My Malaysian Adventure!

My Malaysian Adventure with Bri
*FYI… this is a long post… There was a lot to see.
**Side note: There are very few pictures because my camera got stolen mid-trip.
No worries, though.

It all began on the flight from Phnom Penh to Kuala Lumpur. I met a cute Malaysia guy who bought me a Pepsi and taught me a bunch of Malay words (Thank you: Terima Kasih. Your Welome: Samua Samua), then just talked with me through my anxiousness on the flight. I’m not scared of flying, or of much, but I realized that it is basically the first trip that I’ve taken that hasn’t been led by anyone but me. Peace Corps is one easy trip, as were all my trips around the States and even my trek to Uganda (I was with Ugandans and didn’t have to figure anything out myself). But this trip is mine, and I made it.

I went on the trip with a gal named Bri, who lives in a different province as me in Cambodia. We have the same adventurous spirit and desire to live cheap and without guides. That may come into play later…we’ll see.

Day 2: Kuala Lumpur.

We woke up and got ready, the Petronas Towers in mind. After looking around the massive place, we finally realized how to go and get tickets, which we did. We took a quick walk through the city over to the other Tower, the KL Tower, which ended up as a massively touristy (Snow Park…?) and very disappointing adventure. We didn’t go up, just walked around, then went over to Chinatown for some hot and sour soup (delicious!!) Back at the towers, we watched a 3D movie (lame, though fortunately there was a pack of cute Uruguayan men who were keeping us entertained), then went up to the archway of the towers for a photo shoot (which meant that Bri was laying down on the carpet a lot). Then we celebrated with Dunkin Donuts. We kept walking, and found ourselves at a mall full of food – the Pavilion. There are 4 floors of food, or at least that is what it seemed – all foods, every kind of food. I ate Subway and tasted my favorite of the 31 Flavors – Chocolate Peanut Butter. And we also went to see “He’s Just Not That Into You,” in a real movie theatre, with real popcorn and soda, and real comfy seats. It was incredible!!

Day 3: Off to the Jungle.

In the morning, we had some of the best coffee I have ever tasted, from a little Indian restaurant – a little sweet, frothy, and lovely. Then we hopped on a bus to a bus to get to a bus to the jungle. While we were waiting for the little bus to the jungle, we indulged with some KFC – and this ended up being more eventful than I had previously expected.

While we were enjoying our delicious fried chicken, we were sitting near these two Malaysian guys, making minimal eye contact for the sheer reason of them being the only other people to look at. We got up to leave, slowed with our backpacks, and they timed their exit to match ours. They made beautiful kissing noises to our backs as we walked away and we thought that they had taken off. But then, after we are seated in our (very old and crappy local) bus, at the very back row, the cuter of the two boys came up to knock on the window and talk to us. We humored him, though he spoke zero English, and he began gesturing to try to get us into their big blue truck. We declined, and he tried a few more times, going back and forth between the truck and the bus to talk to his friend and then back to gesture to us. We once again thought they had gone after they pulled up close to the bus along the side and then peeled out of the parking lot. But, alas, they showed up just after the bus started moving and followed the bus for a good solid half hour, even after the bus stopped twice to let out passengers.

Fortunately, they lost interest and we went on enjoying our hour long bus ride to the jungle. Now, let me set the scene for the rest of this ride. We are sitting in the very back row, our backpacks strewn about the long seat, and the rest of the bus is Malay people of various ages – there is a pack of teenagers, some children running about, an older man who is chatting to the rest of the bus, and a few more scattered here and there. The teens are the closest to us – a bunch of boys and a girl who keep changing their seats. It begins to rain, and the old man motions for us to close our windows. The rain is pouring across the bus away from me, so I don’t bother, but it is hitting Bri directly and her attempts to close the window in front of her fail as it plops down as soon as she lets go of it. She closes it. It falls. She tries. It falls. One of the teens had been paying attention, and with the encouragement of his friends came to sit right in front of us and closed the window. It fell again, still spraying Bri and even me with rain water. So, he closed it again and held it up – and the bus went wild, with some sporadic clapping and cheers. I adore the Malay people.

We ended up in the little village adjacent to the entrance of the jungle and found a cute little hostel with a cool guy named Zeck at the helm. It was nothing special, but we had our own room (with some 8 beds), free breakfast, and lots of Bob Marley music. Plus, one of Zeck’s protégé’s practiced his English with us and let me listen to some cool Malay tunes from his native north.

Day 4: The Jungles at Teman Negara Park.

We started off bright and early with the barest of supplies, and with no guide. That’s how we roll. We began trekking around, seeing unusual plants, hearing cool sounds, and just experiencing the awesomeness of the whole thing. We walked around on the longest Canopy Walkway in the world, which was super cool – a bird’s eye view of the whole area. We kept trekking about, and Bri took a dip in the river (which got her a leech bite) and I got a few cuts on my feet (which got me two leech bites). We passed a couple of other people on the trail – we “raced” a group of middle aged tourists to the walkway without them knowing so, of course, and won; we chatted with a few bird-watchers who had very soothing voices and lots of fancy bird watching tools (including a pricey ipod and speakers that played bird noises) and they let me look through their binoculars at the bird that they had found; we had a stare down with a semi-odd fella near one of the hides. Side note: at this point, Bri had taken off her shirt for the heat and the bird watchers had to have noticed that something was amiss as she ties a kroma around herself for some basic modesty… we weren’t expecting to run into anyone in the jungle wilderness. We climbed a mountain in the jungle as well, just a little one, but thrilling nonetheless. The more thrilling part of that adventure was going down the mountain… the descent was pretty brutal.

