“Inch by inch it’s all a cinch, by the yard it’s hard. Go for it — no matter how slow or long the process seems at first.” ― Mardi Ballou

My village health volunteer, Soken, invited me to join her and some folks she works with to promote Human Rights Day and especially to spread awareness about domestic violence and child abuse. About 30 of us met at the police station and decorated rice tractors with messages on cardboard and posters. Her organization had tons of literature in Khmer to hand out and gave each of us beautiful orange polo shirts! From there we split into two groups, each with a rice tractor to haul a few people, and another rice tractor with a speaker tower on it blaring music. We split the commune in half and between the two groups we would visit all 13 of the villages.

Rice tractors set up for Human Rights Day

In each village we jumped out of the tractor and with the music at our backs, ran around putting up educational posters, pinning Human Rights pins on shirts, handing out literature to anyone we saw, and also inviting them to an afternoon dance marathon in front of the health center. It was fun going around on a “hay ride”, and people seemed a little interested in what we were doing.

Soken pinning a ribbon on a man

We all met together for lunch at my house where mom cooked up a few delicious dishes and lots of rice. I got to play host, running table service, spooning out rice, and clearing the dishes.

Lunch at my house

Around 2:00pm, we posted up opposite the health center with the two massive speaker towers blasting music at full-bore. Unfortunately, this was directly in front of the elementary school, which was in session, not really an ideal learning situation to be 40 yards away from such a commotion. The idea was to have all these people from around the commune come together and dance together in bright orange shirts to promote human rights day. In reality, it was mostly just those of us who volunteered dancing and trying to force a few random stragglers into the mix with the promise of a new shirt. I did my part to keep the dancing going and making a fool out of myself, seeing how it helped to attract some others. My super shy host father of all people showed up and danced his little heart out for the entire two hours. I don’t think we hardly chatted, but we would lock up eyes and smile and there was no denying we were sharing a unique moment together! The songs were specially made Khmer songs about human rights day and domestic violence, which meant that we were listening to the same 4 songs on repeat for 2 hours! After a group photo-op, Soken interviewed me in Khmer about the day’s events and what could be done to improve the following year and I remembered how little Khmer I really know when you get deep into a topic.

Dancing in front of the elementary school

We’re supposed to be in the shape of a ribbon

Just like last year, an annual festival came to our pagoda for two nights. The teenage boys and I all met at my house and decked our bikes out in christmas lights for the 3km ride out to the pagoda. Mom had gone early with Aunt Lee to set up a table along the road side to sell beer, hard-boiled eggs, and rice porridge. After walking around with the kids and getting our trampoline on, I went into the pagoda and met up with our host grandmother, who had been sleeping at the pagoda for a few nights during the celebration. Good carnival games of dart throwing, throw the ball at the can game, ring toss, kiddie rides, and good carnival snacks. On the bike ride home, a village man around my age pulled up behind us on his moto and rode with us so we could use his headlight. He had another male passenger on the back and explained that they were both drunk. Upon hearing this, I mentioned that we shouldn’t drink and drive, but he said it was no problem. As we pulled into our village, we thanked him and he went ahead a smidge to turn into his house. When making the turn off the road and down the slight decline to his house, his wheels slid out from under him and they crashed to the side. After making sure everyone was fine, I made sure to reinforce to him and the kids that this was exactly the reason we shouldn’t drink and drive.

Carnival at the Pagoda

In English class, I had the kids tell me 10 random letters, then they tried to see how many words they could form using just the 10 letters on the board. They did incredible and I cut them off at 40 words. Two of the letters were “P” and “O” and one of the 5th grade students came up to the board and chuckled as he spelled out P-O-O-P. We all had a snicker. I’ve certainly left my mark on this community!

Love this kid

When kids are walking places around the village, they will often flag me down and hop on my bike rack until they get to their destination. I love that feeling when a small child I don’t know squeaks out, “teacher, teacher, can I ride?” with a goofy smile and a sparkle in their eyes!

