an update

it's amazing to me that we have now officially been living in cambodia for seven weeks. that's nearly fifty days people!

let's visit the basic stats, shall we?

two days in: i was questioning my ability to truly last in a country wherein i never stopped sweating. there may have been a fifteen minute freak out moment upon our arrival in our training province hub site, in which chris had to take over carrying luggage, help me unbutton my soaked shirt, and aim the fan directly at my face.

update, forty nine days in: the heat is still delibating at times, but it's more of a fact of life now rather than a cause for freak out. yes, i still drip six days out of seven; yes, there is rarely a moment that you can't see the sheen of sweat on my forehead and chin; yes, you can count the number of days i have lasted with my hair down all day on one hand and yes, it is stifling at times. But, it's also less frustrating, and easily solvable with a quick bucket shower or five minutes in front of a fan, or ten minutes sitting in the shade.

i will add though, that sweat (and thusly, i) have nearly ruined one bra already and desparately need new camisoles.

one week in: i could say hello, my name is kate, i am from america and i am a teacher in stilted and probably questionable khmai.

update, forty nine days in: i can't exactly speak for the questionable sort, but i have definitely progressed from a two year old child to perhaps a four year old child's language ability. i now catch between 30-50% of the words being said (if i understand the general context) and nearly 70% when i know the exact topic and am listening very intently. i pick up humor, can use it (kind of), and feel somewhat confident that sentences i create are generally clear and more than half the time correct. my vocabulary is definitely still incredibly limited (thus, if you plopped me down in a conversation randomly, my understanding would probably be very much less), but i (and i believe the same is true for chris, if he doesn't mind me speaking for him) love learning the language. we all took a practice language test about a week ago (our real one is in, gulp, one week) and chris and i, it seems/we hope, will pass the real one. we have to be at the novice high level, and we both placed in the intermediate level- chris at low and me at mid. we've heard though that most volunteers usually test a step lower than their practice test, but of course, because it's me, i am bound and determined to keep my intermediate mid. wish me luck. dammit.

two weeks in: chris and i discovered a scale at a restaurant/hotel near the temple where we study, and stepping on that scale were astonished to find we'd both dropped just over two kilos, or five pounds each.

update, forty nine days in: chris is wasting away, and i am just plain getting less fat. we've both lost about fifteen pounds at this point, putting dear husband perilously close to his freshman year of college weight, and getting me ever closer to the coveted pre-marriage weight. le sigh. we still eat a lot of rice, but it seems that overall, we eat less and are moving more on our bikes. all those diet fads can fade away, but there may be a rush on cambodia visas once women discover that moving to a tropical country where you sweat a pound a day, have very limited access to snack foods, and have to bike at least five miles a day may just be the secret to a healthy lifestyle.

seven weeks in, i can honestly say it's truly fantastic to have a husband to serve with. especially since that husband is chris. we haven't spent this much time together since college (and even then never 24 hours together!) and it is honestly one of the best parts of this experience. we laugh at the absurdities of life, study with each other, and in general have very minimal issues with each other as we navigate this new world. cheesy, but true. and on that note, expect an update in a few days with pictures of our permanent home which we are currently visiting!

a very strange full circle: cambodia

*originally posted on my travel blog back in march, i wanted to preserve this here on my regular blog as i complete training.

one month ago, chris and i were tossing around the pros and cons of a new departure date.  our placement officer had informed us that the old date for the august program we'd been nominated to had been moved, and we now had the choice between a july 1 and july 19 departure.

what's funny is that, all along, over the last eight months of applying, interviewing, medical-ing, and waiting, waiting and more waiting, i had always been slightly preparing myself for the possibility that july would end up being our invitation, and thus, we'd likely be heading to cambodia.

what's amazing and wonderful to me now, just as it was when chris and i sat on the phone debating the choices we had before us, is how genuinely right going to cambodia feels.

it's as if we've come, or begun to come, full circle.  you see, each year at the university at which we met, freshman are required to read, over summer, a common book for a college writing or honors course.  the text is meant to spark discussion, fling open the eyes of the naive teenagers entering higher education, and serve as a common language as we embark on the great journey of college.

in addition, each year, the author of the chosen text is invited to a "writer as witness" symposium to speak to the freshman class.

the year that chris and i entered college, 2003, the book that was chosen for us was "first they killed my father."

the novel relates the true story of loung ung's survival of the khmer rouge occupation and destruction of the cambodian way of life from 1975-1979 (and beyond, but that's a topic for another day.)  loung was just five when the khmer rouge's "year zero" began, and the text, told from the perspective of a child, is remarkable.

source

when i was just seventeen, entering college, i was enthralled by this woman's harrowing journey that brought her to our little stage at our university.  i soaked up her every word, and believed myself changed in world view.

i am not sure if i truly understood, at the time, what changing my worldview would mean or how it would shape my future.  but it seems oddly remarkable that here i am, eight years later, about to enter the country that loung escaped in 1980, with the husband that i met in college, who also engrossed himself in loung's words and story in 2003.

i re-read "first i killed my father" over the weekend, and the story, along with a fair few others, are giving me great insight into the culture and way of life that was decimated in 1975, and the scars the likely still run deep in cambodia (though, it seems, hidden from view for many reasons.)

being given the chance to live in cambodia has a feeling of "right," as if the last eight years have been readying me for the extraordinary journey.