Things have been hectic at the office lately trying to get our research wrapped up and our pilot off the ground before the school year comes to a close.
Thankfully, I was able to escape report-monotony twice in the past couple of weeks to observe some of our programs in action.
Some pix here.
More soon on the English class I'm teaching, my new responsibilities at the Buddhism and Society Development Association (BSDA), my trip over the bamboo bridge, various existential crises and more.
Muah,
Jess
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Vignettes in celebration of friends and fun
A couple more pix here.
It's a beautiful Saturday morning, there's a breeze on my balcony, I just had a bowl of oatmeal with mangoes and a cup of coffee from my Vietnamese drip, and I'm quite content.
Don't really feel like writing about work at the moment as I've been in it up to my ears. So instead, I'll talk about the varied, random, adhoc social scene I've been part of over the past month and a half. This has been a month of parties and fun and so far, it's been a kaleidoscope of ages, nationalities, cultures, and personalities. Because there are so few people very much like me, I've found myself hanging out with groups that you might not see together in any other context.
I must say that I'm very glad that I don't live in Phnom Penh -- having been there one weekend, I can say it's absolutely lovely to visit, but it seems too close to the same kind of thing I'm used to. The "NGO scene" and the travelers that pass through are certainly colorful and more international that I might get on a Saturday night in San Francisco, but at the same time, they all seem to be the same young 20-something idealistic young professional types that I'm accustomed to seeing and socializing with (no offense to any of you, my dear, dear friends ;)
So, in celebration of all my new friends, here's a short summary of a couple of my recent social engagements:
An intro to the office -- Khmer noodles and cards
My very first Friday in Kampong Cham, Brigitte, the Dutch volunteer who's since left, invited me over for Noam Ban Chop (Khmer noodles) and a card game. This was my first introduction to many of the staff working in my section and we all had a fun "getting-to-know-you" afternoon, pounding up soup ingredients, slurping down food, playing a hilarious card game called "Take 6" and eating apple beignets.
The crowd here consisted of the two volunteers, Brigitte (in her 30s) and Sally (in her 60s), 5 women Cambodian staff, and one husband.
A soaking at the airstrip
The same weekend, Brigitte & Sally organized a trip out to the old American airstrip just out of town. The three of us were joined by Elaine (the volunteer who's working with me now that Brigitte and Sally have both gone), Elisa a Dutch volunteer in her early 30s who lives on a boat back in Holland and will be stationed in the horrible border town of Poi Pet, and Esther, a British fisheries volunteer in her late 20s who'll be stationed in Battambong.
We enjoyed wine, pringles, and some Cadbury easter eggs I had stashed away, but unfortunately instead of a sunset, we were visited by the first torrential downpour of the season. By the time our tuk-tuks finally arrived to rescue us, we were already soaked "down to the knickers" as the Brits would say. Wet & still hungry, we headed over to Joe's Bar near the river for nourishment and a dance party.
Awkward moments with my landlord
It's tradition for Khmer New Year to spend time with the family, so when the time rolled around, our already bustling household filled to the brim with daughters, son-in-laws, grandchildren, and nephews. On the first evening of the new year, on my way out to the internet cafe, my landlord and a group of other menfolk insisted that I stick around, share a beer, and toast to the new year.
I happily sat down, ready to take part in the new year jollity and meet the family. The group was already well into their 4th or 5th can of Angkor (none of them particularly large guys) which made for a particularly boisterous crowd. Around the table, we had my landlord, two dentists, a military general (app
arently a very important man), and a businessman.
The businessman, Mr. Sam was my landlord's nephew. He was the most eager to speak English, so he drove the conversation, asking about where I was from, what I did and why I wanted to come to Cambodia. Every couple of minutes, we raised our glasses and toasted "to health!" Soon, my very happy landlord started to join in, proudly telling me about Mr. Sam's millions. When I expressed my admiration, he went on to reiterate that Mr. Sam was a in the garment industry, and added that he was still single. Eventually it came out that Mr. Sam had travelled extensively in Singapore and in the US and was now in search of a foreign wife. We laughed and my landlord taught me how to say "just joking" in Khmer, but the conversation eventually went on long enough to become slightly uncomfortable even for Mr. Sam, so I excused myself and promised to come back after my dinner for one more drink.
I didn't make it back in time for the promised drink, but the next morning, my landlord was quite abashed, and there's been no mention of Mr. Sam since then.
Volunteers make kebabs
VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) is an organization that brings professionals from around the world over to developing nations to help build capacity in local NGOs -- it's the group that brought Sally, Brigitte, and Elaine to Cambodia. The first 6-8 weeks of a VSO volunteer's life is taken up by training (language, culture, development), and lucky for me, part of this training took place in Kampong Cham which meant a jolly crew to bump around with for a few weeks.
The VSOs-in-training all lived together in a big house in town. The group had a rowdy element -- some heavy drinkers and frequenters of karaoke bars, so I was ready for an exciting night when they invited me over for a BBQ one Sunday in honor of Elaine's birthday and the New Year.
The group was diverse -- 5 young women from Australia, Holland, and Britain ranging from mid-20s to early 30s (including Elisa and Esther), a married couple from Britain, a recent graduate from Canada, four Filipinos, two Ugandans, two middle-aged British men, and two older British ladies (including Elaine). We started off the evening talking Jesus and the phenomenon of "born again Christians" with one of the girls (a staunch Christian herself), ate some delicious kebabs, sang happy birthday to Elaine, then danced the rest of the night away to a joint-playlist made up with 5 "favorites" from each VSO. I was disappointed that no one recognized my songs, but alas, I guess my American taste for the classics (e.g. Paul Simon, Tom Petty, Journey) was lost on the crowd.
Making "Escape Beef"
Rumdourl, Mary and I decided we should have (yet another) small party in honor of Khmer New Year, so we requisitioned Sally's house and began debating the menu. In the end, we didn't decide until the trip to the market that morning -- I made basil tofu and paratha and Rum, Mary, Tiwon and another friend got stuff for "escape beef" and Cambodian omlettes. We prepped everything on the floor in my kitchen and then went over to Sally's to cook.
Escape beef is almost like a Khmer fondue, cooked in a hot pot in the center of the table. The pot is filled with oil, butter, and some prepared sauce of seasoned tofu blended with sugar, salt, and I'm not sure what else. You throw in raw beef with Khmer potatoes, cabbage, carrots, and oyster mushrooms and pull things out as they get done.
We ate once until we were too stuffed to talk, then sat down to a few rounds of the infamous "Take 6" then back to the table for another round of eating.
Three Nepali speakers at one table sets a new record in Kampong Cham
Before she left, Brigitte gave me the card for a Peace Corps volunteer in town. I gave John a ring out of the blue to see if he wanted to meet up for a drink, and he rang me the next week to invite me to dinner with a whole crew. Our dinner at the usual Joe's Bar was highly unusual in that we ended up with three Nepali speakers (and no fluent Khmer speakers!) at the same table. Kurt, my next-door neighbor, now works for the World Food Program, but had originally been a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal. There, he met his now-wife, Hira, who just came to live with him in Cambodia. The two of them were joined by the ex-English teacher of a friend of Kurt -- a 20-something girl who happened to be visiting from Phnom Penh and brought this teacher along. He, in fact, had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal some 30 years back, and was eager to shake the rust off his skills and practice with Kurt and Hira.