After a little lunch (where we were tagged as “backpackers,” something I had never considered myself as before then), we went to a cave. It was a good afternoon trek, as we were about exhausted with pushing ourselves so far from before. We went right past a native village on our way and even saw a few people milling about (we didn’t want to disturb anyone there and we weren’t dressed for visiting). We got to the cave and followed a very intelligent rope that made a trail through the steep rocks and bumps of the interior. Did I mention that this was a bat cave? A few of the bigger slabs on the ceiling had hundreds of bats resting in their upside down hang – and it was incredible! Well, not only were there bats, but there was also bat guano, and by the time we emerged from that cave we were covered in all kinds of nasty. It was worth it – there were so many sights and so much to do there.

We finished the evening with some food as we watched a volleyball match in the sand. In the town, all the restaurants are floating and everything is on or near the river – which made for some outstanding views of the area. There was a beautiful bend with some rapids right outside the hostel window, and we listened to that every moment of the day.

Day 5: More traveling…

After a chill morning relaxing by the jungle, we took a slow boat back to the main city. We sat behind a beautiful French family with children that kept getting in trouble for spraying water on us (though we just laughed at it). Then began the long wait for the train to the north. We filled the time by chatting with people – I met a lovely German couple who were traveling for the better part of a year all around Asia. Talk about a dream vacation – they saved money for a few years and quit everything and went. Then there was a great Haitian-American man who was so gentle and sweet, and we talked about life here and there and everywhere. Then a young French/German guy who works for a cigarette company and makes more money than I can fathom, who was headed for the jungle on vaca from his work in Switzerland/Singapore/Malaysia. And a few Eastern European gals who were beyond grateful for the loan of our English People magazine. And finally, in the train station, while we waited for the train the was about 4 hours late, we played Yahtzee with a pair of German gentleman, Thomas and Florian, who we ended up traveling with to the islands.

Day 6 and 7: Palau Perhentians

We took the first speedboat out to the islands, a good half an hour journey, and made it to the most beautiful place I have ever seen. In these islands the water is crystal clear, the sand is soft and white, the view out to the ocean is unmarred and sweetened with green mountainous islands scattered around… the waves are gentle and create lovely white foam as they crash on the beach… and even the cheapest housing on the beach has a five star view of the ocean.

We hopped into the South China Sea and spent the day lazing about and enjoying the sunshine and the company of our new German friends – they are mathematicians, by the way, and they drew a map of Germany in the sand for us to show us where they are from.

The next day we went snorkeling – wow! There were a bunch of us – Thomas and Florian, a Dutch couple, a young British couple, and us. I had never done anything like this before, and it was so incredible! We went to a site with lots of fish in every color and size and shape – then some Malay guys gave me some bread and the fish swarmed up and ate it from my hands. Some of them even bit me, an understandable mistake given how pale I am. Fun fact: the plankton in this particular sea sting your skin for a moment as you swim by – it is a tingly feeling. I saw a little shark in my snorkeling adventure… and I touched one of the giant sea turtles as he came up for air – a little graze on his giant shell before he dove back down to the bottom to eat some more.

After this adventure, we trekked over to the other side of the island to watch the sun set over the sea and ended up chatting with a cool Indian-American guy who works in… Cambodia! I spent my evening chatting with him and a bunch of young Brits and Canadians, a big group of party-goers on vacation from school and life.

Day 8 and 9: More travel and Singapore!

And then the island adventure was over… and we left, meeting a cool French guy and a chill British dude on the way back. We traveled with them (a good choice, I think, because the taxi drivers in the little town ran some sort of cruel monopoly and they tried to involve the public buses as well. Our Frenchman told the bus that he had better let us on… and he did). We went up, hoping to catch a bus to Singapore (though they were all gone) and ended up down in KL again, before we backtracked to Singapore.

We never actually intended on a trip to Singapore, and I do wish I would have had more time there, but because we only wanted to meet up with another group of Peace Corps travelers, we did that and then took off for more adventure elsewhere.

It went something like this though… we got in, got lost (because it’s been 9 months since I have seen public transport of any kind), found ourselves in Little India, which was the coolest place ever – so full of life and energy – found some housing, took a shower, went out with the crew, played some pool and got some martinis, got home, and woke up to leave. I did meet a young fella from Colorado who reminded me of my cousin Drew (only with long blond hair and experience in hole-digging in Antarctica) who was sweet enough to buy me a drink and give Dan some much needed bro-time… The other Malaysia crew from Peace Corps was 3 girls and Dan… add 2 more girls and he is severely outnumbered.

Days 10-14: Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo.

Fun fact: Sarawak, which is on the Borneo side of Malaysia, is the only place in Malaysia that is treated like its own county. I have a special passport stamp from it to prove it!

Kuching was by far my favorite place in Malaysia. There was something about the atmosphere of the town – the friendly people, the lack of tourists, the general ambiance of the place – that just made me fall in love. “Kuching” means “cat” in the Malay language, and just to let you know that, the town has three different cat statues, as well as an entire museum devoted to cats. The town also has a cool mix of people, with lots of Chinese, some Malays and Indians, and a ton of native tribes who have assimilated into the Kuching culture. There is a huge mix of religions around as well – we saw a Catholic Church, a Muslim Mosque, and Temples from the Buddhist, Hindu, and Sikh faiths. But it seemed to me that there was no fighting, no animosity or stigma between these different people. It was incredible!