The kids had been asking me to teach them magic tricks recently, and I thought it a strange coincidence that one night they said there would be a magic show in the field next to our house. Sure enough, come 7:00pm, the music was blasting, and movie was projected while people gathered, then the show began! They started out with a man playing with a cobra on the grass, it looked pretty docile, but people are terrified of snacks. Then they brought about a baby 3-foot crocodile that they pulled around by the tail and didn’t seem thrilled to be a part of the show. finally, the leader of the troupe did a pretty sad routine with a disappearing ball trick and sleight of hand. In between each of the acts they advertised one of their all-natural medicines which were said to cure anything and everything and well over priced. They walked around with samples and sold them while we all waited for the next act to begin. Most people didn’t fall into the trap, but a few people bought the medicines to give them a try.

Snake handling

Some of my villagers at the magic show

crocodile

My host brother crashed a moto riding around with his friend, his face and shoulder were swollen for a few days, but no lasting damage. After seeing the swelling, I recommended that they put some ice on it. At night, my brother laid on the floor while my mom dripped hot wax from a candle onto the swelling and rubbed it in.

Aunt Bonnie sent me a package!!! Glow bracelets, candy canes, Tootsie pops, peanut butter, nuts, pencils, old bay, legos, nutella, and cheese and crackers!!! She’s the best, thanks for the great christmas gifts for the kids and we feat on the snacks at night while we watch a movie.

Aunt Bonnie care package!

Speaking of packages, my wonderful parents sent me a christmas package as well! Yo-yo’s, crayons, giant bars of soap, trail mix, smarties, pringles, toblerone, magic kids, peach rings, chocolate covered cherries and an 8 pack of disposable razors! After mouse and ant proofing for storage, I couldn’t decide what to devour first! Merry Christmas indeed! Thanks mom and dad!

Parents care package!

The kids once again saved up enough money to go for a play day in Siem Reap! We had some new additions this trip with some of my English students from the next village over. I had told my uncle with the tuk-tuk that we would need two vehicles again and one would probably have to be one of the longer trailers since I expected more kids this time. However, two standard size tuk-tuk’s showed up so we made it happen. 23 people in two tuk-tuk’s plus two drivers on their moto’s up front…incredible. To put that into reference, when my family came to visit, it was snug to fit the 5 of us into one tuk-tuk!

Fully loaded boys tuk-tuk…I still had to climb in there as well!

Girls tuk-tuk fully loaded

We started off at the roller rink where the kids strapped on roller blades and got to work polishing the floor with their butts! For some of the kids this was their second or third time out and they were starting to get the hang of it pretty well!

Teep and K’nick roller blading

Then we jumped over to the arcade at Angkor Trade Center. The girls all wanted to see the view from the roof. There is a new bar on the roof, so we all got in the elevator and went up. The owner of the bar came over, and I expected his to shoot us down seeing as we were a group of 10+ underage girls at a rooftop bar before it opened. Instead, he was super friendly and chatty, gave us a personal tour of the entire restaurant, took group pictures for us and thanked me for my service to his country. He had quite a bit of travel experience and said he can speak 8 languages!

In the arcade

The kids shooting hoops (I broke the high score on one of the machines a few weeks later!)

Air Hockey

Roof top lounge

Our final stop was the road 60 carnival. As night fell, I shared glow bracelets with the kids (thanks Aunt Bonnie!), we scarfed down some carnival snacks, and I forked over $6.00 for eight of the kids to jump in an enormous moon bounce for 20 minutes…money well spent! Another successful outing: no injuries, no loss of kids, just smiles, laughs, and bonding time!

Rong scarfing some stir-fried ramen noodles

Raat fueling up

Moon bounce interior

Moon bounce exterior

Since some of the village health volunteers do not have telephones, when the Health Center Director decided to change the date of a meeting, she came to me to spread the word on my travels. Over the course of two mornings, I got to bike around to all 27 volunteers in the commune and deliver the message while also getting to visit a wonderful group of friends. To my delight, we had an excellent turn-out on the day of the meeting!

Playing a cool tile shuffling game from Aunt Janet!

During that village health volunteer meeting, I put on a demonstration about the negative aspects of smoking along with my bottle-smoking-a-cigarette experiment. It went well, and they were super grossed out about the black lungs of smokers in comparative pictures. Afterward, Soken, one of the volunteers in my village went on to talk about rabies, the signs and symptoms and what to do should a person or animal contract it. Cool!

K’nick and Ngaa cleaning and straining their catch of fish in the bike basket!

