On a free weekend I rode out to Battambang city for the last time to visit with some other PCVs and check out an open mic night. Firstly though, Jeff and I nerded out in the hotel room for finish Game of Thrones season five and sipped on some sarsaparilla soda in the air conditioning! The open mic night was a huge success with music, poetry reading, singing and lots of passion and inspiration.
VHV, Chat, weaving a rice mat.
Some of the cousins and I went for a quick bike ride to Uncle Hooah’s house and discovered he was building a bathroom at his house. His friends, other tuk-tuk drivers, were all over helping build the brick walls. We spectated for a few minutes before they invited me to help out and try my hand at some masonry! It went pretty well and didn’t take long to get in a rhythm. They invited me back that night for dinner at their house where Aunt Ya and Uncle Hooah made food for everyone as thanks. I had a discussion with the man next to me about the tradition of giving money for weddings and ceremonies and how expensive it can me. He mentioned that he makes an above average salary as a tuk-tuk driver of around $300 per month, but that month alone had gone to over 20 ceremonies and pays an average of $10 to each one, coming out to over $200.
Host cousin, Rong, bought a parakeet for $1.25!
I was invited to a wedding celebration and walked over with the kids just after dusk. Some of the teenagers convinced me to get out on the dance floor even though it was only about 10 of us. They slowly trickled away until it was just me and three intoxicated men jamming out in front of a crowd. It was a little awkward, but how many times do you get a chance like that in life? When I got home, mom told me told me that my little 4 year old host cousin, Ga’bow, snuck out of grandmom’s house at 9:00 PM, in the dark, by herself, after everyone else was asleep. Mom caught her on the path out to the main road and asked what in the world she was doing…”I’m going to watch Uncle Joel dance.”
Dance party in the road
Ga’bow
I still eat alone most of the time, but it’s become normal. Sometimes I get to eat with the family or someone random and I appreciate those moments. One day, during lunch, I was sitting down to my food alone, and mom, sister, and dad all sat down at a different table to eat. Mom suggested that the three of them go sit with me, then they all came over and we ate together. It was everything I ever hoped for!
Ghan, Date, Ga’bow
My best friend in the village, Soken, recently got a new job with a local NGO working for human rights. She asked me to start teaching her English and how to use a computer so that she could progress in her job field. So for my last month at site, every Saturday and Sunday, I’d take my computer and inverter (for converting power from a car batter to my computer) over to her house for a few hours. The first week I was literally showing where the power button was and how to open a word processor. By the end of that month, she was typing and translating paragraphs about human rights…I’ve never seen someone work so hard and retain so much, she’s Wonder Woman!
Chen in a wedding procession
I was watching some men play volleyball. They were pretty skilled and it was a great game. I was sitting with some villagers on a bench along the sideline. When I wasn’t paying attention, one of the man slammed a spike and it rocked me in the chest. There was much laughing and they kept asking to see the red spot on my skin under my shirt.
Sometimes after the rain lots of little flying bugs come out, which they call ‘may-pleeing’. Sometimes just a few, other times there would be swarms flying around. During movie night these bugs would land on the screen and on my keyboard and I would simply flick them off. One night however, two of them got into the hinge of the laptop and I didn’t know it. When we packed things up for the night, they got crushed in there and I put the computer away in my metal trunk with all my clothes. The next morning I opened my trunk and discovered an ant colony in my clothes and laptop who were feasting on the carcasses of the two ‘may-pleeings’!
A woman in the village was having a ceremony for her new baby. I walked to her house around 3:00 expecting the usual process where I would eat some rice porridge, give some money, say my thanks, then come home. But there was no one there eating…all the tables were empty! So I did what people do when they are too busy…took my food to go! I gave the customary $10 for the ceremony and in return I was given half a raw chicken, five cans of soft drinks, three cucumbers and an onion!
My host brother has been dating a girl from the next village over for a few months. The moms finally got together do discuss wedding arrangements! In Cambodian culture, it is the responsibility of the groom’s family to provide a dowry to the bride’s family. For this wedding I think it was negotiated that my family would give them $1100 and 100 kilograms of rice. After the decision was final mom sold the younger of our two cows for $950 to help pay the dowry.