Our first night in Kuching, we walked around the town, finding things to eat and do, getting the lay of the land and chatting with the locals. We watched the sun set on the river as several mosques played their call to evening prayer and the sounds surrounded us. On our way home, we stumbled upon a big party at one of the Chinese temples, and our curious stares drew curious stares back, and then got us an invite to join the party! We accepted, and a lovely fella walked us through the steps of prayer according to the temple, with incense lighting and kneeling, then told us about the history of the temple and the party that we were attending. Then he sat us down at a table, gave us a beer, and introduced us to the man sitting across from us… the mayor of the town! It was here that we saw the first example of mixing cultures --- James, the mayor, is Catholic, his friend was Muslim, and we were all at the Buddhist Temple party with the Chinese crowd. Plus, after our party, we stopped by McDonalds and met up with a few Africans who are studying there. We got home and watched some people play Chinese poker with narrow and colorful cards, then crashed.

The next day, we moved to a different hostel, one that was cheaper and in a better part of town. It is run by a couple of cool guys from the Iban tribe – with a few friends involved. I had so much fun I never wanted to leave… and we didn’t really. We went on a few quests for food (mainly McDonalds or pizza or ice cream) and to a night market (which is just like the Cambodian markets except in the evening and with more unusual fare) and for some shopping and town exploration, but mainly, we had fun with the guys in the hostel. There was quite a crowd there – a cool French lady doing her thing, a brother and sister from mainland Malaysia, another brother/sister pair from Britain, a guy from Australia, and a couple from the Netherlands. All those people, along with the locals, made for a few interesting evenings… One night the local masseuse came around and fixed up my back (After he rubbed my arm for a minute he told me, “There’s something wrong with your stomach; it doesn’t feel good,” and I said, “Wow! How did you know that?). Another night, we watched Stephen King’s “It” and scared ourselves to death. Another evening gave me a fake tattoo on my shoulder – a traditional Iban tattoo of a stylized hornbill for protection – which I want to make permanent.

And… we saw Orang-utans!!!!!!!
Fun fact: The word, “Orang utans,” means “people of the jungle” in Malay.
So we went on a grand excursion to see these cool people. It took a few tries – we had trouble waking up a few mornings, and also we had no clue where we were headed, so it was a little more difficult than we imagined. But then we found the van to take us, for only a few dollars, all the way to the Sanctuary and back, and we found ourselves in this cool place! We also met a neat Aussie lady who had been everywhere and a Finnish couple (I’ve never met a Finlandian before!) We had to walk down a bit of a path, to a little viewing area where they had set some food out, and then we saw them… There was a mom with a little toddler, who amused himself by swinging about with little limbs, another mom with a newborn baby, and a few more animals of different sizes and personalities. They were so amazing! I was so awed by them and how free they seemed, how similar to us they are. I loved it!

We left the next day, with “heavy feet,” as our famous tattoo artist said… (Check out National Geographic Taboo: Tattoos to see the Iban guy we met)… and ended up back in KL for one last McDonalds adventure. We also met a German gal flying solo, a very sweet Swedish family, and a traveling American guy whose leftover soda we took (The airport has expensive things). We also, oddly, met up with an American couple whose roots are in south Cambodia in the nursing field – I say odd because they took the same flight from Phnom Penh to KL as we did and the same flight from KL to Phnom Penh as we did… and we saw them both times!

Phnom Penh was busy, and flooded, and it made me sad for a few minutes, until I realized that I did actually miss some things about this country. I sure missed my host family…

A few updates!

Here are a few updates from ‘the Land of Smiles,’ or whatever the Tourism industry calls this little corner of the world…

--Even though it is the hot and dry season, it has been raining about once a week for some time, and the heat is not as unbearable as I thought it would be. I think that Iowa life has conditioned me for anything and everything… Although I’m dreading coming back to the state at the beginning of winter after almost 3 years of no temperatures under 70.

--The family has a jasmine bush that has just flowered recently, right underneath my window (which is open at all times). So, last night when it was raining, the scent wafted through to me and made my room smell like my favorite Jasmine tea.

--There is a baby of about 6 months who is a cousin and comes over to visit my grandmother fairly frequently, and yesterday was no exception. I came downstairs to visit and see little Maleka, who immediately opened her arms to come to me and wouldn’t let go. She didn’t go to her aunt who watches her all the time, or to my grandmother, or to my host mom, or my little brother, or either of my sisters. My family was quite surprised and I was tickled… She only let go for her mother.

--There are more school holidays than I could ever keep track of. The entire month of February for 5 days of testing, next week for more testing, the entire month of April for Khmer New Year, a full week in May for the King’s Birthday, parts of June for testing, and all of July for the same. Not to mention the several “I just don’t feel like it” days that students and teachers alike enjoy taking.

--I have made friends with a considerable amount of monks at the somewhat distant pagoda of Rolum Chrey, and now whenever I go there, the head monk invites me up to his balcony and we drink water or Coke and eat apples and talk about stuff.

--Somehow, someway, both the AC and closed rooms with fans stirring up dust have been making me ill. See the above fear of returning to Iowa…

--I have lost all manners and social graces that I have once had. There are many examples of this…
-We sit on the table and all eat from communal dishes that we spoon into our own bowl of rice, so sometimes between the communal plate and my plate food falls to the table… but then I eat it anyway.
-I bathe in a huge water room with the shower and the toilet and a big tub of water all in the same place. The whole thing is tiled, and I can splash water wherever I please and spit out toothpaste and shampoo my hair and just wash it all into the ditch.
-We recently met the American Ambassador to Cambodia while we were in Phnom Penh, and while exchanging pleasantries, decided to talk about how beautiful the bathrooms were in the Embassy (it’s true, they are, and the whole thing is a slice right out of America).
-Peace Corps Volunteers are very close with each other, and our position here in this odd country makes us more aware of the things our body can handle, and we often compare these things. So, it stands to reason that I have had more conversations about constipation, sex, diarrhea, insect-related diseases, skin issues, weight, periods and other girl-troubles, and any number of other related topics than I ever had before. We also talk about food… all the time. Though we have found that we PCVs have developed relationships in our meager 8 months here that it would have taken years to cultivate in the States… seemingly because we are more true to ourselves; take away your normal clothes, your car, your college or other lifestyle, anything else that you define as yourself, and what you have is us.

