Mango season has ENDED

END OF MANGO SEASON

LAST OF THE BATCH

my tb host mom i see her more now that i dont live with her.

home made fruit rollup made out of mangos

Embassy Party 

me and taylor 

k5 prep and everything in between!

It’s hard to believe but I just finished training for ideas for the k5s coming in July! I guess I will recap last week well first off I had to go into pp for peace corps stuff on how to deal with the k5s and about what projects and grants we need to write up. However as always bc im pressed for time and meetings I had to escape some of peace corps meetings for my own projects yea they don’t approve of that but its easy to spend hours talking about all your doing then actually doing it so I figured ahh whatever. First I had a meeting with Gad C which is a gender development ngo how has ana amazing library of books just on gender and Cambodia its been a real life saver but anyways they also do outside work and I wanted them to help with my dv conference which they agreed to yay!!!! I know it seems that I have good news with tom shoes then things fall to shit which is really the case but im hoping this time I can mean what I say well this organization called OVC says they have storage there is a catch they want 20,000 out of the 33,000 pairs of shoes they work with orphans with aids and rare disease or something so its not to a bad cause just seems like we would be giving them a lot and keeping track is another issues. I also had a meeting with someone from peace corps and while I cant say I am happy with all the answer I guess ill take it as a white flag and try to turn over a new leaf with them as far as this project goes what’s the saying don’t hold on to hot coals it only burns ur own hands. Then their was the peace corps 50^th anniversary party what this meant was a party at the embassy most of the volunteers only went bc they thought they would get to see inside the embassy but they just had a tent in the back lmao. Needless to say people were pretty bummed and peace corps also informed us before the party started how poor they are right now and that we might need help to stick around for clean up which was just a nail in the coffin like o hey you guys were throwing a party in your honor for the projects you did for the 50^th projects but clean up after the important guest okay thanks. Also at the last min they gave us these shirts and wanted us to wear them but they send us all an email months be4 telling us we had to dress nice so basically most people had to go out and buy a new dress in the end we got to choose while I was in Singapore I bought a saree which I was supper excited about wearing however no lie deff can not figure out how to put the thing on still I had to have help. The party ended pretty quickly but I don’t know how the next parts all unfolded but I guess the marine’s baric are in the same place as the embassy it was freaking huge very posh but it was a cool after party I guess u could say we left on a tuk tuk after and they took a driver and car to the bar to meet up with the rest of the pcvs. Well another project I have started to work on was first aid training for the village health volunteers I found a guy willing to do it blah blah well anyways I bring this up for a long story.  I get back to site and tell my health staff about this just to give them the heads up and ask if they had money to pay the vhvs to come in of course no but somehow in Cambodian fashion they never pre plan much so maybe this is all my fault I dunno I was just trying to get the ball rolling. What happened okay well come Thursday in the ams Eileen you have meeting tomorrow me no not that I know of why what are you talking about yea you teach vhvs tom no that in july I think you teach them tomorrow instead yea I can’t I have no money etc o but its to late we sent out invitation I think if you don’t have tomorrow they will not come back well can I call them no they have no phones can I go out on motto dop and tell them not to come very far no you can not. In the end I sort of got my way they attempted to tell them but im sure I pissed off a bunch of them and lost mad face all bc the hospital staff some how thought I was planning this thing in one week! Until next time peace out from the other side fo the world!!!

CAMBODIA Chams pictures

Cambodian Chams aka muslims

well i have talked about the cham village rituals and what have you a few blogs ago now i have video sorry for the bad quality of my filming not really used to it. this was all for the ghost asking for good health

