8.11.2008
Despite the fact that it is almost ten o’clock and therefore almost my bedtime, I have an indescribable urge to write about the somewhere between 2 and 15 individual successes that I have had today. I know that is hard to believe, but this is Peace Corps, where anything is possible. I will go in chronological order so as to make things less confusing and brief because, let’s face it, the bed that I am sitting in is waiting for my prone form to indent itself on the mattress as I dream the sweet slumber of a long and exhaustingly amazing day.
My first success is actually a success of a few days ago, but it is worth mentioning for the sheer cultural value. In my house I have an older sister and 2 younger sisters, as well as a renter who lives with her kids in one room and who the girls call “bong nang,” or lucky older sister. It is actually the culturally accepted practice to call someone older than you “bong,” older, or “boo,” uncle, or “ming,” aunt, or some equally familial word for just about everyone you meet. Guests are the exception, and are not really called anything…at least from my perspective. Since my name is notoriously difficult for the Khmer speakers, my “bong nang” calls me “you” and the others just sort of struggled along on the path. However, a few days ago, the younger of my two younger sisters (whose name means gentle) began to call me “bong srai,” big sister, and I couldn’t be more thrilled at this acceptance into the family.
Today my teaching began, and I was a nervous wreck as I poured cool water over myself in the shower, fastened and straightened my dark blue Khmer skirt, and pulled on my helmet to ride through the market and go off to school, where a mass of young teens in dark skirts and slacks and light button downs were watching in some curious/fascinated/kid-at-school-in-the-summer daze. However, I took it as somewhat of a good omen that, when I was riding my bike to school today, an old monk in his flowing and overlapping orange turned from his perch on the back of a moto and flashed a wide, toothless smile at me. I’m still a little confused about my role around monks, especially in town, but this had to be a positive start to the day… As if I wasn’t nervous enough at the thought of teaching one class, I get ready to walk into class when a fellow teacher tells me that because of the mass of kids in our grade, we three need to teach two times to two groups of students in order to make up for the lack of space in one classroom. I am aghast!! But, as I walk into the classroom and tape up my flip chart paper, and look around to the 40-50 eager (?) Khmer teens, it comes like natural and my lesson goes off without a hitch. I smiled, and played charades, and taught a lesson that may have actually been enjoyable. My sense of relief was great and I smiled broadly at my accomplishment of the ‘impossible.’ I’m not as bad a teacher as I thought I was.
Somewhere between there and my second equally as amazing lesson, I received not one, but 2 letters from my oh-so-amazing grandmother. I’d say that reliable mail service is certainly a success on this side of the globe!
A successful session of “Bao Kao Ao-e” has once again passed. I use the Khmer term for laundry because for me, laundry implies a certain ease with which hand clothing washing does not exactly live up to.
Lunch was Long John Silvers fish that my sister picked off of the bones for me (and I actually liked it…one of the first fish-liking experiences of my life!) Oranges and my favorite plaiy me-an followed.
Ahhhh…..the sweet, sweet feel of rain and the cool air that travels with it.
At my new language instructor’s lesson today, we learned (finally!) about illness and how to saw that you aren’t feeling well. I have been begging for that one since I decided to cut back on the rice despite my family’s fervent pleas that I “nyam bai nyam bai” “eat rice eat rice!” Ask me if I have a fever, or a sore throat, or a tummy ache, head ache, ankle sprain, and (strangely enough) typhoid fever…and I can easily tell you in more than one language how much my body would like a doctor or some medicine or at least my cell phone to call the PC nurse.
I reached a new chapter in my new favorite book…”Eat Pray Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert. I highly recommend it.
Here comes a big one…even more than one big one, actually:
I cooked.
I cooked in Cambodia.
I cooked fried potatoes and onions and garlic in Cambodia. (This is what English class sounds like, by the way).
And…garlic bread.
Not only that, but they sort of liked it. Not too much, not exactly delicious, but as I was in my seventh heaven usually only achieved through some sugary substance known as chocolate, or ice cream, or chocolate ice cream, they were steadily consuming my fried concoction and the bread with a nice garlicky veggie oil on the side. It was a little experiment that was substantially successful in my eyes. Sure, Dad called it tasteless and my sister just looked at it and me with her big smile that shows the gold tooth in the side of her mouth, but…it was so much better than rice today!
And in shopping for this little adventure, which I cooked on a portable gas stove that poofed out of nowhere like in the Jetson’s cartoons, I got a few smiles, a few hellos, a couple “sa’ats” (pretty). And the little baby didn’t cry when I held her as we walked home.
It was even a successful TV day. My favorite soap opera (as previously mentioned) was on, and I found out that it is (a) Chinese and (b) called…Lethal Weapons of Love and Passion. No one can make this stuff up…
In addition to Lethal Weapons…(please excuse my further use of the title to gain a bit of a giggle from myself and you, the reader)…I also had the pleasure of seeing 2 classic American culture icons: Usher and Justin Timberlake. Both through some amazing music videos which just made my day. I also had the pleasure or hearing and seeing the Khmer knock off of the “beautiful girl/suicidal” song which mentions beautiful girls (in English) but in Khmer…prolly not the suicide so much. I think it is a bit of an improvement, though the jury is still out for now.
And I kicked a june bug’s ass in the bathroom.
