Unlucky 13

The other day I got to talking with my Khmer teacher about superstations and naturally wanted to compare Cambodians to that of Americas however have to admit I am not to in the know about all of them. Unlucky number for Cambodia 7 which I thought was funny because in the us that number is associated with being lucky just the opposite in Cambodia reason okay so when someone dies they celebrate the funeral for 7 days and this is because it takes there ancestors 7 days to realize they are dead I guess and before they realize they will stick around and you guessed it haunt the living. There was some good one about pregnant woman let me see if I can remember them all okay first if you want to know the sex of the baby you are carrying you need to take another baby that can stand on there own depending on that child’s sex if they stand with one leg then it’s the same sex as them but with two it’s the opposite sex of that child. To get rid of morning sickness a woman needs to step over her sleeping husband 3 times and then it will pass from her to him according to my tutor all the men are very scared of this because “its true” and then they are sick and can not go to work. Last but not least is that a snake can not move while in front of a pregnant lady not matter if its attacked or anything it will just stand still I don’t know about anyone reading this blog but im not sure I even want to test this theory out. Let see besides learning about Cambodian lucky or not so lucky way of life I rode my bike 20 k looking for Internet near site with no luck but soar ass turns out I guess long bike rides are not so much my thing I don’t know why but I like to walk places even though sometimes for time its not an option. However I was able to ask around for it which means my khmer is getting better so ill just be happy with the small step of that and not focus on the afternoon being a bust. I guess with the cold season coming up nov which is not cold at all but awesome breeze and tons of watermelons soo freaking good is all I can say. Watermelons in Cambodia are small but the amount of awesomeness insides is like jam-packed so for 2000 real 50 cents I get to engulf the watermelon ill try to take pictures to show you the massive quantity that are sold on the side of the road right now. Humm what eles I did another educational presentation this time on diabetes it was kind of sad to have to explain to 10 adults that you don’t have to die from diabetes however I guess in Cambodia that’s not really true life span for someone once diagnosed is 4 year but at least I was able to give them information on nutrition and how to help prevent it or keep it under control sadly most of the hospitals don’t carry insulin which is sort of important. O yea I guess ill just leave a general open message on this blog okay so I have been talking to some people about starting up a soccer camp for a few weekends a month there is a lot to work out but I figured I can at least start collecting supplys for the camp soccer balls mabey some cones

Jeremiah was a bullfrog…

Was a very good friend of mine joy to the world all across the world haha okay so I have come to discovered that its frog hunting season with a few odd sequence of events ever notice how that seems to happen… so ill take you back a week ago a baby frog escaped in my room I tried to look for him but no such luck however a few days later I found the poor little guy dead. Then while I was sitting studying Khmer a huge frog different species from the baby one as far as I could tell not that im a reptile specialist it was supper good climber but this time I was able to help it to escape which I thought was for the best to only discover… the very next day I see my host siblings with home made what I thought was fishing poles however they were fishing in puddles around the house and im sitting there trying to figure out how in the hell they think they are going to catch fish in puddles until they start to catch frogs. Im still not quite sure as to how they got the frogs to bite onto the hook but they got some big suckers and all I could think was that I should had let that cool little big frog just stay chances are the frog hunters will get him I told my tutor that in America people have frogs as pets he though this was very funny. My host brother made sure I got to see the skinning of the frogs he caught deff creepy but now when I see what looks like home made fishing poles I know its for frogs and most of the kids around town seem to have them so I will refer to oct as frog hunting season not just for humans either snakes have been feasting to. I made a new friend on one of my long walks out into the middle of nowhere my attempt to get to know the community but this guy lived in America but grew up in Cambodia once he got divorced moved back anyways I ended up talking with him for a while and he informed me that this weird sound that I always thought was a mating call or something in the rice fields was the hug bull frogs being eaten by a snake just odd bc the sound goes on for like 30 mins I would thing the snake would eat the frog faster but I guess not. It was also funny talking to this guy bc despite growing up in Cambodia he was telling me how hard it was for him to re adjust when coming back and how he doest like the food makes me feel a little bit better to know that if a native doesn’t like how gamie the meat taste that its not all because im a picky eater.

