Sorry for the lack of updates recently, April was a wild month with Khmer New Year and electricity and internet can be elusive! Should hopefully have another update out in the next two weeks to bring everyone up to speed. Thanks again for following along, enjoy!!!
Towards the end of March, we had a retirement party for my Health Center Director, who I am sad to say will be finishing his tenure on June 1st of this year. The party had a few higher ups from the district and province level, all of the Village Health Volunteers, and some local friends and family. Great food and good company. My director was presented with a medal which he wore all night and I think was very proud. One intoxicated villager asked me to build a library at the Health Center which could house books and information on Health which people could read in their free time. An interesting idea, however I suspect such a place would get little use. A few of the VHV’s had a bit much to drink. One was french kissing my ear when he talked to me, his lips were physically touching my ear. All in all, a great event for a great man.
Villagers preparing food for my Health Center Director’s retirement party
Eating at the retirement party
Some of the Village Health Volunteers (VHV’s)
The main man, my Health Center Director. He will be dearly missed.
Health Center Staff and Village Health Volunteers
I finished up my wooden chain carving, turned out pretty swell and the kids got a kick out of seeing all the stages of progress and the final project.
First phase of wooden chain
Phase two of wooden chain
Three volunteers came to visit the giant water resivior near my commune for a birthday celebration. I rallied the kids and we biked 10+ km to go visit them and got a kick out of chatting Khmer with other Americans. It was nice to see them, and always pleasant to trade stories, catch up on life, and speak English!
At the dam
Damn at the water reservoir
I visited a VHV’s house one morning to ask about setting up an activity in her village. She was doing some chores so we chatted while she worked. She bore a sarong, stripped off all her other clothes, poured water over herself, soaped up, poured water again, did some laundry, then got re-dressed. It was really cool that she was comfortable to take a “Khmer shower” right in front of me while we caught up on things. She asked me to stay for lunch, taught me some new words and told me she was shy to cook in front of me because of the lack of sanitation. I assured her, she was cooking clean and well and had nothing to be ashamed of, but just the fact that she recognized that and is making an effort to do things correctly was a great sign!
Knick carrying Tee across a “bridge”
My host dad crashed our old, red motorcycle and it broke for good. He had a few bumps and scratches, but was OK. He did wear a single glove on his swollen hand for a few days: black, cut off finger tips, spiderman web logo…it was pretty hip.
My brother had a toothache and his cheek swelled up huge as though he had gotten his wisdom teeth taken out. Another villager had the same ailment at the same time. He seemed to be in a fair amount of pain, slept in a hammock most of the days and woke mom up in the middle of the night to take him to the dentist.
Spitting water into bottles
My sister in America, Chelsea, celebrated her 26th birthday. It sucks being away from family for special events. Weddings, birthdays, funerals, holidays. My sister is the best, as inspiring as she is beautiful, and excels at everything she puts her mind to. Happy Birthday Chelsea-belle, I miss your goofiness.
The day before one of our VHV meetings, I biked around to all of the villages to remind the VHV’s of the meeting since some of them don’t have phones and don’t always get the message. During the meeting, it was all the rage. Everyone chatted about my visit and appreciated the sentiment, and we had a strong turnout. Plus, I get a nice bike ride out of it, I think i’ll continue to promote our meetings in the future!
Drawings from my super cousins in America: Audrey, Robby, and Pipper!
Can for the kids to save money
Biking through a nearby village, I passed a woman on her bike. I had met her a few times before. As I rode away, she asked the usual, “Where are you going?”, and then followed up with a comment: “You have a long butt.” Thanks…I think!
My family cut down 7 of the larger trees around the house out of fear that they might blow over into our house come the rainy season storms. We lost a little shade. The biggest tree used to be outside of my window and i’d lay in bed admiring the stars through the silhouette of it’s branches. I was sad to see it go.
Chopping trees around the house
In the USA, my mother’s side of the family goes to Ocean City, Maryland each summer to spend a week together and had a great time. We have been doing this my entire life and have phenomenal memories of all the trips. I frequently get flash backs of Ocean City here in Cambodia, specifically around my house. Something about the sound of the rice mill, in conjunction with the passing motos, and the heat, the sand, maybe a smell…occasionally it all matches up perfectly and I picture the mighty Plaza Hotel all around me. Nice memories.