Besides the six of us: John, Kurt, Hira, 20-something, ex-teacher, and me, there was also a Maryknoll catechist (priest-in-training) from Chicago who was stationed in Kampong Cham
At dinner, I sat between John (who told me about losing 40lbs since coming to Cambodia), and Kurt (who shared the story of how he and Hira met... very romantic).
Dance-a-thon in a bar on a boat in Phnom Penh
The last weekend of April, I headed out to Phnom Penh to check out the city, stock up on groceries, and meet some friends-of-friends who were living and working there. The first night, I met up for happy hour with Lauren who I had met by email through a friend of a friend in San Francisco. I brought along Elaine and Sally and Lauren brought Rachel (her roommate), Andrew (a recent grad from NY teaching English at the Royal University), and Joe (a Brit who had spent the previous year or so leading adventure trips in the jungles of Malaysia and South America).
After the first successful night, we decided to meet up again the next night to go and hear a friend of Joe's DJ at a local bar. After being completely soaked in another downpour (early rainy season!) we took a few drinks along the river, then headed to the bar, Pontoon, which was on a boat out in the river. The club was full of hippie travelers and young-ish NGO types, and we enjoyed each other's company and danced like crazy until 2am. Achaya, the DJ, invited us back to an afterparty at his house (next door to the guesthouse where I was staying) so we headed off to wind down the night to good music and good company.
Samat throws me an eel soup welcome party
Samat is the person in the office who is always well-dressed, always madeup, and who is (according to my sources) an avid dancer and karaoke-star. Last Friday morning, Samat invited me to join her for dinner after work as a "welcome to Cambodia" get-together. I happily agreed, and after work, we headed off together on our motos to the Eel Soup restaurant. Needless to say, this outdoor restaurant has one specialty.
The 6-or-so of us from the office sat in a small hut, and the server came over with a wooden bucket of burning charcoal. on top, they placed a ceramic pot, into which they poured a delicious-looking brew of soup, eel, and other unknown goodies. As the pot boiled over, we threw in a plates of veggies and waited a few minutes before ladling it all out over our small bowls of noodles. Chnganh nah!
Paratha and Curry at Sally's goodbye party
Sally left just yesterday and there have been a flurry of going away events in her honor over the past week. The official party at her house consisted of the usual crowd from the office, plus her landlord and her 5 boys. Yet another eating extravaganza followed by cards.
Village mass and dinner with Rodrigo and the Bishop of Kampong Cham
After meeting us all at Joe's bar that night, Rodrigo decided to invite us all over to take a tour of the Catholic compound and have dinner with the priests. He also invited us all to check out a mass in a nearby village -- I was the only one that decided to go, so I left a little early from work to meet him at the compound and drive out to the village. The mass was held at this small retreat center in a village nearby to Kampong Cham. The building itself was a raised house with the typical peaked roof and shutters on the sides. Just as we arrived, the thunder began, the breezes started to blow and the sky went dark, so we quickly scurried inside. Seated at the front of the church was a statue in the style of the seated Buddha, but representing Jesus. Behind the statue were intricately carved shutters, which let in the last light of day. Since there was only one battery powered light-bulb inside, the rest of the congregants read their hymnal by light of small candles. I couldn't follow most of the content of the mass in Khmer, but I knew the general order of events and could share "peace be with yous" at the appropriate moment.
After mass, we headed back to town in the pouring rain. The Bishop of Kampong Cham, a friendly older Indian man, drove the truck. One fellow's moto got a flat, so Rodrigo helped lift it into the back of our truck and he rode huddle back there back to town. We dropped everyone off, then headed back to a delicious dinner at the church compound. When we arrived, Kurt, Hira, and John were already there. We sat down to eat -- the Bishop, Rodrigo, Kurt, Hira, John, a Korean priest-in-training, and a Korean Maryknoll volunteer. The bishop told us the amazing story of the "first Catholic" of Kampong Cham, and we discussed cooperation between the many Christian sects here in town.
It's a beautiful Saturday morning, there's a breeze on my balcony, I just had a bowl of oatmeal with mangoes and a cup of coffee from my Vietnamese drip, and I'm quite content.
Don't really feel like writing about work at the moment as I've been in it up to my ears. So instead, I'll talk about the varied, random, adhoc social scene I've been part of over the past month and a half. This has been a month of parties and fun and so far, it's been a kaleidoscope of ages, nationalities, cultures, and personalities. Because there are so few people very much like me, I've found myself hanging out with groups that you might not see together in any other context.
I must say that I'm very glad that I don't live in Phnom Penh -- having been there one weekend, I can say it's absolutely lovely to visit, but it seems too close to the same kind of thing I'm used to. The "NGO scene" and the travelers that pass through are certainly colorful and more international that I might get on a Saturday night in San Francisco, but at the same time, they all seem to be the same young 20-something idealistic young professional types that I'm accustomed to seeing and socializing with (no offense to any of you, my dear, dear friends ;)
So, in celebration of all my new friends, here's a short summary of a couple of my recent social engagements:
An intro to the office -- Khmer noodles and cards
My very first Friday in Kampong Cham, Brigitte, the Dutch volunteer who's since left, invited me over for Noam Ban Chop (Khmer noodles) and a card game. This was my first introduction to many of the staff working in my section and we all had a fun "getting-to-know-you" afternoon, pounding up soup ingredients, slurping down food, playing a hilarious card game called "Take 6" and eating apple beignets.
The crowd here consisted of the two volunteers, Brigitte (in her 30s) and Sally (in her 60s), 5 women Cambodian staff, and one husband.
A soaking at the airstrip
The same weekend, Brigitte & Sally organized a trip out to the old American airstrip just out of town. The three of us were joined by Elaine (the volunteer who's working with me now that Brigitte and Sally have both gone), Elisa a Dutch volunteer in her early 30s who lives on a boat back in Holland and will be stationed in the horrible border town of Poi Pet, and Esther, a British fisheries volunteer in her late 20s who'll be stationed in Battambong.
We enjoyed wine, pringles, and some Cadbury easter eggs I had stashed away, but unfortunately instead of a sunset, we were visited by the first torrential downpour of the season. By the time our tuk-tuks finally arrived to rescue us, we were already soaked "down to the knickers" as the Brits would say. Wet & still hungry, we headed over to Joe's Bar near the river for nourishment and a dance party.
Awkward moments with my landlord
It's tradition for Khmer New Year to spend time with the family, so when the time rolled around, our already bustling household filled to the brim with daughters, son-in-laws, grandchildren, and nephews. On the first evening of the new year, on my way out to the internet cafe, my landlord and a group of other menfolk insisted that I stick around, share a beer, and toast to the new year.
