love the life you live Peace Corps Cambodia ☮: What is that smell…Pro-hawk Season yikes

My life is now plagued with the smell of fermenting fish everywhere I go no really can you imagine be in trapped in a car with no ac and fermenting fish in the truck yea its not good. While I may hate the smell I cant resistant an opportunity to be apart of anything supper crazy and Cambodian so I helped in the process of making the pro-hawk this has to be done either jan or feb bc that’s when there is lots of fish in Cambodia and it cheap. They make enough to last about a year so I am told my host mom came back with a car load full of small size fish I don’t know the name of the fish but just stream looking fish. Anyways we had to cut the heads of the fish off and sort of gut them now I have never done this before so I got made fun of a lot I guess I did not help matters bc I put on medical gloves to protect my hands from the smell that plan failed. At first I was laying the fish flat to cut its head off which makes it really hard to gut so finally after they saw how slow I was going they had to teach me to cut in more in a 3d way top of the head down this did help a lot as far as gutting goes. So the four of us cutting took all afternoon no lie noon to 5 and I should mention I was stuck in a Khmer squat the whole time there is a stool under me but its pretty much for balance my legs back et were killing me by the time I was done I don’t know how Khmer people can spend hours in that position and not end up screwing up their bones. There was no de boning of the fish however the bones were sharp aka y my glove plan failed and only made Cambodians laugh that much harder at me. Next stage was mushing the fish bodies this done by first putting the fish back in water then in a basket that gets mashed with ones feet just like grapes for wine its then left out till the next day when a huge amount of salt is added. After that it goes into this huge basin the one that collects water anyways where the fish will stay to ferment however long I am not sure about this but it smell’s horrible. This is a Cambodian wide thing so there is no escaping it fyi I have tried pro-hawk don’t like it except it is in this Khmer noodle dish I like so ill say ill only eat it in that to Khmer people which still seems to make them happy. However thanks to luis all I hear about is how he will eat pro-hawk and how he eat the same as a Khmer person that is because he really will eat anything! On other news the pig luis gave them money for is so big and another fyi the family no refers to this pig as Eileen’s boy friend pig so I just call this pig Luis now lmao anyways is so big that it has escaped twice in 1 week the rope can not keep him in place this is how it all went down all of a sudden me and jentee were having our afternoon coffee when this fat thing run across the yard that looks like it is covered in mud quickly jentee jumps up and yells ja-rook pig in Khmer. This pig escaped and went to play in the mud where I take my shower but we had no way to really capture this thing I was sort of thinking it was not going to happen but jentee just runs after it long enough it gets cornered and is back to be tied up. Round two I get up in the morning while the family is all cooking and selling I walk to go to the bathroom when I see this thing bucking its feet around in the mud and im like man I cant capture this thing lack of skills and jentee is selling so I attempt to get my host dad who never understands a word that comes out of my mouth. I am like pia jarook rut translation dad the pig is running my host dad no idea me again I try to use the word for went for a walk still he is not getting it he follows me and then is starting to get it and he is like OOOO JA-OOK-IA I notice Khmer people when shocked they put like an ia sound at the end of their words I think its there version of an! Mark he capture it back up since then it’s been okay. My home news paper also wrote up a small thing about my work in Cambodia I will put the link at the bottom try to drum up some press for my self to raise more money feel like my work is never done. I have a lot of workshops etc planned this month so I am sure I will be all over the place from training the ministry of women’s affairs to PD hearth training with a world vision counter part 2012 is starting with a bang. O yes I need to tell you about my random encounter with the monks from Rhoad Island apparently they are from the wat my brother viou stays at while he is studying anyways some how they are know jentu who is know by the name sonic no idea. They came all the way to her house to bless everyone in the family now I was hoping I could maybe skip this event bc I knew if I joined it would end up me front and center and sure enough that’s exactly what happened. this whole thing lasted a while no idea what was said but I got splashed with water a lot monks spit on me the normal. Where it took a turn of confustion was when the two oldest females my host mom and jentus husband mother sat with their feet in water and everyone had to go and clean their feet and cleanse them everyone eles got to go with someone else but I had to go alone it was awkward to say the least making up what to do. My host mom was estatic at me doing this so I don’t know if I really explained to you how much my mom believes certain things and she has always wanted 5 children she thinks 5 is some sort of lucky number to have for children so she has convinced her self that I really am that 5^th child I know my parents will be supper excited to no she now has claimed own age over me. I did not realize at the time but the foot thing was meant for their children only but the monk asked me to go up my mom later told me that the monk told her I am her child this this just re confirms her belief that I am the long lost 5 child she has always wanted. The next day I went to a psych that spoke in tongues my host sister had to translate because it was best way I can describe to you if you have ever seen the poltergeist movie from the 80s and there is that short midge lady that talks really odd I met the Khmer version of that. well water incenses is involved we had to wait some time apparently this particular village psych is right she predicts peoples death etc when it was me and jenta’s turn jenta was going to go first however she went to this medicine man early this week one that is no where close to the village bc her ankle would not heal anyways the lady new this and told her she could not read her bc the medicine man that she went to was bigger then she was as in more powerful that was sort of odd. I was next she said I would be staying in Cambodia for 5 years and I should go home to visit or my mom and dad would be angry but it would be the wrong time for me to move back to America because this is to much turmoil for me in America. She knew the organization I worked for only lets me work for them for 2 years she knew that I liked to walk and she mentioned me always working to oudong and said she is scared for me because while she thinks I am scared to ride mottos (its not that its just peace corps would kill me) she doesn’t want me to walk she says its to dangerous. Due to the fact by the Chinese calendar it is the year of the rabbit aka my year this lead her to see that I have only been blessed once and that until the day before I was soy which I think is worse then bad luck in Khmer I take it has almost like rotten luck vs just bad luck I should also mention my host mom deiced to show up for this and heard about all of this now hearing words like soy to a Khmer person is horrible to see her face you would think someone told her I was dying of a rare disease. So then she made me pay and extra 500 real for a bottle of blessed water from this lady and promised this lady that she would make she I received 2 more blessing one of which apparently she has to do because she is my mom. It was not all to insightful of a reading except now my host mom has been going around my room spraying and lighting shit to protect me. Until next time peace out from the other side of the world!!!!!!