Law in one of the popular “girl” hats
Pond swimming
For solitude, I occasionally go to a small hut in some nearby rice fields to sit and read or study. I’m not sure who it belongs to, but no one has ever bothered me there. One morning, and man walked over, I said hello. He invited me to his house which is under a radio tower. The tower company pays him $100 a month to live there and watch over the tower. Two other men from my village were there, so we hung out on a slatted table and chatted. They cooked up some rice and fish, and of course passed around a two liter bottle of rice wine which the three of them polished off over an hour or two. They became a little obnoxious when one asked me how old I was 5 times in an hour and didn’t stop talking at me for about an hour straight, including taking it upon himself to teach me some Khmer words…such as hello, I, you, and numbers…which I obviously knew. But I also learned that two of the three of them used to be Khmer Rouge Soldiers, one of which was the leader of a group who occupied our very commune. The third had been a soldier on the other side and his relatives had fought the Khmer Rouge in this area. They said the fighting finally came to an end in this area during 1988 and now-a-days people are all friends, they don’t care what side people used to be on, the child soldiers didn’t have any more choice in their jobs than did the victims, if they didn’t work as soldiers, they would have been killed themselves.
Ants blow my mind. They are still getting inside of my Nalgene bottle somehow. It is water tight, it is air tight, but it is not ant tight!
Ants anyone?
The village chief’s daughter got married. A beautiful two day celebration. The first evening I went to watch some of the ceremony and to watch some men dance together. At the reception the next day I was seated with some village men and we ate great food and everyone chugged beers as fast as they could. I declined drinking more times than I can count, not that I don’t drink, or wouldn’t like to have a beer with them, but that is one of my jobs here, to educate about not drinking. It’s very frustrating though the amount of harassment they dish out. At one point, I was drinking coke, when we all put our glasses together to cheers, the man next to me would pour some of his beer into my coke. I dodged it the first 20 times, but he didn’t get the hint, and one time got a good pour. I just put the glass down in front of him and cracked a new one. I got passed around a few tables before getting dragged into the dance circle. The Assistant Commune Chief pulled me out to thank me for helping, and that the whole commune knows and loves me. While I don’t completely agree, it was a fantastic compliment, even if it was alcohol induced, it’s nice to get some feedback on the things that we do here. To sum up the music i’ll steal a line from my journal, “a small house of weapons grade musical speakers blasting through our chest like CPR compressions.”
Wedding
Village chief’s daughter, and the bride.
Wedding
My feet after dancing at the wedding.
People in town play a gambling game called “Klah-Kloat” translated as “Tiger-gourd”. There is a mat with 6 pictures on it: a tiger, a gourd, a chicken, a shrimp, a fish, and a crab. There are three dice, one side on each dice corresponds with each picture. The villagers put money on the pictures of that they think the dice will roll, then all three dice are rolled, and money is lost or won depending on how many times your picture is shown on the dice. It was played behind a house, because apparently it is illegal. However, I have seen it played all over at the pagodas during ceremonies and now they play in front of the houses, i’ve even seen the police playing too! I was informed that during ceremonies at the pagodas they pay off the police in order to allow them to set up a place to play!
Gambling game “Klah-kloat”
I had heard some scratching above my room a few times, and one night in particular there was a lot of noise. The following day, I did a pull up to take a peek at the culprit. Turns out, one of our chickens has been sneaking up into the house, flying up above my room and laying eggs, there were 12 eggs! I called “Law” over and lifted him up, he lowered down the chicken and the eggs. Over the next week or so, I kept discovering chicken eggs, and sometimes the chicken herself in my laundry basket outside my door! Worried about getting chicken poop all over my clothes, or up in the house, I began a training regimen with said hen. They next day, I sat under the house and worked on my newest woodworking project. Every time I heard her up in the house, or saw her climbing the stairs, I chased her out with a broom like some grouchy old lady and tried to peg her with a rock. I only hit her once with a rock, and a few times with the broom. After maybe 15 times that day, she hasn’t been back up into the house that I know of. Success!