I popped my bike tire leaving the school one day. Luckily, next to the school it the house of two of my students, and their father patches tires. It was fun to hang out with him and his beautiful wife and children while he patched the tire. Then we continued to hang out and chat for an hour. When I went to leave, the tire was flat again! Turns out it had two holes in it! So, he patched the second hole and told me a little about his experience from the Khmer Rouge Regime. He said that our commune was under Khmer Rouge threat from when he was 10 years old until he was 21 years old and during that time he never felt safe eating or sleeping.

K’nick and Sopeeahlie on a straw heap

It was my understanding that monks are not allowed to touch women, think of women in romantic manners, and certainly not date a woman. So I was especially surprised to find out that the father of one of my English Students is a monk. Granted, he became a monk after being married and having kids, but it still perplexed me a bit. When I asked my host mom, she said, “It’s up to your heart.” Unfortunately, he left his wife to be a single-mom with a 10-year-old girl and twin 6-year-old boys and a full-time job at the silk factory and a small thatched house about 10ft x 15ft, while he lives at a pagoda about 20km away.

My brother-in-law’s puppy had always been aggressive and territorial since the day he brought it home about 4 months ago, so I never feel too in love with this guy. One day it nipped at the leg of one of the girls next door. In response, my brother-in-law borrowed a pair of heavy-duty wire snips and clipped off the tips of the dogs four canine teeth. Luckily, I wasn’t home when it happened, it was painful just to think about. Although, about a month later, the dog quickly got ill, thin and lethargic within two days and passed away under the house.

A guilty pleasure to start the morning!

My friend and counterpart for my gardening project, Soken, invited me to go to one of the far villages with her to attend a funeral. We rode out about 45 minutes while she talked at me the whole time and I nodded pretending to understand what she was saying. I’m always baffled at how much Khmer I know, but in reality how little I know once we are off the familiar topics. Upon arrival at the ceremony, I sat on a tarp with the women and skinned and chopped vegetables in preparation for cooking up a humongous batch of stew. Soken took on the head chef duties and we got to eat a bowl before having to race our bikes back home in half the time to make it back for my English class. Besides the kids, she’s my best adult friend and I’m thankful for her friendship, hard work, and patience!

Peace Corps sent out two staff from the communications department in Washington DC to work on a promotional video for Peace Corps and Cambodia. I was lucky enough to get to hang out with Alex and Jesse for the day and shoot lots of pictures and video! We started out going to the pagoda where they conducted an hour-long interview in front of the ancient temple. Then we wondered out to the rice fields with Borah and K’nick and filmed some of my villagers load rice onto a rice tractor. They loaded up the tractor so heavy that it was stuck in the mud, so we put down the cameras, dug in our feet and all helped push the tractor for about 30 minutes until it was free.

Helping the stuck rice tractor

Mom cooked us up a wonderful meal for lunch and we cat napped under the house. In the afternoon, we went down to the middle school to turn the compost heap with the help of the middle school students. finally, we met my host mom out in my aunt’s rice field to get some shots of rice harvesting in the beautiful setting sunlight. Jesse broke out a little helicopter with an attached camera for some aerial footage. The villagers were great all day, allowing us to take all the pictures and video of whatever we wanted and going out of their way to help us out. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday, I can’t wait to see the final result in a month or two after editing!

Turning the school compost heap

Jesse getting up close to film the action

The chopper-cam!

The helicopter camera filming the rice harvesting!

Last year for rice storage, we filled up 100kg sacks and put them up into the house with us. This year, my mom purchased massive bamboo baskets, maybe 5 feet in diameter and height! To fill the gaps, my father mixed up a putty of cow manure, dirt, rice husks, and water and coated the sides of the baskets. We bought two and each one stores about one ton of rice. They are both filled to the brim. That should hold us for a few months!

Note the giant rice storage baskets in the background

The only other male staff at my Health Center informed me he will be retiring January 31st. He mentioned that he has been working at that Health Center for 26 years old, or since I was just 4 years of age. I asked him what he wanted to do in his retirement: farm rice year round!

Health Center doctor taking my bike for a test ride

A few days before Christmas, K’nick, Borah, and I biked down to the local town to Skype home to my American family’s christmas party. I love my family! Some 20 of them were all dressed up in christmas outfits and took out time from their night to spend time with us. It was cool to be able to introduce the cousins to them and vice versa, although the kids were a little shy of all the foreigners on the other end!

