One Month in Cambodia!

This past weekend was quite eventful.

On Thursday, I started to feel under the weather, and by Friday, I had developed a cold. Luckily, it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t go on the “field trip” that Peace Corps had planned for us on Saturday.

Bright and early Saturday morning, we took a 2 hour bus ride to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. We went straight to Tuol Sleng, also known as S-21, a school that had been converted into a prison during the Khmer Rouge regime. This, however, was no ordinary detention center: people were brought in, tortured until they confessed to crimes that they didn’t commit, and then killed. Thousands of people passed through S-21 in the 3 years that it was open, but only 7 made it out alive (although more have apparently come out of the woodwork).

It was a really raw experience, because, structurally, it has been left as it was, for the most part, when it was deserted in January 1979. There was still blood on the ceiling in one room. We saw the devices that had been used to torture and kill people, and photographs of the corpses as they were found on the day that the Vietnamese discovered the prison. In some of the rooms where the Khmer Rouge had destroyed the cells before leaving, there pictures of all of the people who spent their last moments in S-21. I was handling it all pretty well (for me) until we came across a display of the clothes of those that had been killed, and there was a child’s dress. That sight hit me pretty hard. 

Sorry it's blurry. That small white thing is the dress.

After our tour, we were able to meet two of the survivors of the prison. I bought a book from each of them, and I’m looking forward to reading their stories, as hard as it will probably be. 

I didn't know whether or not to smile.

Once we were done at S-21, we drove about 15km to the Killing Fields, another incredibly raw experience. We were each given a set of headphones, so we were able to take the audio tour at our own pace, and really process what was in front of us at each stop. I saw a couple of mass graves, as well as the tree against which the Khmer Rouge soldiers would smash babies to kill them. There was a Stupa of the bones of many of those who had been buried, with layers 2-9 just filled with skulls. People of all ages were buried there.

It was a long and emotionally trying day, but it also emphasized the history we will be facing as we try to enact change in the communities in which we will be placed.

After we got back to our villages, a group of us hung out for a bit to decompress. It was fun, and a good end to a rather depressing (but important) day.

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Sunday was a great day. A bunch of us went for an early morning bike ride, turning randomly when we felt like it, and we ended up biking through these gorgeous rice paddies. We also came across a couple of pagodas as we adventured. Words won’t do this justice, so I’ll just let you see for yourself.

The group that went biking: Gianni, Andrea, Joel, Rachel, Wes, me, Nico, and Evalynn. Josie took the picture.

In the last pagoda we stopped at, we heard really loud music. Almost everyone else wanted to turn back, but I wanted to investigate, so Rachel and Joel came with me, and we ended up finding, of all things, a bunch of kids jumping on two trampolines in their front yard, where their mom had a store. Of course we all wanted to jump, so we asked, and we ended up jumping around on the trampolines with these kids (who had awesome moves) for a full hour and a half straight. It was an experience I never thought I would have while in Cambodia. I have no pictures, or I would upload them.

After that, we all biked home for lunch, and then met up at a volunteer’s house for another rousing game of volleyball. Luckily, this time, it didn’t pour. We played for over two hours and it was so much fun. After volleyball, a couple of people came over to my house to watch a movie. All in all, Sunday was an awesome day, although I didn’t get my laundry done. Oops.

Last night, I finally bought and set up a mouse trap – a glue mouse trap. Within 5 minutes of settling into bed after setting the trap last night, I heard a panicked squeaking coming from the vicinity of the trap. I quickly checked under my bed, and the mouse had gotten caught. My family was asleep by then, so I had to go the whole night listening to the mouse trying to get free. I woke up this morning, and the first thing I did was to bring the trap down to my homestay dad. I thought he would kill the mouse, but instead, he took a pair of pliers and started peeling the live mouse from the trap, killing it in the process. I kept turning away as he was doing it and my homestay mom kept laughing at my reaction.