Law getting the chicken and a dozen eggs down from above my bedroom
Another hot Sunday, another trip to the water resivior with the kids! As the dry season continues, the water has become less and less, now the water was hot, it wasn’t even refreshing to be swimming in since it has basked in the sunlight for 4 straight months. And the mud is loose, squishy and deep, walking around you sink up to your calves in the slop. I recalled seeing some kids jumping off a high bridge into a small river at a nearby village the week before. I took the kids to the river and we checked it out. While there certainly wasn’t enough water to be jumping off the 20ft bridge, the water was a little cooler. The boys from the village were already there, swimming and jumping off of downed trees, everyone of them butt naked. We jumped in and enjoyed the water for a moment, before we realized how bad it stunk and decided it was probably too dirty to be swimming in (but aren’t they all?!). Then I inquired if any of them had even been to the temple on the island in the middle of the resivior, none of them had, me neither! New adventure! We saddled up and headed off, stopping at a shop quickly to get some tires topped off with air. Off we went! One hundred yards down the road…BOOM!!! One of the tires blew out like a gunshot, we turned and walked it back to the bike shop. The sidewall on the actual rubber tire had blown out. We all scrapped together our money and had exactly enough to buy a new one until we could get back to our village later and he could repay us. We left the bike, swapped the seating arrangements and off we went! Two hundred yards down the road…BOOM!!! The sidewall on my rear tire blew out, we turned around and walked back to the bike store. Now we didn’t have enough money to get both tires fixed, and mine was a mountain bike tire, which the man did not stock. So instead, we got the first bike back and we would walk the bikes about 2.5 miles back to our village. We bought a few snacks and two water melons and off we went! I thought the kids would be really bummed out about not going to the temple, and now having to walk all this way in the blazing heat, but they kept saying how awesome it was, singing and dancing their way down the road, an adventure for sure! We had plenty of water, and took a few rests in the shade. One of the stores on the way home had a small black bird in a cage, it could speak Khmer! I didn’t believe it until I heard it ask where we were going and what our name was (with much prompting from many kids of course).
Walking home from the water resivior
See-dah
Walking home after flat tires
The day after the bicycle blowout, I had to walk my bicycle 2.5 miles to the local market to get a new mountain bike tire. While I waited, I got some pictures printed out from my health centers retirement party to give to him as a gift. One I got printed out a full page and got it custom framed ($4.00). It turned out really well and my director hung it up in the waiting room.
I finally did get out to that temple in the middle of the water resivior. Hid my bike in the trees around the edge and walked about 1 km through the blazing heat to a small elevated dirt “island” in the middle. After climbing up, I saw that the island is really more of a retaining wall with a temple in the middle. There were lots of trucks, people with hard hats, and lots of temple building blocks. A company has been there dissecting, cataloging, and positioning the stones in order to restore the temple for a year now. Pretty cool, and while it is now in a museum, supposedly the largest bronze sculpture in Cambodia was discovered in this island temple!
Water resivior during the dry season. The plant rice right in the lake!
Trail to the temple on the island in the middle of the water resivior
Temple in water resivior under construction
There are a few things I eat here that I have no idea what they are, I have some guesses, but if everyone else is eating it, i’ll give it a try. When eating with my Aunt and cousins one day, I went to confirm if the brown mystery meat was in fact liver, she just laughed and said, “no, it’s pigs blood!” So, turns out I’ve been eating coagulated pigs blood every day for breakfast for 7 months already and had no idea (and pig liver too!).
Some of the men working on our dirt road have been eating lunch at our house and will sit with me and chat. Good guys, we chat about anything I have the language for and they point our every women that passes and asks if I want to marry her. One of them told me his house, wife and four children are in Battambang, but he is happy to be away working in another province so he can fool around with other women. I asked if his wife knew…no. I said maybe she fools around with other men while he is away working! He pondered the idea for a moment, but said no, she is raising the children. A tuk-tuk had gotten stuck in the freshly laid dirt, so after lunch, they chained it to the bulldozer and pulled it along the road. Then a dump truck got stuck, so they pushed it along with the bulldozer.
Road crew pulls out a stuck tuk-tuk
Laying down another layer of dirt on the road
While eating with a separate road crew on a different day a man told me he used to be a Khmer Rouge soldier when he was 13 years old. He would live in the wilderness of the mountains for 6 months at a time before coming out to secure new provisions.
