10.30.2009

On being busy.

I can’t believe how busy I’ve been the past few weeks! It is amazing to have things to do, work that needs done, responsibilities to uphold. A soon as I get a taste of this, I never want it to end… So I’m trying a few new things with the hope that it doesn’t – things like assigning homework and actually checking it (though only one class actually does it themselves…the rest copy off one person). I’m planning on writing a blog each week, even when not much is happening. I’m planning on organizing everything in my computer as an extra only child thrill. I’m planning on learning how to cook all the things that my host mom can and more. It should be an eventful winter.

I’m also planning on finishing this project, the Appropriate Projects Bathroom that I just got funding for. At the moment, and for the past year, there has been no bathroom at my school, which is quite a problem for my female students, some of whom live several kilometers away from the school and who have to bike to and from school. We’ll begin construction this next week, I hope, and finish it soon.
http://appropriateprojects.com/taxonomy/term/33

In addition to all of that, my classes are doing well, and I have my own classroom to teach in as well, which means that I can do all sorts of things that I couldn’t do before. For example, I can play any manner of loud games that would otherwise distract all the other classes… I can put up artwork and visual aids for the English learners… I can even move the desks around however I wish. For those of you who don’t know, the normal way of things over here is for a set class of 40-50 students to have their own class (ie 11 A, 11 B, 11 C…) and their own room for their class alone. They stay in their same seats every hour of every class and the teachers move around. Most of their classrooms are bare, some with a picture of the king or a Khmer proverb, one with a painting of a dinosaur (?), and there is certainly no way to leave a visual aid in a class without worrying about its safety.

My school only has enough classrooms for 3 grades, even though it hosts 6, so in the mornings grades 9, 11, and 12 come to school and in the afternoons grades 7, 8, and 10 come. It is slightly inconvenient for any teacher who wishes to do something with art, granted that only teacher is me. So far, I have hung a map of the US and a Nat Geo map of space in my class, and the students LOVE it. They read all the names of the states and one even asked me where “Lo-a” is… He confused the “I” for an “L” and I didn’t know what he was saying until he spelled out my state.

The bottom line is that things are going well. I’m running into a bit of cultural misunderstanding with my co-teacher, but we’re working on things. I’ve also found that I’m a bit more sensitive some days to what used to be a bit of a novelty. People talking about me in front of me, being harassed a bit by strangers in places that I consider my stomping ground, staring and hellos… they’re all things that I’ve dealt with since the beginning, though I imagined that after a year in a single place that they would be a bit less pronounced. They’re not, and I’m beginning to regret my previous expectations.

However, I did get my first invitation to a party that was just for me, and that is pretty thrilling. I went, paid my respects, took some photos, and had a wonderful time. The to-be monk, the brother of one of my students, was super sweet, as was the rest of the family. He also looked fantastic – with blush and lipstick on… not to mention the drawn-on eyebrows. When I asked my family about this, they said that the monks need to be pretty for the party, which they can’t be after they have shaved their heads and their eyebrows off. He was also wearing a crocheted top and shiny pants. I was pretty happy around all the Khmer folk and the groups of yieys. I should also add that later that day I got a free ride into Sway because I “help Cambodia.” Unlike that last paragraph, this is what I would cal a “good Khmer day.”

There’s also the religious festival that I went to with my grandma. There was a money tree… need I say more?

About the weather – Rainy season is almost over and I am beginning to feel a chill in the air, something I have been looking forward to for about 7 months. A few more weeks and we will be in full winter… hello 70s!

10.24.2009

Bathroom Project

http://appropriateprojects.com/node/58

Hey check it out!!! My school is building a bathroom and we could use your help!

Ants Ants Ants


So, I’ve lived here for a few months over a year now. I love it; I feel healthy and generally pretty relaxed, I am happy and less focused on the minute details that seemed to take over my life back at home, and I feel like I am devoted to learning here. I just discovered a few new podcasts from howstuffworks.com, all about interesting history, science, politics, inventions, you name it, and I’m filling my brain full of knowledge. It feels great, and I’m actually able to devote time to it without being distracted at the time I am losing. Cambodia has slowed me down, thank God.

Anyway, my knowledge is not what I am devoting this blog to… Instead, I thought I would share a few fun facts about Cambodia with you.
This girl... who lives at the restaurant that I frequent... is currently learning how to walk.

There are some nasty ants here, who like all manner of things that I find a bit unusual. I have found them in the strangest things, which always upsets me given their tendency to bit me when I try to remove them from said thing. Their bites hurt worse than mosquito bites and make me more than uncomfortable. What are they into, you ask? Well let me give you a list…

I have found ants in the following places:
In and around my fiber supplement.
Inside my jars of peanut butter.
In the peppermint and plum foot scrub I have in the bathroom.
In my dose of one-a-day women’s multivitamins.
Eating chocolate.
In my containers of cotton swabs.
Pouring out of my light socket.
Filing out of my medical kit with my throat lozenges.
Diving into my damp clothes, most especially underwear.
In the trash can after Styrofoam donut boxes and any number of other things…
Chewing on bread.
On top of my bedside light.
In my pancake mix box.
In my bed.
Eating any number of dead insects.
In Deidre's Face Wash.
Eating pancake batter from Anne's stove.

Allow me to simplify… I hate ants and how much they like the same things I do.

In other news, I received my first invitation that was just for me and not just for my family. It is to a “becoming a monk” party for the siblings of one of my students. It was a fabulous little party... and the monk looked very pretty!