Christmas day was a little different from years past, but one I will not soon forget. Thanks to all my loving friends and family in America, I had a plethora of gifts to give out to all my host family and extended family and the villagers.

My host niece on Christmas

The cousins putting their legos together

Assembling christmas decorations

During my two English classes, I gave all the students plain white T-shirts and we snacked on candy while decorating the t-shirts with colored fabric markers. I put on christmas music, but my speaker battery died after just one song! It was a fun break from class and I love seeing the decorated shirts around the village when kids wear them.

Jum-run decorating his T-shirt

La raising the roof!!

Advanced English class

Beginner class decorating their shirts

Beginner English class

I jumped into an afternoon meeting on farming and the presenter gave me a handful of extra seeds they had, which I then passed onto my aunt and uncle to plant. After dinner, mom set up a charcoal grill in the yard and I instructed all the kids to bring bamboo skewers or small sticks. Thanks to my cousin Katherine in the states, we had all the supplies to make s’mores for about 40 people! The kids cooked their marshmallows over the charcoal, then my aunt and I distributed out the chocolate and graham crackers. Ohhhh boy, oh boy, were they finger licking good.

Roasting marshmallows for Christmas!

Assembling the s’mores with my host Aunt

Once we were all fueled up on chocolate and sugar we ran around the house playing two hours of games in the yard until 10pm: tag, a version of duck-duck-goose, a red rover type game, a spinning and balancing game, and whatever else they could think up from their days in the school yard. A chilly Christmas shower before bed, and I drifted off to sleep a happy and thankful man. A very merry Christmas indeed, one I will not soon forget!

Yard games

yard games

yard games

“It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.” -Babe Ruth

Another days walk, another day I was glad to have walked instead of biking. First I met some kids along the road side with a little kite they had made. It’s incredible how they make kites out of bamboo scraps and discarded plastic bags with a spool of thread. While I waited for one to get his kite up in the air, I noticed one of the kids standing off to the side just staring up at the sky. What is he staring off into space for? Upon closer inspection, he was holding a single strand of thread, and way up in the air, so far that I couldn’t even make it out, was a white dot…his homemade bamboo and plastic bag kite…maybe some 300 yards high…unbelievable.

Can you find the kites?

Some French doctors came to our health center for their pediatric check-ups every couple of months. This month, one of the women spoke great English and told me she went to High School for a year in the USA in New Jersey. She let me watch everything and even pointed out a traditional medicine practice I hadn’t yet seen. I’m not sure what ailment it is used to treat, but the parents use the hot end of an incense stick to burn about six dots on the children’s stomach. She informed me it’s actually been made illegal in Cambodia, but we observed three cases that morning.

Some kids that hung out with me in another village

I went and met the older sister of one of my English students. His sister teaches English at her house 7 days a week on top of her full time job. Upon my arrival I was asked to stand in front of the class and speak to the kids for the hour long class period. So, I improvised and asked them all the questions I could think of and got the standard answers in response. All the students actually had excellent language abilities and she is doing a great job at the school! Afterward the students asked me to stay and play games with them. First, we threw around a soccer ball, then sang the ABC’s, then I taught them “James Bond” (a game I learned from Cambodian students during our first two months of Peace Corps training!). We ended with a rousing game of monkey in the middle, and even the teacher joined us to play. The kids thanked me many times and said how much fun it was and they stayed after class for two hours…the feeling is mutual you crazy kids!

rice bails after harvest, left out to dry for a day

I gave the kids some modeling clay from one of the packages I received. Their initial reaction was to grab as much as they could and hoard it from each other, but with a little coaxing they slowly began to share and made some beautiful pieces!