I’ve started a new carving project which has taken many hours so far and will require a few more. I get lots of questions and even my dad told me how beautiful it was. We’ll see how it finishes, but here is the progress so far.
The start of my next wood carving
Further on the carving project
We watched the Jurassic Park Trilogy over three days during movie night. At one point, Knick literally had her hands on her cheeks with her mouth wide open like Kevin from Home Alone. It was awesome.
The little store near the school was selling $0.25 water pistols, a bunch of the kids bought them, so I picked one up too and we went to war. I sprayed them in the eyeballs more times than you can imagine, twas fun. I told Law about supersoakers in the USA that have water tank backpacks and can spray up to a liter per second. His eyes lit up and he gave me a WOW.
Bun-yah, my next door neighbor.
I sat at the Health Center chatting with the father of a newborn. This was his sixth child. He had just returned from working in Thailand 3 days prior. He lived and worked on a pineapple farm with his wife and two youngest children. His oldest children remained at home in Cambodia being raised by their grandparents. When is was time for his pregnant wife to have her baby, they went to a Thai hospital. They were usually afraid to go anywhere because they were afraid of the police catching them in Thailand without the proper documents (like many folks who migrate for work). But they knew that medical professionals would not turn them over. Unfortunately, this couple does know speak Thai and none of the hospital staff spoke Khmer. Can you imagine delivering a baby, or being the husband of a wife delivering a baby and not being able to verbally communicate with anyone there?
When I play with the dogs or the cats and talk to them, the kids look at me funny and remind me that they don’t speak English.
Kittens napping
My love, “pickles”
I was eating with little “Tee” one day. I had my bowl of rice, a vegetable stew, and some dried fish. Tee had a bowl of rice, with a small piece of dried fish (about the size of two fingers) and some salty broth with the rice. Hardly a proper meal for a growing 5 year old. I gave him one of my vegetables from the stew, he scooped it out and was about to throw it on the ground. I asked why, he said he didn’t like vegetables. Have you ever eaten this vegetable? No, he responded. Give it a try, it has lots of vitamins and tastes great! He gave it a taste, and ate it all! Then I gave him a carrot, he was about to throw it on the ground. I told him it had even more vitamins and tastes even better than the other vegetable! He ate it. Then I told him that foods with lots of colors have more vitamins than foods with bland colors. Oh, you mean like watermelon? Yeah! And mangoes? Yeah! And pumpkin? Yeah! And so we went back and forth for the rest of our meal with him asking me foods and me agreeing with or disagreeing with him. It was great, while I haven’t seen a tremendous change in his diet, I think that’s largely because other people give him his food. Good stuff though, real good stuff.
Tee eating a goi fruit
Before Khmer New Year (a three day holiday in April) we had a party at the middle school. All the students where there and the teachers had music and games set up for them. It started off with a small decorative tree with questions stapled to the branches, a student would pick a question off the tree and if they could answer it correctly, they would win themselves a notebook and pen. Then they played a Khmer classic “spit-water-into-a-bottle” game. The students filled up their mouths with water on one side of the playing field, ran to the other side and spit the water out into a water bottle and continued this process until the winner filled up their bottle first! Then classic sack races, using large rice sacks of course. Finally, karaoke! The incredible thing was that the students got up in front of the whole school and belted out a complete song, but didn’t have any music! They did it all without accompaniment! Some 20-30 students got up and sang, even the ones with poor scores were still super impressive. The day culminated with some good old fashion dancing around a tree while music blasted our eardrums into a pulp. The teachers cooked up some incredible Khmer food that all the teachers ate together with the commune government council, it was really good food, and I was once again honored to be included in the festivities.
One of my students singing
New Years party at the middle school
Sack Race
My students awesome haircut
I frequently head out into the endless dried up rice fields to pick the newly in season “goi” fruit. I haven’t figured out what it is called in English, but I’ve never seen them in the states before. When first picked, they leak out a drip or two of sticky white sap. Peel off the brilliant yellow skin to reveal the neon orange fruit beneath. The fruit is sweet and sour, it reminds me of the drink “Tang” with a bit of the sting of a pineapple. Be careful not to bite the seeds, they are quite bitter, but swallow them whole and you’ve got yourself a nice snack!