Kiss me im shitfaced

This weekend a bunch of us a big randayvou in the provincial town to have what originally was going to be a small dinner party but turned into a huge party. We deiced we were going to have a party and make some tacos, chips dip brownies and a few things in between as far as home sickness goes I don’t get to sad about not being in America minus the food pretty much most pcvs will tell you the same thing. Anyways we decided to cook at Hannah house, which she has a pretty big family and also teaches in the town and one of the k2s that was coming also lived there for two years of his training so this is how the small party became huge quickly. It was great though as the saying goes the more the merrier there was beer and Hannah’s host brother came in to dj it was sort of a crazy time it really started to get out of control after about 2 hours into this party after teaching them all how to eat tacos which they were not so sure about eating food this way then the drinking started and before we all knew it one of the men ran inside came back out and was cross-dressing hysterical to watch so sorry I didn’t have my camera to take pictures not to mention there was dancing while dressed like a girl. Then one of the younger dudes at the party started to tell us why US girls are like men from what I remember something about a loud laugh walking in big steps I dunno it was all to much for me to take in. when it was time for us all to walk back to the hotel it was decided I don’t know by who but that we needed protection on the walk back so 3 drunk guys drove on the motos while we walked when one of them almost ran into a fence I think this is when I deff knew it was far safer for us to walk alone lol. Speaking of drunk moto driving today while having my lunch one of the military cops stopped at my house because he I would guess was 15 beer deep in and could not even stand yet was still trying to drive his moto home my host dad got my brother to take him home but not before this cop dude fell off his moto and had to have half my family hold him up to get him on the back of the moto. As much as Cambodians think everything I do is so funny there is a lot they do that will forever leave me entertained and there is no greater entertainment then a party with a bunch of Americans and Cambodians together!

wat pics

pics of my life

I support Second Base!

The monsoon season as been going strong after last week festivities it has been down pouring everyday pretty much leaving me with a lot of time to think and read in on honor of October Halloween I have been sticking to some Steven king which ill mentally have to note here so good have to also note sad to miss Halloween this year around also his description of fall made me remember it is fall lol. O yes what else is October breast cancer awareness month so I took it upon my self to research for hours breast cancer in Cambodia coming up with a presentation that I had to translate in Khmer lucky the second nurse where I work was able to help and do most of the talking. I would like to note though that I wish that fake breast boob thing that they use for education of cancer was not 5 grand because this forced my hand at making my own educational tool… a stuffed sock I made my cancerous tumor out of a small balloon that I put sand in I guess it will have to do until I find away to get someone to donate me a 5 grand breast instead lol sigh when pig fly! Well my research turned up little positive results but as the saying goes you have to start somewhere statistics in Cambodia are dismal to say the least and there is only one hospital in all of the country that will treat breast cancer and they take patients on a lottery bases. While this all was frustrating to find out I still deiced that knowledge is power (school of rock) I was able to locate some self breast exam stuff in the national la which was pretty sweet however I felt sort of bad up playing the importance of self breast exams when all the research talks about how little that plays in detecting cancer you know more on get mammograms which barely exist in Cambodia. I look at my presentation as more of a way to open the door to Cambodian women to at least think about breast health because from what I have seen not many people in Cambodia seem to receive sci edu at least not the way that other countries do so to even explain the concept of cancer is hard. Anyways I opened the door showed so pictures of untreated breast cancer etc and used my handy sock boob and my audience of 15 woman were actually highly interested which I didn’t know how it was going to be perceived so that made me happy and they had tons of questions which I was soo grateful to have the nurse there because no way in hell I would have been able to understand what they were asking in khmer. Its crazy to think that just because I am American educated they think I have all the answer though and even when I tell them I am not a dr they had no trouble coming to me to have them selves check asking me every possible thing that could be wrong with there breast. I would have to say it was really cool to be able to educate people on health and it was 100 times better then when I did my nutrition thing in the class room thanks to teaching it in khmer its really hard to leave out vital information just because you don’t know how to say it and I myself cant deal with teaching that way so this really has give me a drive to go forward. Today at work I was told that because it went so well that they want me to do a presentation for all health issues so far the list I have received is diabetes, cervical cancer, lung cancer, liver illness related to alcohol, nutrition, hearth disease, sexual health (which ill have to split up into various categories), vitamin a vaccines and about parasites because that’s what nov is in Cambodia every kid gets vitamin a and medicine to rid them of any possible parasites, then I get to also edu on domestic violence and sexual assault so I have a lot of research a head of me and they want me to rotate a new subject every week. I figured once im done going though them all then maybe I can take it into the community however they are kinda of not to happy with me doing community out reach because I must a ride a bike and claim I will be to slow so ill have to see about that idea something to aim for I guess. Lets see what eles happened to me today o yes I was asked to take over a private eng class which I had to refuse so my brothers eng teacher came by to let me know that he is leaving for good and his class all voted for me to take over would I be willing. Humm how does one deal with this question well I never taught eng so I don’t know if I would be much help to your class also I am a volunteer so I would not be able to take money so I think the 2^nd choice of the person who needs to make money should become the new teacher. Luckily after about 10 mins he understood and was okay with my no and I was happy I was able to find a nice way to say no because after when I had more time to think about it all I could think what a huge disaster that would have been. This is all because for one the hours would be a large part of the afternoon when I would like to work on 2^nd projects eventually and also I would have to give up a large amount of my irbing time which doest seem like that big of a deal but I think it would effect my effectiveness as a volunteer. Then I thought about the fact I cant accept money which made me realize how much I dodged a bullet so right now these peoples parent I pay I think something like 50 dollar a month for their kids to learn eng which I could not accept however knowing the way Cambodia is I don’t think it would take long before other people realized the American is giving free eng lessons and who would I be to pick and choose who could be in the class god knows I wouldn’t be able to say no to some small kid and I could just see how much that whole thing would have blown up in my face. i am getting excited for the weekend until next time peace out

