Rain rain, go away, come again another day…

First week on the road baby! I’m reporting to you from Wallingford, CT with the help of my friend Nick. I’ve been absolutely spoiled all week by friends and family who have given me hot showers, delicious food, and a warm, dry place to sleep on several nights, but let’s go back to the morning when things kicked off!

Some of you might have been wondering what I’m packing, here is a quick peek at my supplies and bicycle set up. I have all the camping essentials: sleeping bag, sleeping pad, tent, food, water, clothes. Plus some bicycle specific tools and safety gear, a water purifier, a book and journal, and a small backpack. Shout out to Chris Miller for hooking me up with his old iPhone, I don’t have phone service on it, but it’s been crucial for emailing home and keeping in touch with contacts along the way.

I woke up and Mom was already cooking up pancakes, bacon, and sausage as some loving friends and family arrived to send me out. I did some final packing, dressed and redressed for the cool, 60 degree, overcast weather, and made some mechanical adjustments to the bicycle. Dad kept sneaking cookies into my packs, that’s not such a bad thing in life!

I climbed on the bike and rode out of the driveway right around 10:00am. My mother, Barb, and my sister, Chelsea, rode out with us for the first half mile to the stop sign at the end of the street before saying goodbye. My brother, Brendan, and friend, Scott, rode about five miles out before having to peel off. And my father, Jeff, stuck with me for at least 12 miles before we had to part ways!

I loved have everyone ride out with me, but was also excited to get underway by myself and get some of those first solo miles under my belt. I had a few of those “OMG, WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!” thoughts, but mostly I was singing, talking to myself, and making jokes about road names, spirits remained high. I descended a steep hill that turned into gravel halfway and caught me off guard, but I kept the bike under control. I crossed the mighty Susquehanna river over Route 372, and eventually wandered through downtown Lancaster.

I pulled up to Aunt Beth’s house around 3:00pm, got a shower and relaxed. Mom and Dad drove up for a bit and we feasted on Italian food and scrumptious gelato before having to say final goodbyes. I slept like a log.

The second day, Aunt Beth cooked up a mean batch of scrambled eggs with toast and fruit for breakfast, what a great way to start any day! I walked on the front porch and could see my breath in the cold air and rain splattered all around…glad I packed those rain pants after all!

I kept warm and dry through the drizzle and kept on my route successfully, even touching a few bike paths near the Schuylkill River, which was great to be away from my biggest concern…cars. Beautiful sights and sounds of farm country as I closed in on the house of Gena and Joey, a loving couple with a HUGE dog, appropriately named Moose! They drove me out to see the famous Trexlertown Velodrome before we feasted on bar food. I even got to watch the newest episode of Game of Thrones with them! I woke up in the middle of the night feeling very parched and chugged two bottles of water back to back.

Gena and Joey put out a wonderful breakfast spread in the morning…what? I told you I was spoiled! Hit the road around 9am, another cold and misty day in the rain suit, and set up my red blinking light on the back of my bike to increase visibility. A few nice climbs on the way East to Doylestown. A few nice bike paths and one path even took me on an old retired military base where John Glen and the first astronauts trained in a massive centrifuge! I stopped under an awning of a firehouse for lunch to get out of the rain, I heard a loud buzz come from inside, and within five minutes a few cars had pulled up, the firefighters sprinted inside, and they were off on the engine within seconds, the reaction time was incredible.

My destination was Dan’s house, a great college friend. I arrived a few house before he got home from work, so I took advantage of the dry afternoon to eat, read, nap and relax on his back porch until he came home. We played with his dog before he and his wife cooked up a sensational dinner of burgers on the grill, sweet potato fries, coleslaw, and all the fixin’s!

Thunderstorms rolled through the night, but the weather was back to it’s cold mist when I departed in the morning. Had to stop and ask for directions a few times on my way to Hazlet, NJ. People were very accommodating and friendly to help a lost traveler in the rain get back on track. Going through downtown Trenton wasn’t half bad for the reputation that the city gets. My butt was so sore when I arrived at TJ’s house after seven hours on the bike seat, I was happy to see a friendly face and get a warm shower. TJ and Michelle’s children were an absolute pleasure to meet for the first time and to play with. They treated me to hamburgers, hotdogs, sweet potatoes, and asparagus on the grill….I’m really roughing it! I spent a fair amount of time on the computer planning my route for the next few days, I’m very grateful for my friends going out of their way to aid me in every way possible on this journey, I can’t thank them enough.

I woke up early to see TJ’s family before they all left for school and work, but they let me hang out in the house until a bit later when I was ready to set off to another cold and misty day. I got my first flat tire about 30 minutes out crossing a bridge, I could hear the tinkle of glass and metal under my tires and an immediate sigh of the rear wheel deflating. A restaurant parking lot was the perfect place to break down the bike and patch the tube, then a small deli had no problem with me using their employee bathroom to wash all the grease off my hands.

Off the subject, it’s been difficult to find places to pee, there are always people, houses and cars around…I didn’t anticipate having to hold my bladder for so long! Nice view from the top of the huge Victory bridge and a fun descent down the other side. It was my first night camping, and I found it slightly challenging finding a good place to stealth camp away from the road because of the population density, and also because of the high water level from all the rain causing many wooded areas to be swampy. Eventually, I scouted a nice place to plop down for the night and was glad to get my first night in the tent, there is something so beautifully simple about sleeping in a tent.

I broke camp around 9:30am, took a nice bike path through Rochelle park, then crossed the bike patch on the massive George Washington bridge into Manhattan, NY!

Going across the island wasn’t too bad, but my rear tire did go squishy when I took a wrong turn. Luckily, it was a slow leak, so I was able to just pump up the wheel and keep on riding without having to break down the bike in the middle NYC. I had to pump the wheel two or three times through the day and never felt confident on it taking turns, but it got me through the day. I got a little lost on a bike patch and ended up trapped inside of a fenced in golf course before eventually finding a hole in the fence big enough to squeeze the bike through. I got pooped on by a bird today…TWICE! I couldn’t believe the luck, once for each arm! My intended camping spot didn’t pan out, so I had to ride on a bit further and wasn’t able to find a suitable location until nearly 7pm, luckily it was still plenty light out, but my hiney was sore after such a long day. Emotionally, I remain somewhat neutral, I don’t get to let my mind wander as much as I would like because I must remain engrossed by the directions.

Leaving camp in the morning, it was raining steadily and I had to talk myself through getting out of my warm sleeping bag, back into my wet clothes and to pack up the gear. I also had to change out that squishy rear tire in the morning, but I found a nice tree to hang the bike up like a stand and took the time to turn up my shifters while I was at it.

The rain stopped an started several times through the day, but I’m getting pretty good at dealing with the weather at this point. A little bit of a windy day, slow and steady wins the race. I got my first view of the Atlantic ocean this day!

I arrived in New Haven, CT around 3:15, to the house of my college friend, Brian. He wasn’t home yet, but the homeowners were extremely friendly, showed me in and offered me a shower. It was comical though, the water was so scalding hot that I couldn’t even but my body under it, I had to gently splash it onto my body and use a wash cloth like a sponge bath, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers, and I have nothing to complain about! Brian got home from work shortly after, we drove to run an errand or two, then went into town for a beer and the biggest pizza I have ever seen…one for each of us! We nearly finished, and I think we could have, but we would have been quite uncomfortable! We caught up through the night and slept like a dog.

Brian and I scarfed some food at a local diner in the morning, then he helped me out with some directions for the next few days and he even helped me devise a new system for putting my paper directions on my handle bars with an old CD case, hopefully it works out over the next few days! The ride up to Wallingford, CT was only about 1.5 hours, so I got the legs warmed up, but giving the butt a rest from the saddle for most of the day. Because I don’t have a cell phone, Nick waited outside for me for 30 minutes so he could let me into his apartment building, what a guy! We went out to lunch for Thai food, he gave me a guided car tour around town, and I got to hear about all of the neat travels and lifestyle he has lived over the years since we last got together.

Sorry for the ramble, but I had a chance to get out some thoughts behind a computer. Thanks for following along, let me know what you’re interested in hearing more about, I’m happy to write about whatever interests you on the trip! Thanks for all the love and support!

Ride out with me!

It’s official, the bike tour begins on Saturday, April 30th at 10:00am from my parents house. I’d like to extend the invitation for anyone interested to come out that morning and join me for the start of the journey! The first day will be a slowly paced 50ish miles to my aunt’s house near Lancaster, PA. Join for as long or as short as you desire, then simply turn around whenever you’ve had your fill. All speeds and bicycle types are welcomed for the first few miles, so don’t worry about falling behind. Helmets required!

Even if you’re not interested in riding, I’d love to see you in the morning and have you blow kisses as we depart! See you then!!!

Chris and I…not my actual trailer for the bike tour!

Gearing up!

In about one more month, I will be setting off on my bicycle to ride around the country. There’s only one wrench still in the spokes…I haven’t planned my route yet. “Why?” you might ask…because I’m waiting to hear from YOU!!! That’s right, this trip provides me with a unique opportunity to visit my friends and family all around our beautiful country, all you have to do is send me an email at joelford7@gmail.com and let me know that you’re interested. Once I hear from you, I’ll pin you on my map and plan my route accordingly to visit!

Don’t be shy, I’d love to see your beautiful face, all friends old and new, even if you’re just following the blog and we’ve never met! I hope to keep the blog up to date as the trip unfolds, so please follow along, all the love and support is always welcome!

“Stop and unplug,” say I; “look around you, at the vastness and greatness of the natural world.” ― Fennel Hudson

It’s been a long time since my last blog post and I’ve been meaning to type something up about my visit to Iceland on the way home from Cambodia. Most of the following is taken from my journal over those days. Enjoy!

Reykjavik, Iceland…the Northernmost capital city in the world. I arrived at the airport at 3:00pm local time. When I originally made plans for my stop over in Iceland, I verified on their web-page that the airport had long-term storage for extra baggage. After asking at an information desk, I discovered that the airport did not in fact have storage, but they thought there was a car rental service ½ kilometer away that had a storage option. I shouldered my three bags for the walk, totaling about 80 pounds of luggage and lugged them to the car rental, who did indeed have storage for the week at a very reasonable price of $5 per day. A 45 minute bus ride from the airport put me into the city center, a clean, beautiful city which was a lot colder than I was used to in Cambodia. I set off on foot around the small city running errands…rented a rain jacket, booked my bus tickets, bought food for the week, picked up my rental camping equipment and carried it all out to the city campsite on the outskirts of town where hundreds of tents were set up in two fields. I fumbled through setting up my new tent for the first time, ate some of the food I had purchased and sorted the rest into small bags for packing. The air was crisp and cool, probably in the 50’s as I climbed into my sleeping bag at 9:00pm…still daylight out!

I woke up and it was light out…I checked my watch…10:30…oh no, my bus ticket was for 8:00am! My mind raced until I looked outside and saw no one else had left either…I checked my watch again…it was 10:30pm and still light out! It eventually got dark for about four hours, although I didn’t get much sleep with all that had changed in the past 48 hours, then got up early to walk 45 minutes to the bus station. The bus ride would be about four hours in total. It only took a few minutes to leave the city limits and enter into a landscape of distant tabletop mountains, ancient lava fields covered in small grasses and areas where steam fled from the ground with geothermal activity.

