2 Weeks Feels Like 2 Months

Hey everyone!

Sorry I didn’t write earlier. There were things I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want to put Cambodia in words until I was committed to what I would have to say. I’m still not quite committed, but here goes my attempt anyway… (as always, I’m going to be 100% honest here)

When I landed in Cambodia almost 2 weeks ago, I was excited to begin this adventure. All of the K7s (that is, the 7^th group of volunteers to come to Cambodia, or, as they call it, Kampuchea) gathered for a quick picture and then we were off on a two hour drive to Takeo for our first day of training. Yup, after what felt like days of traveling, we didn’t get a break, just straight to training!

The orientation to PST (Pre-service Training) was through the weekend (we landed on a Friday), and that Sunday, we split into CHE (Community Health Education) altogether and ETTT (English Teaching and Teacher Training) groups A & B, since there are more of them, and met our host families at the local Pagoda (Buddhist equivalent of Christian Church, Jewish Temple, Muslim Mosque… you get the idea). I was hoping for the host family that had brought the small child, and guess what, I got it! My host nephew is 3 and adorable. I think he’s also slightly afraid of me, but he’s warming up.

After that, we were dropped off with our bags to our host families, and that is where each of us has been sleeping since then. My host family doesn’t speak any English, so we do a lot of hand gesturing. However, I discovered this weekend that my host dad speaks French, so now we communicate pretty well in Frengmer. Haha.

Other than that, not much has stood out, except for the fact that I was terribly homesick this past weekend. If you know me, you know I usually don’t get homesick; traveling is in my very soul. However, I think the reality of not seeing my family for 2 years has really set in, so Skyping with my parents on Saturday morning was almost a bad idea since I was in a foul mood for the rest of the weekend… I watched 5 movies because I just wanted to be alone, and 4 of them were dramas, so I could cry. I’m glad I got it out of my system so early though, because now I feel fine.

Today  was awesome! After training, I played soccer with some of my fellow Trainees and a bunch of Khmer children. I played goalie and it felt so good to be “on the field” again, in a sense. It really got my adrenaline going, and I even made a pretty good save.

Oh, I forgot to mention, I’m going back to being a vegetarian, at least for now. Eating meat was going well until I almost threw up eating a piece of pork that just did not feel right, so I spoke to my LCF (Language & Cultural Facilitator, ie a Cambodian to help us learn the language and the culture), and she called my family. Now it’s back to tofu and veggies and I couldn’t be happier!

For those who are wondering, my average schedule is training Monday through Saturday from 8:00-12:00 and 1:30-5:00, with Sundays free. Every training day (except Thursday) is with the other CHEs, although about half of the day is language and we were divided into 4 smaller groups for that, so I spend a lot of time with Sam, Kayla, Heather, and Wes. Thursday is our Hub Site Day, meaning that we gather with the rest of the K7s and learn stuff that all of us need to know. Last week, we learned about mosquito-borne illnesses and, let me tell you, it is scary to think about some of the stuff mosquitoes can give me! But, it’s good to know this stuff. I like Hub Site days because we get to hang out with the ETTTs, and they are all really awesome.

Feel free to write to me, and comment to let me know you are reading.

Miss you all!