Clay modeling

Bunya making a clay-man

Chit and his clay-mation

Clay creations

K’nick and some of the cousins had never been to the temple in the furthest away village. When we had a free weekend, we decided to strike out! Initially, mom wouldn’t let K’nick go because she was a girl. I put up a little fuss and said then none of us would go, because it was K’nick’s idea to go in the first place, we weren’t going to go without her! After a little debate, she was allowed to go and we set off with 5 of us on two bikes. The temples were cool and we ate some wild grapes which made the inside of your mouth super itchy for about an hour, but they were sweet tasting. On the ride home, Bun-ya was riding on the back of the bike and Ngaa was driving. Ngaa got a little speed and popped a wheelie over a huge pot hole…the front wheel cleared the hole fine, but the back wheel fell into the hole and slammed the far side! This abrupt motion launched little Bun-ya off the bike rack and he landed on his feet in a full sprint until his legs couldn’t keep up with his body and he face planted in a fit of laughter! No problem, no injury, no bike repairs, just good clean Cambodian fun!

Temple exploring

K’nick eating some wild grapes

During movie night, the kids love cheesy computer effects and suspense. They often ask me for movies of animals eating people, like Jaws for example. So, we watched the Lake Placid Trilogy, where enormous crocodiles eat people. They were all enjoyed, but one moment in particular is worth noting. The final scene of the final movie features a woman jogging down the road around the lake while a radio broadcast narrates that the lake is now crocodile free and ready for safe recreation, suddenly a huge crocodile jumps out and eats the woman to end the movie. Amidst screams, K’nick instantly got up and was in a full sprint to the top of the stairs. Ngaa did a 180 degree turn into a belly flop from a indian-style seated position and covered his head with both hands. It was the best movie reactions I’ve ever seen!

Monkey!

Starting off a week-long sore throat, I completely lost my voice for about two days. It was very difficult to be able to function and not be able to speak the language. Especially, as you go down the road and everyone wants to talk to the foreigner and ask what you’re up to, I felt so rude trying to answer but nothing coming out!

In preparations for a gardening project I started a compost heap at my house, and a large one at the middle school with the help of some 150 students! After reading in my compost book that hair is compostable, I went to the local hair cutter and he gave me two massive rice sacks of hair that he was just going to throw away anyhow…although I had to continue to explain what I was doing to the curious passer-byers. While I was digging through piles of hair picking out trash, one of my village health volunteers came by on his bicycle and invited me back to his house to check out his compost heap! What are the chances?!? So, the 74 year old grandfather and I biked 2km back to his house, my bike with 2 sacks of hair on the back, and his with a basket full of cow poop he got off the road, and a bundle to green plants he cut from the road side. Back at his house, we chopped up the plants and added them to his pile along with the fresh manure. He had build a nice structure to contain the heap and bikes out everyday to collect a few new additions. After about 2 months, he had a nice 2 ton heap working!

Village Health Volunteer working on his compost heap

The following day, with the help of the principle and the teachers, we had two hours of composting with 150+ students at the middle school. The kids went and collected green leaves and chopped them up with machetes. Other kids gathered up old brown leaves. Some kids made trips to the well with buckets to water the heap. And every kid brought 1kg of cow poop with them from their homes for addition to the pile. It was a wonderful dance orchestrated by the principle and we built up a few layers. We came back a week later and added a few more layers to make it sufficiently high. The principle told us a story of when she was a little girl during the Khmer Rouge period, she was sent out all day to cut down green leaves and chop them up to make compost to fuel the massive rice farming production at the time. After a few weeks, the soldiers told her to taste the compost, full of decomposed leaves and cow manure, to see if it was finished yet. It turned out that they were just joking, but she remembered being very nervous. Back home, my host mother told me that she also spent many days building compost heaps as a child under instruction from the Khmer Rouge.

Middle school principle chopping some greens for our compost heap

composting

Soken, my village health volunteer checking on the compost heap

The heap all assembled

It’s been cold! It’s winter here! Still shorts and short sleeves during the day, but I’ve been sleeping in long pants, long sleeves, socks and two blankets most nights. Every night when I pour buckets of chilly water over my naked body, I have to psyche my self up like I was about to go for a polar bear plunge!

Aunt Janet and Uncle Steve visited me! I met them at their hotel and we walked around Siem Reap for a little bit checking out the market and Aunt Janet got a fish message. Great, great, delicious food was had by all! They brought me two fully packed suit cases full of toys and snacks for my host family and host community…they are going to be so spoiled!

Suitcase full of Christmas gifts!

Suitcase full of snacks and games!

