) blonde hair, blue eyes, freckles, and when my skin is left unexposed to the sun for long periods of time, I’m the color of printer paper. In Cambodia, the whiter you are, the more beautiful you are. Since I arrived here, I have been told over and over how beautiful I am, and the compliments have only come more as I’ve lost a significant amount of weight. (Yeah, being thin here is also highly valued. Yay body policing!)

At first, I was bothered by it. Then, I started to accept it. Now, when people compliment my skin color, I joke with them about how “tan” is considered beautiful in the US, not the pasty white that I am. But, as I joke more about it, it’s come full circle to bothering me again. I mean, it’s nice to be complimented, but it’s also weird in a way.

Earlier this week, I was reaching to grab something in my health center with some patients in the room, and my shirt lifted a bit and exposed my (printer-paper white) stomach. The women in the room immediately started telling me how beautiful my stomach is and asked why I let my arms start to get “k’mau” (black) like their skin color. I told them that white may be beautiful here, but dark, like my arms are getting, is more beautiful in the states. I explained about people spending long days in the sun and about tanning beds (with the limited Khmer that I had to explain these, haha).

Also this week, I went to buy soap, and sometimes, it’s really hard to find soaps without “whitening” products in them. I had to explain to the merchant that I wanted a bar of soap “ut me-in bpoah sah” 1) since I don’t feel like exposing myself to those chemicals and 2) I’m white enough already. Almost all of the soap commercials I have seen on TV have emphasized the “whitening” formula, hoping to gain customers. I mean, sometimes some women look ridiculous, with dark bodies and really white faces, either from the chemicals or because of makeup.

As thoughts of whitening chemicals and tanning beds swirled around my head, so did thoughts of “the grass is always greener” and thoughts of the ways we are killing ourselves with beauty. Alas, the Gender Studies Degree was not a waste of time. But in all seriousness, it’s an interesting study in the ways we try to conform (or not) to what our different societies deem acceptable. Regulations in some states in the US have been proposed for the use of tanning beds by people under a certain age, due to a threat of skin cancer… I wonder if those same ideas could someday influence law-makers in countries where whitening skin products are sold, after the effects of those whitening chemicals are researched and known (if they aren’t already).

I’ll leave you with this little tidbit (which I think I mentioned before, but is worth a second mention): My training host dad was a teacher before the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975. If you know the history of the KR, you know they tried to eliminate all of the intellectuals, etc, which included teachers. My host dad was spared killing because he was “too dark” to have possibly been a teacher/intellectual. Dark skin = working in the fields all day.

I hope this post got you thinking!

Mountain Climbing and Silly Dancing

Hello!

The day after I wrote last time was the day I had food poisoning all day. It was excruciating and I hated it, and even on Saturday and Sunday, after I was technically better, I could barely look at food or eat. Being sick made me completely lose my appetite.

Aside from that, I’ve been up to a bit, but mostly this week as opposed to last.

During Pchum Ben, I met a guy who spoke English very well while walking around the Wat, and he invited me to stop by his NGO, which hosts foreigners from time to time. I was supposed to go the following Monday, but ended up unable to go from the residual feelings of ickyness from the food poisoning. Last Saturday, I finally decided to bike up to the NGO, and lo-and-behold, two French women had just arrived and were going to be staying for a month. He, the two women, and I all talked for about an hour, until my French friends went to go fishing, but not before he had decided to do some sight-seeing the next day.