I happily sat down, ready to take part in the new year jollity and meet the family. The group was already well into their 4th or 5th can of Angkor (none of them particularly large guys) which made for a particularly boisterous crowd. Around the table, we had my landlord, two dentists, a military general (app
arently a very important man), and a businessman.The businessman, Mr. Sam was my landlord's nephew. He was the most eager to speak English, so he drove the conversation, asking about where I was from, what I did and why I wanted to come to Cambodia. Every couple of minutes, we raised our glasses and toasted "to health!" Soon, my very happy landlord started to join in, proudly telling me about Mr. Sam's millions. When I expressed my admiration, he went on to reiterate that Mr. Sam was a in the garment industry, and added that he was still single. Eventually it came out that Mr. Sam had travelled extensively in Singapore and in the US and was now in search of a foreign wife. We laughed and my landlord taught me how to say "just joking" in Khmer, but the conversation eventually went on long enough to become slightly uncomfortable even for Mr. Sam, so I excused myself and promised to come back after my dinner for one more drink.
I didn't make it back in time for the promised drink, but the next morning, my landlord was quite abashed, and there's been no mention of Mr. Sam since then.
Volunteers make kebabs
VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) is an organization that brings professionals from around the world over to developing nations to help build capacity in local NGOs -- it's the group that brought Sally, Brigitte, and Elaine to Cambodia. The first 6-8 weeks of a VSO volunteer's life is taken up by training (language, culture, development), and lucky for me, part of this training took place in Kampong Cham which meant a jolly crew to bump around with for a few weeks.
The VSOs-in-training all lived together in a big house in town. The group had a rowdy element -- some heavy drinkers and frequenters of karaoke bars, so I was ready for an exciting night when they invited me over for a BBQ one Sunday in honor of Elaine's birthday and the New Year.
The group was diverse -- 5 young women from Australia, Holland, and Britain ranging from mid-20s to early 30s (including Elisa and Esther), a married couple from Britain, a recent graduate from Canada, four Filipinos, two Ugandans, two middle-aged British men, and two older British ladies (including Elaine). We started off the evening talking Jesus and the phenomenon of "born again Christians" with one of the girls (a staunch Christian herself), ate some delicious kebabs, sang happy birthday to Elaine, then danced the rest of the night away to a joint-playlist made up with 5 "favorites" from each VSO. I was disappointed that no one recognized my songs, but alas, I guess my American taste for the classics (e.g. Paul Simon, Tom Petty, Journey) was lost on the crowd.
Making "Escape Beef"
Rumdourl, Mary and I decided we should have (yet another) small party in honor of Khmer New Year, so we requisitioned Sally's house and began debating the menu. In the end, we didn't decide until the trip to the market that morning -- I made basil tofu and paratha and Rum, Mary, Tiwon and another friend got stuff for "escape beef" and Cambodian omlettes. We prepped everything on the floor in my kitchen and then went over to Sally's to cook.
Escape beef is almost like a Khmer fondue, cooked in a hot pot in the center of the table. The pot is filled with oil, butter, and some prepared sauce of seasoned tofu blended with sugar, salt, and I'm not sure what else. You throw in raw beef with Khmer potatoes, cabbage, carrots, and oyster mushrooms and pull things out as they get done.
We ate once until we were too stuffed to talk, then sat down to a few rounds of the infamous "Take 6" then back to the table for another round of eating.
Three Nepali speakers at one table sets a new record in Kampong Cham
Before she left, Brigitte gave me the card for a Peace Corps volunteer in town. I gave John a ring out of the blue to see if he wanted to meet up for a drink, and he rang me the next week to invite me to dinner with a whole crew. Our dinner at the usual Joe's Bar was highly unusual in that we ended up with three Nepali speakers (and no fluent Khmer speakers!) at the same table. Kurt, my next-door neighbor, now works for the World Food Program, but had originally been a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal. There, he met his now-wife, Hira, who just came to live with him in Cambodia. The two of them were joined by the ex-English teacher of a friend of Kurt -- a 20-something girl who happened to be visiting from Phnom Penh and brought this teacher along. He, in fact, had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal some 30 years back, and was eager to shake the rust off his skills and practice with Kurt and Hira.
Besides the six of us: John, Kurt, Hira, 20-something, ex-teacher, and me, there was also a Maryknoll catechist (priest-in-training) from Chicago who was stationed in Kampong Cham
At dinner, I sat between John (who told me about losing 40lbs since coming to Cambodia), and Kurt (who shared the story of how he and Hira met... very romantic).
Dance-a-thon in a bar on a boat in Phnom Penh
The last weekend of April, I headed out to Phnom Penh to check out the city, stock up on groceries, and meet some friends-of-friends who were living and working there. The first night, I met up for happy hour with Lauren who I had met by email through a friend of a friend in San Francisco. I brought along Elaine and Sally and Lauren brought Rachel (her roommate), Andrew (a recent grad from NY teaching English at the Royal University), and Joe (a Brit who had spent the previous year or so leading adventure trips in the jungles of Malaysia and South America).
After the first successful night, we decided to meet up again the next night to go and hear a friend of Joe's DJ at a local bar. After being completely soaked in another downpour (early rainy season!) we took a few drinks along the river, then headed to the bar, Pontoon, which was on a boat out in the river. The club was full of hippie travelers and young-ish NGO types, and we enjoyed each other's company and danced like crazy until 2am. Achaya, the DJ, invited us back to an afterparty at his house (next door to the guesthouse where I was staying) so we headed off to wind down the night to good music and good company.
Samat throws me an eel soup welcome party
Samat is the person in the office who is always well-dressed, always madeup, and who is (according to my sources) an avid dancer and karaoke-star. Last Friday morning, Samat invited me to join her for dinner after work as a "welcome to Cambodia" get-together. I happily agreed, and after work, we headed off together on our motos to the Eel Soup restaurant. Needless to say, this outdoor restaurant has one specialty.
The 6-or-so of us from the office sat in a small hut, and the server came over with a wooden bucket of burning charcoal. on top, they placed a ceramic pot, into which they poured a delicious-looking brew of soup, eel, and other unknown goodies. As the pot boiled over, we threw in a plates of veggies and waited a few minutes before ladling it all out over our small bowls of noodles. Chnganh nah!
Paratha and Curry at Sally's goodbye party
Sally left just yesterday and there have been a flurry of going away events in her honor over the past week. The official party at her house consisted of the usual crowd from the office, plus her landlord and her 5 boys. Yet another eating extravaganza followed by cards.