-- What’s coming up…
-This weekend: A St. Patty’s Day party with the VSOs (which will include real Irish food and real Irish people)
-Beginning of next week: A friend from Simpson who is staying in Thailand is coming to visit for a few days, and we will go to see the temples in Siem Riep!
-Next Month: I am going to both Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo in hopes of finding the “wild women” who I was always compared to as a child and young adult. I will be searching for a woman with wildly crazy and curly hair like my own and see if we can take a group photo.
-May: I want to go and see the rest of the Thailand group before they go back to good ole Iowa, so I think I’ll spend the King’s Birthday on that.
-Mid-July: Myself, Deidre, and Whitney are planning a girl’s camp that will bring some of our girls into the city and introduce them to educational and career opportunities!
-Late Summer: I am trying to find a way to work in the arts with a local NGO. Also, I’m excited to meet all the families and friends that are coming up – Deidre’s twin and friends, Whitney’s brother and folks, Anthony’s girlfriend and family, and maybe some more…

A Video

A little video of some students playing with the Cambodian version of Hackey Sack. Fun fact: They have never heard of baseball, despite the resemblance. If I try to explain it, they are lost...

Some photos!

Here is a link to two of my recent albums on Facebook - Enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2020373&id=72901581&l=07e15


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2020692&id=72901581&l=a1cdd

Khmer.

I just realized how long it has been since I have written a blog; almost simultaneously, I realized that I have a pretty good story to tell about the Khmer language.

When we were in Phnom Penh for the longest week of training and city life I have ever had (I think that I must be a country gal at heart), I met up with a few people who were touring about the country in a local guesthouse lounge. There were a selection of Israelis, one of which taught me a few useful words in Hebrew (Hebrew!) and a couple of Austrian girls, all of whom were speaking English in various accents and abilities, a very interesting experience here. Now, in this particular guesthouse, the managers have found out through a few visits that I am decent in Khmer and have decided that I am interesting because of that fact (It is a guesthouse mainly for backpackers, and I very few Khmer speakers find their way through, with the exception of the local PCVs).

So I was here, sitting in the lounge, chatting with the other foreigners and telling them about some local flavors and places to go, when one particular manager (His name is Allah, though some American guy decided he looked more like a Spencer, so he began to call himself that) began to talk about me to the other men in the room. I heard him, turned around, and began talking to the men in Khmer, a feat which has gotten easier through each bit of practice. I can talk about the basics of my life (name, family, age, organization, etc) with ease. It’s only when things get more complicated (politics, Americana, and any number of random subjects) that I begin to have trouble. I also have difficulty when it comes to unusual vocabulary or accents and when it comes to people with few teeth. So… yesterday, when I was in a taxi going home and it had been discovered that I speak Khmer (surely, as one woman said!), and the two-toothed, one-legged man in the back began to talk about Obama and his dark skin and American influence, I was a little bit lost.

Either way, I have gone from, “She listens not enough,” to, “she speaks Khmer surely,” so life is good. And as I spoke to the men in the guesthouse, and then explained to the foreigners what I had said, they pointed out to me how silly Khmer really is. I confess I do find it a bit strange, this language I’ve learned, and after the German-English and Hebrew (Hebrew!)- English speakers pointed out more, well, I thought I could share a few eccentricities of the language.

1. There are no verb tenses. There is one word for eat, for sleep, for walk, run, sit, stand, go… you name it. I can put a word in front of the verb to signify past, present, or future, but generally, they just live in the moment and use whatever verb needs used for that exact time and place.

2. There are no plurals. I can’t put an ‘s’ on the end of a words to make it known that there is more than one of that thing. I fact, I would just say the same thing twice. There is more than one girl… She she is going to the market. There is more than one student… He he is studying. There is more than one cat… It it is hungry. There is quite a nice ring to that, though, at times.

3. From above… the word for ‘he’ and the word for ‘she,’ though not the word for ‘it’ (see the next point) are the same word.

4. There are a number of words that change depending on who you are in the culture. It is a society of levels, so kids and animals, teens/adults, grandparents or old folk, monks, and the king all have different versions of say ‘eat,’ or ‘sleep.’ The monks and I do not eat the same. The king sleeps different than everyone. The animals die differently than people, and so on and so forth.

5. I almost never hear anyone use names. The most common thing I hear is the word ‘bong,’ literally – older someone. Or, for kids, you say ‘own,’ or younger someone. Or, for any woman with gray hair you say, ‘yiey,’ or grandma, whether or not they have grandchildren or not. This practice does get dicey sometimes, though. Since people call each other by these few simple words (you can also include aunt and uncle into this equation), usually replacing the subject of the sentence with said words, I am surprised that there is not more confusion. Take this scenario, which I have seen happen more than once in front of me… The old women, most of whom are homemakers and run the house and its finances, are the people who usually take part in any kind of funeral or wedding or Buddhist ceremony as a large group. The young people don’t have the patience to sit through a long and hot Buddhist chant, but somehow the grandmothers all manage as a group to enjoy the long time in their white blouses and kroma scarves wrapped around their body like the pageant princesses wear their sashes. Now imagine a room full of old women, some of them with their heads shaved in the Buddhist style, all of them tan and worn from long years in the tropical heat and through decades of a difficult life. They are all sitting and chatting together, waiting for the monks to appear and bless whatever needs blessed that day.