Monks are rich

These past couple of days I have been off from work everyone from the big city’s have been flocking to the small villages in order to celebrate phcum ben the Cambodian one in an earlier blog that was the Chinese one so it was a bit diff. anyways there were days with out end of monks playing some sort of drumming music and many wat visit I myself as many of you know am not a fan of going to any sort of organized religion if I can help it however for the sake of experience and cultural integration I did go on Friday it was pretty interesting it’s not like the way one would think of the idea of church in America there is a lot of moving all over the place and paying tons of money all over the place. First when I got there I had to sit in a circle with Jentee and her family then I had to put money on a food plate which is something the family brings as well to give to the monks and let me add people give a lot of money for Cambodia on this one plate alone I put in 10000 real which is about 2 dollars and 50 cense American money because you give money the monks prey for you or chant rather. Next I was taken to some alter where I had to light incenses and prey for my dead family members to make them happy so they don’t want to bother me in life I guess lol always happy to appease the ghost in my life! with the burning incense I had to walk across the room with it and put it in this dirt thing. Then I had to get a bowl of rice and then dump out said bowl of rice amount I think it was about 9 chalice type bowls for the ancestors and the monks with each chalice was a plate to give more money and at the end was a huge tree to give more money. So what I took away from this day was dead people and monks love money and food I should also mention there is this food they make with rice and bananas that takes all day to make and this is also offered personally I think it taste like wax which sucks bc all week long when I go for my walks every family calls me over to give me one I always take it and give it to someone else as not to offended anyone. On my way out they had another set up tent I guess to give more money and get more preying done because I am American the family I went with wanted me to experience it all and make sure to take lots of pictures so I was also escorted in the decorated tent I find it really cool how people of Cambodia choose to decorate anything religious related always so bright and colorful as if life is one big rainbow to party on. After about 20 mins we left to go to this mountain I have been wanting to go to however no one told me we were going before hand its that whole Cambodians invite you with out inviting you thing again I refer to this mountain as monkey mountain however I think it might be called something like udong mountain to Cambodian people. I call it monkey mountain for the obvious reason there are monkeys everywhere and they come up to you if you have food to give them you can feed them lots of fun the mountain is sort of small and is more of a park. I don’t know how many tourist know of said mountain but when we were entering in the tuk tuk there was a huge sign to say that foreigners must pay a dollar however the Cambodian family would allow no such thing because to them im khmer enough so they had the tuk tuk driver race though and all we could hear in the background was a Khmer version of hey wait a min needless to say I did not pay the brong price which made me happy. Back to the mountain its actually steps to the top where you can over see all of my province and a huge wat all and all really pretty but a far walk up the people I was with did not want to walk all the way up but I did so I trekked it alone and saw various monkeys along the way like I said above I don’t know that many tourist come to said mountain because I was the only brong around as far as I could see and a lot of the locals were following me up the mountain taking pictures and asking me to be in pictures with them because as they put it we are so happy we love the foreigners and went on to tell me where they study eng. I should also mention they were worried about it being to hot for me as well so I kid you not a couple of kids followed me fanning me the whole time as I tried to tell them I was okay I guess they were really hopeful for money because there were beggars every which way you look in this park and being American all they see is a dollar bill sign across my forehead I always try to explain I live in Cambodia and make no money however I don’t know if they really believe me and if they do a lot of them that talk to me enough will start to ask me when I go back to America will I send them money I refer this as the money circle game I play everyday with Cambodian people.