After two hours the bus turned off the one-lane “highway” and onto a dirt road similar to Cambodia, except the ground was black with ash and dried magma. It was unbelievable that this behemoth passenger bus bumbled over this terrain, rocks, bumps, over mountains, descending steep switchbacks, fording small rivers, etc. The scenery was jaw dropping, big sweeping black hillsides covered in thin layers of neon green grasses and moss and even tiny wildflowers. The slopes looked like running mascara the way they alternated green and black to the paths of rain runoff, it was as if their creator used a wide paintbrush with long continuous strokes, integrating the peaks, slopes, valleys, and plains.

As we climbed deeper I had a gut feeling of nervousness, or anxiety, or worry…it had been drizzling all day and it was cold out…I was concerned about my preparations: my clothing, my physical fitness, my lack of knowledge of the trail, etc. Finally, around noon the bus pulled up to a small city of tents and a small wooden building or two. Not knowing what else I could do, I put on my rain jacket and pants, threw some socks on my hands as gloves, shouldered my pack and got to work!

The views were instantly rewarding, massive swaths of ridges, snow fields, lava formations and expansive green plains…but keeping my rain hood on limited my field of vision and it was difficult to access my camera in the rain, still, my spirits were high. As the day progressed and I climbed higher and higher into the wild, the temperatures dropped, the winds blew so hard I had to walk at an angle leaning into the wind, and I was concerned about being blown down the steep slopes at my sides by powerful gusts. Soon the sporadic snowfields became the norm and the drizzle was always there to add to the challenge. My spirits remained high and other hikers returned my smiles despite the many languages present.

Still I climbed. A thick white fog accompanied the elevation and soon I couldn’t distinguish the horizon from the white snow I was walking on and the white sky above it. I was warm most of the morning thanks to the uphill climbs and the 30ish pound bag on my back. Still higher the trail climbed, always exposed to the string winds and rain and cold. The snow became so thick that I could no longer find the trail markers at times and had to blindly follow others foot prints across the snow fields. At one point I was in the middle of a snowfield with thick fog in all directions. I stopped and looked around in 360 degrees…all I could see was white, nothing else, only the seamless snow and fog surrounding me. Luckily, I caught up to a couple at that point so I felt a little more confident should there be any problems. It didn’t take long to discover that the “rain pants” I rented were only a thin wind shell and soon my shoes, socks, and pants underneath were completely wet. I had been out for over three hours and had only drank a smidge of water and had eaten nothing since breakfast nine hours earlier. I couldn’t stop up here, no stopping to eat, or to change clothes, or check a map, stopping felt dangerous once the hard work of hiking was no longer heating the body’s core temperature from the inside. I was very wet, I was hungry, I was sleepy, and I was now getting concerned about my well being. But I could still force a smile or a happy thought to pull me though.

When I was pushing my limits, I then saw a beautiful thing…a tiny cabin in the middle of a snowfield! I stumbled and slipped through the distance, dreaming of hot chocolate, a warm, dry sleeping bag and shelter form the cold, wind and rain.

I opened the door and it was so full of wet, cold, tired people that I literally could not fit through the door…POOF…my dreams were gone. I took off my pack and forced my way in to hear the woman in charge of the cabin telling everyone that they were at capacity and we had to go because it was too crowded and the registered guests were arriving. I briefly entertained the idea of pitching my tent on the snow outside, but after looking there were no good sites and the winds were too strong. I quickly tended to my primal needs, I changed into dryish clothes, adding two layers to my chest and forced myself to eat and drink despite my lack of appetite. I looked at an elevation chart on the wall…I was currently at the highest point on the trail and had hiked 11 kilometers today…the next hut where I could camp was 1,500 feet lower, but an additional 12 kilometers away. It was awful trying to convince my body that we had to go back out in these conditions and it shivered uncontrollably and struggled to agree. And so, at 4:00pm, I plunged into the whiteness with quick feet and a driving madness, I kept a positive mind, but let being pissed off at the situation fuel my steps across the abyss. Snow, wind, rain, whiteness. I could not longer enjoy the views, only the rhythmic plodding of my feet and trekking poles seen through the hood of my rain jacket. I navigated snowfield after snowfield, being careful to stay on the right path, keeping far from the edges and crevasses so the wind couldn’t sneak me over the side.

It wasn’t long before the dry pants I had put on were soaked, but it made the several stream crossings easy to go straight through when your already wet! I followed a couple from a distance, they moved well and even jogged in the flats, they were a great chase bunny and it was easy to follow then and let them occupy my mind a little bit. We soon had a long descent and the snows became less and less, but my quadriceps screamed from reverse contractions. The descent was covered in a sticky/slippers peanut-buttery mud…as I tried to control my descent, the strong winds were at my back, blowing me down the hill and I struggle to control my speed and footing so as not to slip in the mud and ride down the mountain on my butt. Finally it flattened out into a mossy, grassy valley and I put it in cruise control for the last 2.5 km towards the campsite. The temperatures may have warmed up a few degrees at the lower altitude, but the wind and rain persisted. I set up my tent for only the second time in the driving winds and it took about 20 minutes to secure all the straps and cover the stakes with large rocks to prevent them from coming up in the winds. I climbed into my tent at 7:00pm, still daylight, changed into my only dry clothes, pulled my sleeping bag on tight and laid down giving a few minutes for my body to warm itself. I sipped water from my Camelbak and feasted on camp food to stoke the internal fire. All the while the winds attacked my tent and tested the stakes I had driven…the walls of my tent would blow down on my head in strong gusts and challenged my sleeping bag for body heat. At some point I drifted off to sleep, still light out, still windy, still cold, but knew I had risen to a new challenge this day, confident in my strength and humbled by the experience. Between the epic scenery and the mental and physical challenges of the day, I never even noticed the weight of the pack on my back or the rubbing of the straps on my hips.

Being too cold and tired and lazy in the middle of the night to get out of my tent to pee, I rolled over and attempted to pee out the door…not so great…I ended up peeing on my tent, on my legs and pants and on my sleeping bag. On my next attempt I simply peed into a Ziploc bag and poured it out of the door.

Something was missing when I woke up this morning…after a night of continuous wind gusts, there was complete calm and silence now! I ate breakfast in the tent and waited until after 7:00 to talk myself into getting going. The problem being that it is essential to keep a dry shirt, pants and socks to sleep in…all my other clothes were soaked from the day before. So I got out of my nice warm sleeping bag, took off my nice warm clothes, and slipped into wet pants, shirts, socks, and shoes. Luckily, it was a beautiful, mild-temperature day to dry the clothes out. The trail climbed slowly away from a large lake and along large gulleys formed by snow runoff. Most of the day was spend trudging through vast lava field valleys surrounded by mountains and the huge Myrdalsjokull glacier always looming in the distance. The days stop was another campground in the shadow of enormous mountains and glaciers with a cold, natural spring alongside. I ate again and wandered around for a bit letting my equipment and clothes dry out in the afternoon breeze and even a little sunshine!

I saw my first animals today…a small spider on a rock by a waterfall and a bee in the wild flowers near the spring…there’s just nothing at all out here, natural and untouched.

Let’s talk camp food for a minute! Cheese curls, sour cream and onion spirals, a dense nut bread (I thought it was a chocolate cake), tortillas, some toasted Icelandic pita/tortilla type bread, gummy snacks, spicy crackers, chocolate flavored granola, a block of cheese, pepperonis, Ramen noodle squares, and trail mix consisting of dried fruit, peanuts, caramel peanuts, cashews, almonds, and chocolate covered black licorice! Mmmmm-Mmmmmm good!

I woke up early on day three, but rolled around and ate breakfast until packing up camp at 8:30. It drizzled last night and today there was a high cloud cover. It was still possible to see the nearby mountains, just not the peaks of the highest ones and the two glaciers dominating the horizon, which I now have the game plan to climb between on my last day. Today’s hike was scenic and not a lot of elevation change, it mostly followed snow melt rivers down huge canyons as the water flowed South to the Atlantic Ocean. I ran into a friendly couple from Germany, we were walking in opposite directions, yet we were both heading for the same destination. A quick check of the map and compass showed that they had gotten turned around.

I later saw of family of five short cut a corner of the trail, trampling the vegetation and creating a path for erosion, it irked me. Hours later I saw them again at a river crossing, calf deep and maybe 20 feet across. When I arrived they were all pant-less, standing in their underwear, men and women both, with camp shoes on and holding their belongings as the dipped their toes into the water. I just walked straight across in my shoes snickering to myself, everything was already wet anyhow. Towards the end of the day the trail entered a beautiful lowland forest filled with trees and teaming with purple and yellow wildflowers!

At the campsite I met two Appalachian Trail thru-hikers from 2013, I saw the patch on their backpacks. They were from Michigan and going in the opposite direction, so we traded information on the upcoming sections. I arrived early, so I set up my tent, threw any extra weight inside and put on a nice light pack for a loop around a nearby mountain…a beautiful summit of maybe 50 feet in diameter and 360 degree views, mountains and glaciers in every direction and a massive river confluence flowing out to the ocean. Another side trail took me on a two hour loop down a spur in the middle of the confluence and came back on a rather sketchy trail along the mountain side of steep, loose rock fields…one missed step or if the pebbles didn’t hold, the very serious injury would have occurred. I was happy to get off this trail and questioned the fact that they had it on the map at all for the public to travel. Finally, back at the tent around 6pm, I dried out some clothes and ate dinner. I’m pooped! And getting sick of the same camp food for a few days in a row.

I woke up this morning with a stomachache and small headache, the thought of standing up for especially eating my camp food made me nauseous. Luckily, it was an extra day and I was just going to do local day hikes. I laid in my sleeping bag and chomped away at my book, “A Calculated Risk” (I wouldn’t recommend it). Around 10:30am I finally got out of the tent, walked over to get water and I inquired with the local staff about today and tomorrow’s forecast since I was going to go up and over the glaciers tomorrow. The man said, “Today will be like this all day (partly sunny and partly cloudy), but tomorrow will be bad…very bad, I recommend that you do not hike over to Skogar tomorrow.” Oh no, my grand finale! My mind was made up in an instant, I hurried to my tent and began packing! The hike duration is estimated at 7-10 hours, but luckily it doesn’t get dark here until late in the evening, it had to be today, my window was closing.

While I packed I dumped out my camp food and tried to decide what was least likely to make me vomit. I managed to get down two flour tortillas and maybe five small chocolate cookies (called Marylanders!) I shouldered my pack…here goes nothing! My motivation was high and the weather was beautiful, but my stomach was tied like a bow. The climbing began and continued up, up, and up making yesterday’s mountain look like a speed bump.

The scenery was outrageous in every direction, as usual. After crossing a large table top, I was poised at the base of the snow, ready to make another ascent. My stomach was even worse now, but I knew I had to eat something because once I was exposed on top there would be difficulty in stopping. I’d been thirsty all day and sipped the cold glacial water to soothe my stomach. I attempted another flour tortilla, but it made me wretch. I had to take small bites, then just wash it down with a mouthful of water to trick my body. Then, it was up to the snowfields!

