9.8.2008
I am so lucky. The more I spoke with my counterpart, the more I got a little frustrated by the miscommunication caused by my unfamiliar accent and a little more excited at the prospect of being in my site. It was a bit of a trip – from Kampong Chhnang to Battambong, a 3 and a half hour bus ride, then another hour and change to Sisophon, and another hour and a half to my village by car taxi on the bumpiest road I have ever been on. This is not an exaggeration. The rain destroys the rods here and the cars that ride on them only perpetuate the problem. There were some promising places along the way though, that I am considering a long bike ride to, but generally I will need a taxi to get anywhere near the provincial town, at least until I can ride 50 K without much trouble (especially considering the size of the potholes on this road…if Bussey’s potholes are a pond, these are Lake Superior).
But now for the fun part. I must admit that I was a bit worried once we began dropping off my friends…first the tall guy that plays cribbage with me and who we poke fun of
because it is above the age of 27…then the guy that hails from Chitown and wears big shades that make him look like he is a movie star (that can’t grow facial hair) and then finally I split with my friend who is the only other semi-rural lady in the province, the gal that laughs with me about just about anything. It was a little more worrisome when my teacher and I (alone, mind you, at the outskirts of the town) stopped to eat some lunch at a spot that I would never go into by myself – a place filled to the brim with semi-scruffy men of all ages watching kickboxing to strange testosterone music. But, no problem, a coke and some noodles and we were out by the road waiting for the driver to come back; and we had the always fun, “ask about the white girl” game, which I always enjoy interrupting with sentences in Khmer that make the men who were intently staring at me smile so broad. For this game, it was a compliment on one of the men’s straw hat, because I have the same hat in another color.
Throughout the anxious and yet massively entertaining (there was a child in the backseat that I played with for a good solid half hour) taxi ride to my town, I listened to my counterpart talk about the town and how close things are, how happy he hopes I will be, and so on, and then we finally arrived. We drove straight through to the market, because it is both t
he home of the taxi driver and the home of Mr. Sothy, so he lugged my things through a muddy alley, stepping on the far sides and some strategically placed planks to get to a little house with a young boy and some older girls, a classroom across the way and a nice hammock right on the porch. I sat (because if you are a guest…) and talked and looked at the baby in the awkward silence that has come to define a majority of my Khmer conversations.
It was a long walk to my own house, and it felt more like forever because of the heat, the awkward silence, the heat, and the sheer anticipation of my new home. But alas, we made it, and I was greeted by my new family. Let me preface this next statement with a bit of a misnomer: If a Khmer person says that their friend, son, daughter, uncle, cousin, or aunt speaks English, chances are their perception is relative and probably incorrect. Even if they do speak English, it is a very little amount, a word here or there, maybe a sentence, but understanding me as a native speaker is difficu
lt and translation is weak at best. So, I had heard from my co-teacher that my new father spoke the language and I was a little bit skeptical. But then, what a surprise! He is more than fluent and translates for a Human Rights agency in the country. He speaks like a native and shows only a hint of the accent that colors most of the English that I hear. My oldest sister also speaks a considerable amount, though I do need to speak much slower and clearer. I am ecstatic! And so surprised! My 2 sisters are gorgeous, and my brother too is so adorable. My mother seems a little shy, but makes the pretty wedding outfits that I was shown in earlier, and also seems to enjoy my meager attempts at her language. And, grandma is super cool as well, a typical grandma that smiles at me and chews leaves filled with some red stuff that she spits wherever is her whim.
The house is a nice size, my bedroom the front room right next to a fair sized veranda with a wooden recliner and room for a hammock. There is a big room with a TV from which the other rooms stem from, and a comfortable set of stairs below. The shady area underneath has a big wooden table and a kitchen twice the size of mine in the training village. Plus…and this made me so excited…a sit down toilet and running water!!!! Not a necessity, but (as a certain PC manual says…) an advantage. Indeed. I have coconut trees, pomegranates, chickens, a cat, and a black bird that speaks Khmer!
It gets better. Not only does the director of the school live right next door, but I am also related to him – some sister of my mom is his wife. He came over and spoke with me, told me that I would be protected from the gangsters and wholly welcomed into the school, and life is good. I sat and had some delicious rice with a carrot/onion/garlic fry and strung up my pink and flowered mosquito net above my king size and equally flowery bedspread as I glanced at the pictures of roses on the wall. They knew I would be a girl. (A word about this picture...they put empty duck eggs on the plant for decoration...)
Something entertaining happened that first night, though. Since I know my name is tough for Khmer speakers, I asked them if they wanted a nickname for me because it would be easier. They thought for a few minutes and came up with the word, bo paa, flower (or rose), and I sat back in amazement. It turns out, that in all the words in the Khmer language, they picked the exact same one that my family back in my training village uses as well. I figure if that isn’t a sign that the name fits…
My town.