Most recently acquired fun fact from my podcasts…white-out was created by a Texan secretary and patented in 1958 because new typewriters were difficult to type with and hard to erase. She thought like a painter and the other secretaries began asking how she did it… amazing!

10.15.2009

My Birthday!

I recently celebrated my second birthday in Cambodia… As my best friend said, “It’s 23, an unexciting age… Good thing you have Cambodia to make it memorable.” I had to agree. I’ve never really expected much from the birthday, at least as far as friends were concerned. It always seemed to fall at an inconvenient time… right after school began, when I didn’t know many people… Or around the time of a show in theatre. I didn’t even go out on my 21st…I was holed up in a theatre for the entire day! But this year, my birthday was amazing. Part of that, I think, is the fact that Cambodia and my life of non-stimulation make a lot of less-than-thrilling things pretty phenomenal. However, in this case, I think it would be great on any continent…

The birthday this year fell on a Thursday – which means that I had to go to school for a few hours. I went after a lovely breakfast at my favorite restaurant interjected with a States-side phone call (Thanks, Mom!). After going to school as usual, I may or may not have had a confrontation with my co-teacher because he wanted to not attend the 2 hours of class (the only 2 hours of class) that he and I had that day. I suppose I should have been excited about that, but he’s been getting flaky and we already get enough vacation time… almost to the point where the vacations outnumber the actual school days. Also, the day before had been a bit rough with me fielding some stranger danger harassment, and I wanted some student interaction to cheer me up. We ended up finishing our few hours of class, had a short, though heated, discussion about life and teaching and responsibility, and I went home for some rest. It isn’t often that I have to work that hard in a day.

I had a pleasant lunch with one of my favorite dishes (beef stew) which we subsequently had for dinner that evening, watched some episodes of the office and indulged in some purely only-child behavior… I re-organized photos and music on my computer. It was almost as good as organizing crayons like I did when I was younger. Side note: Dan, the other resident pseudo-only-child in the province told me that he used to organize and reorganize baseball cards – something about teams vs. card numbers – and we bonded over our OCD behavior.

I did take a short break from this exciting work… to make something even more exciting… BROWNIES! Now, I know I have mentioned before how much I miss things like that – basically anything involving an oven is non-existent here. But these I made in my house, with a big pot, a small tin cup, and a prayer, and it actually worked. We call it a Dutch Oven here, though the local Dutch folk have never heard of such a silly thing. And it worked surprisingly well, producing a nice batch of brownies that even the grandmas liked. Awesome. I lit a candle and blew it out with my family as they looked on in something akin to shock and confusion. I then proceeded to eat way too many brownies (despite my efforts to share) and get a tummy ache. It was so worth it.

And then… Friday.

On Friday I went down to Dan’s for a party that he was having with students from a club he had over the summer. They cooked a big (big!) pot of soup, some fried ribs with pineapple, and grilled fish at his place and enjoyed a big group lunch together. It was lovely, and improved with the fact that I had picked up a package at the post office before I came over and opened it while they were cooking. We’re saving the asparagus and cinnamon apples (!) until Thanksgiving, I think, but we tore through the chocolate and watched the movie immediately. Dan and Anthony did not appreciate Unaccompanied Minors as I do… maybe we’ll have to watch it closer to Christmas ;) I also received a lovely card from Deidre (hand-made!) with pictures from all the time I’ve been here collaged together on scented paper. I was so excited!!

More people filtered into Dan’s place as the night went on, and soon the majority of the Banteay Meanchey crew was there, as well as Matt, who came all the way up from Kampot (that’s way south, on the beach) to celebrate with us. The boys played Risk and the girls played cards and we kept ourselves segregated for the evening.

Saturday – the big party.

Saturday was a pretty busy day, well, relatively speaking. There was rice and pork for breakfast (Imagine a small restaurant with seven foreigners in it; two of them over 6 feet tall…ha!). Followed by cleaning and shopping. Followed by a nap. Followed by cooking. Some people also played Risk (Boys only). It was excellent.

The menu:
Starters –
Spinach Cheese Dip made with morning glory and laughing cow cheese served with shredded baguettes that were toasted with olive oil.

Mashed Potato Mayonnaise Veggie Dip served with chopped carrots and cucumbers.

Balsamic Vinegar and Olive Oil Dip served with French bread.

Peanuts.

Main Course –
Beef and Onion or Black Bean burgers served with sliced French bread and a selection of condiments including ketchup, mustard, lettuce, onions, and tomatoes.

Desert –
Banoffee Pie (British desert with a sweet bread base, banana layers, and reduced condensed milk slathered all over it)

Birthday Cake!!! It maybe had the wrong date written on it, but at least my name was spelled right!

Drinks –
Beer, beer, beer, and beer.

Beer Pong was also involved, which was great for our two non-American guests. Anna (Britain) and Anne (Australia) made up a very special team called “the commonwealth minus New Zealand” and tried to distract us by explaining cricket and Aussie rules football (which is just a fancy was of saying that there are no rules) and did fairly well with their first attempt at American frat house life! I partnered with Anthony and we are undefeated – Go Team America F*** Ya! We drank and chatted into the late night (almost 1:00!) and everything was wonderful.

It was a phenomenal birthday… there were tons of good friends (The Banteay Meanchay 7 + Matt + Adrian, Steph, and Will from Siem Reap), more food than I’ve ever seen, and a lot of great games, not to mention gifts and cake!