And they all call each other… ‘yiey.’ With 30-some women, all of them answering to the word ‘yiey’ from their own families and friends, all of them calling each other the same, all of them knowing precisely which yiey is being called to by any other yiey at any given time. Names are irrelevant, forgotten through years of being ‘mom’ and years more of being the mom of a mom. It is incredible…

But on with Khmer…

6. The language, generally, is very simple. There are no articles, no plurals, not a lot of distinctions for particular people, and not a remarkable amount of rules. So I find myself speaking very simply in this language. Here are some examples, translated as best as I can into English phrases…

“Doe na?” Go (question)? Where are you going?
“Nyam Bai howie no?” Eat rice already not? Have you eaten yet?
“Kang no ai na?” Bike where (question)? Where is my bicycle?
“Mok bi na?” From (question)? Where are you from?/
Where’ve you been?/ What country are you from?
“Ay-u pun man chnam?” Age how many year? How old are you?
“Knyom ay-u mapei chnam.”I age 20 year. I’m 20 years old.
“Me-an tourisap awt?” Have phone no? Do you have a phone?
“Sa-at na!” Pretty a lot! Cute, handsome, pretty,
gorgeous, or lovely.

Needless to say, Khmer is an interesting language that I enjoy immensely… and it is getting easier, enough that when I say I have only been here for 6 months or so, most people look at me in complete shock wondering how on earth I have learned this much this fast. And then, somehow, the conversation (usually) turns into a conversation about how I’ve learned (I live with Khmer people, I need to know the language), (Yes, I study the language), (No, I do not want a Khmer husband so that I can learn more)…

The Game

2-5-09

Sometimes the stars fall into alignment in just such a way as to aid me in having more than too much fun with my students here. I had one of those days recently.

My favorite game to play with my students is called ‘Slap the Board.’ It does have educational value, there is vocabulary, listening, friendly competition, teamwork, and the all-important fun factor which, for me, is the main component of language learning. I say this because I still remember with a very clear picture sitting in a coffee shop with my Khmer teacher and my peers in training, learning about comparatives and superlatives by talking trash to each other in Khmer. Fun. Educational. Set into my brain.

In ‘Slap the Board,’ there is a nice selection of words written onto the chalkboard and one student from each team standing with their backs to the board, until, of course, I call out one of the words and they turn and frantically search until one of them hits it and a point is awarded to the team. Sounds great, you say? It is! There is usually massive participation from all of the students in the class, as they yell “above,” “below,” and point frantically while the students touch various words in hopes that they are touching the correct one. It is loud and boisterous, and I am sure you are wondering why I cannot play it all the time.

There are actually several reasons that the game is virtually unplayable. The most conducive environment to play it in is in my 10A/10B classes – I join the two classes and the seats are bursting with students, but the classroom is cement and relatively sound proof, especially since there is an empty classroom in between us gamers and the actually studying 11G class. However, in the rest of my 10th grade classes, star alignment must take place. Every other classroom is made of wood and instead of the walls in between classes going all the way up to the roof, they instead only go about halfway, leaving a large sound traveling gap between all three of the classes in any given building. Teaching in the middle classroom is usually a battle of the voices for that given reason. Imagine a huge game distracting two extra classes instead of just the one you are intending to! Plus, it is my opinion that the more the merrier, so I like to put two classes together to lighten spirits and let them see some new faces.

Life was good to me this day. 10C, my favorite class of all, was having a ‘break,’ which means that their teacher didn’t show up, 10D was who we were to teach, and 10E had gone home for lack of teachers/energy/class (take your pick of any the excuses). It was perfect, so I somehow got some of the 10C’ers into the 10D class, wrote up my words, and let the games begin. Sometimes I choose sides of the class as teams, or the different classes as the teams, but this time I decided on a battle of the sexes, in honor of the upcoming V day, of course.

And on we played, a very close game of girls versus guys aided a bit by my theories on who should win and if I can aid that at all. Sometimes I choose mis-matched pairs, or try to help out the girls a bit based on where she is looking. It is my opinion that the women here need a little self-esteem, beginning with grade 10 board-slapping. And so, through careful work on a tie-breaker at the last minute of the game, the women won and the boys were crushed. And so we asked, “Ladies, as the winning team, what would you like the losing team to do?” The answer was almost unanimous. “Sing!”

And so the campaign was on. The boys, unused to their position as losers and unwilling to sing, refused all of the wild attempts I made to get them to sing. My favorite kids, like Hin, a boy with high cheekbones and a sweet disposition who’s had a scrape on his face all week from a moto fall, Sophy, a boy still growing into his body as awkwardly as he can but making up for it with pure charm that only a 10th grader can have, Poin, the troublemaker who will skip my class right in front of me – walking in front of the window as if I am blind of have somehow forgotten that he is in the class, and the rest of the entertaining class, all refused to get up, saying that they can’t, they can’t! The bell rang, signifying the end of the hour, and I saw my fun day draining as the boys’ refusal left a dull taste in the air.

But then…As head of the class, Sophy had to get up to deliver the attendance book to the teacher desk, where my co-teacher was impatiently watching my antics. As he began to return to his seat, I rushed over to his seat, splaying out my arms to prevent him from sitting down, leaving him standing in front of his mates. He grudgingly accepted the victory and managed with a few words what I had been unable to – he got the entire male population of the class to stand up and stand behind him

The girls were loving it, especially as he and another student (supposedly, the one who is actually good at singing) began their rendition of my favorite song in current circulation: Pram Bouan Dola - $5000. It is a song about a man who loves a woman and in order to pay her dowry sells off everything he owns – his moto, his tractor, his house – but it still isn’t enough, and he withdraws into sadness and depression at his lost love. Granted, not the best lyrics or message, but a pretty catchy tune, with a emotion tortured voice that wails his pain to the world.

