LPIs, Swear-In, and Permanant Site, Oh My!

Note: This is a really long entry, so I’ve sub-headed it. Just skip to the part you want to read. haha

Last Days in Takeo

I apologize again for the two weeks of silence. It has been incredibly busy but absolutely amazing. I wanted to write after getting sworn-in, but we left immediately after swear-in to go to our sites, and I didn’t want to write about my site without having done much at it. That’s my excuse for not writing. Haha

All of us Trainees spent Sunday, Sept 1^st packing up our stuff for pick-up bright and early on the 2^nd, which also happened to be the day of our LPIs, or Language Proficiency Interviews. An LPI is basically a measure of our ability to hold a conversation in Khmer. After having language classes for (at least) 4 hours a day, 6 days a week, for 6 weeks, they wanted to be sure that we had absorbed what we would need to hold the most basic of conversations. The rating levels are Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced, and each of those is split into Low, Mid, or High. Peace Corps Cambodia wanted us all to achieve at least Novice High level. If someone were to get below that, they were still able to swear-in, but needed to find a tutor ASAP, and would be re-tested during Mid-Service Training. We didn’t get our scores until we were in Phnom Penh.

Personally, I thought my interview was a disaster. I usually do well under pressure (just look at my standardized test scores), but for some reason, this really got to me. I kept forgetting words that I had had no trouble with previously, and I was so incredibly nervous, I thought that I for sure didn’t reach the required score, not that it would really matter in the long run. I talked a lot about my family in America and about food. Those are two things I think about a lot, so it was okay, but I wanted to be able to say so much more than I actually did. Luckily, I achieved Novice High!! I was so happy to find that out.

So after my LPI, I walked with Gianni to the guest house with free WiFi for one more internet session before PP. I fiddled around on my phone for a little while until Joel met us there, and then he and I walked home. There is this building that many of the Trainees used to pass on our way to school that we always wondered what exactly it was; rumor was, it was a library. Well, since it was our last day, on our way home, we stopped in the building. It WAS a library and it was ridiculously awesome. I just wish we had discovered it in the first week so that we could take full advantage of having so many books around. Aww well.

After I got home, I vowed not to go out again since it was extremely hot outside and I was bikeless (they took our bikes to our sites when they picked up all of our stuff that morning). But then Alexa stopped by, so I walked with her to get some pictures printed out after about an hour of trying to email them to me, only to give up and use hardware (wires) instead of software. I printed out some pictures of the little ones in my family for them to have, especially as I had taken some good ones the day before after giving my 3-year-old host-brother a bunch of Mickey stickers. He loved them, and they loved the pictures.

Phnom Penh

Tuesday, Sept 3^rd, I got up feeling slightly uneasy but extremely excited. We met up with our torrie at 8am with our bags packed and ready to go to Phnom Penh and leave our Training Host Families for good. There were some tears, but it was overall a good kind of energy. We drove to Tela to meet up with the ETTTs, who had to come from a different village, and we waited for them for a while, before beginning our journey to the big city.

The drive to PP was uneventful. Soon enough, we arrived at the hotel we would be staying at for the next few nights. I was rooming with Nicole, an ETTT I had roomed with when we had our first weekend in Cambodia. The hotel had air-conditioning, hot showers, and thick mattresses, which were luxury compared to our homestays. We had a few free hours for lunch before we had to head to Peace Corps Headquarters at 1:30, so Amy and I initiated our burrito-plan. We ended up with a group of 10 of us at this burrito place, where we spent an entire days allowance on one meal, but none of us regretted it. I could barely finish my burrito since I was used to eating so much less. It was ridiculously awesome. After that, a couple of people went shopping, but I just wanted some real coffee, and ended up getting a latte, which was possibly the best thing I’ve ever tasted after so many weeks without one.

After that, we met up with our groups, and headed over to PC headquarters. It was a pleasant walk, and really, everything from that point to Thursday afternoon all blends together in a blur of PC policy/safety/etc talks, and nights out with my fellow PCTs. Margaritas, yum. Oh, except for the awesome moto-riding training on Wednesday. That was really cool. The reason everything blends together only until Thursday afternoon, is because on Thursday afternoon, we finally met a bunch of K6s, which we had been itching to do for awhile. They were really awesome, and after we split into our groups, they told us about the province in which we would be living and what to expect.