In the middle of the night, it rained, and the sound resonated through the tin roof and into my consciousness in some strange and uniquely Cambodian way. When I woke up, stretched and turned about on my silky sheets, I glanced out the window and saw that I shouldn’t like the rain as much. The road is basically un-travelable post-downpour. My sister skipped school and went out with me on an expedition that lasted only as long as it took us to get across the street to the breakfast shop for some truly addicting iced coffee and noodles with bean spouts and lime, a typical Khmer breakfast. We went back home hoping that the sun would dry out the road later.
It did, and after lunch, I was out with the school director’s 20 year son and friend as well as my own brother and similarly aged cousin. The son reminds me of my cousin Drew…he has the same chilled personality and they walk with the swagger that I rarely see – they even may be the same age because of the Khmer tradition of a newborn being 1 year old in April no matter what month they were born in. We walked to the local pagoda, and I saw other influences in the beautifully deco
rated elephant statue and in the series of men lined up at the gate of the wat. We walked over to the school, dodging water buffalos along the way, and I saw the buildings (3) still under construction, and the majority of the rest needing some construction. The buildings are old and wooden and still feature chalk boards instead of the marker boards that grace the majority of the schools now. However, the set-up is nice and the b-ball court and football field are both in fine shape. It will be a good environment, especially when students are around to liven things up.
Upon return home, my nephew’s (?) friend got me two coconuts by sliding up a palm tree like a monkey (after taking off his pants, of course) and continued acting like the high-on-life teen that he is. I biked Khmer style over to Mr. Sothy’s house and met up with the English for children class before riding around the market with my sister and being the object of all attention. And then, after dinner, I danced…life is good.
Of course, dancing is an interesting prospect. My cousin/aunt (?) comes ov
er, usually with a few bananas, and we all file up to the living room and my younger brother puts on some Video Karaoke CDs, and we sit, and watch. Then, they tell me the name of the dance and my cousin (?), a 24 year old guy who works for some finance thing, sings and serenades in his lovely perfect pitch voice, (as he did the night before as he laid in his hammock, completely a capella, while I danced with my sister) and he gets up and shows me the dance. My favorite dance is one that I dance with him…you walk up and back, three steps, three steps, and at the stop you kick out one leg (as your partner does the same) and yours hands wave at your waist and then cross as your leg kicks. There is also the Khmer square dance, complete with a hop, and the numerous dances around a pole, a chair, or some other stationary object. I have found, though, that no matter how much I practice, I can never have the poise of a Khmer woman, the ease of beauty of their hands and how they move with such grace…
I am so lucky. The more I spoke with my counterpart, the more I got a little frustrated by the miscommunication caused by my unfamiliar accent and a little more excited at the prospect of being in my site. It was a bit of a trip – from Kampong Chhnang to Battambong, a 3 and a half hour bus ride, then another hour and change to Sisophon, and another hour and a half to my village by car taxi on the bumpiest road I have ever been on. This is not an exaggeration. The rain destroys the rods here and the cars that ride on them only perpetuate the problem. There were some promising places along the way though, that I am considering a long bike ride to, but generally I will need a taxi to get anywhere near the provincial town, at least until I can ride 50 K without much trouble (especially considering the size of the potholes on this road…if Bussey’s potholes are a pond, these are Lake Superior).
But now for the fun part. I must admit that I was a bit worried once we began dropping off my friends…first the tall guy that plays cribbage with me and who we poke fun of
because it is above the age of 27…then the guy that hails from Chitown and wears big shades that make him look like he is a movie star (that can’t grow facial hair) and then finally I split with my friend who is the only other semi-rural lady in the province, the gal that laughs with me about just about anything. It was a little more worrisome when my teacher and I (alone, mind you, at the outskirts of the town) stopped to eat some lunch at a spot that I would never go into by myself – a place filled to the brim with semi-scruffy men of all ages watching kickboxing to strange testosterone music. But, no problem, a coke and some noodles and we were out by the road waiting for the driver to come back; and we had the always fun, “ask about the white girl” game, which I always enjoy interrupting with sentences in Khmer that make the men who were intently staring at me smile so broad. For this game, it was a compliment on one of the men’s straw hat, because I have the same hat in another color.Throughout the anxious and yet massively entertaining (there was a child in the backseat that I played with for a good solid half hour) taxi ride to my town, I listened to my counterpart talk about the town and how close things are, how happy he hopes I will be, and so on, and then we finally arrived. We drove straight through to the market, because it is both t
he home of the taxi driver and the home of Mr. Sothy, so he lugged my things through a muddy alley, stepping on the far sides and some strategically placed planks to get to a little house with a young boy and some older girls, a classroom across the way and a nice hammock right on the porch. I sat (because if you are a guest…) and talked and looked at the baby in the awkward silence that has come to define a majority of my Khmer conversations.It was a long walk to my own house, and it felt more like forever because of the heat, the awkward silence, the heat, and the sheer anticipation of my new home. But alas, we made it, and I was greeted by my new family. Let me preface this next statement with a bit of a misnomer: If a Khmer person says that their friend, son, daughter, uncle, cousin, or aunt speaks English, chances are their perception is relative and probably incorrect. Even if they do speak English, it is a very little amount, a word here or there, maybe a sentence, but understanding me as a native speaker is difficu
