Pchum Ben and Saying Goodbye

In the final week of training, we enjoyed our first Cambodia holiday with our host families.  Pchum Ben is a fifteen day holiday, wherein Cambodian pay respects to their ancestors and the local monks by offering food and thanks in a variety of traditional Buddhist ceremonies.  For our family, Pchum Ben meant a two hour Sunday morning spent offering food (rice, tea, etc), money and prayers to some of the monks from our nearby wat (pagoda) at our family altar (like a mini pagoda across the street from our house).  Chris and I were in many ways the spectacle for the extended family in attendance and our grandmother made sure that we sat close to the monks as they prayed for health, safety, a good harvest and general well being of our “family.”

A week later, our grandmother’s three grandchildren were staying with us and roused us at four in the morning to attend one of the biggest ceremonies of Pchum Ben- the offering of food and water to ghosts in various places around the local wat. 

Once again, Chris and I proved quite the spectacle for the hundreds of Cambodians gathered in the darkness.  After a bit of praying, incense burning, and general hilarity as I observed Chris trying to sit properly on the hard ground, the ceremony of throwing food for the ghosts began. So, covered in the smoke from the incense, Chris and I proceeded to walk three times around the wat, shaking bottled water and throwing fruit in eight distinct places around the wat for the ghosts to enjoy. 

Ending our training with our host families during the week of Pchum Ben was bittersweet- our final days were spent with many people, in a formerly quiet house that was louder than we’d ever heard it, enjoying food and being pressured to drink beer.  You know.

Our grandmother was so happy having her grandchildren, their spouses and children all around, and when the day before our departure arrived, it became clear that all of the children- Chris and I included- would be leaving the same time the next day.  I was shocked to see tears spring to our grandmother’s eyes and slip down her cheeks, especially as we gave her the small gifts we had bought for her to thank her for the previous two months.  She made us promise to return to visit, and made sure we knew that we were now her “goan”- children- too and she loved us as she loved her other children.

There aren’t many more words about this topic- saying goodbye was harder that we imagined, but we’re lucky because our permanent site is in the same province and just thirty minutes away from our training village and our Cambodian grandmother. 

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.

our cambodian life, in images

On the bus from Phnom Penh to our training "hub site" in a nearby province

Our view on a bike ride in our training hub site village

Cambodia coffee- coffee with ice and condensed milk. 

Friends. And many hours being trained.

This one time, in Cambodia, we went to the market to get the skirts we'd had made and got caught in a torrential down pour.

We made it, with our cheap ponchos

All dressed up to meet our training host family.

At the beautiful wat (pagoda) to meet our training family!

Our family's home- we live with a yeh and a young relative who cooks/cleans

Our house! With our bikes and the table we eat nearly every meal.

Our water filter.

Because I know most of all, you're wondering about our bathroom. That's a western toilet, no running water.

We have puppies!

Sometimes, we play volleyball with our fellow trainees.

And then we play with puppies again!

Two weekends ago, we biked to a nearby killing field memorial site. Yes, those are human skulls.

From zero to sixty

It’s no secret, if you’ve read this here blog, that for the last four years, I gave my time and energy and general self over to my job.  I loved every single minute- even the ones I spent crying or being the shoulder that someone cried on- as a teacher and program director.

It’s also no secret, though, that Topher and I averaged very few hours (hardly any of them daylight during the week) together.

Our current reality could not be more different.  For the first time ever, we are literally with each other nearly every hour of the day.  This past Thursday was the first time we’d spent more than one hour in a separate place, as I actually traveled to another village to offer some of my knowledge to the other trainees who are teachers, and it was strange!

Being married in the Peace Corps is pretty swell.  When one of us is frustrated, the other one is usually able to be the tough and supportive one.  We’ve practiced learning the language under our mosquito net together, and have sweat probably three gallons together in the last month, all the while maintaining how wonderful the other person still looked.

I am so grateful to have Topher here in this experience- we’re growing together, even as we grow differently.  Having the same daily events and occurrences but varying reactions has pushed us to really understand each other’s mental and emotional states at a new level.  I am pretty convinced that the next two years will be incredible challenges but if the first month of service is any indication, we’ll only grow stronger in the process.

Thank goodness.

It’s just like America, except without air conditioning

This quote was some of the witty banter being tossed around on the Cambodia facebook page before our group of K5s arrived in country.  what’s best about this little bit of wit now is how often I find myself saying, in subconscious attempts to acculturate in a foreign land, “wow, that is something I could have seen in America.”

Often this little moment is a simply act of humanity (or depravity, but we won’t dwell on dogs having sex constantly on the side of the road, or people kicking dogs or the like.) Small little moments that I most often catch as I ride my bike on one of our various trips into or out of town, from language class or technical training.

It caused me to smile when I saw a father teaching his daughter how to ride a bike in their “driveway” yesterday.  A few weeks ago, I saw a little boy helping his mother hang the laundry in the midday sun.  I’ve seen more instances of sibling love here than I ever imagined- so many older brothers caring for their younger sisters, whether it be helping them open a piece of fruit or pushing the hammock, emitting a giggle.

Those moments have me instantly feeling twangs of sadness, as I think about Colin (my brother) and remember how he was the one that taught me how to ride a bike.  Both my mother and father had given up hope- even at five, my stubborn ways were preventing us from communicating effectively sans-training wheels.  It was Colin that had the patience- and maybe guile- to push me and let go so that I could ride on my own.

Life here, in case you were worried, is pretty awesome.  We’ve both had our terrible moments- read Chris’ favorite worst story so far here (for the record, I was simply trying to help Chris conquer his lasting fear of rats)- and I would be lying if I didn’t admit that about once every 72 hours I have five minutes of pure frustration either due to sweat pouring from every crevice (did you know that your calves sweat? They do- in southeast asia) or MOSQUITOS.  I f-ing hate mosquitos.

We switched language groups recently, and learning to speak Khmer is still my favorite part of the day. It’s amazing to feel like I am slowly moving from 1 year old level to 2 year old, and practice with street vendors, women in the market, and even the employees at our Tela gas station (complete with air conditioning and cold water!)

Monday we begin our Practicum week, when we’ll actually be team teaching small groups of Khmer students.  I am so excited to be a teacher again- though I am constantly saying to myself “in Baltimore, the CMs just came back from Institute.  Today, they’re getting sessions on setting goals and writing assessments! I wish I was there to guide the awesome 2010s and 2011s to prepare for the year!”  So to all my TFA loves reading this- you’re going to have an AMAZING start to the school year! Smile, be firm, and rock it.

I am going to try to upload some pictures for later this week, so be on the lookout!

Much love from the Kingdom of Wonder.

Take a Look at "Good Hard Look!"

Hey all! My review of Ann Napolitano's new book A Good Hard Look  is up on the BlogHer book  club.  Go take a look and tell me what you think!

My Review