On Sunday, I woke up bright and early, ready to see a waterfall before lunchtime. When my Cambodian friend had described our adventure as a “hike,” I had no idea what was actually in store for us. We ended up boating about half an hour up the river from my town, turning left into another river, and sailing for another 20 minutes, until we reached the bottom of a river. We climbed to the waterfall through the river, which ended up taking us up a mini mountain. I have to say, I still have bruises and a few not-so-nice cuts from the hike up, including a beautiful cut on my chin from when I slipped on a giant rock and was convinced I was going to fall to my death. I hung there for a good 10 minutes before I was finally goaded into moving, with the help of my friends. That wasn’t even the scariest part of the climb… that award goes to the vertical climb we had to do up the actual waterfall in order to get to the trail to lead us down the mountain and back to the boat. Did I mention the trail had a multitude of leeches? At one point, I probably had at least 7 on me at once, but in total, I got around 20. Luckily, my friend/guide pulled them right off. All in all, it was gorgeous, but I am never doing it again. My friend says next time we go, we will climb to the first (mini) waterfall, and then come back the way we came. I think I’d be okay with that.

We left at 8:30am and were back in town by 2pm. It was quite intense, but that wasn’t supposed to be the end of our adventure. We had planned, and paid for, the boat man to take us out to sea at 3pm to see the coast, but just after 2:45, a huge storm hit, leaving us without a way to go to the ocean. However, I was okay with this because I was exhausted, and ended up falling asleep until dinner time. I was still sore for the next two days, but it was so worth it.

On Monday, I finally started with my Khmer language tutor. He is teaching me to read and write, and helps me with words that I hear but don’t know. I’m excited to have finally started. We are using a first grade Khmer writing workbook as our guide, which was my idea, after seeing his son’s workbook. It is completely in Khmer, so obviously, it challenges me to get better at the language as fast as possible. My homestay mom helps me in the evenings when I go through the days lessons.

Tuesday was a holiday, so I didn’t have work. I was supposed to learn how to cook, but ended up sleeping in late, so my mom and sisters just made lunch without me. Oops! After I woke up, I told my mom that I wanted to go to the Wat with her later that day, since I missed when she went to the Wat for Pchum Ben because of my food poisoning. While there, we saw my language teacher, who asked me why I was worshipping the Cambodian king, since the holiday was a day of Remembrance for the King who passed away last year. I just shrugged. The service was longer than the masses I was used to as a child, and since we kneeled the entire time, my legs were not happy by the time I had to get up. I don’t really care though, as it was quite the experience.

Later that day, my mom had a friend (or sister or some other relation… I have a lot of trouble keeping everyone straight) over, and they were watching music videos. I was in my room reading, with the door open, and I guess I was moving my hand along with the music because my mom came in and told me to come dance in the living room with her. Who can say no to that? So we danced for a few songs, but then I told her I was tired. By this time, my sisters had come back from their English lessons. My mom asked me if I drink beer, I said yes, and then next thing I know, my sister comes back with 5 Blank Panthers (it’s a dark beer, and my favorite in this country), and me, my mom, and my mom’s friend start drinking after dinner. Soon enough, we are dancing. We danced the Macarena at least 4 times, Gangham style twice, the Cha Cha twice, and the Twist at least once. It was so much fun!

My mom was then telling her friend how she’s going to take me to all of the weddings that she is going to in December because she likes the way that I dance. They asked me if I had anything to wear to a wedding, so I showed them some of my dresses, and then we started talking about make-up. I brought out my make-up case, and the next thing you know, my mom’s friend has some of my bright pink (I mean, I call it Nicki Minaj pink, but Malibu Barbie pink could also work) lipstick on and we are all laughing. I put on my dark red, my mom put on my bright pink, and then I was showing them how I do my eyes, and all of a sudden we were taking all sorts of pictures. I’ll have to post them when I get a chance. It was an amazingly fun night, and it really made me feel closer to my family.

Yesterday, I started teaching at the NGO where the French girls are volunteering and my Cambodian friend works. Now, I have a class that I co-teach every day right after I finish work for the day. I’m excited to refine my teaching skills. It also helps with my Khmer, since my co-teacher does half-English/half-Khmer for his class, and he has them translate the English sentences into Khmer.

That’s it for now!

Provincial Town, Pchum Ben, and Giardia

Hey everyone!

I’ve been up to a lot since I last wrote. I’ve been out of my site twice, once to go with the 2 other K7s in my province to our provincial town, and once to go visit one of those people at their site.