All in all, an elevation gain of maybe 2,500 feet. Did I mention the weather was perfect? High clouds so we could still see everything, and no mist, absolutely no wind, and ideal temperatures…even at the highest elevation I had on less clothes than any of the other days! I took so many pictures, this is the most beautiful place I have ever been. Sloshing through the snow wasn’t too bad and I got to walk through jagged lava fields from the last eruption in 2010.

Coming down the back side of the mountains was still beautiful, but a bit dull as we mostly followed a car path through endless rock fields. My feet hurt and my stomach was still a nuisance. Twice I threw up in my mouth, a sweet tortilla and water concoction! We followed a river chasm for mile after mile as the glacial snow melt cascaded down the mountains featuring some 20+ magnificent waterfalls.

The scenery changed from barren rock fields to lush green grass with grazing sheep and finally down the home stretch we looked out on the Atlantic Ocean to the South!

The final waterfall, Skogarfoss, was the biggest and most beautiful and plummets nearly 200 feet! Many wise tales speak of a treasure chest hidden behind the falls.

I was pumped to finally be at the campsite 7.5 hours after I began, at 6:30pm. Mostly because there was a restaurant here! I still don’t know the conversion rate of Icelandic Kronos to the American dollar, but it didn’t matter…spicy vegetable soup, arctic char fish with garlic mashed potatoes and apple juice! And after that a side order of french fries. I waddled out to my tent and slid into my sleeping bag happy to be off my feet with a full belly! It’s hard to believe I pounded out that trail for 26 kilometers, 2,500 feet of elevation and 7.5 hours on just three tortillas and five cookies…my body never ceases to amaze me and tolerate everything I put it through!

Caution: bathroom talk coming up, read at your discretion! Last night I couldn’t get to sleep. There was a group of people camping nearby who were up late talking, and more importantly, my stomach was so gurggly and full of smelly gas, bloated and in knots. The men’s bathroom had only one stall which meant that when I urgently ran over around 8:00 I had to wait several minutes, and I couldn’t take my time because someone else was waiting behind me. I made that run to the bathroom again at 10pm and another dime during the dark hours. Unfortunately, when I was sleeping, some of that of that gas must have been making it’s way out…but it wasn’t alone…I woke up, touched my butt cheeks and realized that I just pooped inside my sleeping bag while I slept. A small amount of liquid covered my waist area, my sleeping bag, and now, my left hand. Not knowing hot to rectify the situation, not even Peace Corps had prepared me for that, I used the pants leg of some clothes I had hiked in to sop up the mess before slipping on pants to walk to the bathroom to clean myself up. Now I could finally get some shut eye! That is until I woke up a second time covered in diarrhea in my sleeping bag…come on! I now cleaned up with the other pant leg and went about the process much the same as the first.

I slept in until 7:30am when I packed my belongings and tent and boarded a bus back to Reykjavik. I hit the bathroom every time we stopped and sipped a Gatorade on the bus knowing that hydration was paramount. During the four hour trip, it was cold, windy, and rainy and I decided I would treat myself to a hotel room instead of camping in the weather in a poopy sleeping bag at a campground with a shared bathroom a considerable walk away. I stood and sat in the hot shower for many minutes before climbing into bed. The TV only had eight channels and they were all news and stock market information with the same topics on every show and reruns every few shows. It was around 1:30pm and I still hadn’t eaten anything today. My stomach said that the Domino’s pizza I passed along the way would be edible. I trudged through the rain and wind to collect my treasure, although eating it back in the room wasn’t very satisfying and I couldn’t eat that much. I spent all afternoon and evening lying under the covers and dashing to the toilet about every 15 minutes and tried to drink plenty of water. Sometimes I would finish in the bathroom, stand up to walk out and immediately turn around for a second round. And so it went until I hit the lights and went to bed at 9:30pm without dinner.

 

My last day was spent in the hotel room and I walked around the city a bit for some air, some food, and a view of the area. I found a Thai restaurant for dinner and decided to eat some foods familiar to my stomach…delicious soup and fish with vegetables…and of course, rice! It was 9:30pm when I walked back to my hotel in the sunlight. I laid in bed, closed my eyes, and said, “Tomorrow, I’m going home!”

“Good bye may seem forever. Farewell is like the end, but in my heart is the memory and there you will always be.” ― Walt Disney Company

As the weeks and days were winding down at site, I made plans to meet with my old Khmer Tutor, Ratha, to say goodbyes. We met on a weekend morning at her mom’s house and I got to met her boyfriend. He seems like a good man and will take care of her, and if he doesn’t I think that she has the confidence to kick him to the curb!

Ratha and her boyfriend

We sat around talking and eating some small fruits while Ratha threw some food into a pan and cooked us up some stir fry for lunch. While the food was cooking and we were having fun conversation, a male neighbor came over and sat with us and took over the conversation, he was very obviously drunk…it was 9:30am. After well over 30 minutes of trying to respectfully ignore him he got ready to leave, but not before asking Ratha and her boyfriend for money to go buy a bottle of alcohol. They gave it to him. It was only minutes later that a second man, very drunk, came along and just asked for money from them outright without all the conversation. They gave it to him. It would seem that when word gets out that someone has moved to the city, the impression is that they are rich! Anyhow, Ratha, her boyfriend, her mother, and I got to eating the delicious food and about halfway through the meal it occurred to me that this would be the last time I would see these incredible people who have done so much for me…at least for several years. My stomach tightened and I gazed at them with new eyes, trying to soak up every second I could look at them and hear their voices. I sat with Ratha’s mother in hammocks and looked through a small photo album I gave them as a thank you.

Ratha’s mother and I looking through the photo album

As I stood up to leave, I stalled as long as I could, I kept turning back and trying to express my gratitude for all that they helped me with and voice how they mean everything to me and that I’ll truly never forget them for as long as I have life in my body. But it’s hard to get that meaning across in a different culture and a different language. Luckily, I think they’ve always known.

As Aunt Lewin’s bathroom was progressing, we needed some sand to mix with the concrete to lay the bricks. Uncle Bin fired up his rice tractor and attached a small trailer. I had an hour before English class, so I jumped on with the cousins and some shovels. We bounced our way down the dirt roads through the rice fields and I saw some of the other cousins already out there at the site where we would dig the sand. They tore off running towards us through the fields, they ran to the back of the trailer, where I sat with my legs dangling over the back edge, I reached down and pulled them up one-by-one.

After a little shoveling, we all climbed back onto the trailer, now sitting on and around the huge pile of sand, like a Cambodian hay ride, but with sand!

Sand ride!

Ma’lee, the newest and youngest nurse at the health center threw a lunch party for all our staff and even invited back the doctors that retired earlier this year! I think it was a respectful thing to do since she is a new and young nurse to feed the older and more experienced staff. Her parents and some of her friends cooked all the food at home and brought it all to the health center where we feasted to our stomach’s content! She’s been a great friend since she came on board and I wish she had been around from the beginning!

Party at the health center

One of the hammocks under the house had gotten some enormous holes in it, to the point that you couldn’t sit in it any longer. I got the idea to stitch it together for the family, but how? Then I remembered a wise tip from my adventure racing friends, Brent and Abby…dental floss! With some floss and a homemade needle from copper wire it was together in an hour’s time! Thank you Rootstock adventure racing!

My host brother, Pow, had a girlfriend for several months, but in the last month at site there had been some talk amongst the families about marriage negotiations! I mentioned to mom, that if they weren’t ready, then now worries, but if the marriage was going to go happen anyway, they should do it while I was still in the country! She knew I was joking, but my wish came true anyhow.

The groom

The bride

The families came together several times to discuss the dowry that my family would pay to his. I believe the final decision was $1100 and 100 kilograms of rice. A few days later I noticed that one of our two cows wasn’t around, I asked mom…she sold it that morning for $950 to help pay for the wedding dowry. Weddings in Cambodia are typically two days. On the first day of the wedding, mom was already at the bride’s house, but my sister cooked up delicious chicken soup for breakfast.

Even though none of the other family was home, random grandmothers and men were coming over to eat breakfast and all the men stuck around all morning to get drunk under the house by themselves. Around mid-day, Borah suggested we go swimming in a pond, we grabbed Tee, jumped on my bicycle and rode out to his grandmother’s rice field and their shallow pond. Since we were towards the end of the hot season, the water was only knee deep and scorching hot! If you sat down in the deep mud, you could pull some of the cooler water up from the bottom, but it was like being in a warm bath in the summer sun. Just to make things hotter, they held onto my arms and I drug them around the pond, fighting for every step in the sticky mud. Then we threw some of the slippery mud on the shore and danced around in it, I taught them how to moonwalk in the slop. We finished off the fun with a good old fashion mud fight! Just reach down, pull up huge globs of mud, and throw it at each other! Borah would get up on the shore and dance like a crazy man while Tee and I tried to peg him with mud blobs. Back at the house we showered, dressed up nice and biked to the next village over for the start of Pow’s wedding. We all met along the road, about 200 yards from the bride’s house and walked in a procession of two lines lead by some live music and inebriated men dancing to the ceremony.

Day one procession

We sat in chairs along the edges while the families did some ceremony in the middle along with lots of talking from the master of ceremonies. Ultimately, the bride and groom sat together at the head of the seating and couples would take turns going up and pretending to cut their hair while getting their pictures taken. This went on for at least an hour while everyone goes up to get their pictures.

Hair cutting ceremony

After the pictures, we cleaned up the area and all ate dinner together before things got dark. The music was going well into the night and I believe there was dancing, however none of my host family or relatives attended after dark, saying they were scared of fighting…the village that the bride lives in has developed a reputation for having a lot of fighters. The next morning we had another communal breakfast at the house, then hung out under the bride’s house for a few hours while some ceremonies and lots of pictures were being taken up in the house.

Day two procession

After a big, traditional, six-course meal, the tables were cleared and dancing ensued. I boogied down, daincing around in circles, until the cut the music around 4:00 pm. One of my older students, Al, who works at the silk weaving company in the commune was in attendance at the wedding because his parents house was right up the road from the bride’s. He invited me over to his parents house, where I got to meet some of his family and have the fun introductory conversations when people want to know so much about how out lives and cultures compare. We also talked in English for a good 30 minutes straight and I got a sense of pride knowing that we just talked all that time in a language I’ve been teaching him for two years! As dusk rolled in, I biked home for dinner and that was pretty much all of the wedding. It was neat to be a part of things and to see all the females in the family, my mother especially, get so dressed up!

When some village kids were hanging out at our house, I broke out a kit for paper airplane building. We folded and folded and threw and threw! Some of the plane patterns were very unique and flew very far and beautifully! About half of them ended up on roofs!

The volunteer English teacher in town, Sopeak, invited me to birthday party he was throwing for his two sons. Typically, birthdays are not celebrated, but he wanted to go all out one time to show them how much they mean to him. His extended family and neighbors thought he was crazy for spending a few thousand dollars for the occasion rather than build a house, buy a moto, or use it for something else.

Sopeak with his two sons at the birthday party

I sat next to one of my favorite older students, Haat, and we had good conversation and ate the delicious party food. Before long the sky opened up and a downpour began. Everyone tried their best to scoot the tables into the center of the party tent, but there wasn’t much use, we just got wet.