Village mass and dinner with Rodrigo and the Bishop of Kampong Cham
After meeting us all at Joe's bar that night, Rodrigo decided to invite us all over to take a tour of the Catholic compound and have dinner with the priests. He also invited us all to check out a mass in a nearby village -- I was the only one that decided to go, so I left a little early from work to meet him at the compound and drive out to the village. The mass was held at this small retreat center in a village nearby to Kampong Cham. The building itself was a raised house with the typical peaked roof and shutters on the sides. Just as we arrived, the thunder began, the breezes started to blow and the sky went dark, so we quickly scurried inside. Seated at the front of the church was a statue in the style of the seated Buddha, but representing Jesus. Behind the statue were intricately carved shutters, which let in the last light of day. Since there was only one battery powered light-bulb inside, the rest of the congregants read their hymnal by light of small candles. I couldn't follow most of the content of the mass in Khmer, but I knew the general order of events and could share "peace be with yous" at the appropriate moment.
After mass, we headed back to town in the pouring rain. The Bishop of Kampong Cham, a friendly older Indian man, drove the truck. One fellow's moto got a flat, so Rodrigo helped lift it into the back of our truck and he rode huddle back there back to town. We dropped everyone off, then headed back to a delicious dinner at the church compound. When we arrived, Kurt, Hira, and John were already there. We sat down to eat -- the Bishop, Rodrigo, Kurt, Hira, John, a Korean priest-in-training, and a Korean Maryknoll volunteer. The bishop told us the amazing story of the "first Catholic" of Kampong Cham, and we discussed cooperation between the many Christian sects here in town.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
The Office
Got into work about three-till eight today, parked my moto, exchanged hellos with my buddy Sopheoun and the administrative assistant and got down to work. Folks trickled in until about 8:10, about half the staff's around at any one time, with the rest out in the field of at some meeting-or-other. It's customary to kick our shoes off just inside the front door, next to the mail cubbies and the water dispenser and go around barefoot in the office. There's no air-conditioning, but the standing fans work just fine and help keep the flies away, except for the few hours per week when we lose power.The office is located on the grounds of the Provincial Teacher Training College (PTTC), across from the Regional Teacher Training College (RTTC) where they train upper secondary school teachers (grades 9-12). Also on the same grounds are a primary school and a special institute for deaf and blind children.
We've got a good-old squat toilet over-around the side, which we keep padlocked presumably so the teachers-in-training can't make a mess of it. They have another public toilet right beside, but the school-children, alas, aren't so lucky and either have to hold it, or find a suitable tree.
The campus is a mix of extreme fastidiousness and disorder. The other day, we were instructed to park our motos facing away from the building because it looked "untidy" the other way. On the other hand, the path leading down the grounds from the main road is completely demolished (think asphalt someone decided to jackhammer and then just leave there). Roundabout noon, little boys and girls collect wood fallen from the trees in the compound to bring home to cook the lunch time meal. Later in the day, a few cows and the occasional goat keep me company just
outside my window.The office consists of four main sections, the Girls Education Initiative (GEI), where I am, Child Friendly Schools (CFS), the School Breakfast Program (SBP), and Educational Support for Children in Underserved Populations (ESCUP). GEI and CFS each have about 10 folks who sit together in two workrooms on one side of the office. Our room has windows with wooden shutters that lock on the top and bottom, so you get to clamber up on the desks each time you want to open or shut them properly. On the corner, next to GEI, you have management/administrative. Opposite all that, are two small cubicle rooms for finance and data-entry and the SBP office sandwiched in between. ESCUP has a separate office just around the corner.
There's a large digital clock mounted in the center of the office between the two sides which marks the time and lets us all know when it's noon and time for our lunch break. Every day, religiously at 12pm, the whole office shuffles out and the doors are locked. Folks ride home for food, a shower, and a nap, and then come back at 2 to finish out the day. The long break makes the day seem like two days since you've always got those two chunks. But every day, at 5 'o clock on the dot, we're out the door again. If there's a such thing as a rushed deadline (haven't seen it yet), I guess it's dealt with at home, because if your computer's not off and your shoes nearly on at 5:10, you're liable to be carried out rather unceremoniously.
A group of three monks and three Buddhist priests came and blessed the office at Khmer New Year; they chanted and prayed for an hour and a half to improve our chances at receiving donor support in the next year. We cleared an entire room, set up a special altar with incense, mini-pagodas and small offerings of food, and nearly the whole staff came. At the end, the monks threw candy and longans and flowers at us all. It was a beautiful ceremony but unfortunately for me, the main bit took place in the CFS section, and not my own, which means we only got the whatever luck was leftover near the end when the head monk went from room to room.
More to come on what I actually do at work, other than watch cows and pray.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Win the lotto, become a US citizen (!?)
Wow.
Word in the office is that our vice-director (at left) just won a lottery which qualifies him to move him and his entire family to the United States, where he'll be provided a job and a home and be able to become "American."
If you're looking a bit incredulous, that was my reaction too. I'm doing some recon to learn more, but the entire Cambodian staff ensures me that this is the real deal, and in fact, someone they all seem to know from the Provincial Department of Education won the same lottery recently. This POE man apparently migrated just last year and has spent at least one happy Christmas in the US celebrating in the home of new-found American friends.
Given how difficult it is to get a visa these days, and given the fact that our vice-director has very limited spoken English skills, I'm not exactly sure how all this works. I was just mentioning to some of the staff how a Canadian friend of mine at Google was turned away at the US border upon returning from a trip to visit friends and family because the occupation on her Google-issued work vis, "Computer Programmer" didn't match the occupation on her university degree, "Computer Science" (yes indeed, what is our country coming to?).
It's just another example of some of the hare-brained (and sometimes expensive or dangerous) schemes folks here seem to have to get out of the country to better things.
___________________________
Update as of 4/24
Sean kindly explained the deal to me:
Apparently, there is a lottery under the Diversity Visa program, which as far as i understand, is meant to ensure randomness in the visa selection process: http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1318.html
Fascinating.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Thankful for choices
WARNING: Reading any further may expose you to cliche & Jess-style angst. Watch out.
So I suppose it would be strange if it were otherwise, but in the past few weeks I've really noticed how being here makes me thankful 100x over each day for things I used to take for granted: to have an amazing education, to travel, to have brilliant friends who do amazing things, to be financially independent, to feel like I have the same opportunities as a woman as I would as a man, and to live somewhere where it's considered culturally acceptable (in our circles at least) to live with a significant other before marriage.
Recently, I've felt embarrassed about all the choices that I have available to me. More specifically it's difficult to explain to people here that I had the security and financial means that allowed me to choose to give up a comfortable (relatively well-paying) job and life to travel and do something simply because it moved me... because I was interested in learning about something and somewhere new... because I wanted to be challenged... because I thought I might be useful here... because I had an itch to travel.
This isn't something that people here totally get. Though people at the office are a bit more accustomed to foreigners coming to work (mostly volunteers), more often than not other folks want to know right off the bat: "why are you here?" To many, my title, "Technical Advisor," means "high-paid" and "important," and so many assume that I'm here for the money and it's commonplace for someone to ask how much I make. Foreign advisors make magnitudes more than their local counterparts, so relatively speaking, this job makes me a rich woman. From my perspective, of course, this job makes me no such thing. I haven't quite settled on an explanation that can satisfy.
Anyway, I have more thoughts but I'll spare you all for now.