After that wonderful morning ordeal, I did some of the laundry I had neglected to do yesterday, not realizing that a rain storm was on the way. I went to class and halfway through the morning, there was a downpour. Luckily, I returned home after class to find that my laundry had dried most of the way anyway.

All in all, my adventure seems to be becoming routine. Let me know if you want me to keep posting pictures!

Ob-Ob-Obsessed with Gangnam Style

I’m writing this at 9pm on the 7^th with hopes of uploading it on the 8^th. So, where should I start?

Well, the first thing I want to say that I keep forgetting to mention is how OBSESSED with Gangnam Style Cambodians are. I hear it almost every day… It’s on at least two commercials, and if you pass by a wedding with its usual loud music, you’ll hear a mix of traditional Khmer music and Gangnam Style. I wish I was kidding. They have Gangnam Style hats, clothes, and even cards… and I’m not talking playing cards with Psy on one side, I’m talking collectible Psy cards (if you are my age or slightly older, think about the Spice Girls lollipops that came with collectible stickers… now think about how they probably could’ve just sold us the stickers and we’d be happy… yeah, it’s like that). I mean, even this morning at the market, somebody was blasting it. This was before 8am. It’s quite the spectacle.

It’s been an eventful week. Between the mouse that just won’t go away and my iPod dying, I could say that it’s been a bad week, but that’s not actually how I feel, if that makes sense. I’m totally content and really getting into the groove of things here. On Sunday, almost all of the CHE volunteers gathered to play a rousing game of volleyball. We were having so much fun that we continued to play during a downpour. Of course, I’m the only one who hit it over the wall of the backyard that we were playing in, so I had to retrieve it, but other than that 20 minute break, we played for about 2 hours straight. Then I watched the first hour of Pitch Perfect with another volunteer. Yeah, Sunday was great.

We also had our language groups changed around this week so now I’m with Nico, Abby, Amy, and Kayla, who was in my last group. My language is definitely coming along; I can feel myself getting stronger in Khmer with each passing day, even though sometimes it feels like I can’t possibly learn anymore. Those feelings usually come in about hour 4.5 of a 6 hour language day. Blergh.

Last night, we had basically monsoon rains right as I was settling in for bed. It was so loud, and as soon as the thunder hit, I raced down the stairs to be with my family, as I was, frankly, terrified since the lights had gone out. It’s not that I can’t handle rain storms, it was just the time of day that it hit really reminded me of Hurricane Sandy, which still kind of makes me upset. Plus, it was actually really scary, and it was the hardest downpour I’ve seen yet. In the morning, we had two trees down, but my family kind of put them back up with wooden supports, new dirt, and a pile of rocks. Cambodian ingenuity!

Other than that, this is definitely my new normal, and I’m loving every single moment of it.

Before I end though, three quick stories:

1) My homestay aunt was telling my homestay mom how sohpeeup (feminine) I was eating, until I wiped my hands on my sampot (skirt), at which point she started yelling “Ut tay, Ut tay, chohp!” (No, No, stop!). She made me smell my hand, as if wiping it on my sampot would somehow make it dirty? It was funny the way it went down.

2) Small victory: Put on a pair of pants this morning that used to be tight when I was in the States, and now they are loose. Not something I normally care about, but I can feel myself getting physically stronger here, and it feels GOOD.

3) I told my family that I like spicy things, so they went out and bought hot sauce. I now eat it on *everything* because I feel bad, although I really love the sauce.

That’s it for now! Thanks for reading :-)

PS – Did I mention that my bug zapper broke? This is my worst nightmare. Especially since I currently have a cockroach flying less than 4 feet from me. Eek.

Basketball & Laundry

I promised I’d update and here I am!

I forgot to mention last time how tall I am compared to your average Cambodian woman. This is emphasized to me every time I go to step down from the second floor and hit my head on the ceiling. Luckily, I’ve gotten used to ducking, but sometimes I am painfully reminded that I have forgotten. Haha.