Haat and I

Before long there were small streams flooding through the yard and we waded in ankle deep water when walking over to the trees to urinate. The table behind us had some of Haat’s co-workers who he works at the silk weaving company with. The woman sitting directly behind me thought it would be funny to give me a slice of mango, I opened my mouth and ate it out of her hand. Later on, I peeled her a piece of fruit and she returned the favor of the joke and ate it out of my hands.

When everyone ate their fill and dancing commenced, she took me by the hand, lead me through the mud to the dance floor and we danced next to each other. I know what you’re thinking…that’s some serious flirting going on for Khmer culture…and it was fun while it lasted. But after a few minutes, the drunk men became too aggressive with their dance moves and she left the party with the other two women in the dance area. Oh well, being as it was one of my last weekends, I kept on dancing in the mud with my village men until dusk. As I walked the quarter mile back home, one of the intoxicated men drove his moto down the muddy road and tipped over into a large puddle along the side of the road. Some other men and I helped him get the moto out and no one was hurt, but as I watched him swerve away down the road, it was a blatant example of why to never drink and drive. Back home, I grabbed a change of clothes and was walking to the outhouse to wash off the mud. I took a step on a slick patch and plopped down in the mud…mom got to witness it and had a good laugh!

An organization called “Volunteer Builders Cambodia” came out to our village every day for a week with some foreigners who wanted to do some volunteering while they were on vacation.

Under the direction of the Cambodian staff, they all helped finish the foundation, walls, and windows of Aunt Leeden’s house. The kids and I helped out because we’re family and it was entertaining! First they dug out some trenches between the poles, filled it with rocks and poured in concrete to lay the foundation.

pouring fresh cement

The next day they came back and built up a partial wall of bricks, about three feet high.

building the brick walls

The next few days they hammered on the wall boards and cut out windows.

Nailing on the wall boards

They even hired one of the villagers to dig a new pump-well at the house. Thanks to all the volunteers who came out and helped build this house for a woman in a very difficult circumstance.

Ghan and G’bow

Ngaa

Tee

Smoothing out the floor cement

Day one volunteer crew

It was just another Monday afternoon. I came home from teaching English and was sitting at the table in the shade under the house working on future lesson plans. My brother-in-law was sleeping on the wooden, slatted table behind me. When one of the large blue dump trucks pulled up for Jeaw and Uncle Bin to go shovel sand, my sister ran over to her husband and shook him, “wake up, a truck is here, and there is only a few shovelers!” The last part meaning that he could get a higher pay cut because there were fewer people to split it with. He just rolled over, not saying a word and fell back asleep. Inspiration hit me! I sprung up, sprinted to the fence, grabbed his shovel and jumped into the dump truck! We stood up in the back of the truck, the wind in our hair, we bounced through rice fields and over dirt roads for about 15 minutes before reaching a large pile of sand. There was five of us digging and it took about 20-30 minutes, and lots of sweat, for us to fill up the back of the dump truck. The driver sat on top of the truck laughing, chatting, and taking pictures on his phone. Once full, we piled on top of the sand and on the front of the truck, bounced back through the fields and down the roads to our house. The job pays out $6.25 per truck load of sand, split between whoever helped shovel. I was just there for the fun, so they got to split it four ways, at about $1.50 for and hour’s hard work…not a bad wage, but the work is difficult and inconsistent.

Law and Jeaw getting into a dumptruck

Remember what coining is? When someone is sick, they firmly rub the edge of a coin over the skin many times to break the capillaries. It gives the look of tiger stripes afterwards. When my little niece was sick, mom coined her at night, but cut a lime in half and used the edge of the rind to coin her! She cried, but she smelled so delicious!

I was unable to close my bank account because the teller said that my signature didn’t match my initial opening signature on the account from two years prior up to 85% or more. No machine, she was making this judgment by eye. It didn’t matter that I had my license and my passport…the same passport they had digitally in their system. I had to come back the next day. The manager then printed out my initial signature, game it to me with a pen and some scrap paper, let me practice the signature, then looking at the initial signature, I could make my account-closing signature. I finally got it right! I don’t know if it’s the best security method, but they would make it hard on you if you wanted to steal any money!

The loves of my life!

During my last week, Aunt Lwein, Uncle Bin, Aunt ya, and some other came over to hang out in our house every night after we watched a movie with the kids. They said they wanted to spend extra time with me before I left…awwwww! I gifted mom a large photo album of over 400 pictures from the last two years and we all crowded around it and looked through it front-to-back several times. It brought back so many memories and we told stories of months past and we shared some very special moments together.

Soken came over one night and gave me a bag full of homemade pickles. They were spicy and delicious, but I think the visit was more about spending one more evening together than about the pickles.

Eating lunch with Soken

Cousin Ngaa pulled me aside one day and gifted me a pair of jean shorts he had purchased with his own money from the market. He probably had been saving for awhile to afford them, and I felt terrible when he asked me to try them on and I couldn’t even get close to buttoning the size 28 shorts. He took them back and the next day, biked down to the market and back between classes and came back with a second pair, size 30! We were able to squeeze them on, and I wore them around to show off my pride. I knew what that pair of jean shorts meant between the two of us, an unbreakable bond between family members, and it was maybe the most heartfelt gift I’ve ever received.

Ngaa

On my last day in the village mom had a ceremony at our house. A tent was rented, along with chairs and speakers. In the morning, monks came over, as well as various villagers. There was lots of chanting and everyone ate rice together. Mom called me up into the house to help them present the monks with food and to receive the blessing. I believe the intention was a general good luck for the family and friends, but also to wish me safe travels home and a great future.

Sopeeahlie checking out the monks

Borah

After things died down a little bit, I biked over to Haat’s house to meet him and another former student, La, for lunch.

Haat, La, and I

They butchered a chicken and cooked up some delicious eats. Haat mentioned, “I’m happy that you came to Cambodia, not just for me, but for everyone in Cambodia.” That tickled me pink knowing that a friendship was forever formed. Haat gifted me a polo shirt, and La a pair of maroon shorts, then they asked me to try them on…both were skin tight! They insisted that they were the largest they could find at the market and I gave them my deepest thanks. No wanting to be insulting, I kept them on as I left and biked the mile back to my house, but it was a struggle to move around, and even more so to get them off at the finish!

Wearing the clothes they gifted me

The afternoon was my going away party. Mom instructed me to invite the village health volunteers, the health center doctors, the commune police, the commune government council, and the school teachers. People slowly trickled in from 3:30-5:00 as we fed them a four-course dinner as the tables filled up. It was nice to be able to wait on these people who had done so much to help me and love me over the years.

Health center staff

The middle school teachers

The two single teachers at the middle school!

After the formal dinner, I had mentioned to the villagers that they could come over for song and dance in the evening, but I had no idea what was in store next. Around 5:30, my students began pouring in to join the festivities…Soken and Sopeak had secretly organized a formal program for the ceremony in the days before! First there were speeches from the commune chief, the health center director, and the middle school principle.

Commune chief

Health center director

Middle school principle

Sopeak walked me through a funny session of question and answer where they asked questions such as: What was difficult about first moving to Cambodia? What do you think of the weather? And, What women have you had crushes on?

Sopeak

One of my best and bravest students, Leak, stood up and gave a speech in English, then translated it to Khmer for the audience.

Leak’s speech

The high school girls all got dressed up in beautiful dresses, did their make up, make homemade pom-poms, and did a choreographed dance!

My highschool English girls after their song and dance.

There was a formal gift presentation where my students showered me with favors from the market and hand-written letters. Finally, Soken cried her way through a final speech. It all made my guts wrench thinking about leaving the following morning.

Soken

Soken and I

K’nick did a fantastic job as the unofficial photographer during the whole event and nearly an hour of photographs ensued as the sun set over the village.

Dad, Pow (brother) and Ga’dap (a neighbor and Leak’s father)

In the first couple of months, one of the grandfather village health volunteers, Mr. Lowan, had asked me to trade shirts with him, so before I left I gifted him with the dress shirt he requested and a pair of slacks to match, we hugged for the last time and our eyes welled as he climbed aboard his bike to ride home before dark.

Grandfather Lowan and I

As night fell, the music picked up and more villagers showed up. The inside of the tent was cleared, a table was set in the middle, and we slowly began to dance around the table in traditional fashion. I was thrilled to see that for maybe the first time that I’ve witnessed, more females were on the dance floor than males!

I danced for at least four hours straight, people came and went, we all shared smiles, there weren’t many official goodbyes spoken, but two years of sentiment flashed before my face each time we would lock eyes.

As the night died down, my shy host father came onto the dance floor and held my hand. We held hands and danced around the table for an entire song, no words were needed to translate the moment and the connection. We finally shut it down around 11pm and the teenage boys hung out with me in the house until midnight when we were all falling asleep.

I woke up at 6:15am on the morning of departure to repack all the gifts I received into my already stuffed bags. All the cousins watched from the doorway and playfully quarreled over the last few things I had to give away. Uncle Hooah arrived at the house with his tuk-tuk and we loaded up my bags.

Mom cooked up a big batch of fried rice for breakfast and we all shared last moments around the house until 9:00am.

Two of my most favorite students and the most beautiful girls in the world, Thong and Sopin, came over last minute to give me hugs goodbye and we were full of tears. Grand-mom told me that she loved me like one of her real grandchildren, and she always treated me as such.

Grandmother!

I knew that mom was going to ride into Siem Reap with me to the bus station, but I was blown away with a second tuk-tuk pulled up and two full motos of people and 25 people all piled into to escort me into the city! I tried to appreciate the sights, the sounds, the smells, and the people around me for the last time, I was driving away from a life that I had poured every bit of my heart and soul into creating over the past two years. We had about 30 minutes at the bus station where we hung out like normal until the bus honked it final horn. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat as I hugged everyone goodbye…I didn’t care about cultural appropriateness anymore, I was going to hug my family and friends goodbye regardless of gender! Mom sent me off with a bottled water, a cold soy milk, and a bag of pickled fruit. I physically embraced my sister for the first time and she wept into my chest, leaving stains resembling the relationship and memories we had formed. I begrudgingly left my warm family’s touch for the cold seat of the bus.

The last goodbye.

(From my journal) “As the bus pulled out, we waved to each other through the window and I’ll never forget the look on my mother’s face when our eyes locked at that last moment. Her head was tilted up, arm in the air waving, she looked gaunt and thin as her face searched the windows. Her eyes as huge and black as bowling balls, filled with a shine of tears and frantically searching and full of worry like a mother in a crowd looking for a lost child. When our eyes connected we both knew that would be the last time we shared that loving connection for a long time. She mouthed the words, ‘Suk Sabai’ to wish me happiness and then our moment was torn away from us as the bus continued into the street. I’m crying again as I write this because I love her like my true mother and she has changed my life forever. Due to both the language barrier and cultural differences, and a busy few days, I never got to really tell everyone how dearly I love them and thank them for their unconditional love and support. The hole left in my heart and soul felt like too much to bare and the seven hour bus ride to Phnom Penh ended in a flash as I dwelled on my family and friends, they will forever occupy the silent thoughts of my mind.”