So I suppose it would be strange if it were otherwise, but in the past few weeks I've really noticed how being here makes me thankful 100x over each day for things I used to take for granted: to have an amazing education, to travel, to have brilliant friends who do amazing things, to be financially independent, to feel like I have the same opportunities as a woman as I would as a man, and to live somewhere where it's considered culturally acceptable (in our circles at least) to live with a significant other before marriage.
Recently, I've felt embarrassed about all the choices that I have available to me. More specifically it's difficult to explain to people here that I had the security and financial means that allowed me to choose to give up a comfortable (relatively well-paying) job and life to travel and do something simply because it moved me... because I was interested in learning about something and somewhere new... because I wanted to be challenged... because I thought I might be useful here... because I had an itch to travel.
This isn't something that people here totally get. Though people at the office are a bit more accustomed to foreigners coming to work (mostly volunteers), more often than not other folks want to know right off the bat: "why are you here?" To many, my title, "Technical Advisor," means "high-paid" and "important," and so many assume that I'm here for the money and it's commonplace for someone to ask how much I make. Foreign advisors make magnitudes more than their local counterparts, so relatively speaking, this job makes me a rich woman. From my perspective, of course, this job makes me no such thing. I haven't quite settled on an explanation that can satisfy.
Anyway, I have more thoughts but I'll spare you all for now.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Piiiic-tures
Some finally: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2119484&l=1f299&id=201113
Here's a preview for the curious:
Here's a preview for the curious:
Our staff retreat
Last week, I headed off with our office staff to a 3 day retreat to Steung Treng, a city at the very Northern tip of Cambodia at the border of Laos.
The trip was a mix of work and play: a day and a half of presentations and then a full day boat trip to a large waterfall.
We left at 7am on Sunday -- piled into the minivans. The five-hour trip got off to a bumpy start -- right off, we had to make a couple of bathroom breaks, pick up some Department of Education folks who had come in from Ratanakiri, and rebalance ourselves amongst the vehicles after the drivers complained that we were so heavy that the insurance wouldn't cover us in the event of a crash.
Our organization is like a big family. Already, Cambodians call each other "bong" (sister) "om" (aunt) "boo" (uncle) and a plethora of other familial names regardless of blood-relation; then, on top of that, everyone is friendly with everyone else despite the fact that many of them work in difference offices, and this friendliness extends to new employees and the spouses and children who came along. It makes me so happy to see the seemingly complete lack of social awkwardness -- people seem to understand inherently how they fit in to the group which makes for everything quite harmonious.
We arrived in Steung Treng around noon in time for a big lunch at the hotel's restaurant, and then had time for a short rest before a half-day of meetings. Everything was conducted in Khmer, so I had to sit close-by one of the English speakers and nudge them every so often for a summary.
According to Kurt, this was the first staff retreat planned and run entirely by the staff. The first retreat 4 or 5 years back was run entirely by advisors, which demonstrates how far the staff has come. All in all, it was definitely an interesting introduction to the way meetings happen here. All forty folks were in a room around some tables, including the drivers and cleaners. The content progressed in three ways: either someone presented (think powerpoint slides filled with Khmer text), or there was opportunity for feedback (people passing around the microphone to give their opinion), or there was groupwork (folks writing down ideas on big sheets and presenting them back to the group).
One thing really surprised me. In the US, you hear that people rate fear of public-speaking above fear of death, so when you see every staff member happily standing up in front of their peers to talk (often at length) about what they think, it's a all a bit shocking.
On the second night, there was a big going away party for Brigitte with food and toasts and dancing! That night we were instructed to wait until everyone had arrived before starting to eat -- on other nights, everyone tucked in to the food so quickly that if you came 15 minutes into it, you'd see half the tables already starting to be cleared. We danced some traditional Khmer dances -- the Rovull and the Madison -- as well as some more Western numbers: the Macarena, and some knock-off Cambodian rap.
The next day was the boat trip, so we got up early to eat breakfast and headed out in our vans at 7am. We crossed the Mekong on a ferry and drove for about an hour to a small village on the bank of the Sekong. There, we piled into a bunch of powered-canoes, 3-4 per boat, depending on your weight, piloted by a crew of boys and men from the village who ran the service as a small village enterprise. We spent about 2 hours heading up the river, stopping a couple of times to clamber and sweat through the brush on the bank where the river got a bit dicey, and eventually arrived at a rocky bank where we got out and started the climb up to the waterfall. Preparation being as it is, some folks had on sandals, some of us were luckier in flip flops and a select few had on good shoes. We hiked over spiky rocks and through bushes until we finally arrived at a multi-part waterfall. I found a spot, plopped in my feet and scarfed down the lunch we had packed along, then took off to explore.
The more intrepid braved sharp slippery rocks and swift currents and went up to the "big fall," the ones with younger children just lay in the shallows in all their clothes. As it got hotter and hotter, with some encouragement from my boatmen, I decided to embrace life Cambodian-style and went for a swim in one of the bigger pools, longsleeve shirt, pants, and all.
On the way back in the boat, we stopped at a mini-island (about 100 ft sq), took snacks and watched a pod of Irawaddy dophins play in the river.
The next day, burnt, tired and happy, we headed back to Kampong Cham.
The trip was a mix of work and play: a day and a half of presentations and then a full day boat trip to a large waterfall.
We left at 7am on Sunday -- piled into the minivans. The five-hour trip got off to a bumpy start -- right off, we had to make a couple of bathroom breaks, pick up some Department of Education folks who had come in from Ratanakiri, and rebalance ourselves amongst the vehicles after the drivers complained that we were so heavy that the insurance wouldn't cover us in the event of a crash.
Our organization is like a big family. Already, Cambodians call each other "bong" (sister) "om" (aunt) "boo" (uncle) and a plethora of other familial names regardless of blood-relation; then, on top of that, everyone is friendly with everyone else despite the fact that many of them work in difference offices, and this friendliness extends to new employees and the spouses and children who came along. It makes me so happy to see the seemingly complete lack of social awkwardness -- people seem to understand inherently how they fit in to the group which makes for everything quite harmonious.
We arrived in Steung Treng around noon in time for a big lunch at the hotel's restaurant, and then had time for a short rest before a half-day of meetings. Everything was conducted in Khmer, so I had to sit close-by one of the English speakers and nudge them every so often for a summary.
According to Kurt, this was the first staff retreat planned and run entirely by the staff. The first retreat 4 or 5 years back was run entirely by advisors, which demonstrates how far the staff has come. All in all, it was definitely an interesting introduction to the way meetings happen here. All forty folks were in a room around some tables, including the drivers and cleaners. The content progressed in three ways: either someone presented (think powerpoint slides filled with Khmer text), or there was opportunity for feedback (people passing around the microphone to give their opinion), or there was groupwork (folks writing down ideas on big sheets and presenting them back to the group).
One thing really surprised me. In the US, you hear that people rate fear of public-speaking above fear of death, so when you see every staff member happily standing up in front of their peers to talk (often at length) about what they think, it's a all a bit shocking.