The trip into Koh Kong town was a lot of fun, and a nice break from attempting to speak Khmer all the time. Rachel, Devin, and I feasted on as much American-type food we could find while we were there. We stayed for one night and ended up meeting another American, 19 years old, who was taking a gap year and traveling the world. She had some great stories about volunteering around Asia. We had originally gone to KK to get some money out of the bank, but apparently, it’s closed on weekends. Oops. That was two weekends ago.

Last Friday, I visited Devin in her site because she has a bank, and I needed to get money out since our KK adventure hadn’t really worked out. Her site is huge, and we passed this gorgeous Wat on our way into town, where we stopped to look at the views and take pictures. On our way out of the Wat, I slipped and fell as a huge crowd of people were walking behind us. I couldn’t get up for a minute or two because my foot and ankle hurt so bad. After I stood up and managed to laugh at myself, I took a look at the damage. My write was bleeding and my shin and foot were covered in scrapes, but other than my foot hurting, everything else seemed fine. This really nice older gentleman came over with some antiseptic that he happened to be carrying, so I cleaned myself up as best as I could, and then Devin and I headed out into her town. I only stayed for a few hours, but it was a fun trip.

Aside from trips, it’s been an exciting couple of weeks since Pchum Ben has started. The (loud) music starts early and goes late, and since I live 3 houses down from the Wat, I hear it all day. Sometimes it’s chanting, sometimes it’s EDM, and sometimes it’s Gangham Style. I’ve learned to kind of ignore it. My Wat is like a carnival every night. I’ve been twice and the first time I felt really out of place, but the second time was fun because I found someone who spoke fluent English. I tried out one of the carnival games and completely sucked at it. Darts will never be my thing.

So that’s the exciting stuff! The not-so-exciting stuff is that I’ve been sick for over a week. At first, I thought it was just residual stomach issues from eating so much cheese in KK town. My mom “coined” me the day after I came back because I left work early due to an upset stomach and a bad headache. Coining hurts! I’ll post pictures when I have better internet, but basically, coining is when someone puts lotion or tiger balm on you, and then continually rubs a patch of skin until it becomes deeply bruised. They do this over and over again down your back, and sometimes, as my mom did, down my arms and across my chest. The result looks something like tiger stripes. While sick, I also had borbor (runny rice porridge) for the first time, and honestly, it did make me feel a bit better.

I eventually got sick of being sick for so long and called the Medical Office. They thought it was gastro-something until I called two days later with a new symptom, at which point they diagnosed me with giardia. I took the medicine yesterday, and I’m starting to feel a bit better, so I’m hoping that is all that is was.

And that’s it for now!

Highlights From This Week (so far)

Now that I’m feeling much less homesick, I thought I’d share some nice/cool/awesome things that have happened since I last wrote, but first, two non-highlights, both from today.

- About an hour before we were supposed to leave for lunch, a woman came into the health center in labor. The labor went longer than the first birth here that I experienced, but the staff just let it progress until she was ready. This is where the scary part happened. She was pushing and pushing and all of a sudden the baby came out with the cord wrapped around his neck. The midwife quickly told the mom to stop pushing, spun him, and had the cord cut and unwrapped from around his neck before I could even process what was going on. With one final push, the baby boy came out, but he was limp and not making a sound. At this point, it was an internal struggle not to show anxiety on my face, but I managed to continue to hold the mother’s hand and smile at her. The midwife knew what to do, of course, since she’s trained in this. She quickly suctioned the baby and he still wasn’t moving or responding, so she vigorously started cleaning him off and that’s when he started to move, and, eventually, cry. Never in my life have I been so grateful to hear a baby cry.

- Less than an hour before I posted this, I slipped outside on my way to the bathroom, and completely fell. I ended up with guck and grime all over my right side, what feels like it will eventually be a nasty bruise on my hip, and a cut on my hand. Luckily, I was wearing a sweatshirt since it’s been so cold, so I didn’t hurt my elbow or any of my arm. Now, though, I have to do more laundry before my clothes start to take on the outside smell, because where I fell is where the chickens and ducks and dogs hang out.

