Ahhh im soo horrible at keeping up with this blog now which
is ironic bc I live in the city now and have access to electricity and internet
24 hours. So my life is in a transition state for 2013 what that means for me
im not quite sure but I feel a lot is about to change for me in what I hope
will be a good way! However before I go on about my current job etc I want to
tell you some astounding news… my host sister finally gets it she does not want
to go to America and does not want to see her husband ever again this means
that my service was not a waste I got though to one human being and changed
there life and prevented a life time of abuse! After this realization on her
part I have been trying to spend a lot of time with her to help her though this
for the next steps and to help make sure she does not end up in another abusive
relationship I feel I will continue to work with her but step one to change is
realizing the need to change! I am
working as a consultant for project evaluation, baseline survey etc as well as
a few other things on top of this im still volunteering for CWPD where I go
into the office this past weekend I went out surveying with them on clean water
apparently coca cola gave them funding to build wells really close to my
village. The staff at cwpd did not get that I lived in a village until I went
out with them and stopped by my house until then I kept getting asked question
like how do I feel when I see the real Cambodia all I could do was laugh as the
real Cambodia is just 2 years of my life the question they should be asking is
how do I feel about living in phnom penh. Due to how much time has lapsed from
my last blog I will have to just give u bullet points of everything else I
guess if you want more details you will have to skype me. I have been in grad
school for a full quarter about to start a new quarter this weekend my class
mates have a lot of experience and I think they get along with me well there is
one other foreigner in my class from Spain he is in his late 40s so basically
im the only fluent Eng. speaker which we all joke around about they think I
should speak khmenglish whenever possible. Its also funny because we got put
into groups for projects my group members have had to be around me quite a bit
so they know me well enough to ask for things in khmer but the rest of the
class thinks this is funny when they see it all happen. My poltics and government
class was extremely eye opening I have learned so much about Cambodian gov
thanks to this class I sort of think its cool that I get to learn history etc
though another countries eyes I mean even when I studied about French history
in college it just is not the same to much of an American options get tossed
around in the teacher. You know in Cambodia they refer to the Vietnam war as a
world war 2 I found this interesting concept since to them it makes sense but
to me I always think ww2 Hitler vs the world okay. Anyways of course I had my
doubts about getting a master in Cambodia of all places but its like I get a
trouble edu one in development and now ill be an expert or highly studied in
south east Asian studies it’s a win win. However I should mention that there
still is corruption at the university level with the teacher’s ill skip going
into details but my class mates love to remind me there are spies all over the
place. It has been i like to think good for the students to have both American
input and Spanish input I know having a European perspective has been
insightful for me. I also have changed class room dynamics which I also like to
think is good student in Cambodia tend to be shy to share their ideas however
since I don’t know how to be embarrassed (so I have been told) the fact that I
talk so much has made it culturally okay for other girls in particular to share
there ideas. I have started to gather
research etc for my thesis I am currently looking for away to get money to fund
my research this is a down side to studying in Cambodia as what ever is out
there is most likely going to go to a Khmer student and not me I called USAID
to see if they would support me no such luck.
I should mention that me and my roommate Liz started to host couch surfers however we got so into
that we have had to many people and our land lord told us no more =( very sad.
Anyways we hosted about 30 people in a 3 month time period and met some amazing
souls that have helped me with the whole life transition. A Korean monk stayed
with us that was interesting, people traveling around the whole world on a bike
they stayed with us for xmas, I met a long island who spent his life in Nepal
he was in his 60s I think r oldest surfer but he was funny he still had an ny
accent despite living in Asia for the 30 plus years, pretty much people from
all walks of life who really just shared so much with us I hope to meet many of
them again on my travels. I highly recommend that if you have a free couch or
room in America to get ur self an account ill be ur reference so they know ur
not a creep and host people when they travel if you cant see the world bring
the world to ur house =) I even got my dad to sign up and he was surprised at
how much he likes it. O yeah I turned 26!!! I not closer to 30 then 20 its odd
feeling o well age is just a number its all about the state of mind and I feel
like im in no rush as I sort of like where my life is headed currently. For my
bday I went out to a restaurant with a few friends and then I went back to my
friends house and had some jack and coke felt like I was in America haha. It was
a good time got to get to know one of my classmates better as she came out with
her husband. On my actual bday I went back to the village as my host sister
wanted to celebrate with me and so did the kids in the village (they love cake)
I made the cake my self bc cake the bakery is not good and they don’t have
chocolate the horror I know but u guys will LOVE this my host mom keeps asking
me for the recipe and im like its call Betty Crocker in a box but she cant seem
to grasp that thing like cake can come in a box pre made for u so she thinks im
some sort of baking genius lmao… yea really. Then that night I drank with jentee some more whisky and we had some more talks about life it was a great way
to end my 25th year of life knowing that I can make a difference in someone’s
life. Well ill try to post pictures of the last 3 months of my life until next
time peace out from the other side of the world!!!
