khnyom mok p bpro dtey americ.

i come from the country of america.

it's hard to believe that we've been here for just over two weeks now, and living with our host family for just over 1 week.  it's been a long few weeks, mainly due to major life adjustments, long and jam packed days and especially hours of attempting to learn to speak Khmer.

if my internet were faster, i could regale you with a picture book encapsulating the last 15 days, but until that is remedied, you'll have to deal with my written words.  as in the sample lesson i taught on adjectives today, i'll try to be descriptive such that you develop a mental image of our life here.

each morning, we wake up around four to the sound of a rooster crowing.  we then try to ignore him, stuff our earplugs in a bit deeper, and dig into firm bed, covered in a mosquito net.  we finally give in to the sounds of our village waking up, and mosey out of bed around six thirty.

we then stuff ourselves into varying degrees of uncomfortable and smelly clothes- a long skirt made of traditional fabric and long sleeve collared shirt for me, and long pants and long sleeve collared shirt for chris. our saving grace are our sandals, which are now coated in an appropriate amount of red clay mud, given the daily rain showers and our typical 30-40 minutes of biking we do each day.

we then drench ourselves in sweat attempting to not get sweaty while finding some breakfast.  we stumble over our tongues learning the language, enjoy a beautiful temple while attending technical training for our days as english teachers, and then drench ourselves again as we ride back and forth from our pday-aw (home) to each class.  our amazing host family- a grandmother and her granddaughter (ish)- have given us a wonderful place to stay and make us delicious lunches and dinners every day.  we've tried to help out by doing the dishes each night, but i'm still convinced that she goes back into the kitchen to do them again.

i'll try to get back on soon with s have ome pictures uploaded, so you can see all of our amazing life here, and the wonderful people- from fellow trainees and current volunteers to host country nationals- in our life. just know we are so happy in cambodia and so lucky to each other and amazing people like you supporting us!

be well!