On the second night, there was a big going away party for Brigitte with food and toasts and dancing! That night we were instructed to wait until everyone had arrived before starting to eat -- on other nights, everyone tucked in to the food so quickly that if you came 15 minutes into it, you'd see half the tables already starting to be cleared. We danced some traditional Khmer dances -- the Rovull and the Madison -- as well as some more Western numbers: the Macarena, and some knock-off Cambodian rap.
The next day was the boat trip, so we got up early to eat breakfast and headed out in our vans at 7am. We crossed the Mekong on a ferry and drove for about an hour to a small village on the bank of the Sekong. There, we piled into a bunch of powered-canoes, 3-4 per boat, depending on your weight, piloted by a crew of boys and men from the village who ran the service as a small village enterprise. We spent about 2 hours heading up the river, stopping a couple of times to clamber and sweat through the brush on the bank where the river got a bit dicey, and eventually arrived at a rocky bank where we got out and started the climb up to the waterfall. Preparation being as it is, some folks had on sandals, some of us were luckier in flip flops and a select few had on good shoes. We hiked over spiky rocks and through bushes until we finally arrived at a multi-part waterfall. I found a spot, plopped in my feet and scarfed down the lunch we had packed along, then took off to explore.
The more intrepid braved sharp slippery rocks and swift currents and went up to the "big fall," the ones with younger children just lay in the shallows in all their clothes. As it got hotter and hotter, with some encouragement from my boatmen, I decided to embrace life Cambodian-style and went for a swim in one of the bigger pools, longsleeve shirt, pants, and all.
On the way back in the boat, we stopped at a mini-island (about 100 ft sq), took snacks and watched a pod of Irawaddy dophins play in the river.
The next day, burnt, tired and happy, we headed back to Kampong Cham.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Saturday 3 in Cambodia
This morning, I woke up around 5:30 washed my face, brushed my teeth, arranged my mosquito net, and trotted over to my kitchen to put on a huge kettle to boil. While that started, I tidied up my living room table and picked up my flashcards (now growing to an appreciable stack) to take a quick look before my teacher arrived. Tiwon came over around 6:10 by which time I had already made us two cups of tea and memorized a couple of words from the previous lesson.
Around 8, we finished up and Tiwon took me to see her house and then to a tiny market (called "Market behind the pagoda") for breakfast -- again those delicious noodley things, this time also served with Chinese fried cakes which were made with green veg and some kind of flour. We each drank a glass of iced sugar cane juice and then headed off to meet our friend & my coworker Mary (pronounced Maa -- ree) who needed to buy some new cloth to make an outfit for some upcoming weddings. This is the wedding season, so weekends are rife with blaring traditional music, and garishly decorated awnings where well-coiffed guests eat and celebrate.
Mary lives with her father, and mother (both Cham muslims), her older brother, 3 nieces and baby nephew. Her older sister (mum to the kiddos) lives and works in Thailand with her husband. It seems pretty common that older folks take care of their grandchildren while their own children go work elsewhere (that's also the case with my landlord). Mary speaks the best English of pretty much any Cambodian person I know here (my Khmer teacher is comparable), she's independent and super-friendly and though she doesn't work in the same section as me, we've hit it off in the few times we've hung out together.
Mary, her oldest niece, Tiwon and I set off on two motos, deftly navigated the packed byways of the Big Market to a guarded parking area and headed inside. The trip was a success. Though they were disappointed that I didn't buy anything (too small!), Mary got her material plus accessories, Tiwon got a new t-shirt and Mary's niece got a brand-spanking-new outfit from the clothes-stall run by none other than her primary-school teacher (which she was asked to hide from her sisters for at least a little while). One of my favorite near-purchases was a pair of panties meant to flatter the wearer by way of some extra padding "help" in the behind.
The whole market experience was much more fun with the girls especially because they knew so many of the folks in the market. Though Kampong Cham has a decent sized population, I definitely get the feeling that everyone knows their neighbors and, consistent with what I've seen of the rest of Cambodian culture, people are super-friendly and helpful.
After the market, I headed to Caltex where I picked up some peanut butter and juice, then headed home with only a few false turns. At home, there were a few new faces, most likely relatives coming to stay for the New Year. The jackfruit and mango trees had been ransacked for the guests, and something delicious was bubbling over the charcoal fires on the back patio.
Back home, I puttered around for a bit, swept the floor clean from the flies I had Raid-ed the night before, then decided to cut my hair. Once I decided that I'd regret any additional scissor snips, I sat down to do some studying and write for a little while. And here I am now!
Pretty sweet life, huh?
Around 8, we finished up and Tiwon took me to see her house and then to a tiny market (called "Market behind the pagoda") for breakfast -- again those delicious noodley things, this time also served with Chinese fried cakes which were made with green veg and some kind of flour. We each drank a glass of iced sugar cane juice and then headed off to meet our friend & my coworker Mary (pronounced Maa -- ree) who needed to buy some new cloth to make an outfit for some upcoming weddings. This is the wedding season, so weekends are rife with blaring traditional music, and garishly decorated awnings where well-coiffed guests eat and celebrate.
Mary lives with her father, and mother (both Cham muslims), her older brother, 3 nieces and baby nephew. Her older sister (mum to the kiddos) lives and works in Thailand with her husband. It seems pretty common that older folks take care of their grandchildren while their own children go work elsewhere (that's also the case with my landlord). Mary speaks the best English of pretty much any Cambodian person I know here (my Khmer teacher is comparable), she's independent and super-friendly and though she doesn't work in the same section as me, we've hit it off in the few times we've hung out together.
Mary, her oldest niece, Tiwon and I set off on two motos, deftly navigated the packed byways of the Big Market to a guarded parking area and headed inside. The trip was a success. Though they were disappointed that I didn't buy anything (too small!), Mary got her material plus accessories, Tiwon got a new t-shirt and Mary's niece got a brand-spanking-new outfit from the clothes-stall run by none other than her primary-school teacher (which she was asked to hide from her sisters for at least a little while). One of my favorite near-purchases was a pair of panties meant to flatter the wearer by way of some extra padding "help" in the behind.
The whole market experience was much more fun with the girls especially because they knew so many of the folks in the market. Though Kampong Cham has a decent sized population, I definitely get the feeling that everyone knows their neighbors and, consistent with what I've seen of the rest of Cambodian culture, people are super-friendly and helpful.
After the market, I headed to Caltex where I picked up some peanut butter and juice, then headed home with only a few false turns. At home, there were a few new faces, most likely relatives coming to stay for the New Year. The jackfruit and mango trees had been ransacked for the guests, and something delicious was bubbling over the charcoal fires on the back patio.
Back home, I puttered around for a bit, swept the floor clean from the flies I had Raid-ed the night before, then decided to cut my hair. Once I decided that I'd regret any additional scissor snips, I sat down to do some studying and write for a little while. And here I am now!
Pretty sweet life, huh?
Knyom roo nugh Kampong Cham.