The following day, my host uncle, Hooah, met us with his tuk-tuk to take us to the temples…to my delight, my cousin (and English student), Chen, was also in the tuk-tuk. She got to practice her English all day with the three of us and also enjoy a fun day out and about with her father! We checked out Ankor Wat, Bayon, and Ta Prom temples in the morning, then grabbed some Khmer food for lunch.

Uncle Steve and Chen

Aunt Janet and Uncle Steve climbing Ankor Wat

In the afternoon, we tuk-tuked down to a floating village along the massive Tonle Sap Lake. It was the first time for all of us out there, we got to see the house boats, the floating market, the floating school, and a restaurant that raised crocodiles and even claimed that the oldest one was 75 years old!

Boat ride to the floating village

Uncle Hooah, Chen, and Uncle Steve checking out the crocodiles

Floating School

“Door-to-door” good saleswoman

On the last day of their visit, they came out to visit my village! We walked around meeting folks in the village, went to the Health Center, and stopped over Uncle Hooah’s house. Uncle Hooah, Aunt Ya, and the two kids quickly set up a table and chairs when they saw us coming from a distance, Uncle Hooah climbed up a palm tree to break off three fresh coconuts, and them chopped open some sugar palm nuts to munch on…I’m so lucky to be able to call them family. We hung out for a bit, then headed back to my house where host mom had cooked up an incredible meal of Khmer Noodles, bread rounds, and mouth-watering Khmer curry. As it got closer to night, Uncle Hooah and I escorted them to the airport and said out goodbyes before they continued on to Thailand. A wonderful visit from Aunt Janet and Uncle Steve, thanks again for coming out. My favorite part was sitting at meals with them, hearing Uncle Steve’s jokes, hearing the stories about how they met, and seeing how crazy they still are about each other!

Appetizers at Uncle Hooah’s house

Dinner at my house

The kids and I played twister! We continued to get all twisted up, then collapse in a pile of bodies and laughter!

I had a dream that K6 Meghan Henshall and I were working in a Khmer restaurant after Peace Corps. I was nervous about taking the orders in Khmer, but when a group of 4 American women came in, I went to go take their orders in English! After 30 minutes I couldn’t even fill their drink orders. When no one was looking, I took off my apron, went out the back door and ran away through the fields! FREEDOM! Not sure what it means, but it was interesting!

The puppy that is the love of my life!

I haven’t been down to visit my training host family since January, and they were having a wedding, so what better time to visit?!? I biked one hour to Siem Reap, then took a bus from 6 hours to Phnom Penh, then got a two-hour taxi ride to Takeo Province. It was so great to see the training host family, it was like I never left! The volunteer currently living there, Stacey, is doing an incredible job and our host sister, Pidor (pronounced be-dowl), speaks unbelievable English, we could have full conversations about nearly anything and she could spit it back just as fast. Even the host parents were throwing around random English words at times! My favorite part was finally having enough Khmer language skill to have real conversations with the family and let them know how much we truly appreciate them and everything they do for us.

Training host family

Former Peace Corps teacher and I

Training host mom (in blue)

I finally did it! I captured the prize winning smile from my training host sister!

We got up around 5:30am to get ready for the wedding and head over to the house for the grooms procession. The long line of fancy clothing and offerings stretched long down the road and we walked fruits, vegetables, caned drinks, pig legs, and a number of other things up to the house to kick off the wedding celebrations. The groom and bride were beautiful and changed their outfits at least 5 times.

preparing trays for the grooms fruit procession in the morning

Finished fruit trays for the groom’s procession

Groom’s procession

Ham shank!

Groom leading the charge

The groom

Thanks to Stacey’s internet stick, I was able to briefly Skype home to the family for Thanksgiving and drool over Nanny’s cooking, I could practically smell it though the screen! We hung out through the day, popping in and out of ceremony and the women got their make-up, hair, and nails done. In the evening, about 1,000 guests were expected! Some of the local students, the other foreign visitors, and I were invited to help with the drink service during dinner. This means that we ate first, then as guests arrived, we walked around with boxes of drinks, and as people flagged us down we would resupply them with beers, soda, or fruit juices. It was a good way to meet people and they got a kick out of us foreigners helping out. At night, a fruit table was set up for dancing around and we got to work boogeying down…we even got to dance with some of our old Peace Corps Khmer teachers! At the end of the night, the uncle of the bride got up on the stage and sang a few songs for the happy couple…in time, some of the remaining dancers got up on stage with him and we finished out the night in the spotlight!