Mom and I

Luckily, I met with my friend, Gianni, once in Phnom Penh. We visited Jeff and Kelly in their new apartments as they transition into a third year as leaders, I ate a grilled sting ray for dinner, and we walked through the closing procedures with Peace Corps over two busy days in town.

packing

At 2:55pm on August 6th, 2015, I boarded a tuk-tuk with a fellow volunteer, Sam, and we flew eight hours to Qatar before going our separate ways for different flights. In the middle of the night, I laid down on the carpeted floor of a very crowded terminal in Qatar for my three hour layover. At 1:09am, a female flight attendant woke me up and asked if I was on getting on the 1:30am flight…not a soul remained in the previously packed terminal! A big thanks to her. Seven and a half more hours brought me to Manchester England for a six hour layover. I ate a meal before finding a deserted terminal to lay down in. Just the opposite happened this time when I woke up to a completely full terminal around me while I slept across four seats with a jacket over my chest and my carry-on tied to my leg as a makeshift anti-theft tactic. Finally, two and a half more hours of flying set me down in Reykjavik, Iceland, where one grand adventure came to an end and a new one was about to begin!

 

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt

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.”

“Get out of your mind and become crazy about your future in a creative way!” ― Michael Bassey Johnson

I love learning how to make neat little gadgets from the kids at site. This month, all the kids were making small ‘fog horns’ out of just a water bottle, an aluminum can, and a balloon. It was really interesting how they put it all together so simply, and the sound is deafening! The sound moves like a wave through the village, one kid will blast his horn from one end of the village, then other kids will blast theirs in response, until you hear a roar of honking both near and distant through the village!

Borah making a foghorn

Rong making a foghorn

The man, fellow PCV, Mr. Gianni himself, came an incredible distance from the far South of Cambodia to visit my site for the second time! We scarfed down some of mom’s home cooking before a neighbor invited us to go for a van ride in order to check out a pagoda.

Pagoda exploring

The newly dug pond behind the pagoda

Of course we agreed, and climbing aboard the van, I was delighted to see a retired doctor from my health center was also along for the ride!

Gianni and the retired doctor from my health center

The ride was about an hour away down dirt roads. The air conditioning was broken and we had to keep the windows closed because the dirt roads were so dusty. It was HOT inside that van jam packed with 15 some people!

Gianni and I on the van ride

We were happy to arrive and walk around checking out the buildings. We spoke with a man who operated a small carnival ride, he was 26 years old and already a father of four children. He married when he was 15 and his wife was 13 and they had their first child that same year, that daughter is now 11 years old.

Brand name loyalty!

The next day we went to the health center. The week before a plan was set to extend the fence around the health center to include some new land that was donated from the community. All the village health volunteers were invited, all the village chiefs, the community government, locals…it was going to be a full on community mobilization and strengthening activity! Unfortunately, only about six of us showed up and the fence posts were really deep and the dirt is as hard as cement, so we all spent 30 minutes digging our just one of the many many posts before deciding the scrap the effort and try again during the rainy season. Oh well!

Digging out the old fence posts

Resting at the health center

In the afternoon, Gianni and I walked out to a huge pond where the owner was pumping it dry and lots of people were trolling through the mud picking out the fish. To make the job easier, one man carried two metal poles hooked up to a car battery and lightly electrocuted the fish to stun them, then they were very easy to pick up and put into buckets and baskets! For the last year, I always regretted not getting into the knee deep mud my first year to help out, so this year I made sure to get in and play!

Catching fish in the pond, can you find me?

We washed off in a nearby flooded rice field, then the owner’s family gave me a plastic bag of small fish to take home to my host mother! One of the villagers was heading home at the same time as us and had a trailer behind his moto, so he let us jump in for a fun ride back to the house. In the evening we walked down to a neighbors house where they have a beautiful volleyball court set up and watched two teams from local villages battle it out on the main court in front of a crowd of some 20+ people!

Looking at the big fish from the pond

During Gianni’s visit, I discovered that he recently stopped sleeping with a pillow. I was blown away by the idea, I don’t think I’ve ever considered the notion that sleeping without a pillow would be an option and yet one more thing we can eliminate from our cluttered lives! I’ve tried it for about a month now. I sleep just as soundly, but it feels like I have so much freedom, that the entire bed is a fresh canvas that can be slept on as I please!

Way up in the rafters of our house, under one of the peaks of the roof there hangs a maroon cloth. For two years I’ve wondered about it and how it go there and what it was for. One of the villagers finally educated me! The cloth contains a spirit that protects the house from catching fire and burning.

At the health center with two of the village health volunteers

Sitting with my mother and sister late one night, my host mom told me about her two miscarriages. One was before my sister, she carried it about 3.5 months then had a miscarriage because she was riding her bike long distances everyday to buy and then resell wicker baskets around the commune. The second was after my brother was born and she carried the baby a full 8+ months before slipping during some household chores. Terrible circumstances to hear about and crazy to think that I could have had two more host siblings.

Ever Sunday I give out gifts to the cousins and village kids, thanks to generous care packages from all of you back home! The rule is, if you don’t go to school, you don’t get gifts and you can’t watch movies at night. The rule doesn’t have much effect on little Tee, he just refuses to go to 1st grade for no reason at all. I tried to make a deal with him, he couldn’t have a gift this Sunday, but if he went to school the next day, Monday, then he could have a gift then. His brother, Borah, laughed in his face and told me that he hasn’t been going to school for so long that the teacher erased his name from the student list and he will have to retake 1st grade the following year.

Sunday gift distribution

I was standing under my house with some kids. A small girl I didn’t know, maybe 11 years old came up to me from behind my house. She handed me a freshly cut palm fruit and said, “From Sopin.” She pointed across a rice field and then ran away. I looked in the direction of her point to see one of my English students far away, standing with her mother and waving her arms wildly above her head. Thanks Sopin for the delicious fruit!

Heeing, one of my older cousins, studies at the high school in Puok. Word got out that he has been going to the school, but not attending the classes. Instead, he wanders around behind the school with some other students and has one of his friends sign his name onto the attendance sheet. Uncle Hooah chewed him out good for it and told him that if he doesn’t want to study, he should drop out, get a job and take care of himself. Heeing was contrite, but rumor has it he is still doing the same.

On Sopeeahlie’s birthday (my host niece) I biked into Siem Reap between English classes and bought two birthday cakes. One was for Sopeeahlie’s first birthday and the second was for my host mom’s birthday only one day before. When I got back to the house after class, I surprised both mom and sister with the cakes, and they survived the one hour bicycle ride in the heat very well!

I gave out over 100 balloons to the kids that night, blew them up with my bicycle pump, and let them decorate as they saw fit.

Blowing up balloons with the bicycle pump

Some decorated the house, some made festive hats, other made animals and taped them to the stairwell!

When everyone had gathered around 8:00, we lit the candles and sang “Happy Birthday” in English. Following that was a cake eating frenzy and some of the kids got into an icing battle rubbing it on each others faces! I’ve had the idea for that party in mind since we celebrated my birthday back in August the previous year. It was a delight to see it come into reality and to share some American culture with family and friends who mean so much to me.

Whin, a village student with strong English skills, sometimes come to my house to practice English after we watch a movie. On a recent night, after all the other kids had left, he opened his bag and gave me a long sleeve athletic shirt with a matching pair of athletic shorts, they were red and black after the colors of a German soccer club. After thanking him, I asked him why he bought them for me. He replied, “No reason, we’ve just known each other for two years now.”

I am the proud recipient of two care packages from two marvelous human being in my life. Kathy, my soul sister and fearless race leader, and from Nanny, my unconditionally loving and supportive grandmother! Nanny sent taffy, magazines, tootsie rolls, beef jerky, candy jewelry, and a huge batch of homemade cinnamon cookies! I stuffed my face with the goodies for days on end, shared some with the kids and fellow PCV’s and it was like being a kid on Halloween night!

Kathy sent me a bag of candy, Easter egg dye, a marvelously written letter, and the cream of the crop…a new Adventure Racing Maryland (ARMD) race jersey! I’ve secretly wanted one so badly since the day they were created and I drooled over the pictures of my friends racing in them and looking so good! Thank you, thank you, thank you, I owe you both!

During some down time, I was laying in a hammock under the house and reading a book. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some flames in the spot where we light a fire at night in order to keep the mosquitoes off of the cows. But it seemed odd, because the cows were out to pasture, there weren’t flames there before, and I hadn’t seen anyone walking around there that could have lit the fire. When I investigated further, a pair of my boxers had blown off of the bamboo pole that they were drying on, landed on the coals from the night before and caught fire! What an odd fate for a pair of boxers I was gifted by an ex-girlfriend many years ago!

Sister let me help out with some cooking for dinner one night. I was given a chopping clever and a cutting block. She dished out some “brahawk”, fermented fish paste, and I got to chopping it up into a paste. As I chopped she slowly added in further ingredients: chili peppers, garlic, lemon grass, MSG, sugar, peanuts, and tree ants! When it was all chopped up in a cohesive mass, we dipped it onto assorted vegetables for dinner…salty, sour, crunchy, crispy, delicious!

A different night’s dinner provided some unique eats. My brother had caught a large snake and mom cooked up some snake soup. The night before, after a hard rain, Borah and my sister had gathered up lots of toads and this night we ate them whole over the grill!

In part of the continual effort of being a homeowner, my host parents are constantly moving things around to further improve the house. This day we were taking down the large awning that my father and brother-in-law had erected just months before. Mom wanted to use the roofing panels to help shelter our new kitchen area behind the food stall. Thanks to my height, dad recruited me to stand on some chairs and tie the tip of the panels with some old hammock straps. But only two days later we took it down to move it somewhere else again!

One of the neighbors bought an entire truck load of small watermelons for $250 and was selling them out of his house. I don’t know how they made out on the venture, but there was lots of delicious watermelon around and the owners children brought me one or two everyday as gifts!

On a holiday, my advanced students asked to study for two hours since they had extra free time. I worked up some review games for them, and borrowed the most exciting one from the Khmer teachers I had way back in training two years ago. I blew up balloons with small slips of paper in them containing words in English. In a relay race, the kids had to take a balloon, run down to a chair, sit on the balloon until it popped, grab the slip of paper, run back and translate the word before the next person could run! We were in hysterics between the laughing and the running. Now that’s what I call fun!

Visiting one of my favorite grandmothers in a different village, I was sad to discover that she had a very sore back and legs and it was difficult for her to walk. This also put her wonderful gardening efforts to a halt since she couldn’t water for care for the plants. A doctor came over on a moto and shot her with a syringe directly into the butt cheek for $5.00. Another villager mentioned that it is difficult for her to be at the house all day since she’s very active, social, and enjoys being out in the community. Here’s to her speedy recovery!

In a small trick I once learned from my American father, I sometime have the little cousins bend over and put their arms through their legs. Then I grab their hands from behind, and when you lift them up, the kids unfurl into a front flip before you gently set them back down! All goes well because I’m tall and strong in comparison to the small cousins. The problem was the one time, one of the little female cousins attempted to be the lifter for one of the other small cousins. They are about equal height and strength, so you can see how this isn’t going to be plausible. She muscled up, yanked his arms and poor little Ga’dee proceeded forward and crunched his head into the hard dirt with no hands available to protect his fall. He must have seen stars by the look in his eyes, but was back up running around in no time. The other cousins and I who witnessed it were telling the story for days to come!