Before I left for Cambodia, I asked a friend of a friend for some advice. When I told her where I was living she immediately suggested I consider commuting to Phnom Penh at least on the weekends -- "Kampong Cham? That's in the middle of nowhere!" In fact, some of my coworkers do live in Phnom Penh and do commute on the weekends, but I suspect it's more a question of the availability of employment for other family members than a desire to be entertained.
I guess compared to Phnom Penh, Kampong Cham could be considered a small-ish "nowhere" but in fact it is a provincial capital complete with three markets, three gas stations with air-conditioned minimarts, a governor's mansion, a bridge over the Mekong, an abandoned American airstrip, a couple of temples, a beautiful promenade along the riverbank, and two western-style bar-restaurants that serve fish and chips and spaghetti for $2.50 (expensive by most standards). To top it all off, we recently got two 24-hour ATMs, from which you can withdraw USD for a small finance charge. Apparently, there are also a few Karaoke joints in town, which I (unfortunately) have yet to explore.
The city was built way-back-when by the French and there are some lingering signs of the colonial architecture -- in particular, the main road in town is a broad boulevard with a wide paved center divider with lamps, punctuated by open spaces where the neatly arranged streets of the town run across (read: moto death trap). The area along the river also has a European flair with a broad paved sidewalk, lit by tall streetlamps, overlooking the steep bank down to the water and with a view of the bridge, built more recently by the Japanese.
In the "downtown" economic center of Kampong Cham, the roads are paved. We also have the recently built Highway 7 which goes direct all the way to Phnom Penh, but my street and many of the residential streets are uneven dirt. In general, people keep their own houses and yards very clean, but public spaces are a different story. I still haven't gotten used the habit of nonchalantly tossing an empty can, water bottle, or other random piece of garbage on the side of the road, or in a ditch, or under a tree, but I guess I can't expect all the cultural things to come to me quickly. With the litter and seemingly constant (mostly private) construction, Kampong Cham has the feel of a living, expanding town, changing to accommodate economic development in the province and in the country.
In general, the town wakes up around 5:30 and goes home a little after sundown. In the mornings, the markets are bustling with people and motos, but by noon, the shoppers, deterred by the heat and the flies, all retreat to someplace cooler. My first trip to the market was to the Bangkot Market with Brigitte to buy random house supplies & instant noodles. My second trip alone, I braved the fruit, veggie, and meat sections of the Big Market and left triumphantly with a huge bottle of fish sauce, some random veggies, a huge pomelo, some mangoes, duck eggs, a loaf of french bread, a half kilo of rice, and a whole chicken. The market is awesome -- just-picked produce and newly butchered meat in every direction -- all under a high metal roof. Stall vendors perch in the middle of large platforms with their wares neatly arranged all around. Depending on the set-up, you can often pick the best fruits and veggies from a couple of sections, pay just one person, and they split it accordingly. Everything is organized logically -- fish together, pork together, chicken together, eggs nearby, then all the veggies, and the fruit near the periphery. If you come early enough, you can watch as they expertly turn a whole pig into chops and loin and ribs.
The only place I've seen to buy refrigerated goods are the two minimarts attached to two of the three legitimate gas stations in town. Caltex (StarMart) and FreshShop have yogurt, milk, ice cream, and your occasional cheese, as well as some western snacks like Pringles and peanut butter.
All around town are small semi-outdoor eating establishments with tables and plastic stools arranged around a main cooking area where you can watch your food being prepared fresh right in front of you. My coworkers have already kindly pointed me to some of the best in town where you can wait up to 5 minutes (imagine!) to get the best sauce in town.
Some shops are easy to pick out -- for example, all mobile phone shops seem to have the same orange sign with white lettering but a different name -- but some places are not so obvious: houses often double as laundry services or keep small snack shops in the living room downstairs.
Last Saturday, Brigitte took me for a bicycle ride around town and we took some pictures of the fantastic signs advertising various services: wedding costume tailoring, bakery, moto repair, electronics, veterinarian. Each one with its own pictogram to cater to the illiterate (folks like us!) who can't make heads or tails of the Khmer script. We then rode down a few kilometers outside of town along the river to a more rural area. We saw some of the floating settlements along the river and returned many shouted "he-ll-os!" from the children of local farmers. Then we turned around in the other direction, back up past the post-office, "cinema," and governor's mansion to Highway 7, and rode in the blazing sun up to Wat Nokor, a pre-Angkorian temple which also houses a working Buddhist community. After paying an inflated fee to the police "guarding" the site, we wandered around with an unsolicited and unwanted guide who could only speak enough words of English to ask us "why didn't we love him." In one of the working temples, we tried to decipher the gorgeous colorful mural depicting Buddha's life, and in another temple with a reclining Buddha, we watched a fortune-teller deliver what must have been bad news to a teary girl and her supportive friend.
I'd like to start a little project to draw out a better map of the town to remember where everything is (e.g. the cheap bread shop, the best veggies, the place to buy my brand of mosquito repellent), but it's difficult because during the day I only want to go about on moto because of the heat (and the scary traffic trying to run you over) which isn't so conducive to taking notes.
That's all for now, folks. Miss you all and love you lots,
Jess
I guess compared to Phnom Penh, Kampong Cham could be considered a small-ish "nowhere" but in fact it is a provincial capital complete with three markets, three gas stations with air-conditioned minimarts, a governor's mansion, a bridge over the Mekong, an abandoned American airstrip, a couple of temples, a beautiful promenade along the riverbank, and two western-style bar-restaurants that serve fish and chips and spaghetti for $2.50 (expensive by most standards). To top it all off, we recently got two 24-hour ATMs, from which you can withdraw USD for a small finance charge. Apparently, there are also a few Karaoke joints in town, which I (unfortunately) have yet to explore.
The city was built way-back-when by the French and there are some lingering signs of the colonial architecture -- in particular, the main road in town is a broad boulevard with a wide paved center divider with lamps, punctuated by open spaces where the neatly arranged streets of the town run across (read: moto death trap). The area along the river also has a European flair with a broad paved sidewalk, lit by tall streetlamps, overlooking the steep bank down to the water and with a view of the bridge, built more recently by the Japanese.
In the "downtown" economic center of Kampong Cham, the roads are paved. We also have the recently built Highway 7 which goes direct all the way to Phnom Penh, but my street and many of the residential streets are uneven dirt. In general, people keep their own houses and yards very clean, but public spaces are a different story. I still haven't gotten used the habit of nonchalantly tossing an empty can, water bottle, or other random piece of garbage on the side of the road, or in a ditch, or under a tree, but I guess I can't expect all the cultural things to come to me quickly. With the litter and seemingly constant (mostly private) construction, Kampong Cham has the feel of a living, expanding town, changing to accommodate economic development in the province and in the country.