That night, there was a reception at the house of our awesome Country Director, Penny. We got to mingle for awhile with the K6s and each other, before heading out to go dancing afterwards. This is what I had been looking forward to all week! It was awesome to go out and let a little loose, and finally (FINALLY!) dance my butt off. We had an unfortunate incident where one K6’s purse was snatched when 2 guys on a moto rode by, but other than that, it was a night out as it should have been: uneventful, drama-free, and fun.

The next morning was Swear-In, which really, I’ve been waiting for for a majority of my life. The US Ambassador to Cambodia swore us in and it was a great ceremony held at the Ambassador’s house (or, as he said, America’s house). My technical trainer, Katie, told me that I had this big, goofy grin plastered on my face while I was officially swearing-in. I almost cried from sheer happiness. After that, we took some pictures with the Ambassador, and then a few of us gave interviews about what we were expecting from our time in Cambodia, how we felt about it, etc.

There was a reception for us and the distinguished guests after the official ceremony, so those of us that had stayed to give interviews joined the party a little late. The food was absolutely amazing, and I got a chance to talk to somebody who works at the Consul. It seems like it might be a good fit for me after I finish with my service, but who knows where my head will be in two years.

Once the reception was over, it was time to head to permanent site. I said some (extremely) teary good-byes, and then Rachel, Devin, and I were off! … but not really because we got a flat tire on the outskirts of PP and had to wait for it to be fixed. But then we were off for real!

Permanent Site: Koh Kong

We drove for about 3 hours, eating our sandwiches and talking about what we expected, what we liked about the week in PP, what we hoped to do once we met our host families, and of course, talking to our awesome driver along the way. He taught himself English just from interacting with previous PCVs… how awesome is that?!

Devin was dropped off first and her house was gorgeous. It was raining, so I didn’t get out of the car, but she seemed extremely happy with her placement. Then it was just me and Rachel, and I was the next one to be dropped off.

We arrived to my town but couldn’t find my house, so our driver called my family, and it turns out I live really close to a Wat. As he was slowing down near the Wat, Rachel and I were joking that Peace Corps had actually decided that I needed to become a monk, so they changed plans without telling me. We finally stopped outside of my house and it looked just like the picture. My accommodations are modest but I wouldn’t trade them for anything because my family is ridiculously awesome.

From the moment I stepped foot on her property, my permanent homestay mom has treated me as nothing less than a full-blood daughter. She feeds me way more than she should, and she is always doting on me and giving me snacks. It took a little longer for my host sisters to warm up to me, but now we are becoming more like family every day. My host sisters are 13 and 15, and totally awesome. My mom always makes them accompany me when I need to go to the market so that they can show me where everything is. This helped in the beginning when I had no clue.

I started work on Monday and my health center staff is as awesome as my mom. They are always giving me snacks and trying to talk to me in Khmer, even when I don’t understand. There is one midwife who is really patient with me and will rephrase things or say them slowly so I can pick up the meaning more easily. The vaccination guy speaks to me in English when I need help, although I have a feeling he is as confident with English as I am with Khmer, which is to say, not very. The conversations we all have are sometimes really funny and sometimes really uncomfortable. There was one exchange in half-English/half-Khmer that went like this:

C: Do you have a sweetheart?

M: No.

C: Why?

M: Because I’m here and not in America.

C: So you can get a sweetheart when you get back to America?
M: Well, it’s not that easy…

C: *laughs* So do you like Khmer men?

M: Uhh… yeah, I guess.

C: Do you have Facebook?

M: Yes.

C: Can I have your Facebook name so I can see your family (which we had talked about previously and I had already shown pictures of) and your sweetheart?

M: Okay.

Luckily, at that point, I pulled out more pictures and directed the questions away from my (not so) personal life.

On Monday and Tuesday, I just sat and observed and talked/read when it was slow. On Wednesday, the midwife told me to start taking blood pressure, and on Thursday, I was taught how to measure pregnant bellies. This week, in addition to a bunch of pregnant women and a lot of children who were absolutely terrified of me (which, I have to admit, is hilarious… their faces!), I also saw a snakebite victim. He had done everything that he should not have done to treat the wound (as our awesome PCMO Joanne has taught us), so the health center staff fixed that, called for back-up, dressed his wound, gave him an IV, and sent him off in an ambulance to what I can only assume was the clinic with anti-venom, as we have none. It was a startling reminder of the dangers of being here in a very forested area of Cambodia, especially as I could hear him moaning from the ANC room.