I contracted a fever for a day or two. I spent the hot day alternately laying on a table and laying in a hammock reading and sleeping, only getting up to run to the bathroom. I had diarrhea 10+ times that day and night and didn’t make it to either of my English classes. In the afternoon, I walked to the health center and they issued me some re-hydration salts to mix into my drinking water. K’neat rode over to the health center while I was there to check on me and see if I needed anything. It seemed like as good of a time as ever to try out some traditional Khmer medicine! I asked my mom is she would “cup” me that night. Despite what you may be thinking, ‘cupping’ is not the Khmer variation of ‘spooning’, but rather using glass cups and a torch to create a vacuum on one’s skin in order to break the small capillaries and release the “bad air” in our bodies.

Cupping

My brother-in-law did the duties. He quickly inserted the torch into the cup to make it hot remove the air, then place the mouth of the cup against my back.

After about 20 cups were on, we waited about 20 minutes before removing them and performing the process two more times until my entire back was covered. While we were letting the cups do their work, I had the kids get out my computer and we put on a movie. I was laying right in the middle of the floor where we watch, so they all sat around me. When Hei came into the house, he knocked over the cup holding the oil for the torch and cleaned it up with a dirty rag in the basket where the cups were stored. When my brother lit up the torch for the second round of cupping, he shook up the excess flaming oil so it would not drip on my back, however these flaming drips quickly ignited the oily rag and the wicker basket that housed the cups just inches away from me! My brother-in-law quickly sprang up and threw the basket across the house, then kicked it down the stairwell out into the yard where it could burn itself out on the dirt! After the excitement died down, we got back to business cupping. Uncle Hooah came over and upon seeing that I was sick instructed the kids to squeeze my arms and legs to speed the healing process. So in one of the most fascinating moments of my life, I laid on the floor with glass cups suctioned to my back, some ten kids simultaneously massaging my arms and legs and the other kids fanning me with cardboard scraps. I appreciated ever second of their care and the next day I was considerably better and within two days I was back to normal!

The aftermath

“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” ― G.K. Chesterton

A few months back, I set off on a bike journey with some friends and forgot to write it up in the blog! The mission: We would bicycle 300 km (~180 miles) from Battambong to Phnom Penh over three days!

It all started when I biked into Siem Reap from my house and met Josie in town. We grabbed breakfast in town, then bought bus tickets to Battambong, plus an additional ticket to put our bicycles in the bottom of the bus. We arrived into Battambong and met up with Ann and Molly for pizza and tacos for dinner, a dinner of champions before a big ride!

Tacos

Pizza

On the first morning, Josie, Ann, Molly, and I met for breakfast sandwiches then loaded up our bikes to start our journey.

We didn’t have much, each a single bag which we strapped to the rear bike rack with an elastic strap and a water bottle in the bike frame.

We set out from Battambong over the river at a string, fresh pace and didn’t stop for the first 2.5 hours.

We made a pit stop for fresh coconuts, water, snacks, and to rest our hineys!

Following Molly’s idea, for the first time in my life, I finished an entire rendition of “99 bottles of beer on the wall” in my head! After 100 km, with sore butts and good attitudes, we pulled up to a guesthouse in Posat Province, our stop for the night. I was starving, so quickly ate 3 large dumplings from a street vendor to hold me over until we showered up and could get dinner. We hung out in the air-conditioned room eating fruit and stir-fried ramen noodles before an early bed time.

After tossing in bed for a little bit, I finally got up in the middle of the night and vomited out the contents of my stomach into the toilet. I don’t know if it was the dumplings or the ramen, but it wasn’t ideal to dispose of your energy source on the night between two long bike rides!

We woke up around 6:00am in an effort to beat the heat on day two. My stomach was still off, but I was able to put down some rice with pork, hoping that my system was familiar with rice by now!

Only a few minutes down the road Molly had the first and only flat tire of the trip, caused by a staple. We broke out our Peace Corps issued patch kits and pump and were able to fix it up in no time ‘flat’…pun intended.

Another 100km today and mostly uneventful flat riding. For about 30 minutes we battled a strong headwind, which the girls were nice enough to break for me to draft! It was hard to eat at lunch, but knew I had to get fuel into the tank for the afternoon.

My low for the day was between kilometers 70 and 80 when my stomach was in knots and I was throwing up in my mouth a little bit. The girls were absolutely crushing the ride and putting me to shame, despite me claiming to be a cyclist. They talk about being so tired, then take off like a cheetah to chase each other! We pulled into our rest location of Kompong Chhnang Province around 3:30pm and rested on the tile floors of the hotel while taking turns in the shower. We ate soup from a street vendor for dinner, then stayed up until 9:00pm telling stories and playing trivia together.

 

 

Day 3 started at 6:00am again to cycle our final 100km from Kompong Chhnang Province into Phnom Penh. The trip through Kompong Chhnang was beautiful, scenic plains, a cool tailwind, and even a few small hills to break up the monotony of the flat ride.

We took frequent short breaks this final day and it kept our spirits high. About 30 kilometers from Phnom Penh we stopped for lunch at a restaurant built over a lake and chowed down on rice, soup, and fried fish!

About 15km outside of Phnom Penh there was a lot of construction and we bounced our way down the final stretch of roads. During all that jostling, a zipper on Josie’s bag came open and she left a bread-crumb trail of important items down the road before we realized the problem…most importantly, her wallet. We back-tracked about 5km looking on both sides of the road, but besides some sunscreen and her phone, we didn’t have any luck finding it…just got in a few bonus miles! At long last, we ripped into the city following Josie’s navigation through the city streets and were elated to arrive at our final destination around 3:15pm!

For dinner we went to “Mike’s Burgers” which is a restaurant started by a former owner of In-and-out-burger in the united states. The burgers were huge, the drink refills were endless, and we were giddy with success following a successful adventure. We relaxed through the evening and soon after slept deeply from exhaustion.

We woke up early, at 6:30am, to watch the Super Bowl on TV. I was able to catch the first three quarters before my bike and I had a bus to catch back to Siem Reap. We only stopped twice on the bus ride, but it was still 8.5 hours. It was good to be home and nice to have some mini-adventure during this grand-adventure! Thanks to Josie, Ann, and Molly for the awesome ride, there was no shortage of excellent camaraderie!

Then we slept like dogs!

“Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

With a little more than two months remaining at site, all the Peace Corps Volunteers came together in Phnom Penh for a Close of Service (COS) conference. The conference was mostly logistics of how to stop being a volunteer and how to get back to the United States and about transitioning back as well. As thanks for our service, Peace Corps put us up in a beautiful hotel, full with a rooftop pool eleven floors up and included breakfast! I got to meet our incredible new Country Director, Sue, and ate some incredible eats with friends including a massive cup of ice cream from Dairy Queen! One of the days I had my medical check-out, dental cleaning, and a Language Proficiency Interview (LPI). Our Assistant Director even paid for us all to go on a small river cruise one evening with all the staff.

Raat breaking out a sick move!

After the COS conference, most of us stayed in the city for the weekend. In the morning, Josie, Jeff and I went around looking for Cambodian formal wear because that night would be the first ever OSCORPS! This was the wonderful idea of PCV’s Brett and Karen to make a spin off of the OSCARS and give out awards to outstanding people!

The hosts, Brett and Weston

We couldn’t end up finding reasonably priced formal wear for rent, so I went in a superman shirt and suspenders instead!

Siem Reap K7 volunteers

At night, everyone was dressed up beautifully and we hung out at a bar with a stage before the festivities began.

Formal wear at the OSCORPS

Weston and Brett did an excellent job hosting, eight awards were given out, there were talent show performances from Devin (hula hooping),

Devin hula hooping

Gianni/Amy (guitar and vocals – a hilarious cover of a rap song),

Amy and Gianni singing

and myself (juggling).

Juggling

After the show, we continued the dancing at a different bar. Spencer went to the bank and traded in a $20 bill for 800 sheets of the smallest currency Cambodian money (100 Riel), he then distributed out to many PCVs, we walked up to the second floor balcony, then on the count of three we threw all that money in the air and “made it rain” in the club. Baller!

Before making it rain

Finally we went to a bar where you can play connect 4 against the bartenders, if you win you get a free drink, if they win, you have to buy them a drink. I watched five people play and every single one lost.

Connect-4 with the bar tenders

Before heading back to site, I was able to Skype home with my parents and sister who had just eaten steamed crabs! Pretty awesome to hear their voices and see their faces. Thanks for taking always taking the time to Skype when we have the chance!

As usual, I was a little anxious to return to site after being away for awhile, but I was devastated to find out that Aunt Lee, Law, Ngaa, and K’nick had all left for Thailand to work while I was gone. They won’t be coming home until Pechum Ben in September…after I’m back in the States. Life just hasn’t been the same without my second host mom and my favorite cousins at home. After all that time together, these people who I truly consider my family are gone, and we never got a chance to say goodbye.

Our family pig, Mrs. Piggers

Our middle school hosted a volleyball tournament and had teams come in from five other communes in our district! It was only males, which I kept bringing up to people, but it’s a start for now. Our school’s team was just some rag tag kids who were the best around, but the winning team came in full with matching uniforms, a coach, set formations and tactics…they were awesome. One kid in particular, whose head only came up to the third string from the bottom of the net, could jump like he was on the moon and destroy the ball straight down, even if he was hitting a 10 ball from the back row. The teams were all awarded with new basketballs, volleyballs, and a volleyball net to take back to their schools!

VHV Chewie showing me the watermelons in her garden.

I was making my monthly rounds to all the Village Health Volunteers (VHV) to promote our meeting when I came across one of the grandfather VHVs, he is 74 years old. He was wearing a cloth around his waist and was standing near his well, apparently about to take a shower. He was still happy to stop whatever he was doing and talk. In Khmer, I asked, “Did you just come from the market?” to which he responded, “Yes, but I still have a hole in my penis!” followed by some hearty laughter. It was funny, but I didn’t understand, so I asked him to explain. We stood there for at least 10 minutes, using props, drawing in the sand, and pointing to our penises, but I just couldn’t understand the joke. Reluctantly, I gave up the effort knowing that my language just wasn’t to the point where I couldn’t follow along. Later that day, I called on of the Cambodian Peace Corps staff and asked him if he knew this joke and could explain it to me. Apparently, the word for ‘market’ and ‘welder’ is either the same sound with different spelling, or a very similar sound. So the joke the VHV was making was that he had indeed been to the welder, but they didn’t fix him because he still had a hole! Hilarious!

The shy lizard I share my room with. About 1 foot long from head to tail.

When our monthly VHV meeting drew to a close, a small, 75 year old grand mother, that resembles E.T., asked the director if she could have a few mangoes from one of the health center trees. The director agreed and this tiny woman jumped up, grabbed a low branch with both hands, swung her legs up, walked out on the branches, plucked some 15 mangoes, holding them all by the long stems in one hand, then swung down on a branch like a gymnast on the parallel bars. She’s still got it!

VHV Sar wearing a basket. She climbed a mango tree at our monthly meeting!

As things get a little closer to the end of service people have been getting a little sentimental with me. Sopeeahlie and I spend a lot of time smiling at each other and speaking baby-talk and Borah told me that she loves me like a real uncle. One of my neighbors told me that when I leave the village it will be as if one of their own villagers had left. A big compliment!