My training host sister getting her toenails done, and training host mom (in yellow)

The bride-to-be getting her hair and make up done

Tome, Stacy, Pidor, Me, Mom

The bride getting funky! (in blue and white)

The bride’s uncle singing songs with Stacy and Paul back-up-dancing

The day following the wedding, Stacey and I got up before sunlight to catch a two hour taxi into Phnom Penh. Then we said our good byes and I continued another five hours on a bus to Posat Province. I was meeting a few other volunteers at a small family of American’s house who were gracious to host us for Thanksgiving dinner! Everyone chipped in on the food preparations and got to hang out and reconnect with each other during the hard holidays away from our American families. Sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans, carrots, stuffing, turkey, gravy, and Fa cooked up some sensational fried appetizers. Oh yeah, and the one thing I had fantasized about for Thanksgiving…homemade pumpking pie…along with pecan pie and apple pie and whipped cream! Lucky indeed, the food was so good, it was heartbreaking when I couldn’t jam any more of the delicious food into my face. After some rolling on the ground and rubbing our bellies, we even threw around an American Football which Abby had brought from the states!

Abby and Brett prepping Thanksgiving food

Glynn prepping Thanksgiving food

Fa making Thanksgiving appetizers

I literally dreamed about homemade pumpkin pie leading up to the holidays

These pie’s were also really good!

The Thanksgiving spread, it was every bit as incredible as it looks!

Before eating

During eating

after eating

football!

At night, we hung out on the hotel rooftop trading stories, then caught a tuk-tuk over to a small carnival and concert in town. After riding some rides, the convert was over, but there was a small beer promotional event going on at the stage. Before we knew it, Kelly had gotten up onto the stage and was participating in the dancing and singing competition! She won the dance off, but without any Khmer songs in mind, she resorted to “American the Beautiful” for the sing-off…crushed it and over-all came in second place out of five participants! At night we went to karaoke and sang our faces off in a private room where we could make fools out of ourselves long into the wee hours of the night!

Kelly on stage during the dance off

Peace Corps Thanksgiving: Hotel room dance party

Kareoke

Aunt Janet and Uncle Steve gave us this radical super hero holographic puzzle. They probably assembled it and took it apart 10 times in the first day alone! They recognized many of the super heroes from the movies we have watched at night. Neat!

How puzzling!

During one of the final rains of the wet season, there was a little commotion at the front of out house and people were looking around on the ground. My sister ran over and told me to catch fish! Not really understanding the situation, I ran up to the road to see about 20 small fish just walking around on their fins along the side of the road. During the hard rain they were walking out of my grandmothers pond next door!

My host brother had slowly been saving up money with me over the last 2 months, he was up to $27! Then he bet $25 on a volleyball game and lost. He had to come home and explain to host mom and I the situation and said he needed all the money back. With mom’s permission I gave it to him…she was angry.

In Siem Reap, I met up with my PCV friend Jeff and we went to hang out at his Khmer girlfriend’s house for lunch. She was a great host and we had raw shrimp for lunch. We didn’t believe it until they actually began peeling and eating them raw, so I tried a couple. Never got sick, but it wasn’t good enough to try again probably. From there we met with Jeff’s friend, Mandy, who was visiting from the states and we all went to the Ankor Barey to hang out and go for a swim. In the evening to an all-you-can-eat Khmer BBQ restaurant where you cook your own meat on small charcoal grills on the table. Lastly, I met up briefly with a RPCV who had served in China and is now working in Phnom Penh. It was very interesting to share our very different stories about our experiences and also to hear how very similar they were in some ways. Meeting other Peace Corps Volunteers is an instant bond, and I look forward to being able to share that common ground with other RPCV’s for the rest of my life!

Mandy, Teary, and Jeff hanging out at the Ankor Barey

Another rice harvest, another evening session of rice threshing! This year the total was less than last year, but it’s fun throwing around rice bundles with the family and neighbors and laughing at the kids and puppies playing in the shower of rice straw!

Our rice hanging out to dry on the fence

Thresh Fest 2014!!!