thoughts and comments and ideas and reflections have been knocking around my head for a few days now.
reflections and thoughts about cambodia, and life in cambodia, and the people of cambodia, and the people of america and the two peoples together.
sad thing is, every time i have one of those thoughts that i immediately tell myself "self, that was a semi brilliant thought! save it for the blog later!"
and then i promptly forget them.
what's good and happy and joyous about all of these thoughts is that they are just that: good and happy and joyous.
mainly, i've been feeling very...settled and content in cambodia. there are some incredibly exciting things on the horizon, but even better are the daily interactions i've been having with people that energize me and speak to my soul, and fulfill that lingering question of why i'm here.
there are three main goals of peace corps. the first one is to provide skilled men and women to countries that need our said skills. the second is to develop a deep understanding of the new culture we are placed within, and share that culture with friends, family, and, in general, the united states. the third is to bring elements of our culture with us to our new home, and respectfully show, explain, and share our own personal brand of american culture and broader american culture with our new communities.
in so many ways, my experience has been defined less by the first goal and more so by the second two. i've written about the joy i get from having conversations with women at the market, or new people at the photo shop, or even our family as they tell us that they love that we joke around with them and each other in khmer. those second and third goals often feel like the bread and butter of my time here- i love every second of it, and it comes naturally to the culture of cambodians, who deeply value the casual art of conversation. i think it's pretty clear that i love speaking khmer with cambodians, i even love making mistakes and having them teach me a new word, and i especially love getting a laugh every time i share the little piece of my world wherein i never cook because it is NOT delicious, but my husband does, and we help each other because i do most of the laundry and wash the dishes. cultural exchange, at its best.
for so long, i felt a bit impotent in my position of providing new information and sharing my skills of teaching and teaching teachers to my cambodian trainees and counterparts. a bit like what i had to offer was relevant, but nearly impossible to replicate due to strict policies of the system or vast cultural differences.
take, for example, my general demeanor as a teacher- firm, but also completely wiling to go to any lengths needed to explain a concept- had me showing my trainees how to use miming as an exercise for eliciting new vocabulary by pretending that i was a tree growing, or that i had tripped and fallen, or that i was angry, or in love, or any other range of emotions that leave my face contorted. my general demeanor as a teacher in many fundamental ways contradicts what is considered appropriate or polite or acceptable for teachers, especially female ones. i often asked myself, what am i giving that is of use to the students who learn from me?
and then this week, as my first year trainees headed off to their practical teaching experience at a local school, my second year trainees returned. and we began to traverse the wilds of practicing (for some) and learning (for others) english. and instead of having to overly simplify my speech, or translate every word into khmer, or ask the same question five times, i found myself speaking at a mostly normal pace (a normal teaching speaking pace, that is), translating only when i wanted to be very specifically clear, and having many students offering to answer open-ended, not in the book questions.
and it was eureka. and i saw myself, walking around that classroom, as if i was an observer outside, and i was content in seeing the american woman, being herself, slightly goofier than your average khmer woman, but still eliciting original thoughts and statements, especially from girls, being respected and listened to, and turning a normally boring lesson about visiting a far off province to a nearly engaging English lesson, mainly involving vast amounts of speaking and listening.
and all that came before that moment- the months i had spent with this group of trainees in the preceding months, the year that my predecessor volunteer had spent with this group of trainees, the time that i had invested into building a trusting relationship with my counterpart such that he let me take the lesson on the path and evolution that i wanted, and the respect and general happiness that i enjoy in that relationship because of my own concerted effort, my own casual discussions over coffee, and that of, again, the volunteers before me-
they all led to this glorious eureka. this gradual release of what it should be, what i thought it'd be, into what it simply is.
and what it is is amazing and a great place to be, nearly ten months in.