The meat of a goi fruit, so delicious
In the bush, picking “goi” fruit
When a storm rolls in it is a race to secure the yard, get the laundry off the line, and put the drying rice under the house. Mom always makes sure I close the shutters to the room. I’ve always thought she was over reacting a bit when she cut down some trees in fear they would fall into the house, and when she worries about the house blowing over. However, I recently witnessed a strong gust blow the roof clean off the shade table our front and gained a little understanding of her fears.
Mom fed me dinner up in the house one night because of a rain storm
“Law” was hanging around my room one day looking for something to do. I decided to teach him Suduko using a puzzle book I got in a wonderful care package! Together we worked our way though the first puzzle until he got the hang of what to look for and where. Correct! Then I let him take the lead on the second puzzle and I helped. Correct! Then I let him fly solo on the third. Correct! It was really rewarding to see him pick it up so quickly, I gave him the puzzle book and went back the next day and he had successfully completed several of the next puzzles correctly. Smart kid!
Law working on Saduko puzzles
One of the village health volunteers invited me out to her village for a ceremony. Due to a language miscommunication, I showed up a bit late, but no worries, they still let me hang out and we all ate lunch together. After lunch, I was chatting with a fellow as a few giggly girls were jokingly trying to get me to make a fool of myself in the dance area. Then I saw him…my nemesis…the sloppy drunk. This man came stumbling in, most people ignored him, he danced with the girls who quickly stopped and sat down, then he bumbled around dancing in the dance area for a few minutes. It was only a matter of time, a large foreigner does not go unnoticed for long. Once discovered he sat next to me, got way too close to my face when he talked, rubbed me with his dirty hands, and talked at me for 20-30 minutes while I tried to ignore him like everyone else was doing. I could only tolerate so much of this behavior until I had to fight him off and walk away, I was upset how things ended, he probably meant well and tried to walk me back to my bike, but when he went in for a bear hug and tried to pick me up I was heated. I didn’t even get to say goodbye to the VHV or the people I had met earlier, I was fuming, I wanted to get back to my bike, get onto the open road and scream! Then two people came into my life that diffused the frustration. Firstly, I passed a women who I met many months ago, but she remembered me and we talked for only a minute, but I was already happier. Then I sat at the VHV’s house with her 13 year old daughter for the next 2 hours letting her practice a little English, and me learn about their family in Khmer. I laid in their hammock with this angle sitting at the table beside me and couldn’t have been happier. This is probably a long and uninteresting story, but it’s an example of how every day can be both Hell and Heaven and that switch can be flipped by simple things. The emotional roller coaster!
This is for my friends at miller Refrigeration!
A traditional healers device to protect “bun-yah’s” arm
The kids asked me to go pick something again. This time it wasn’t fruit, but small brown flowers. “Tee” sat on my shoulders so he could reach the flowers, they were very fragrant but I didn’t know why we were collecting bags of them. Back at the house, the kids put the flowers into the buckets of water that they shower from…so that they would smell pretty!
Khmer New Year brought beautiful decorations to the houses, along with offerings set out on a table for ancestors. The tables were decorated with banana trees, palm leaves, balloons, flowers, and colorful star decorations.
Khmer New Year decorations at my house
Khmer New Years decorations at cousins house
Reusing a pringles can mom sent me from America!
New years games
Law
My Brother-in-Law invited me to a Khmer New Year party in one of the further villages. Upon arrival, it was really just 6 guys getting drunk under a house, still good to meet a few people in another village. A grandfather came and drank with them too, after a beer or two I saw him pick up his beer, pour it down his shirtless chest and rub his chest like he was taking a little beer shower! When the grandfather was ready to leave, he told one of the young men to come over, and he took a piggy-back-ride back to his house! The men told me that his legs get sore and cramped up when he sits in one place for too long.
Fresh sugar cane juice with ice. What a refreshing treat on a hot day. The sugar cane stalks are peeled of their bark, then pressed through rollers using a machine and the sweet delicious juice falls into a cup below. I helped two of my cousins peel the stalks for awhile with a rounded knife, fun for a bit, but tough work if you had to strip bundles of stalks everyday.