I biked into Siem Reap for July 4th weekend to spend it celebrating with other volunteers. My American parents sent me a package…I cracked it open and immediately ate the sweedish fish, pringles, cashews, and everything else in one sitting! The next morning, Josie, Emma, Evalynn, Weston, Jeff, Gianni, Anna, and I went to watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat and they walked around Ta Prom temple one last time. Ate night we all hung out in a hotel room and played goofy games, talking, laughing, and soaking up the great camaraderie on this great holiday. On my last morning in town I donated all my books to a local book store and printed out 600+ pictures for gifts to people in my village. I took my time cycling back to site that day, taking it all in, knowing that this maybe the last time I ever bike these streets. When I arrived at my house, I laid my eyes on a miracle…K’nick, Ngaa, Law, and Aunt Lee had come home from working in Thailand…I would get to say goodbye to them after all! Unfortunately, they had come home because the person they were working for never paid them for the month of work they had done, so they left, but they said they were homesick anyhow.
The commune government donated some lumber, corrugated metal roofing sheets, and half a sack of rice to Aunt Leeden to help her get back on her feet and raise her four children after her husband passed away. They framed the house and put the roof up, but didn’t have the funding for walls. She moved in anyhow and did her best to get things set up in the mean time.
The frame of Aunt Leden’s house
One of my favorite village health volunteers, Grandmother Saw, snuck up behind me at the health center and gave me a bear hug for a long time. When I turned around she had tears in her eyes. She said, “If I was a younger woman I might hang myself when you leave because I love you like my children.” It sounds a little morbid, but I took it as affection.
In Cambodia we often played rock-paper-scissor to settle something. One day I was talk a Cambodian version of the game called ghost-woman-monk! A woman is afraid of a ghost…a ghost is afraid of a monk (because they sometime do exorcism type things)…and a monk is afraid of a woman (because in Cambodian culture monks cannot touch women). I taught it to my English classes afterward and everyone loves the cultural references!
Our health center had a five day training event for our village health volunteers to implement a new program about monitoring growth of children under two years of age. After teaching the process with a baby doll, one of the teachers wanted to do some real life examples for practice. I was sent into the village to gather up children! That’s when I realized my level of integration in my village. I knew just which houses and women had children under two years of age, and I was able to walk right into their houses and ask them to stop what they were doing and take their infants to the health center to be weighed…and they were happy to do it! Now that’s a compliment!
Feeding demonstration
My host sister was eating dinner with me one evening, just the two of us. She was telling me the story of when she used to work at a recycling center in Thailand with my parents when she was younger. They pulled the old labels off bottles and cans. She reminisced about terrifying car rides where everyone was sitting on top of each other, the car was driving very and sometimes got stopped by police for hours and they would have to pay them off because they didn’t have the proper documentation to be there. Their room was very small and at night she would get very scared when animals came around. What an incredibly strong young woman.
My sister, Pee, in a wedding procession
After a big rain storm mom slipped in the mud and had a muddy, brown butt afterward. I saw it happen and we both laughed. A little later, I was walking to the bathroom for a shower and slipped in the mud and had a muddy brown butt. Mom saw it and we both laughed!
Aunt Lewin and Uncle Bin are building a bathroom!
Little Tee was playing in the yard and Sopeeahlie was also walking around. Tee had a large green vegetable that we called “La’nong”, like a cucumber, but a little thicker and longer. Tee was pretending to hit Sopeeahlie over the head with the vegetable but stopping before striking her. The last time he did this, when his hand abruptly stopped, the vegetable broke in half and the free end smacked Sopeeahlie in the face and high speed from point blank! He didn’t mean to do it, but they chewed him out pretty good after that one!
K’nick, K’neat, my sister (Pee) and Sopeeahlie all met me at the market to help me pick out gifts for my American family. It was wonderful to walk around the market as a family with the females lending me their tasteful eye for quality products.
K’nick and Sopeeahlie
When teaching Soken English and how to use a computer, we took a snack break. In a bowl we mixed together cucumber slices, unripe banana slices with the peel still on, chili peppers, salt, sugar, fermented fish paste and super sour berries…crush them all together with a mortar and pestle…eat and enjoy! I’d say it’s an acquired taste!