They sang, Hin danced, they all watched me (I dance and act excitable about just about everything) and the girls ate up their victory. It was a pretty excellent and star-aligned day…

Vaca in Siem Riep

1-29-09

It has officially been six months in country, and we PCVs could think of no better way to celebrate than to go to the Vegas of Cambodia (as one Aussie Volunteer described it) for a long Chinese New Year weekend. We also needed to celebrate the new inauguration of Mr. Barack Obama, and boy did we.

I made my way to the provincial town a bit early and went to see a model school that one of my American buddies teaches at. If there were a school more opposite than mine, then I have found it in that little place near my friend Dan in the Monkol Borei district south of our provincial town. The students, at ages ranging from 11-19 and all in grade 6, speak more English than the Grade 11 English teacher at my own school. They are clever, incredibly willing to participate, fearless, and generally amazing. Cory, their teacher, gets 4 hours per day with the same students, a fact which I am still unable to comprehend – I am lucky if I get four hours a week with any single student, and even in Khmer class we never had that much time. And so, this variety of students from poor houses in the district, whose only way beyond a life of farming or fishing or selling is their English, who appreciate their education with their entire soul, study and work for more. It is beyond words for me, and they have developed a close relationship with Cory, one that I am only at the beginning of with my students. Their school is the ideal for which all the PCVs are striving to create in a system that refuses it.

After that incredible day, with a very cool and goofy guy named Cory, as well as with a well-fed visit to Dan’s family, the three of us caught the student bus up to the big city, where we enjoyed some fine Khmer food and rest in our friends’ huge house, a massive concrete and tile masterpiece which used to be a guest house and has three levels filled with steep stairs in between.

And then, Siem Riep. It was me, Dan, and Anthony, taking our own taxi and picking up Deidre and Whitney along the way. It’s a long ride on a bad road, unpaved and rocky, busy with construction workers and trucks destroying their work. But then, somewhere on the way, the road becomes perfect, the houses begin to fade away, and you begin to see big hotels, Western restaurants, billboards, clean streets, foreigners, beauty unusual to the country that I know. We went to the guest house that was recommended to us, all while gazing out the windows in some uncertain amazement about where we are and what happened to the country that we were in.

After we checked in to the very normal guest house, we found (of all things!) Indian food, which was delicious and easily devoured. And then, some shopping, where I found a cute little dress that looks quite good on my newly acquired figure and where Deidre and Whit found similarly cute shirts that suit them very well. We got set for dinner and found ourselves walking into an arts and crafts fair, straight out of the pages of Western society. The girls had a glass of white wine and enjoyed the cool summer night (in January…) while the boys walked aimlessly around the stalls and played with the children who were hanging about the crowd. We wandered into the main part of town for some dinner, at the Paper Tiger, delicious as always.

In Siem Riep the set up is very interesting, with a main pub street and adjacent alley, full of cute or kitchy restaurants of all cuisines. There are markets for foreigners, packed with expensive silks and cheap clothes that the average Khmer person would not touch. There are statues and reliefs and pictures and anything that a tourist could want. There are peddlers that work their area of the city – including one boy who we saw on a few occasions, a boy with lots of English and wit to match. In fact, this boy, on the second night we saw him, asked me if I had a boyfriend, and I said no, and he said, “That’s because you don’t buy my book. If you buy my book, you will get a boyfriend.” It was an interesting comment for a 12-something boy to tell a perfect stranger, but his humor alone gave us the urge to buy what he was selling. He also called us out for saying that we have read books we haven’t, which I have to appreciate.

On day 2, there was a pleasant breakfast at a proceeds-to-charity restaurant, a nice relaxing café that one of the K1s used to help out with, a swim at a local bar/pool, and Mexican food with $1 Margaritas. Life is good in Siem Riep.

Day 3 had more food, pizza!, more fun at the bars, a visit to the supermarket (a real, live, HyVee at my fingertips, with packaged meat and dairy products), a phone call from mom and grandma, great times, great chats, great meetings with people that we haven’t seen for ages, and a generally pleasant time. A very good vacation, where we fit in, where we weren’t stared at, where English is one language of many, where we were the people watchers instead of the people watched, where we were back home for 3 days. But yet, we had the added advantage of knowing the language and knowing the ropes a bit more. It was quite lovely, though quite expensive, and the 5 bucks I got in the mail the day before we left didn’t last more than about an hour…

A wedding!

“Sister, sister, get up!” I finished tying up my mosquito net and reluctantly folded my blankets to set them at the foot of my bed. The wind was shaking the house and I pulled a jacket on over my long sleeve shirt because I was shivering in the grey light of dawn. I unlatched my door and pushed the double doors open to find my younger sister Rosa sitting on the porch, make-up boxes in front of her as she carefully applied eye shadow to her almond eyes. She flashed me a quick smile and I stepped down the wooden stairs, feeling more and more chilled from the surprisingly icy wind as I brushed my teeth and splashed water onto my face in the bathroom.

We were in a bit of a hurry – in less than a half hour, all of my young female family members, and even the handsome 25-year-old cousin I call George and the younger 14-year-old cousin Kdompy who adores his every move, would be lined up with more fruit than any single family, no matter how extended, could ever eat. They told me yesterday that we would be carrying fruit for the wedding of an acquaintance, one of the many ceremonies wrapped up into the wedding event of the Khmer people. I could barely contain my excitement; the groom is an American returning briefly to the country, and it is always a thrill to meet someone who understands my accent and the culture that I was raised in. My other sister Lita zipped up my lacy purple shirt and I fastened my new tailored skirt and rushed out the door to find more relatives beginning to pile into a little white Camry, a typical taxi.