Did I mention all of the farm animals that walk around my yard? We have tons of chickens and one pig in a pen. I am awoken every morning at 4am by the sound of the rooster, which wakes the babies, who then proceed to cry. I’ve learned to sleep through it. This morning, however, I woke up before the rooster to the sound of crunchcrunchcrunch, part of my mosquito net falling, and then the currying of tiny feet. I am about 99% sure that my visitor was a mouse, as I don’t think scorpions or newts bite wood and plastic.

All of my homestay parents’ children are back in town for the election, and they have a daughter who speaks pretty good English, so last night, I got out all of the pictures I brought of my friends and family and talked about them. I tried to speak in Khmer as much as possible, but it was nice to have an English speaker to help me. I was able to accurately explain everything except sororities. Aww well. Then my mai (homestay mom) brought out some pictures of one of her daughter’s weddings, and it was gorgeous. She gave me one of her and my pboke (homestay dad).

Oh, I also had a giant cockroach in my room last night before I went to bed. I watched it with my bug zapper for about 30 minutes, hoping it would only stay by the light, but once it started to go onto my clothes, I knew I had to get it. Next time it landed on a wall, I hit it. It fell behind my trunk, and I was too scared to check to see if it actually died, so just keep your fingers crossed for me!

Today, a few of us Trainees played basketball with some Khmer teenagers. It was a lot of fun although I forgot how tiring basketball can be. The running back and forth up the court plus the sun plus the humidity had me exhausted after an hour, but I kept playing anyway because I spend the rest of the week sitting in a classroom. After football, three of us went to the p’saa (market) to get some coconut water to restore our electrolytes. I like going to the market for it because the coconut ladies give us the water for free, since they don’t use it for anything anyway.

After I got back from that, I had lunch and then did laundry. Laundry took me an hour and a half, and I had less stuff than last week, when it only took my homestay sister 15 minutes to get through all of my laundry. I will hopefully get much faster.

I’m also really happy I got to Skype with a few of you yesterday. If anybody ever wants to Skype, I’m on every Saturday morning (for me) from 6:30am – 7:45am, which is starting at 7:30pm Friday for Eastern US time. I’m also available all day Sunday, which is Saturday night and Sunday morning for those of you in the US reading. I’d love to Skype with any and all of you!

One last thing I wanted to mention was that if you are going to send me stuff, please don’t use USPS. Anything else is more reliable to Cambodia.

Talk to you all soon!

Spiders and Mosquitoes and Flies, Oh My!

Today, we had our second “Hub Site” day, but it wasn’t at the usual place. It was at the Provincial Office of Education. It was quite nice to see all of the ETTTs again, and catch up on how our language and technical trainings are coming.

We met our CD (Country Director) today. Her name is Penny and she was away when we originally got here. She seems pretty cool and offered some good advice on how to approach service while we were all eating lunch together on the steps. We also met some of the WID-GAD (Gender and Development) Committee, which is a committee I would definitely like to join when the applications come out. Here’s their website if you want to check out what they do: http://pckhmerwidgad.blogspot.com/

Oh, we also learned about all the different things that can give us diarrhea! So now I can be scared of mosquitos and food. Just kidding!

Don’t expect to get updates every day! I just realized throughout the course of the day that I had more to say :-)

A few things I forgot to mention last time:

1. Bucket showers. I think I have finally mastered taking a bucket shower. When I was in TZ, the water was warmed before we used it, but here it comes out of a well that is installed in the bathroom, so it’s cold. During our PST Orientation, when we were literally being re-potty-trained, the woman doing the training told us that we would learn to do it in four “buckets.” My first bucket shower took over 10 buckets, but now I’m consistently at or below 6 buckets, and with the length of my hair, I consider it a victory. Also, when I say buckets, I don’t mean like giant buckets… I’m talking about something the size of an average pot to boil water. Mom, if you’re reading this, it’s about the size of our second smallest water-boiling-pot with a handle. Yeah.