Skinning the sugar cane in prep to press it for juice
During Khmer New Year, I stopped over my tutors house to hang out with her momma. She was deep-frying potatoes and selling them out front of her house. I sat and chatted with her until she left to take a shower. She told me to sit there and sell the snacks if anyone came, big bags for $0.25, small for $0.13. I didn’t get any customers, just lots of smiles and laughter, even better than currency! Then went to the middle school directors house to hang out with her family who was visiting for the holiday. She was super bubbly as always, fed me, and we watched TV for an hour or two until it was hot enough for nap time. In the afternoon I headed to one of my English students houses for a party he was throwing, he is a 30-something year old who works at the nearby silk weaving location. A big old circle of shirtless drunk men! Shortly after my arrival, speakers and a generator were set up and we got to “dancing”. I say “dancing” because it was me standing there slightly bopping to the music and 7 half naked grown adult men grinding up on me like I was a supermodel in a prison yard. But i’d rather it be that way then the opposite, excessive inclusion beats being excluded. A fun day and I was excited to be invited to so many houses during the holidays.
2 day old kittens!
Spitting water into bottles
Cow fruit! The cotton like filling is used to make pillows
During the party at the silk workers house, a few men asked me to smoke cigarettes with them. I took the chance to tell them I didn’t not want to smoke because of adverse health effects. As usual, I told them about my grandmother in the states who died many years ago from lung cancer from 40 some years of smoking. A man simply told me: “My grandfather died too, and he didn’t smoke!” He was implying that we all die from something, smoking or otherwise. A good counter point, I left it at that. 
See-dah, he cracks me up
CIRCUS!
One of my host Aunts just found out she’s pregnant with her 3rd child!
For Khmer New Year, I went to Ankor Wat with my host family and our extended host family. Nine people squeezed into my uncles tuk-tuk for the trip. Once there, we rented a bamboo mat to sit on the grass and we all ate rice and other food they had cooked at home and brought with us. Surrounded by a sea of Khmer people, I got stares and laughs as I sat amongst my family playing with the kids and eating food together. We watched singers perform and comedy actors, before exploring Ankor Wat with 3 of my host cousins. So cool that they shared that experience with me.
Ankor Wat with the family for Khmer New Year
Malee, just look at that face.
Comedy actors at Khmer New Year celebrations
Ankor Wat with Jew and Borah
Another Khmer New Year day, I sent to a farther village to meet up with my “god mother”, as she calls herself. She invited me to stay for lunch and I hung out with her children. While we were waiting a woman came over to the house…a fortune teller! Everyone payed her about 50 cents per reading and she would use a deck of playing cards, 7 through ace, to predict our futures. Everything from health and success in the upcoming year, to when someone would get married. Of course, I jumped at the chance, she did her thing, laid the cards out in patterns and boy did I get a good one. She said I got the most lucky possible outcome, I would be very successful and rich and important. After closing her eyes for some time and speaking to the cards, she told me I would marry a Khmer woman when I was 33 years old. Afterwards, my God Mother told me we can believe the parts we want to believe, and not the ones we don’t want to believe. She often goes to three different fortune tellers and only believes the information that coincides between all three of them. From there, we met up with one of the Village Health Volunteers and her family and we all walked over to the Water Reservoir together for a picnic dinner! I helped carry some of the food for the 3ish kilometer walk and we put down a tarp high on the grass in the shade. Great food, great company, great view, perfect! The grandmother, the village health volunteer, and their neighbor had us in stitches laughing. They were constantly poking each other in the ribs and yelling. But they don’t just let out a noise, they rip off a high-pitched sentence as fast as they can. Usually, I struggle to understand this comedic shout, but this day I translated: “giant dog” and “haircut”. Also, they would throw food scraps or trash off the ground at each other, when it would hit them or land, they would let out a deep growl and pretend to try and catch the item, even if it meant dropping the watermelon they were eating, or spraying everyone with the water bottle they were drinking from. It was so funny, my cheeks hurt from the neighbor doing this for several minutes, how did I ever get so lucky?
Walking along the water resivior with the VHV and her family
Walking home from our reservoir picnic
Before a meal, Mom told me: “If you don’t shower, your food won’t taste delicious.”