But today the taxi was full of family, 7 pretty women in lacy and satin and silk, 5 squeezed in the back, 2 in the front with the driver. Myself the only one in flip flops, all the rest in their highest heels which, while it made them considerably taller than normal, they still were nowhere near reaching my own 5’10” height.

The rumor was that this is basically the wedding of the year – a fact which I still cannot doubt. The bride is a young 20-year-old from one of the richest families in town. My own family is well off, with a pretty wooden house, traditionally modest with a tin roof but modern in the conveniences of generally reliable running water and electricity; we have healthy meals every day, fruit and vegetables and meats with our daily rice, and my host father brings home nice snacks when he comes back from the city on the weekends. No one goes hungry and there is usually something leftover to give to the stray animals that lurk around and look pleadingly up at our table as we eat. But this bride’s family, their wealth, stands out among the town that surrounds it.

Their house is a tall mix of concrete and shiny tile, with pale green paint and a porch with shiny pink banisters. A grey satellite dish sticks out from the otherwise polished exterior and their immense yard on the main road is usually filled with men waiting to work or huge trucks piled tall with red bags of rice. I’ve ridden past it at least 4 times a day, on my way to and from school to teach, usually avoiding the stares and calls from the group of men but constantly curious about the building. I imagined that it was just a stopping point for the rice, that the building had an office in it, never realizing the wealth that lay in the property and the family that owns it, in the business of rice distribution for a district and province known just for its proximity to Thailand and its production of the staple food of the country.

Today we were dropped in the middle of that lot, though today there were no dust-covered trucks, no men in grubby clothes, and little space; a huge bright wedding tent filled with flowers and chairs covered in mock-silk transformed the usually bare space into a banquet hall, a chapel, a shrine to love and family. The huge doors of the house were open to reveal the living room which was covered with wedding paraphernalia: flowers and squares of bright fabric with fancy Khmer script noting the special day, painted landscape backdrops and umbrella lights for photos, the many plates of fruit and food wrapped up with bows and saran wrap lined neatly on the floor. To one side, members of the band dressing in their shiny white jackets, to another, the crew working on perfecting the wedding decorations and setting up the sound equipment for the presentation. The other half of the lot was filled with cars, some familiar taxis, others recognizably important. Even the spirit house, a miniature palace on a stand, was decorated with bright flowery wreaths and extra offerings of food and drink for luck.

I searched the crowd and saw faces I recognized: some of my students from various grades, some important people I met in my first few weeks here – the police chief, an officer of the district branch of the government, the wife of an education official, a few relatives that have stopped infrequently at my house for a visit. More and more people showed up, men in dress shirts with shiny belt buckles, younger guys with their hair immobile from styling, girls in every color of the rainbow, women with satins and skirts completely mismatched to my eyes. There was a rush of color as we all piled into the house to grab a plate of fruit – like someone pushing around a bowl of skittles.

There was some commotion beyond that. I kept hearing 200 meters, 300 meters… wondering what they were talking about. Well, since the groom lives in America, we can’t follow the tradition a purely as possible, by carrying the gifts of fruit and beer and snacks from his home to hers. Instead, we all just walk some small distance away, pair up with a person of the same produce, and walk back to put the fruit where it all was in the first place. That is the ceremony. And that is what we did. Though, it was a bit grander than I had expected – the average wedding will have 60-100 plates of fruit, if you’re on a budget, 30 is acceptable. This particular wedding had 300 plates. 300. We were one long line of gifts.

Of course, there is a bit of expense wrapped up in 300 plates of fruit; this is only one part of the wedding ceremony, which means that the other ceremonies and the more important reception are completely separate expenses. For 300 plates, you first need, well, 300 plates of fruit, beer, snacks, noodles, and so on, and since it is winter, most of the good fruits will be out of season and more expensive than usual. You need decorations and bows for the plates, and you will most likely buy extra fruit so only the prettiest fruit goes on display and you will have considerable extra because you only can use an even number of plates for each fruit. Then, you will likely want to reward the people who wrap all of your fruit in said plates and sarans and bows with a meal or…anything really. And then, you will have to consider getting all of these people to your wedding, seating them for the ceremony (there is a program after the carrying), paying them a small fee for their kindness, and finally feeding them breakfast (all at once) before anything else begins. And, you’ll need the prettiest clothes to wear in front of them…

So we somehow all lined up, all 300 of us, having found out fruit buddy and somehow withstanding the still icy winds blowing our hair out of place. I realize that icy is a bit overstated, but it is like being caught in a tank top on the first cold day of fall, with no shade and a huge breeze from the north. And the band played, and we walked, and the photographer and the videographer, and the various spectators still in their sarongs and jackets took special notice of me, the girl with white skin who happened to be towering above the heads of every girl around her (the boys walk in the back for the most part, because they aren’t as pretty in their normal clothes as we are in our spectacularly colored, beaded, appliquéd, flowery, excessive, decorated ones).

And we went back to the big house – the groom with his groomsmen carrying his shade umbrella and some pretty matching girls carrying some flowers leading the parade on the main road, which is to say, the only road that doesn’t dead end in a village or rice paddy, And through the traffic, we delivered the groom’s offering to the bride’s family.

So we sat in rows and rows of chairs to watch the ceremony: the wedding singer dancing up the aisle with a pretty lady by his side, the Khmer equivalents of the flower girl and ring bearer in front of them, collecting bits of fruit in a basket along the way so that when they reach the end they will have something to eat together and taste as a sort of prelude to the adult festivities. The boy asks the girl what she would like to eat, and she chooses, and with both sets of hands somehow holding the fruit she bites, and he asks, “Is it sweet?” And she says, “Yes, it’s sweet.” She does the same for him, and a song is sung.