2. Khmer. I love it but it is so hard to learn a language, at least for me, by phonetics only. The Khmer written script is a whole ‘nother animal that I eventually want to learn, but for now, we just speak. I try to practice with my host family every day. And I’m proud of myself as I can feel myself getting better in my daily interactions, and have less hand motions to do.

3. BUGS. There are bugs everywhere. I’m not squeamish by any means, but the sheer number of spiders, mosquitos, and flies makes me skin crawl sometimes. In fact, a spider has taken residence in my loofah. I think I’m just going to let him keep it. I do, however, get great satisfaction out of using my bug-zapper. As a formerly “kill nothing, just release it to the outside” person, I feel slightly guilty but it’s nice to know that the bugs I am zapping will not be in my clothes, on my sheets, or on me.

4. Technical sessions. As a health volunteer, I learn, on a daily basis, about the health care system in Cambodia. This week is maternal and child health. My trainer let me speak to the other CHEs for a few minutes about being doula and how to support women through birth in a non-medical context. It felt really cool to share my knowledge. We all learned that many of the female CHEs also help with the birthing and the pre-natal check-ups, which made me extremely excited to get sworn in and start my service already!

5. Internet. I now have a “Metfone Stick” which means I can basically access the internet whenever I would like. However, I’m seriously trying to get over this addiction, although I am obviously already failing. Miserably.

6. Elections… It has been really hectic with all of the campaign “parades,” but I’m glad that’s finally coming to a close on Sunday, Election Day. I will be stuck close to home, so I will probably write more then.

7. If you want to send me mail (which I would LOVE), please send nothing big, nothing valuable, and nothing that will melt. Letters and pictures (from a camera or drawn), and maybe small books or movies (I have a DVD drive). I’ve also really been craving granola bars and Nutrigrain bars for breakfast, and have been trying to satisfy that craving with teething crackers (yes, for babies).  Please please please let me know if you send me something as the mail is not always reliable. I’m not sure how much it costs to send stuff here, but if you talk to my mom, she’s already sent one package. If you want a letter back, let me know! I’d like to get back into the habit of hand-written letters. Anyway, here’s the address [[should I put it in the side bar??]]:

Attn: Mary Walsh

Peace Corps Cambodia

P.O. Box 2453

Phnom Penh 3, Cambodia

I’m going to leave it at 7, since I’m a K7, but I would like to close with the fact that I have never loved an object more than I love my chamber pot in the middle of the night when I hear dogs howling outside, and oral rehydration salts taste gross but work so well.

I’ll write more soon!

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!

EWR -> LAX -> Tokyo -> Bangkok

I'm currently sitting in a First Class lounge in the Bangkok airport with the 48 other people I will be serving in the Peace Corps with. I can tell you this, after these last few flights, I never want to see another airplane again. Alas, we have to fly out in less than 7 hours to go to Phnom Penh, Cambodia though. After that, though, it's staying put in country for at least 6 months.

So far, everything has been pretty cool, if not a little rushed with so many things squished into such a short amount of time. Our "Staging" (which is the Peace Corps term for the orientation before getting on the flight to our destination) was 5 hours long but it felt like a full day. By the middle of it, many of us had hit our so-called "wall" since we had traveled that morning to LA.

Everyone seems really awesome. The Peace Corps definitely attracts a certain kind of person, so everyone has been really nice and pretty cool so far.

Just updating you all! I won't have regular access to internet after training starts tomorrow, so expect some spotty updating.

Three Weeks

First of all, I'm sorry about not posting my second Spring Fix post yet. It's been a couple months in the making, but I can't find the right words to really nail down the experience like I want to.

Second of all, I leave for Cambodia in THREE WEEKS. I can't even believe it. I had a mini-melt down last week on my birthday because it is actually happening. I have been waiting so long for this, and sometimes I think it's all a dream. It doesn't feel real in the slightest. I have more stuff I want to say on the topic, but for now, here's to letting you all know that I am alive and well, and slightly overwhelmed.