In which I integrate

Where in the world....?

I bet Carmen Sandiago never went to Cambodia. 

Right now I'm in Siem Reap province, which is where I'll be living for the next 2 years. I've been here for almost 3 weeks, and am desperately trying to find ways to fill the time till school starts. So far, I've been trying my best at integrating into my community, which is what I'm supposed to be doing for forever, or until I'm unmistakably Cambodian. This has resulted in quite a few people asking me to teach them English, so I'm teaching 2 private English classes.  The first is at the pagoda at 6am, (ugh) and consists of 20-30 students of varying ages, including a handful of monks. The second is in the evening, and only has 4 students, which is great, but they're also extreme variations in ages. 3 are 12, but the 4th is my age. Fortunately, I've now asked Voleak, the 4th student, to tutor me in Khmer, so she gets lots of extra English practice then, even though she teaches me in Khmer. 

Outside of class, I like to go to the market almost everyday, mostly to buy my 15 cent waffles, but also just so people know I'm here. Generally what happens, is that the villagers point out to each other that the foreigner is here, ask each other if I know Khmer, I reply that I do, and then they all come up to feel my arms, because Cambodians really like to feel arm fat. I've had some different experiences, like one lady started pointing to random things in the market and asked me to say them in Khmer, maybe she didn't really believe that I could speak Khmer, or was just amazed that a foreigner can speak Khmer. I also had a whole crowd of people gathered around the tailor booth when I was trying on different skirts, all putting in their input of which fabrics were prettiest, and which side the slit should go on in the skirt. Otherwise, "ohh barong!" (Foreigner) "jeh Khmer?" Me: "jeh!"  "Ayaaa" [feeling arm fat while asking how old I am and how many members I have in my family]. 

I've also read (only) 10 books in less than 3 weeks, and while this is supposed to be a blog about traveling, technically it says adventures, and books are adventures, so I'm going to talk about them. The first I read we're the first four books in the Artemis Fowl series, by Eoin Colfer. A young adult series about a brilliant young criminal who manages to land himself in the secret fairy world via stealing their gold. Lots of good characters, very good for a young adult story. Apparently there are more than 4, but unfortunately they weren't at Peace Corps when I was there. After that, I read "The Tao of Pooh," by Benjamin Hoff, an excellent book about how Winnie the Pooh is the epitome of Taoism. Pretty short, and has a lot of funny dialogues between the narrator and Pooh and the other awesome characters. Ater that, I read a book called "The Man who Loved Books too much". Written by a journalist for the NY times, it's a true story about a book thief, not an ordinary book thief, but a thief of collectible books: first editions, manuscripts, signed copies, etc.  Books that cost hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars. The author, journalist Allison Hoover Bartlett, writes about her conversations with the thief himself, while in and out of jail, and also some of the book sellers he's stolen from, most specifically one collector, named Ken Sanders, who becomes a private detective on the side, only to catch this particular thief. What caught me about this book, apart from the subject material, was the writing.  Staying true to her journalistic style, the descriptions of the book stores were some of the best I've ever read. If you didn't want to own your own old-fashioned book store before reading this, you will now. The other 4 books were "Tuck Everlasting," a couple Sherlock Holmes stories, and "Pride and Prejudice," which hardly need any recommendations from me. 

Other than that, I like to listen to music on my iPad. Cambodians seem to have a special affinity for Simon and Garfunkel. 

Finally, I happen to live very close to an airport, so when everyone who reads this blog instantly falls in love with Cambodia based on my amazing descriptions, and decides to come visit me in Cambodia, it'll be no problem for me to pick you up at the airport. 

In which I write about everything

I asked my very good friend, Shiri, what I should write about on here, and she answered 'everything', so here goes. 

Right now I am lying on an actual bed in a hotel room in Phnom Penh, watching CNN and feeling horribly out of touch with everything not Cambodia. On Friday is a swear-in ceremony in which I finally become an official volunteer. After that, we are shipped off to our separate provinces, where we do all sorts of Peace Corps volunteery stuff. My province is Siem Reap, and there are 4ish other volunteers going there as well. 

Leaving my first host family was intensely sad, lots of crying. I've been trying to talk to them a bit on the phone, but speaking Khmer on the phone is a whole new ball game. I promised to visit them whenever I have time, and will try to get them to visit me in Siem Reap. 

My last couple weeks in Samrong were awesome, my host family spoiled me all the time, lots of little gifts and cakes, and not making me eat a whole bowl of rice. I got to do some stuff with string, don't ask me what, but it had something to do with the loom. I also learned that even when you are hand washing all of your laundry, you still end up with an odd number of clean socks. 

Today we had a lot of sessions at the Peace Corps buildings, of which there are a lot more than I was expecting. There's a nice volunteer lounge that has a huge library. I checked out approximately 10 books. 

A couple weekends ago, my family had a professional photographer come and take a family photo to hang up. They took me to get my first ever mani pedi beforehand. 

My beautiful younger sister in her fancy party outfit. We had a whole fashion show that night of all of her party outfits. I have about 45 pictures of her on my iPad now. 

Me, Samnang, one of my Khmer teachers, and my friend Jeff, who is going to Siem Reap with me as well. Samnang is the Khmer word for luck. 

Khnyom sraw-line Kampuchea. Samnang laor dayung awh-k'nee-ah nov Americ. N'yam Bai!