The groom does the same walk, giving some symbolic thing to the parents and assembled family members who are seated at the end of the line. The bride makes her appearance, led by an older female family member (a position which may have been offered to me for my sister’s future wedding), her bridesmaids trailing behind her. The bride and groom go up and down the aisles, led by photographers and videographers and the emcee who are all giving instructions and worrying about the placement of the frill on the umbrellas.

There was lots of chaos with all of the cameramen, which in this wedding was a bit exacerbated with the groom who is American in many definitions of the word. My family tells me that his Khmer (we never had the opportunity to speak with one another) is at the same level as mine, which is to say that deep conversations about thoughts and feelings won’t be first on the topic list, and that the bride’s English is… well. The emcee even made a joke about it while someone was trying to get him to turn his head just so; “Say it in English, maybe he’ll understand…”

I was the only one who laughed out loud. Which, then, put the attention on me – and the emcee began talking about the groom’s ‘fellow American’ who looked so lovely in the traditional Khmer shirt and skirt.

When it was all over we put the food back where we found it and went out to the tables at the side of the house. They were under tents, but given the wind still blowing cold, we moved them out into the sunshine to enjoy the rice porridge with bean sprouts and beverages. Our table had Coke and Fanta, though I saw some all-men tables with whisky and beer – I couldn’t think of a reason not to drink at 8:30 either.

And that was it…we piled back into the taxi and went home, various stolen drinks and fruits in our hands, and enjoyed the rest of the Saturday.


Side note: despite not eating the seafood in the rice porridge, I still got terribly sick from something that I ate that morning, with a bacterial infection or amoebas or something, and it was not fun. But, fear not! All better!!

Happy Day Story

Today a very bad fire broke out in a little shop near the new market. It was a shop that I have never been inside, though one that I have ridden past several times; it is close to both the phone shop that I like and the place with the best coffee in town (which I have heard from 3 classes of students and learned through a bit of personal exploration). I know very little about the fire, though the rumors are that no one was hurt, even though that wasn’t the first piece of information ever volunteered for me, that it was caused through some faulty wiring, which doesn’t surprise me, and that there was somewhere in the neighborhood of $30,000 of damage done to the property and the goods inside. Pretty incredible given I cannot even imagine that much money in one building. I also know that one of my students either lost her home or her family’s livelihood or both today.
I know what you’re thinking…happy day story? Well, I went to look at the remains of the building at about 5:00, I saw a few things. In true Khmer fashion…when I went, after the fire had been put out by a fire truck – a real fire truck – there was a crowd outside the building like a carnival was in town. I barely stood out in the crowd. But there were a few children that noticed me. I recognized one of the kids from a few of the weddings that I’ve been to – he is a cute and always dirty little boy with a mop of ashy brown hair and a bright white smile that stands out with his dark skin – and he hangs around parties to collect cans (and therefore, cash) and grab some leftovers after the party guests depart.
He and a little posse stood in front of my parked bike while I assessed the damage and the chaos and they stared me down until I began to make some conversation with them. I said hello and they smiled. I said hello in Khmer and they giggled a bit. I asked for one child’s name and the others told me…none of them answered with their own name, just another’s. I asked what they had and in his young voice he asked me to repeat myself. Baat? (Yes for boys).
He had acquired a string of rubber bands woven together and was wearing it as a necklace that looped twice around him and fell to his belly button on both rings. I saw him later playing jump rope with the thing – and the string went over a foot over his head at its peak in the air.
Another couple of kids came, some older than his (perhaps) 6 years, some younger. A few younger girls were trying to carry a tiny little furball of a puppy and passing him around, dropping him once in the process, but generally taking good care of his very still body that seemed about the size of their torsos. Another kid looked like he had just eaten a chocolate ice cream cone (unlikely) and the evidence was all over his chin. I asked more names, they other kids filled me in, and I heard one of them tell another to ask my name, obviously shy or nervous or both at the Khmer-speaking-barang-girl in front of them. I told them my Khmer name, Bopha (the flower of poetry), and as they giggled and repeated my answer I heard one boy say neakroo, teacher.
I didn’t immediately recognize this particular boy, but he spoke more, saying, she is a teacher, she came to the primary school. The boy was there when I went to visit the kindergarteners with their teacher, my friend. I was more than shocked that this boy could remember such a thing after so much time has passed, but also so happy that I made some impression on a single child in the town. I hope to influence more as my time passes here…it is easy as you settle into life here to forget that you may make a difference with just a few hours of your time, that sometimes the things that you forget someone will remember for days or weeks or years to come, that it may influence the life that they choose to lead.

*Bonus info: My friend the kindergarten teacher got married just a few days ago to a very sweet and tall boy from Siem Riep, and he was very thrilled to speak a little English with me. The wedding was a food and music-filled festival, as usual, with a lot of my teacher friends in various stages of sobriety or lack thereof, which led me to reflect on this strange piece of the culture that prefers daytime drunkenness to the evening party scene.

Plus…please note the photo – I feel like a giant in the thinnest flip flops I own. And to think they would prefer me in a heel.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!!!

I am happy to say that I reigned in the new year by partying hard until past midnight (quite a feat these days) with a whole crew of Volunteers from around the Banteay Meanchay province. There were Americans, Brits, Aussies, Dutch folk, some Germans, and a gal from Andorra, which is, despite some intense discussion, really a country. Promise. We had some lovely pasta, some great desserts, and a lot of music that reminded me a bit of an American wedding reception - until it switched to Khmer wedding music - and then some ABBA, so it was a good day.

So with that, I wish all the best to you this year, and I hope that 2009 is the year for all good things (like a healing of the American economy) to happen!