THE TRUTH IS OUT THEIR OR IS IT?

So lately I have been struggling with the concept of what is truth was is real for instances we can say gravity is a scientific truth but only as we know it and as we go deeper down the rabbit whole so to speak that truth could become a lie lets say in another galaxy another reality etc well I think you get my point. So this leaves us with I guess half-truths in the big picture but in the small picture does it really matter about half-truths or just what we perceive to be the whole truth in our lifetime our reality. I bring up the very notion of truth and reality because for most of our lives we are told certain truths not realizing how a huge chain of events of the very cultural determines much that truth is considered a whole truth vs half-truth. Right now for me the truth I seem to be struggling with the most is the concept of suffering. As an American I should suffer quite easily I mean everyday you see a billion advertising telling you how much you will suffer with out their product how if you don’t have this that and the other you are less then those around you leading to further suffering and isolation so now I am left wondering why I am so much happier with what we as Americans would consider suffering. Granted I had many reason for joining the peace corps perhaps had some expectation of what life would be like as a volunteer but I tried not to hold on to that “truth” I viewed being a volunteer but before leaving and even after the fact I cant help but feel that I was supposed to feel suffering from giving up everything I had in what I will refer to as my old life. At least for me this did not happen I don’t feel too much of a loss for things I had at all but more of a wondering as to why I thought I needed them to begin with. I am not sure what truths you hold to be self evident in your life time but I guess in the sprit of my realization of always wanting to know more and understand the very existences of life around me so weather or not there is real truth there is some form of it out there for us to hunt down. I myself know that know matter what the quest is to understand suffering or the reason behind why I sneez it always seems to keep my mind active.

Ps sorry after writing this I realized how trippy and how unrelated to Cambodia this blog is but ill post it anyways and if your in the mood to think about the randomness I wrote above go for it other wise feel free to skip to more Cambodian related stories.

DR QUIN MEDICINE WOMAN

Who doest know what its like to be amazing at medicine with little to no supplies lol o all the of the western world except dr Quinn of course jkjk. Okay so I figured most of you want to know what my new job entails and a little about my surroundings. Okay so first as of right now my Khmer suck but I have planned to do some breast cancer awareness edu if I can have help with translation but as of right now I pretty much sit around and say hello to the 5 people who come in and tell them who I am and that’s pretty much all the Khmer I can muster. Some of the time I spend following the midwives around they are a fun bunch im deff petitioning for some of them back in the states they are a different breed from nurses and DR’s in the states. Has anyone seen the Halloween haunted house specials where they take you to some old 1940s physicatric ward where they did electroshock therapy well the village hospital décor looks a lot like that I have some pics just incase that description does not do it for you but the floor is really dusty and looks like there are old blood stains on it and the wall has hand prints as if someone was clawing at them and the beds are rusty. While this might not seem like a place one would want to work I assure you it’s really awesome to work with the staff and the out side of the place is really pretty and it’s a very interesting dynamic. There is no running water or electricity and no internet (ill leave the persons name anonymous who thought I had wifi there lmao) I would say most of the people who come in are for pregnancy I have pic of the scale that the kids get weight in all I can say is mose down a river in a basket you can judge for your self lmao! They have been really trying to work with me I feel bad because I speak khmer one one but im trying to get some stuff together to do some edu so they don’t think im just a fly on the wall. On another note the director of the hospital and my counter part had me over for lunch okay first let me explain Cambodians like to trick invite you places or not invite but just suddenly tell you that you will eat rice with them at there house. So in the none straight forward way his daughter came by to walk me home to ask me to see her house and before I knew it I was having lunch with the boss deff nerve racking but I think it I just try to make him look like he is best friends with the America it can only help me do what I want and not have to deal with political red tape stuff however I think what they want is for me to teach there daughter eng for free. I am excited to start community out reach mabey if I can get a real project going they will let me go around when they give shots! I think this will be a really good learning oppourtunity I never though I would get to say one I even worked in a hospital and two a rural hospital in Cambodia so I am supper excited just to be able to watch the way they do things and see what little information I can give along the way here is to my job for the next two years!