lt and translation is weak at best. So, I had heard from my co-teacher that my new father spoke the language and I was a little bit skeptical. But then, what a surprise! He is more than fluent and translates for a Human Rights agency in the country. He speaks like a native and shows only a hint of the accent that colors most of the English that I hear. My oldest sister also speaks a considerable amount, though I do need to speak much slower and clearer. I am ecstatic! And so surprised! My 2 sisters are gorgeous, and my brother too is so adorable. My mother seems a little shy, but makes the pretty wedding outfits that I was shown in earlier, and also seems to enjoy my meager attempts at her language. And, grandma is super cool as well, a typical grandma that smiles at me and chews leaves filled with some red stuff that she spits wherever is her whim.The house is a nice size, my bedroom the front room right next to a fair sized veranda with a wooden recliner and room for a hammock. There is a big room with a TV from which the other rooms stem from, and a comfortable set of stairs below. The shady area underneath has a big wooden table and a kitchen twice the size of mine in the training village. Plus…and this made me so excited…a sit down toilet and running water!!!! Not a necessity, but (as a certain PC manual says…) an advantage. Indeed. I have coconut trees, pomegranates, chickens, a cat, and a black bird that speaks Khmer!
It gets better. Not only does the director of the school live right next door, but I am also related to him – some sister of my mom is his wife. He came over and spoke with me, told me that I would be protected from the gangsters and wholly welcomed into the school, and life is good. I sat and had some delicious rice with a carrot/onion/garlic fry and strung up my pink and flowered mosquito net above my king size and equally flowery bedspread as I glanced at the pictures of roses on the wall. They knew I would be a girl. (A word about this picture...they put empty duck eggs on the plant for decoration...)
Something entertaining happened that first night, though. Since I know my name is tough for Khmer speakers, I asked them if they wanted a nickname for me because it would be easier. They thought for a few minutes and came up with the word, bo paa, flower (or rose), and I sat back in amazement. It turns out, that in all the words in the Khmer language, they picked the exact same one that my family back in my training village uses as well. I figure if that isn’t a sign that the name fits…
My town.
In the middle of the night, it rained, and the sound resonated through the tin roof and into my consciousness in some strange and uniquely Cambodian way. When I woke up, stretched and turned about on my silky sheets, I glanced out the window and saw that I shouldn’t like the rain as much. The road is basically un-travelable post-downpour. My sister skipped school and went out with me on an expedition that lasted only as long as it took us to get across the street to the breakfast shop for some truly addicting iced coffee and noodles with bean spouts and lime, a typical Khmer breakfast. We went back home hoping that the sun would dry out the road later.
It did, and after lunch, I was out with the school director’s 20 year son and friend as well as my own brother and similarly aged cousin. The son reminds me of my cousin Drew…he has the same chilled personality and they walk with the swagger that I rarely see – they even may be the same age because of the Khmer tradition of a newborn being 1 year old in April no matter what month they were born in. We walked to the local pagoda, and I saw other influences in the beautifully deco
rated elephant statue and in the series of men lined up at the gate of the wat. We walked over to the school, dodging water buffalos along the way, and I saw the buildings (3) still under construction, and the majority of the rest needing some construction. The buildings are old and wooden and still feature chalk boards instead of the marker boards that grace the majority of the schools now. However, the set-up is nice and the b-ball court and football field are both in fine shape. It will be a good environment, especially when students are around to liven things up.Upon return home, my nephew’s (?) friend got me two coconuts by sliding up a palm tree like a monkey (after taking off his pants, of course) and continued acting like the high-on-life teen that he is. I biked Khmer style over to Mr. Sothy’s house and met up with the English for children class before riding around the market with my sister and being the object of all attention. And then, after dinner, I danced…life is good.
Of course, dancing is an interesting prospect. My cousin/aunt (?) comes ov
er, usually with a few bananas, and we all file up to the living room and my younger brother puts on some Video Karaoke CDs, and we sit, and watch. Then, they tell me the name of the dance and my cousin (?), a 24 year old guy who works for some finance thing, sings and serenades in his lovely perfect pitch voice, (as he did the night before as he laid in his hammock, completely a capella, while I danced with my sister) and he gets up and shows me the dance. My favorite dance is one that I dance with him…you walk up and back, three steps, three steps, and at the stop you kick out one leg (as your partner does the same) and yours hands wave at your waist and then cross as your leg kicks. There is also the Khmer square dance, complete with a hop, and the numerous dances around a pole, a chair, or some other stationary object. I have found, though, that no matter how much I practice, I can never have the poise of a Khmer woman, the ease of beauty of their hands and how they move with such grace… 
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