My tutor, Ratha, invited me to her house for Khmer New Year to hang out with her brother (a monk) while he was home for a few days. When I pulled up, it was a full on cultural ceremony! Up in the house we sat with our legs to the side and got to chanting for an hour or two in the heat. Then we fed the monks, then we fed the elders, then us young-ins ate too. After lunch, her brother asked me if I wanted to take a shower, I said no thanks, but I noticed the men were stripping down to their boxers, and women putting on their shower sarongs. Everyone sat on the staircase, the older people on the top steps, the middle age in the middle, the younger at the bottom, and the kids standing. A women pumped a bit of shampoo into everyone’s hand, then pure coolness happened! The group of monks at the top of the stairs just began splashing water over everyone for a few minutes while they all had a massive group shower and happiness flowed. After a minute of watching and being jealous, I considered my options, put down my camera, stripped off my dress clothes down to my boxers and marched in there. They were so welcoming and pulled me right in, water all over, shampoo found it’s way into my hair, comments of white skin and body hair in the background of everyone’s laughter of happiness. I can’t thank my tutor enough, not only for all the help she has given me with language, but continues to involve me with her family and be a port into cultural experiences around the commune.
Feeding the monks at my tutor’s cousins house
Group shower
Shower party!
Get your wash on!
They slapped me with baby powder post group shower.
In order to find a quite place to get away from the children when I need a break, I grab my hammock and head out to the rice fields behind the house and set up between two trees in a small patch of leaves. It’s a quite place to think and read and a nice way to clear the head for a moment. That was the case at least, until two village kids randomly stumbled across me and brought back about 12 more people to watch the crazy foreigner randomly reading on a hammock out in the bush. Fortunately, I knew most of them, we just had a laugh for a bit, then they let me get back to it. A beautiful escape!
Hammock in the fields
Law discovered a bees next up in a tree at their house. One morning, the kids rigged up a long pole, wrapped the end in green leaves and lit it up to make lots of smoke. They smoked out the bees, while one kid climbed the tree and cut down the nest. We feasted on the raw bee larva in the nest. 
My cousin “Jew” had gaping cracks on the soles of his feet. Terrible and open, almost a centimeter in width some of them. He told me he was picking “goi” fruit in a tree about 4 meters high when he fell out and when he tried to clamp his feet around the tree, the inch long thorns on the tree’s trunk cut his feet open. He hadn’t been to the health center, but he was sleeping it off in a hammock under his house. Every other hour he would rub what they call “tiger balm” on the wounds. “Tiger balm” is simply icy-hot muscle relaxation ointment that give a cool menthol feel. Not exactly ideal, but he seemed to heal over the next week or two without complication, so who knows!
Eating ants and their eggs
My adorable cousin “knick” made me a beaded anklet one morning. I kept it on despite people telling me how ugly it is that I wear jewelry because i’m a man. In the afternoon, I went with “Law” to a house in the next village to pick up the clothes he was getting tailored. The young women working the sewing machines were shy when I walked in, but they giggled to each other, whispered and looked and smiled at me. A group of teenage boys hung out on the stairs and goofed around together. Nothing too out of the ordinary experience in these situations. The clothes were not yet ready, so they told us to come back the next morning. Back at the bicycles, “law” and “knick” whispered something to each other, when I inquired, they told each other not to tell me. When I pressed the issue a bit, “knick” told me that they were laughing at me because I was wearing her anklet. I told her, “whatever, they are just jealous!” Later that night, their two brothers would be returning home from working in Thailand. They wouldn’t get home until midnight, so Law, knick, borah, and I stayed up together, playing UNO and other games by candle light on the slatted table at Law’s house. We napped, danced, talked, and played more games, it was wonderful. One thing was still bothering me though…”knick” I said…”was it the women working at the sewing place who were laughing at my anklet, or was it the group of teenage boys on the stairs?” Law cut her off before she could answer: “It was the women, but they weren’t laughing at your anklet…they could see your balls because you’re not wearing underwear.” Oh man, did the four of us laugh. I haven’t gone commando since!
“Always wear your underwear boys and girls!”
Joely the Goalie 