Despite the fact that it is almost ten o’clock and therefore almost my bedtime, I have an indescribable urge to write about the somewhere between 2 and 15 individual successes that I have had today. I know that is hard to believe, but this is Peace Corps, where anything is possible. I will go in chronological order so as to make things less confusing and brief because, let’s face it, the bed that I am sitting in is waiting for my prone form to indent itself on the mattress as I dream the sweet slumber of a long and exhaustingly amazing day.
My first success is actually a success of a few days ago, but it is worth mentioning for the sheer cultural value. In my house I have an older sister and 2 younger sisters, as well as a renter who lives with her kids in one room and who the girls call “bong nang,” or lucky older sister. It is actually the culturally accepted practice to call someone older than you “bong,” older, or “boo,” uncle, or “ming,” aunt, or some equally familial word for just about everyone you meet. Guests are the exception, and are not really called anything…at least from my perspective. Since my name is notoriously difficult for the Khmer speakers, my “bong nang” calls me “you” and the others just sort of struggled along on the path. However, a few days ago, the younger of my two younger sisters (whose name means gentle) began to call me “bong srai,” big sister, and I couldn’t be more thrilled at this acceptance into the family.
Today my teaching began, and I was a nervous wreck as I poured cool water over myself in the shower, fastened and straightened my dark blue Khmer skirt, and pulled on my helmet to ride through the market and go off to school, where a mass of young teens in dark skirts and slacks and light button downs were watching in some curious/fascinated/kid-at-school-in-the-summer daze. However, I took it as somewhat of a good omen that, when I was riding my bike to school today, an old monk in his flowing and overlapping orange turned from his perch on the back of a moto and flashed a wide, toothless smile at me. I’m still a little confused about my role around monks, especially in town, but this had to be a positive start to the day… As if I wasn’t nervous enough at the thought of teaching one class, I get ready to walk into class when a fellow teacher tells me that because of the mass of kids in our grade, we three need to teach two times to two groups of students in order to make up for the lack of space in one classroom. I am aghast!! But, as I walk into the classroom and tape up my flip chart paper, and look around to the 40-50 eager (?) Khmer teens, it comes like natural and my lesson goes off without a hitch. I smiled, and played charades, and taught a lesson that may have actually been enjoyable. My sense of relief was great and I smiled broadly at my accomplishment of the ‘impossible.’ I’m not as bad a teacher as I thought I was.
Somewhere between there and my second equally as amazing lesson, I received not one, but 2 letters from my oh-so-amazing grandmother. I’d say that reliable mail service is certainly a success on this side of the globe!
A successful session of “Bao Kao Ao-e” has once again passed. I use the Khmer term for laundry because for me, laundry implies a certain ease with which hand clothing washing does not exactly live up to.
Lunch was Long John Silvers fish that my sister picked off of the bones for me (and I actually liked it…one of the first fish-liking experiences of my life!) Oranges and my favorite plaiy me-an followed.
Ahhhh…..the sweet, sweet feel of rain and the cool air that travels with it.
At my new language instructor’s lesson today, we learned (finally!) about illness and how to saw that you aren’t feeling well. I have been begging for that one since I decided to cut back on the rice despite my family’s fervent pleas that I “nyam bai nyam bai” “eat rice eat rice!” Ask me if I have a fever, or a sore throat, or a tummy ache, head ache, ankle sprain, and (strangely enough) typhoid fever…and I can easily tell you in more than one language how much my body would like a doctor or some medicine or at least my cell phone to call the PC nurse.
I reached a new chapter in my new favorite book…”Eat Pray Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert. I highly recommend it.
Here comes a big one…even more than one big one, actually:
I cooked.
I cooked in Cambodia.
I cooked fried potatoes and onions and garlic in Cambodia. (This is what English class sounds like, by the way).
And…garlic bread.
Not only that, but they sort of liked it. Not too much, not exactly delicious, but as I was in my seventh heaven usually only achieved through some sugary substance known as chocolate, or ice cream, or chocolate ice cream, they were steadily consuming my fried concoction and the bread with a nice garlicky veggie oil on the side. It was a little experiment that was substantially successful in my eyes. Sure, Dad called it tasteless and my sister just looked at it and me with her big smile that shows the gold tooth in the side of her mouth, but…it was so much better than rice today!
And in shopping for this little adventure, which I cooked on a portable gas stove that poofed out of nowhere like in the Jetson’s cartoons, I got a few smiles, a few hellos, a couple “sa’ats” (pretty). And the little baby didn’t cry when I held her as we walked home.
It was even a successful TV day. My favorite soap opera (as previously mentioned) was on, and I found out that it is (a) Chinese and (b) called…Lethal Weapons of Love and Passion. No one can make this stuff up…In addition to Lethal Weapons…(please excuse my further use of the title to gain a bit of a giggle from myself and you, the reader)…I also had the pleasure of seeing 2 classic American culture icons: Usher and Justin Timberlake. Both through some amazing music videos which just made my day. I also had the pleasure or hearing and seeing the Khmer knock off of the “beautiful girl/suicidal” song which mentions beautiful girls (in English) but in Khmer…prolly not the suicide so much. I think it is a bit of an improvement, though the jury is still out for now.
And I kicked a june bug’s ass in the bathroom.
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