One of my better English students likes to text with me to practice her English. “What does it mean, ‘Keep your chin up'” or “Teacher I want to know this word (anxiety)”. I always do my best to explain in simple words and provide an example, and I know if I do a good job because I receive a wonderful text: “Thanks teacher now I understand.”

Jew cutting a banana tree to feed to the cows

After our wonderful Camp HOPE, the idea is that the students who attended will then come back to the community and further spread that knowledge. For my students, they decided to set up a small fair at the middle school, in pairs they would each teach a 20 minute session and five groups of students would rotate through the five stations. Our five lessons included: human rights, drugs and alcohol, goal setting, health issues in Cambodia, and team building! Soken, my counter-part, met with all the students on a Sunday when I was not at site and helped the students prepare and practice lesson plans. Then on a Thursday afternoon we all met at the middle school to teach!

Leak/Heeing

Lee/Tong

Whin/Sopin

Wvaut/Yawn

Thea/Sopin

This was the first time any of the students had ever taught before and the first two sessions were full of nerves and awkward laughter, but they stumbled through and learned as they went. Watching them hit their stride in the 4th and 5th sessions after they had lots of practice with the lesson plan was one of the highlights of my service so far. They were asking retention questions, making jokes and managing their time like seasoned professionals! By the end of their final session I had to practically force them to end the lesson after they were already over by five minutes and asking for just a few more!

Leak and Heeing taught team building

Whin and Sopin taught goal setting

Wvaut and Yawn taught about addictive drugs

Tong and Lee taught about health in Cambodia

Spoin and Thea taught about domestic violence

As part of our Camp HOPE grant, we were allotted $12 for the activity and we bought up lots of mixed fruits to share with all the participants. In fact, I was busy at a meeting in the morning and knew I wouldn’t have time to get to the market to buy the fruits, so I paid my 14 year old host cousin $0.50 to ride down to the market and purchase it for us, he did it perfectly! After the teaching sessions, the school students went home and we all blew off some steam joking around a table eating the remaining fruit. I basked in their glory with so much pride as they laughed at the mistakes they made and the tactics they used. It was then that I noticed all five of my female students had worn their matching Camp HOPE shirts. I could not have been any happier that day after seeing what those students and counter-parts had accomplished.

Decompressing after teaching

After finishing a lesson in my evening English class, I asked the students if they had any questions. They never do. So I put them to the test with a pop quiz! The students who failed had to dance in front of the class and the students who passed sang and clapped for them from their seats! It was about a 50/50 split so no one was too embarrassed.

A 52 year old villager passed away after fighting an illness for about a week. On the day of the ceremony, we all met at his house and had a walking procession to the small area where we would cremate the body. A rectangle of banana trees was already built. Upon arrival, some of the procession walked around the cremation pit three times. The surrounding area was a little cluttered, so the men that had been pulling the wooden cart instead picked it up on their shoulder for the walk around. The immediate relatives had all shaved their heads, as is customary, and one of the brothers got on the shoulders of the others for the walk around.

Pulling the body to the cremation site

Entering the cremation site

We all hung around as the cremation commenced and sat and watched. After an hour or two, they started to break down the banana tree enclosure for easier manipulation. They kept whacking something and I heard one of the village men comment that the man who died was too skinny and didn’t have enough fat on him to ignite and fully burn the body. Sure enough, they kept pushing around a charred spinal column with attached pelvis into the hottest areas of the fire and hitting it with bamboo sticks trying to break it down into more manageable pieces. When the cremation was complete, they threw water on the ashes to cool them down, then the man in charge of the ceremony shaped the ashes into a human figure and they covered it with a new shirt, pants and sandals, before offering it some water to ensure the spirit had left. Finally, all the people who attended the funeral helped to pick out small bone fragments and teeth out of the ashes and gave them to the family.

After lighting the fire

The same week that the villager passed away, my next-door neighbor had a death in the family, their two year old son. The son loved his little puppy, they even napped together regularly. One day the puppy went down to the pond behind their house to get a drink of water and the baby followed the dog and drowned. A horrible tragedy for the family, and even worse, neighbors told me that they previously had a three year old boy die from dengue fever.

I was surprised that there was no ceremony for the young boy who drowned. A villager informed began telling me about some traditions. If a child dies, up until around puberty, they will not have a ceremony for the individual because they believe that if they do then in the next life that child will die at the same age. For people in their middle-age, like the 52 year old villager, they will immediately take them and cremate them in a medium sized one day ceremony to appease the spirit. For people who die at an old age, there will be a large ceremony and the body will be buried for one or more years. After the body has been buried for an appropriate amount of time, they will have another large ceremony, dig up the remains of the deceased person, then cremate the remains and take the ashed to the pagoda in a funeral procession. Sometimes, the ashes of the deceased will be mixed with coconut water and drank by the family members. It was very fascinating to hear about the cultural differences and witnessing them first hand.

For the second time during my service, a chicken egg has fell through the ceiling of my bedroom and broken and dried up all gooey in the heat of the day when I’m not home!

It’s so hot in my room, you could cook an egg in there!

During one of my advanced English classes only one student showed up due to heavy rains, Sopin (10th grade). Instead of going through the lesson plan with just one student, we just sat and had a conversation. We were able to talk strictly in English for the entire hour and I took the conversation fairly deep into some topics and she totally rocked it! I don’t know how much credit I can take, since she’s always been one of my best students, but it was an inspiration to keep up the work we PCVs do everyday.

I told my mom I was feeling a little feverish one night with a headache and chills. She gave me a ripe mango and told me to eat it, that it would help. I felt better in the morning!

We watched ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ during movie night and the kids were jumping off the floor with excitement and yelling at the computer with suggestions and to look out behind them with their hands over their eyes and just viewing through small slots in their fingers. I don’t want to scare them to much, but they asked for more, so now were working our way through all seven movies in the series!

My host cousin, K’neat, asked me if I could chaperon her and the students to Angkor one Sunday. So we organized it and had the students ask their parents. When the day came, we all met at my house in the morning, I believe we had 21 people total. I gave mom a Tupperware and she packed me lunch full with rice, fried pork, a sausage, and fermented fish paste with vegetables! We all mounted our bicycles and headed, single-file, down the dirt roads for about one hour to the West entrance of Angkor Thom.

Riding out single file to Angkor Wat

These two are sisters and rode a long way holding each others hand. So cute.

Entering into Angkor Thom

As we pulled in, one boy had a soft tire…fortunately, I remembered to bring my bicycle pump…unfortunately, he was a little too excited and was pumping a little too violently and broke the pump. About five minutes down the road we had a different bicycle go soft. After scouring my brain, I took the bicycle pump and loaded up the broken portion with rubber cement from the patch kit. After letting it dry for a few minutes, it miraculously worked well enough to put some air into the tire and make it ride-able! First, the students went into Bayon Temple while I waited outside and watched the bicycles (because I didn’t buy a $20 ticket for foreigners to enter). Then we all walked around some Angkor Thom temples and sat in the grass and had a picnic. A very distinct boys circle and girls circle formed.

Boy’s lunch circle

Girl’s lunch circle

With some energy in our bellies, we biked over to Angkor Wat and took the back road to the tree house in the massive tree. The tree house had finally deteriorated to the point that I was legitimately scared for our safety and I instructed them to limit how many people were on a single platform at a time, but we all still got a change to go up to the top, for probably my last time ever. I was happy when we all left there safe and sound.

Tree House

Top of the tree house

Then we put the decision up to a vote and biked a short distance to a muddy canal for some swimming near a giant water wheel. I’m always surprised at how they kids dress up in their nicest clothes to go out on trips like this, but have no hesitation to jump in and fully submerge themself in the muddy water.

Swimming in the canal

While we were swimming one tire exploded and a chain had broken as we pulled in. We did some bicycle sharing and pulling to get the wounded bicycles to a roadside repair shop about a mile away and were able to fix it easy enough. As we began to make our way home, we stopped along the airport road and watched a few planes take off and land before pushing on to the water resivior for our next stop. A refreshing swim and a few snacks and we proceeded to our final stop: Puok Market, where we would stop to buy some treats to share with our families back at the houses. It was a good trip, and I’m always thankful that the kids are so responsible and well behaved. As we biked down one of the roads I remember wondering about which of these students will have married each other when I come back to visit in future years to come!

Snacking at the Barey

During a national holiday, my students still wanted to study. In an attempt to make a fun lesson plan for the holiday, I taught them the Hokey-Pokey…and failed miserably! I put everything I had into it, singing over and over and dancing around the front of the classroom like an idiot, but when the time came, they were so cripplingly shy that I couldn’t get the sparks to catch fire. There were a few attempts, and we got close but without everyone on-board, the individuals were willing to be stared at by themselves. When I finally threw in the towel, we had about ten minutes left and they wanted to play another game, but they didn’t have any suggestions. I reached waaaaayyyyy back into my head to a game few of you have probably ever heard of that I was taught at a place called Genesee Valley, where we used to have a lacrosse camp as a kid: Zoom-Shwartz-Pafigiliano! A slightly complicated game to teach in English, but I threw my best Khmer at them and they instantly grasped both the language and the concept and we played a competitive round. Sometimes you just never know!

“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” – Carl Bard

On a long weekend, Jeff and I decided to head West and check out the town of Poipet on the border of Cambodia and Thailand. The night before I had a few midnight dashes to the outhouse, so I was a little concerned in the morning to pile into a Toyota Camry with nine people for the two hour journey! Luckily, they were all from my village and there were no incidences in that department!

Cambodia/Thailand border

The folks from my village were heading to Thailand for work. As we pulled into Poipet, we took some back roads and kept seeming to get further and further from things, then we cut through a construction zone and finally arrived at the edge of a forest where a woman was standing with her daughter, another villager of ours! All the villagers got out and grabbed their rice sacks of belongings, paid the driver, then the one woman got in with us and we turned around the way we came leaving them all there. I inquired with the driver (a man from our commune who I have ridden with on several occasions) and he told me that they would walk through the woods, across the border and a man would be waiting with a truck on the other side who would take them somewhere to work. I finally got into town and met up with Jeff for some lunch and we walked around the neutral zone along the border and watched people gamble in the casinos. It is illegal to gamble in Cambodia, and also in Thailand, but in this neutral zone anything goes! It was mostly Thai people gambling, and so a lot of the staff was also Thai. Being as we don’t speak any Thai, it became funny when we tried to find a bathroom and when the language barrier proved too much, I had to charades pulling down my pants and sitting on a toilet in the middle of a casino floor! I have a host uncle who works as border patrol police along the border and he and his wife came to meet up with us in the afternoon. They picked us up in their car and we drove back to their house. They are currently building a new house which is going to be large and beautiful.

Host uncle and his new house being built

Jeff climbing the house

Surrounding their property is a small snaking river, and on the other side, some 20 feet away, Thailand!

Across the river is Thailand

For dinner they drove us out to one of the casinos and we feasted on a Cambodian specialty, cow-climbs-the-mountain, which is where they bring you raw meat and you cook it on a charcoal grill on the middle of the table. It was delicious and my uncle insisted on picking up the check.