And now for the highlights:

- I’ve started teaching myself guitar. Nobody told me how much this would hurt my fingers, but I’m trying to play every day in order to build the callouses on my fingers faster. I’ve had the guitar since the end of August, but finally took it out of the case on Sunday, and played a very slow (and very bad) version of “Hand in My Pocket” by Alanis, to an audience of 3: my youngest sister and two of my cousins who are always over. They were a great audience, even though they laughed every time I got really into the song. They also watched me practice for awhile. I can now play an A chord and an E chord without looking in my “Guitar for Dummies” book. I know it’s not much, but it’s a start.

- I am apparently afraid of geese. I was in the market this weekend, walking back to my house, when my way was blocked by a small gaggle. I started walking towards them when the biggest one squawked and flapped its wings at me, and I quickly retreated. A bunch of children under the age of 7 were watching this entire thing go down, so one of the girls quickly ran past me and scattered the geese everywhere. I said a quick thank you and continued on my way, kind of embarrassed, but happy for the help. And then this same scenario played out yesterday, except it was a boy of about 4 who chased the geese away.

- My Program Manager called each of our families on Tuesday to see how we were doing and find out if they had any concerns. I had asked him to clarify something with my mom, since we had had two conversations about it, and I was still unsure what the end result was. I got a call back yesterday, and after he clarified the point I was looking into, he told me that my homestay mom loves me and has absolutely no complaints about me and thinks I fit in well with the family and the community. I felt like I was on cloud 9 when he told me this, because I’ve been so unsure of myself since my Khmer skills are not the greatest.

- I’ve been hanging out with my sisters a lot more, and that just overall makes me happy. I think they are becoming more accepting of me as a sister rather than as a foreigner who happens to live in their house. I can’t wait until my Khmer is good enough to have some deep conversations with them. Oh, and I taught them how to play Connect 4. I absolutely love this game, and now they do too! They play against each other, against me, and against their cousins all the time. I’m so glad that 1) Barnes & Noble had the travel version, 2) that I thought to buy it, and 3) that I brought it!

- I’ve been teaching one of the midwives at my health center English when it is slow, and she is doing so well. We’ve done the alphabet and a few simple phrases, and she’s starting to get the hang of it. I don’t know why I feel so proud, but I do. We also laugh a lot, which just makes my day better.

- My Deputy Health Center Director taught me how to read a TB test slide. I learned how to read slides last year in Biology, but this real world application really brought it back to the forefront of my mind. I know TB itself isn’t cool, but it’s cool to know what to look for in a slide that would show signs of TB.

- I did laundry on Saturday and it was finally dry on Wednesday after hanging in a covered area outside. That is how much it rains here… it takes forever for things to dry. I really can’t leave laundry until the last minute, unlike in Takeo, where the sun and heat assured that laundry could be dry by lunch, but would be dry by the next day.

And the best for last…

- Monday, I finally sent a text to the Secondary School’s Upper-Grade-Levels English teacher to see if he would be able to tutor me. He then apparently went to my house when I was still at the health center and talked to my mom. My mom is incredibly over-protective of me, and decided that while this teacher was good, she wanted to find me someone who would tutor me for free. Long story short, I now have a Khmer writing tutor, who I have for 30 minutes a day every weekday and who doesn’t want to be paid because I’m helping him with his English pronunciation, and starting after the next Cambodian holiday, I’ll have a Khmer speaking tutor, who I will have every weekday for an hour day and who I will pay. On that note, I’ve only been study Khmer script for 3 days, but I’m really starting to get the hang of how it works, and I can even name some consonants and vowels now, due to a combination of the tutoring and this awesome book that the Peace Corps provided.

Well that’s all for now folks. Remember, I love getting emails, postcards, letters, and Facebook messages. Even if it’s just a quick hi, it means the absolute world to me.

I’ll write soon!