Krew-ka-maie

That is the word in khmer natural healer im pretty sure Cambodia has more then they know what to do with everyday someone tells me some new superstition or idea of o so many things health included. However bing the person I am and know I have to really work on integration I took it upon my self to learn the ancient art of cupping for a dollar that I paid the lady who cupped me was able to be taught. Most Cambodians only know how to coin so when I came home to tell my host family the news they were taken a back my host mom though was sort of excited my host sister was like im scared I don’t like. Well now with my new form hobby or skill should I say I went and bought the cupping glasses and the stick u wrap up cloth in to burn fyi they use gasoline on the cloth to keep it real lite. It did not take me to long to find these items and it only cost me 6000r which is about 1.50 now I was set to go but who the hell would trust the barong with Cambodian medicine… that’s right my host mom haha. Well I had no real intention of getting to use my stuff so soon on a real live human being that was not my own leg but I figured mine as well see how I do and a host mom is good as any one to volunteer herself. I did not burn her a plus and it worked she admitted to me it was better then coining way more telexing it did not hurt and she did not freak out to bad I mean keep in mind I am playing with fire and for her to turst me must have been a big leap of faith but never the less she did and only got scared a few times but all and all I would say I feel I picked it up and she said she felt better. However I also made her drink a lot of water because while I know some of you think I went off the deep end I knew when she came back she did not feel well because she was dehydrated but once ur willing to go alone with their idea of medience their more willing to listen to you  so I will say the combination of real sci and Cambodian way of doing things worked out. Other things that have happened to me well I went site seeing on a moto with jentee however we got a flat tire and had to push the moto all the way back to her house while on lookers laughed and the two fat people pushing a moto yea and the 2 year old was with us so he sat on the moto while we pushed. So Saturday I had no real plans to do much except laundry and read but my tb host family informed me they were going to pick up my host sister from the air port and wanted me to come. Background story first so I have a host sister who is the same age as me who was working in Malaysia in a factory however apparently there is no more over time in Malaysia so all Cambodians are coming home now or something like this but this sister has the same issue I did while living their and I guess hates it and never wanted to move back home. However my host family never let on to this so I had no idea until she came off the plane and mean while 15 people took this taxi to see her and she was lethargic to everyone I never seen someone so sad like I just took one look at her and knew something was wrong it looked like she wanted to run back on the air plane really. I thought all this is odd but we went to this carnval thing and for the record my host dad was actually not a d bag that day like he was actually try to play off that he liked to to the taxi driver though I have a conspiracy theory as to why goes something like this now with out my host sisters income going to the family im sure he is gonna try to convince me to move back in but that will not be happening its one reason I almost did not go with the family but u know have to save face. That part of everything was really cool their was this crazy bridge that u walk across and it is all unsable lol I thought of it as a ride they all thought it was funny be screaming while I thought I might plunge to my death in acid water. Well everyone seemed to be having a really good time except the sister of the hour so I tried to ask her about maysia but she was just like it is much different then Cambodia and that was sort of it. Well when we get back to the tb family house they wanted to me to stay and so I did for a while everyone came over however it was not until my host sister jenta came over that she was happy so I guess maybe they were best friends not really sure but later on me and jenta got to talking and that’s when I found out she is pretty fucked right now bc she is stuck living with them even though she has the same sorts of issues I did so I feel really sorry for her. My host family has been selling mangos and peanuts now that watermelon season is over there is more down time then be4 which is nice talk to them more I think since moving in with them my khmer has been getting better I credit my host mom because she number one likes to talk haha  things have also been slow at the hospital though the hot season keeps people in hammocks drinking this palm juice with ice the electricity goes off a lot now to. Luis is coming to vist me june 18^th sooooo excited he will be bring my host family stuff so if anyone has any exter makeup you never use my host sister likes to put on makeup for people for the weddings to make some money she could use it and my family cooks every day and has pretty horrible cutting knifes etc so if anyone has any knifes or kitchen stuff that is portable enough for Luis to take to Cambodia give it over to my mom it would be much appreciated until next time peace out from the other side of the world!!!!

There is Life then Death

Recently for those of you who may be random followers my grandfather passed away this left me with a lot to take in and to question not to mention to have a whole other culture watch how me as an American handles death. I took a while to write this blog as to word it just right o in hopes to get certain things across just right so if at any point you are thinking humm or this is not for me you can skip around I can already can tell this is going to be pretty random. When someone close to you dies its hard not to evaluate the very notion of human existences perhaps for me this is only 10 fold bc I think about why I am alive everyday is it just to fight that good fight know what love and surfing is to go some place better to be reborn who knows? That seems to be cross culture no matter who you talk to we all have are own ideas as to what happens or what life and death really means but in the end we are all just humans and we just have no idea. Before leaving America I knew their was a possibility of what I might miss while I lived in Cambodia and sadly I have to except the realization that I could not go back to America to be their with my family while as many of you can imagine is hard not that anyone faults me but never the less its something I have had to internally cope with. My host mom was very interested in what we do in America when I first got the news was my early morning I called the house to check in after I got the news I went to go find my host mom so she could give me incenses the Cambodian way of worshiping ancestors who have gone on. Except my unclearness in Khmer made me have to say it 3 times which then I just broke down and cried and told her why I need it and she was quick to be real mom like and help me for those of you who don’t know im not to much into any one religion more about free winging what I feel rights at the time but she made sure to say a bunch of things in sand scrip for me. That night when I had my Khmer lesson I ended up explaining how things go down in America when death occurs to my host mom. This left her very sad because I had to tell her that in American they do not believe in reincarnation once you die that is it she was like so that is it you will never meet them in another life again etc and I was like nope that’s it their dead gone forever she did not like this at all. Cambodians know about Jesus because so many people come and try to convert them but they do not know all the dominations which my grandfather and many other people in my family our devout Catholics so I tried to explain to her from the best of my recollection that goes on. She was really under the impression you can only wear black and was telling me that I should fast for a few days only eat rice and water and lots of food offering however when I tired to fast she ended up telling me no I would be to skinny people would think she does not feed me lmao so Cambodian. After this I gave her a free palm reading my khmer tutor translated all I know I told you I would not do that again but with spiritually in questions why not bring out the mystical now she does tell people I can see what will happen to you in your life lmao.  After this convo it really did leave me thinking about every cultures life and death rituals and how different they can be its all for the same purpose to give us hope that we know what its all about or to keep us busy enough to forget that there is a begging and end. So while I will go on question my existence in life and most deff the over all purpose of human being, I have to come with some sort of agreement with my self that whatever life is it is and my grandpapa is someone who has lived an extremely full life one that only so many other people can hope to emulate on that note my sister created a video that I will attempt to upload full of pictures of my grandpapa. Till next time peace out from the other side of the world!

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10100174170323153