Aunt and Uncle at dinner

Jeff and I walked around the casinos for a little longer at night before turning back to the hotel. In the morning, my uncle and his wife came and picked us up again and took us to a restaurant for breakfast soup, and again he insisted on picking up the check. From Poipet, we would be heading down to Battambang and my uncle even drove us to the taxi station and negotiated a cheap price for us!

When Jeff and arrived in Battambang, we met up with a few other volunteers who were also in town, and even had the pleasure of meeting Josie’s mom and sister from America! They were awesome, I see where Josie gets it from! Her mom even told me that her father-in-law hiked the Appalachian Trail back in the 60’s! We hung out at the rooftop pool for the afternoon, then hopped on a tuk-tuk in the evening to head to the famous Sempu mountain.

Tuk-Tuk ride to the bat cave

We arrived at dusk and waited with several others under a large cave in the side of the mountain. The spectacle started slowly with just a few bats flying out, but before long it was a thick, black, stream of bats flooding out of the cave for well over an hour, I head mention of maybe as many as two million bats!

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na…BAT CAVE!

We all hiked up a staircase to a massive carved Buddha head for a different perspective. In the morning I ate apple cinnamon pancakes…it was a pretty good trip!

From Battambang, Jeff and jumped a taxi back to his site, which he shares with another PCV, Wilson. I got to meet his host family and check out the house for a bit. In the afternoon we biked to his school, checked out his school garden, and I sat in the back of the classroom while he taught English to a class of eighth graders with his Cambodian co-teacher.

Remnants of Jeff’s school garden after harvest

Jeff teaching English

After meeting up with Wilson and their friend, Vary, we all decided to bike out to a nearby hill and try to catch the sunset.

Before setting off on our bicycle adventure!

We didn’t get to the hill in time, but went to a large resivior instead and rinsed off with a bucket because they claimed there were biting fish in the water.

Vary and Jeff cooling off before the return trip

On the ride back to the house, Wilson hand connected with the side of a rice tractor and it took him down to the dirt. Nothing too terrible, but he we pretty shaken up and it would have been difficult for him to bike with the swollen hand. Luckily, Vary flagged down a passing dump truck that was heading in our direction. We threw our bikes in the back and climbed aboard. Despite the circumstances, the ride was beautiful with the stars just coming out at dusk and a cool breeze in the hair.

Dump truck ride home

Due to the scorching temperatures in May, Jeff and I set up a mosquito net on the little upstairs porch as his house and slept on a rice mat. In the morning we met back up with Wilson and Vary and played some board-games, Settlers of Catan, then we ate cow-leg-soup for lunch.

Settlers of Catan

Biking over to Wilson’s house, we saw that the police station across the street had pulled over a foreigner in a white truck. As we biked by, the police called Jeff by name and asked him to come over and translate for them, now that’s putting our Peace Corps skills and relationships to work! That night, Jeff and I stayed up until 11:30pm playing video-games on his computer under the mosquito net on the porch like little kids in a fort at a sleepover!

Delicious dinner at Vary’s house

In the morning, it was time to head back to my site, I got into a taxi and Vary gave me an enormous bag of some 30 mangoes from his farm. Unfortunately, I got dropped off at my market, some four kilometers away from my house and was planning to walk back to my house, so I gave away the majority of the mangoes to people I knew around the market. On my walk home, I felt the love as countless people pulled up and offered me rides on their motos (PCV’s are not allowed to ride motos or it’s an immediate termination of service), one woman invited me to a ceremony as she rode by alongside me. About halfway home, a rice tractor from a nearby village offered me a ride and I jumped into the back with all the stuff they had bought from the market. As usual, I was a little anxious to head back to site after being away, but when the kids sprinted over to give me hugs and ask me to throw them in the air, I remembered why I love it so much!

Aunt Lee, Sopeeahlie, and mom

Little Ga’bow is at the house all day everyday, her entire life consists of those four houses in our compound. I try to liven things up for her with bike rides around the village. One day we went to Uncle Hooah’s house, only my cousin Heeing was home. He mentioned that Aunt Ya and cousin Chen were out in the fields picking goi fruits. So Ga’bow and I threw on hats, she climbed on my shoulders and we went on an expedition through the fields. We finally found them relaxing at a man’s house on the edge of the village and watched his son hand-carve a stool from a stump of wood! On the way home we stopped at Aunt Hee-ew’s house for snowballs!

Aunt Lewin was getting a new well drilled after her other one had filled in with some silt and was difficult to pump. In the states, that would mean a specialized truck pulling up to your house with a massive drill-bit to drill the well. At Aunt Lewin’s house, two men pulled up on a moto with a water pump, some PVC and some long metal rods.

Everything you need to drill a well!

They thew the intake of the water pump into a pond, and hooked the other end up to the end of the first hollow metal rod which had a large arrow head on the other end. They using a wrench, he hooked a handle onto the shaft. Once the water was flowing out of the rod at the arrowhead end, he picked it up by the newly fastened handle and slammed it into the Earth and twisted it, then he lifted it a bit and slammed it into the ground, and so on and so forth. When he got deep enough, he unscrewed the handle, slit it up, and continued. When the entire first rod was deep into the ground, they screwed a second one into the back of it and kept on trucking. The two men would take turns while the other rested and drank water in the shade, each one would do about one length of pipe and it took maybe 30 minutes. Using this method they were able to drill the well down to around 30 meters deep!

Well drilling

I sat and watched the amazing process for about an hour before they let me try my hand at digging, it was a pretty heavy apparatus after a few lengths of pipe were screwed together, these guys were pretty thick in the shoulders! After the hole was drilled, they slid some PVC down to maintain the hole, then hooked up more PVC above ground to form the hand pump. In all it took about six hours to dig the well by hand!

Well drilling

A woman who used to live in our village but recently moved to the next commune over invited me out to her house when I had free time. One Sunday, K’nick, Hei and I mounted our bicycles and rode out about 10 kilometers to her house in Mango-banana Commune.

Hei on the ride home

The woman works at a small market stall in the village and sells food and some other things. Two of my high school students were also there helping to sell on their one day off of school. The woman’s six-month old baby is so chubby, I haven’t seen that much in Cambodia. I asked about the father, and the woman told me that her husband died of “sick stomach and vomiting” shortly after the baby was conceived. I helped the girls cut up some vegetables for sale and we all ate a delicious lunch of dried fish, watermelon, and stir-fried veggies. Mostly we just hung out for the day!

The food stall

Cutting vegetables

On the bike ride home we stopped at my former tutor’s house, she is currently living and working in Siem Reap, but her mother welcomed us in for a rest and well all sat around catching up and eating delicious bring fruits from her tree! Closer to home, we rested at Aunt Ya’s food stall and when cousin Chen didn’t have exact change for the sugar cane juice I bought for K’nick and I, she just gave it to us for free!

Chen giving us sugar cane juice

My brother had a wart on his foot. He cut away the dead skin with a knife, then dripped some acid on it from one of the car batteries we use for electricity!

Last year we put on Camp LION, this year the other Siem Reap volunteers and I did the same thing, but called it Camp HOPE. The camp was 4 days and 3 nights and included a variety of topics taught by various local Cambodian organizations. I simply call it a leadership camp.

70 students from 5 high schools

This year, I had the duty of going into town a day early to verify all the venues, buy supplies, pay for the shirts, and miscellaneous other chores. Roger biked in to help out and we spent the afternoon cutting name tags before getting hamburgers for dinner. In the morning, I set up a check-in station at the guesthouse and patiently waited for the students to arrive and hopped that all the arrangements I had made for my students to get there were going smoothly. As the students arrived we gave them pens, water bottles, books, name tags, schedules, etc and then we all walked next door to the Siem Reap Teacher Training Center where our classroom work would be held. We did some introductions and created camp rules together with the students. Roger worked up some kick-butt ice-breakers including a group juggle activity for learning names, a shoe swapping game, and one where they had to pass a stick down the line holding it between their legs, but couldn’t use their hands!

Name game ice breaker

Shoe swap icebreaker

Pass the stick using only your legs

That afternoon we had the Khmer Youth Association come and do a lesson on drugs and alcohol. We had a slight hitch in the evening activities, but were able to improvise with some tennis balls and played some goofy exercise games. The best was the so called “grapefruit relay” where they had to pass a ball down the line, holding it between their chin and chest and can’t use anything else…during the passing of the ball, they have to get pretty close and comfortable with each other!

Vary and I demonstrating how to pass the tennis ball without using your hands

Jeff and Vary continuing the demonstration!

Winners!

On the second day, a teacher from PEPPY named Kimsru came and totally rocked her lesson plan for a full day teaching about life skills and goal setting. My favorite part of her lesson plan was when she stacked two chairs on top of each other and we did a “trust fall” right there in the classroom!

Trust fall before

Trust fall after

That evening we took about 80 of us Phare Cambodian Circus, thanks to an extremely generous discount on their part. That had been an idea we had since camp last year and to see it actually come together was simply incredible!

In the trailer riding to the circus

At the circus!

After the circus with the performers!

On day three, we had the Bantey Srey organization come and teach about domestic violence and gender equality. In the afternoon, us PCV’s split into five groups and each put on a unique session which the students rotated through. My counter-part, Soken, and I hosted a Jeopardy style game with questions about health issues in Cambodia.

Health Jeopardy

As day three came to an end, we distributed their beautiful, matching camp shirts and we got a beautiful picture of them spelling out HOPE with their bodies!

After the picture was complete we all jumped into trailers pulled by motorcycles and paid an evening visit to Angkor Wat!

My students, my counterpart and I at Angkor Wat

The PCV’s and counter-parts at Angkor Wat

Returning from Angkor Wat, we celebrated the last night with a pizza party full with strawberry soda and fried rice!

Pizza Party!

After the pizza party, there was still about two hours until our camp curfew and my female students wanted to head into Siem Reap and check out Lucky Mall for a little, Soken and I joined them on the journey! The seven of us grabbed a tuk-tuk into town where they giggled riding the escalators, played a few claw-drop arcade games and did some window shopping of grossly over priced clothes. When it was time to leave, we still had plenty of time, so we elected to walk the 2.5 kilometers back to the hotel. The girls were so funny, surrounding me on all sides and bombarding me with questions in both Khmer and English about my future wife and children and everything else. We stopped halfway and I treated them all to fruit-shakes. Those girls mean the absolute world to me and it’s moments like those that remind me why I joined the Peace Corps, why I think it’s worthwhile, and why I made the right decision to be here.

Tuk-tuk ride to Lucky Mall

On the final day we had a presentation from the Women’s Resource Center before a closing ceremony where we issued completion certificates to all the students. From there everyone cleaned out their hotel rooms and boarded transportation for home, but not after painful goodbyes to all their new friends. Seeing the bonds that form across school is a wonderful thing to witness.

Cross-school friendships went a long way in just 4 days.

After all the students were loaded up and headed out, I felt the huge weight of the responsibility of 70 students lifted from my shoulders! Jeff and I celebrated by meeting up with Kimsru (the teacher from day two) and her friend for dinner, conversation and a few games of billiards at a local restaurant before calling it an early night! Camp HOPE 2015 was successfully in the books…mission accomplished! Thanks to my fellow PCV’s for making it all happen!

My students getting on the tuk-tuks to head home.

My students and counterpart!

Group Chinese-get-up

Chinese-get-up in action

Ann, Queen of the castle!