Lock down begins

Okay so I start the next two years of my life whoo hoo but I also start lock down I cannot leave site for 3 months, which would not be so bad except im so close to phonom phenn and I need to buy a ton of moving in stuff that I don’t have. I should also note it is lock down for monks to for phcum ben what this means is all day and night long they play music and prey I guess I will bring you back to Sunday when I was on my way to site I deiced to take a taxi and it just so happens a k2 who has extended for a 3^rd year wanted to ride with me so mentally I was like cool he knows what happening and I don’t although im someone who in general in life makes some mistakes and that’s the way I learn I dunno why just is. Well he is like this market up here is the closet for you to get out and im thinking in my head I don’t think this is it but okay what do I know well I get out an a few mins later as im walking a see a car ram a moto after that event I get a tuk tuk to site now mind you I live in a ruralish area so for that reason I asked him hey do you know where this is o he went on yes yes yes he knew not a problem I get him to except that I pay him only 1 dollar and I think were good to go except turns out he has no idea at all! So what should have been a short trip turned into a whole day ordeal no big deal. I don’t exactly know how to describe my new site but ill try I live close to the market but not like the last place I lived more quite the people have never seen/ met an American before so everything I do is a big ordeal which for the most part embarrassing because I am by no mean graceful or someone one should role model them selves after. While in Cambodia it rains a lot I happen to live in an area where it tends to flood so most of my town has sand all over the place the market is not to big but there are many fruit stands but not so much clothes and nick nack type of deal. Well a little about my host family okay so the last time I reported things were not adding up for me well now they make a bit more senses first the lady I thought was my host mom is not I guess she is the oldest daughter who is like 40 I thought it odd her and my host dads age diff now I know why anyways I still have no idea why my host mom was gone when I was here but she is a seller she works at a stand with a few of my siblings who are not in school the lady I thought was my mom has like 4 kids of her own and has her own stand as well and I have another sister who has kids to im starting to feel like there is a good 9 people who live with me but that might change bc its all so hard to follow. I think most of my host family seems to like me esp my brothers because I play soccer with them though it might piss them off that im better but it keeps things fun however I feel like one of my sisters might be somewhat stand offish and there’s nothing I can do. Okay so in Cambodia family dynamics get kind of split in weird ways there tends to be one girl in the family who ends up the slave while the others r held up like gods I don’t really know how this slave prototype is chosen but this one sister is 18 and I feel like they make her cook all my meals and I don’t really like the feeling that they left her to make sure I am happy so I don’t know how to deal with this situation. On the other hand I have made I guess what I will call a best friend who is Cambodian and speak eng she is really cool she has a stand her name is jennte she always is trying to get me to go crazy places with her and ride moto’s she doest like to hear about peace corps rules so im pretty sure she is the perfect friend from me! Also I have found my self some Khmer tutors and I spend a night this week helping with there private eng classes so now more little kids will know who I am as far as IRBING (peace corps word for relationship building) everything is going amazing but my langue barier makes it hard for me in the hospital however there is always time and for now its time for the monks to be locked up and me two I just hope one of us comes out knowing a bit more then the beginning of lock down.