Two of my favorite, adorable students invited me to a ceremony in TaSnae Village. I biked over and could hear the music blasting from far down the road. As I got closer, both of the girls came sprinting out of the ceremony, in their beautiful outfits and met me on the dirt road with teethy grins. They showed me where to put my bike, then walked me to a seat and brought me rice porridge and silverware. When it was time to leave, one of my other students, Teep, told me to wait for her and we could ride home together. Those girls mean the world to me, how did I ever get so lucky!
Ngang, Dup, me, Deeup
Teep
For the fifth and final time, the kids and I planned out a day to ride into Siem Reap for a play day! These have always been fun in the past and we get good turn-outs. I told my students and word traveled around the village kids, as usual. I called Uncle Hooah and asked him to call his friends and get some tuk-tuks for us. Previously, we had taken two tuk-tuks into town, but after kids began to commit, my numbers were in the high twenties, so I called him back the next day and asked him to round up a third tuk-tuk! On the big day, the kids began arriving at my house…10…20…30…40…we topped out at 46 kids, plus myself! I was blown away, both by flattery, and by how I was going to chaperon all these kids by myself! Uncle Hooah made some last minute calls and pulled some strings and we had a total of five tuk-tuks there in no time flat! Packed to the brim, we all caravaned into Siem Reap.
First stop was Lucky mall to play some games, look at appliances and cooks, ride the escalators, and freeze in the air conditioning!
Second stop was rollerblading where there were still lots of falls, but some of the kids who had gone four or five times now were whipping around the rink like professionals!
Third stop was Angkor Trade Center for their arcade games. Fourth stop was the road 60 carnival where we played on trampolines, ate carnival food (noodles), played carnival games, and people watched.
I gave out glow bracelets out too all the kids and it was easy to round everyone up at the end! I bumped into my old Khmer tutor, Ratha, for a moment and it was wonderful to catch up. We quietly rolled back to the village under a star filled sky, and I once again was very thankful for how incredibly responsible these children were and all stuck together, no one got hurt, no one got lost, and they make adventures like that possible! Mom was still awake when we pulled up around 9 PM and she made me some leftovers from the night’s dinner.
Another incredible experience, and one particular story needs mentioning…this is an excerpt from my journal: “Now I want to tell you about my student, ‘Jet’. She is shy and usually sits in the back of the class by herself, but near the other girls. She is maybe 14 years old. I’ve never been to her house, but I get the hunch that her family is not so well off. In her life, she has only been to Siem Reap twice, once previously with me, and today was the second time. This was her first time at Lucky Mall and riding an escalator, she giggled nervously, but always with a huge grin on her face. At rollerskating she stood alone outside the door and watched. I couldn’t convince her to give it a try, but at least she came in and sat with the girls. At Angkor Trade Center I recruited her to shoot basketballs with me…”But I don’t know how. I’ve never done it before.” I stuck a ball into her hands…swish! She tried to back away, but I gave her another ball…swish! Between each shot she would move to a different place, but I’d hunt her down and force a ball into her hands. During the next round, one of the out-going boys was playing and I convinced Jet to help take some shots. He told her to stop, that he wanted to shoot alone, but I insisted that two players was more fun. I expected her to slunk away after that, but she stayed up there and fended for herself…I was beaming from watching her! At road 60 she would not trampoline with us, even though I was paying. She sat on a chair holding our stuff and watched. I tried and tried, but couldn’t talk her into giving it a shot. As we neared the end of the night, she spoke up and said she wanted to watch the balloon popping dart game. I bought six darts for $1.25 and gave them to the six students with us. Everyone accepted their dart except for Jet. I had to follow her around with it, saying that this was her idea and she must throw one. At last I got it into her hands. Everyone threw except for her…she just held it saying she didn’t know how and that she had never done it before. After much persuasion, she stepped up…left leg forward…right arm back…her arm moved…the dart was out…she followed through…POP!!! It was perfect, what a positive motivator and confidence builder for her only throw to land successfully. The look in her eyes and in her face right then could have made these whole two years worth it. She picked out her prize: a one pound bag of jelly candies to take home and share with her family. I couldn’t take my eyes off her on the ride home. She was sound asleep in the dark hum of the tuk-tuk with two of the smaller students asleep on both of her shoulders. Sometimes the smallest moments can have the biggest impacts, and I think today’s moments affected both of us.”
Joely the Goalie 