This week I also had my first Cambodian birth, which was extremely quick and strangely (to me) quiet. The woman walked in and had had the child within 45 minutes. It was a boy and I got to weigh him after the midwife cleaned him off. I’m happy to say he was a healthy size AND he was put to the breast within an hour of birth. The midwife wanted me to help the mother put the baby to the breast, but I’ve actually never done that before, and didn’t do it correctly (at all) since I was so nervous and my doula training had completely flown out of my head at that point. Aww well, now I know for next time.

When the midwife was getting ready for the birth, I had to keep reminding myself that I am not in the US; if I was giving birth, and a doctor had come to me in rain boots and a giant plastic apron, I would probably be shocked. But this is my new normal, and I’m okay with it. Thinking back, I think it’s a great way to protect from the birthing fluids, especially when you don’t have a change of clothes with you.

Today (Saturday) was my first day off, so I finished organizing my room and bought some more things that I needed that I neglected to get last weekend. My mom was also away, so I was able to do things without her sending me with one of my sisters. I (finally!) did laundry, which took two hours but brightened my day immensely. I’ll get to that next. During laundry, I had to take a 20 minute break to find more hangers. That’s how many clothes I had to clean, and my laundry basket is still 75% full. I’m planning on tackling more tomorrow.

Feelings

So all of the above is a basic outline of what I’ve been doing, but I’ve also had a lot of not-so-good feelings this week, and I haven’t been responding in the best way, either. I want to lie this all out, though, since I want to paint as true an experience as possible.

In terms of how I felt, this week sucked. I have cried at least once every day since Monday, and I have been so extremely homesick that I felt sick to my stomach sometimes. I don’t want to leave Cambodia; it just wish my family was here, if that makes sense. The fact that I was homesick made me feel like a weakling, which just made everything worse. I have never suffered from a homesickness this severe, not in Ireland, not in Tanzania, not even in my 4 years at USC. Granted, I was always surrounded by people who spoke English, so it was never a problem to talk out my feelings. Now, though, I’m on my own and I love it but it’s also really hard. They were so not kidding when they labeled the Peace Corps the “toughest job you will ever love.”

Instead of taking my usual approach of confronting all of these feelings head-on, I decided to hide in my room and watch the entire first season of Greek, which made me miss cheese, which made everything worse (side note: I frikkin love cheese). I tried not to speak as much as possible and just stayed in my gloomy head all the time, and read the gloomy Scarlet Letter, and read the last 3 Harry Potter books, which always make me cry more tears than I thought possible.

While Skyping with my parents this morning, I cried more often than not during our entire 1.5 hour conversation. While Skyping with Niall, it was the same story, until my Metphone money ran out, and I nearly chucked the computer across the room from frustration.

The worst thing about all of this was how alone I felt. All of these feelings are so much easier to handle when you are around people feeling the same thing. However, today I spoke to a few other volunteers, and it seems a lot of people are feeling this way, which makes me feel a little better, because now I know I’m not alone. I’ve also been texting people consistently and talking on the phone with a few, and it’s really nice to know that I have people there for me, even if they live an hour away or in a different province.

Another thing I realized is how little I’ve been moving my body this week, which I think is contributing to this overall Debbie Downer version of me. While in Takeo, I would bike all of the time and here, I walk 5 minutes to my health center, and the 5 minutes home, and sometimes I even take the 30 second walk to the market to get a soy milk or a Coke. My spirits were lifted immensely after a really intense 2 hours of laundry, which is when I had this wonderful realization. Exercise = happiness. Who knew?! All joking aside, I need to find a way to include it in my daily routine or I will go crazy.

One of my sisters also helped (unintentionally) by making fun of me. It was a little over 2 hours ago and we were sitting around the TV after dinner, watching music videos, and my mom was telling me who the boys in the room were (nephews). She said it in Khmer, so I said it in English, and then I started to tell my sisters that they were cousins, which I had said earlier in the day, when my 13-year-old sister, spitfire that she is, basically said (in Khmer) “We know, we know, cousins, we get it,” and then closed off the circle by sitting in front of me. I busted out laughing so hard, which made them laugh harder, and we had a good, long laugh. After that, she told them about a conversation we had earlier today that basically went like this (but in Khmer):
S: What time do you want to catch the bus?

M: What time does the bus come?
S: What time do you want to catch the bus?
M: What time?

S: What time do you want to catch the bus?
M: What time?

S: What time?

M: (at this point I realized what she was actually saying) Uhh…

As she was re-telling this story, I went into a fit of giggles again, which started another long laugh. I was refreshingly awesome.

So that’s been my life for the past two weeks! Let me know if you made it this far in this extremely long entry! Haha

Miss you all so much!