In general, the town wakes up around 5:30 and goes home a little after sundown. In the mornings, the markets are bustling with people and motos, but by noon, the shoppers, deterred by the heat and the flies, all retreat to someplace cooler. My first trip to the market was to the Bangkot Market with Brigitte to buy random house supplies & instant noodles. My second trip alone, I braved the fruit, veggie, and meat sections of the Big Market and left triumphantly with a huge bottle of fish sauce, some random veggies, a huge pomelo, some mangoes, duck eggs, a loaf of french bread, a half kilo of rice, and a whole chicken. The market is awesome -- just-picked produce and newly butchered meat in every direction -- all under a high metal roof. Stall vendors perch in the middle of large platforms with their wares neatly arranged all around. Depending on the set-up, you can often pick the best fruits and veggies from a couple of sections, pay just one person, and they split it accordingly. Everything is organized logically -- fish together, pork together, chicken together, eggs nearby, then all the veggies, and the fruit near the periphery. If you come early enough, you can watch as they expertly turn a whole pig into chops and loin and ribs.
The only place I've seen to buy refrigerated goods are the two minimarts attached to two of the three legitimate gas stations in town. Caltex (StarMart) and FreshShop have yogurt, milk, ice cream, and your occasional cheese, as well as some western snacks like Pringles and peanut butter.
All around town are small semi-outdoor eating establishments with tables and plastic stools arranged around a main cooking area where you can watch your food being prepared fresh right in front of you. My coworkers have already kindly pointed me to some of the best in town where you can wait up to 5 minutes (imagine!) to get the best sauce in town.
Some shops are easy to pick out -- for example, all mobile phone shops seem to have the same orange sign with white lettering but a different name -- but some places are not so obvious: houses often double as laundry services or keep small snack shops in the living room downstairs.
Last Saturday, Brigitte took me for a bicycle ride around town and we took some pictures of the fantastic signs advertising various services: wedding costume tailoring, bakery, moto repair, electronics, veterinarian. Each one with its own pictogram to cater to the illiterate (folks like us!) who can't make heads or tails of the Khmer script. We then rode down a few kilometers outside of town along the river to a more rural area. We saw some of the floating settlements along the river and returned many shouted "he-ll-os!" from the children of local farmers. Then we turned around in the other direction, back up past the post-office, "cinema," and governor's mansion to Highway 7, and rode in the blazing sun up to Wat Nokor, a pre-Angkorian temple which also houses a working Buddhist community. After paying an inflated fee to the police "guarding" the site, we wandered around with an unsolicited and unwanted guide who could only speak enough words of English to ask us "why didn't we love him." In one of the working temples, we tried to decipher the gorgeous colorful mural depicting Buddha's life, and in another temple with a reclining Buddha, we watched a fortune-teller deliver what must have been bad news to a teary girl and her supportive friend.
I'd like to start a little project to draw out a better map of the town to remember where everything is (e.g. the cheap bread shop, the best veggies, the place to buy my brand of mosquito repellent), but it's difficult because during the day I only want to go about on moto because of the heat (and the scary traffic trying to run you over) which isn't so conducive to taking notes.
That's all for now, folks. Miss you all and love you lots,
Jess
Saturday, April 5, 2008
One-week anniversary!
It's my week-plus-one-day anniversary of living here in Kampong Cham, and it's high time for an update...
So far, I've been settling in nicely. My first two nights, I stayed with Kurt, who I find is actually a volunteer and ex-advisor at my NGO, and not the director as I somehow got into my mind. He has a beautiful big house a little ways outside the main town on the new national route 7 (or big road to Phnom Penh).
Now, I've taken care of most of the basic necessities: shelter, water, food and even have a few other goodies like transportation, a mosquito net and a toilet brush!
I'm living on the top story of a 3-floor house "behind the old prison" (basically a small ruin of a wall) on an unpaved, unmarked road which also serves as home to a few other foreigners (mostly NGO workers, a few hospital volunteers, and a couple of Bible-thumpers across the way). Brigitte, the Dutch woman whose role I'll be taking over, currently lives next door, and the new volunteer Elaine will be taking over her place. My landlord is awesome -- he's a nice grandpa with 4 daughters and 5 grandchildren and he speaks some English. The house is a ruckus, with "servants" and family coming and going all the time. I also just found out there's a Korean girl (a nurse) who lives in a small room downstairs.
The apartment is 3x bigger than my place in San Francisco and quite nice. Outside, there's a big iron gate, standard for most houses, that gets locked at night. The front driveway is tiled with lots of potted plants. To get in, I walk back to their patio (where they're often cooking in big pots outside) and enter through their house to the staircase and then up the two flights to my pad. My kitchen has a refrigerator and running water and an ancient rice cooker that may work. Brigitte's been donating some house supplies to my cause, so I have some basic utensils and plates, and I picked up a couple of knives and other sundries at the market. I also had a water filter brought from Phnom Penh which makes my water taste like rocks, but hopefully does away with the girardia, etc. Obviously, the kitchen's most important, but as for the rest of my house: I have two bedrooms (so please, don't hesitate to visit!), two bathrooms, a living room, and an awesome balcony with a porch swing and a view of the small lake. I do have the option of air-conditioning, but so far, I've made-do with the ceiling fans and frequent showers as I hear a night with the AC can run $8.
Across the street from my house is a food stall with delicious breakfast -- these small noodley things and vegetables with an egg on top -- a Khmer specialty, or so I'm told. I've eaten there a couple of times, and sometimes make do with a cup of tea and some Hob Nobs. The food here has been awesome so far. My first meal in the country on the way from Phnom Penh to Kampong Cham was tiny whole deep-fried eels with picked veg and rice, and a spicy pineapple & fish soup. I've also had the famous Khmer noodles twice: my third night, my coworkers got together at Brigitte's house and taught us how to prepare the dish which consists of a stock with ground fish, tumeric, lemongrass, salt, garlic, shallots, basil and much more, on top of noodles, on top of banana flower and tow gay. You top the whole shebang off with some lime (kroich ch'ma) basil and other fresh green stuff. Yummy!
My office was lovely enough to lend me a moto, and I bought a sassy helmet made in Taiwan. It's certainly a treat to ride around with the wind in your face, especially in the humidity and heat. The moto's an automatic, so I guess I can't qualify as "hard-core" just yet, but I think it's certainly a good way to get around and part of the Khmer cultural experience. Before I got the moto, I was bumming rides from office-mates on the backs of their motos, or paying $0.25 for a ride around town. Since very very few folks speak any English, my geographically challenged self had to quickly learn a few Khmer words, (Knyom roogh nugh kang krawee gook -- "I live behind the prison") and my way around town.
We had one day of relief from the heat when a big storm rolled in earlier this week. It was crazy to see the entire sky go dark, and then the deluge begin. There was lightening and thunder and everything cooled off for a brief while, then back to the sweat.
There are lots of things that are different, but on the whole, I've been pleasantly surprised with how easily I've been able to meet people, get what I need, and get used to squat toilets, roadside stands with sun-dried clams, and skin-and-bones cows wandering the road.
Tune in for more about the office, Khmer lessons, new friends, my first trip to the market (including my experience with Cambodian chickens), and KHMER NEW YEAR.
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