New Words

As you probably know, my main task these days (and until sometime in May) is language study. The Cambodian country has it's own language, called Khmer (pronounced "kuh-my"). Khmer has it's own script/alphabet, so I am learning new vocab, new grammar, and new ways of reading and writing, not to mention new ways of producing sounds. Khmer has one of the largest numbers of consonant and vowel sounds of any of the languages in the world.

If you've never really seriously studied a language (high school French, while good, doesn't count--sorry!), it's an interesting process. I dream of studying new words. Khmer vocab gets stuck in my head like a song does, whether I know what it means or not. Some new vocab seems to be instantly cemented into my head--I remember it immediately and can use it at any time. Other words--no matter how many times I read them, hear them, use them, write them--I still forget them. Associations can help the memory process--for instance, if a Khmer word sounds similar to an English word, that helps me remember. For instance, the Khmer for "curtain" sounds vaguely like the phrase "the unknown." At this point, now that I've learned a little bit of Khmer, it can also be helpful if a new word sounds like Khmer word I already know. Then again, that can also be confusing--I remember three words that sound very similar: which one am I actually supposed to use in this situation??

One nice thing about Khmer, though, is that it uses a lot of root words to make new words. For instance, take the word for "water." Add the word for "room," and you have "room water"--bathroom. Or add "apple" and get "water apple": apple juice. "Water of cow": milk. "Water bee": honey. "Water fish": fish sauce. And so on. Very handy if you can hear and recognize the root words and what they are combined with (the key word there is IF...). It can also be educational. I was talking with the younger sister that I live with while we worked to prepare lunch on Sunday. She was cutting up a vegetable that we have fairly often, but that we do not commonly eat in the US (trust me, most of the fruits and a lot of the veggies are new to me. Tasty, but new). It was similar to Romaine lettuce leaves growing on stalks. I asked what it was called in Khmer, and the answer was "cutnaa." And bingo! Light goes on! I already knew that I enjoyed "pikaa cutnaa"--in English, cauliflower. In Khmer, that translates to "flower of the cutnaa." So--the cauliflower is the flower of the cutnaa plant, and for lunch we were going to eat the leaves and stalks. Who knew that cauliflower had leaves and stalks, much less that they were edible. I, for one, have never wondered why we call it "cauliflower."

Language can be an interesting history lesson, too. More food examples: combine the word for "garlic" with one of the words for "foreigner" to make "garlic of the foreigner," and you get the word for "onion." Same thing for some other veggies--"thing that grows in the dirt of the foreigner"--potato. "Bean of the foreigner"--green beans or peas. Makes you realize that these things were introduced by foreigners and new words had to be formed for them. The best words of all to learn, though, are those that are adopted from English the same way we've adopted "taco" or "deja vu." I managed to remember these Khmer words (although I still have to work on pronouncing them Cambodian style): "computer," "strawberry," and best of all--"chocolate."

Maybe if you want a very SMALL omelette...

So a few weeks ago the light in my bedroom stopped working. (The same night, the electrical outlet by the lightswitch got infested by ants, but I think that was just a coincidence) The light still does not work--we need to get a new fixture or electrical box or something along those lines, which will happen eventually. But--in the process of trying to figure out why the light wasn't working, we took the cover off of the light fixture (see the picture above) and discovered, along with plenty of dust, those little white balls. Any guesses what they are??? My first thought was those little white balls of spider eggs. Wrong, but on the right track with the egg idea: these are gecko eggs. I expected them to have a soft, rubbery shell (like you would picture an alligator or frog egg) but the shells are hard, just like little birds eggs. So there you have it, now you know where geckos come from. Incidentally, all the buildings here have geckos, which is fine with us--they stay on the walls and ceilings, so are not a bother, and help us by eating mosquitoes and other bugs. Here's another resident that can be found in some buildings, although usually there is only one of these and not many like with geckos: this is a lizard called a ti-koo. They are about 6-10 inches long and make a sound just like their name sounds. These eat the bugs, too, and also mice (and we are happy to have them do that!). This guy lives on the wall around my upstairs bedroom, and as you can see from the photo, also likes to come inside occasionally.

Life and Times

So I usually post about something to try and be informative--this time, I figured I'd just give you a little glimpse into what's been going on. In general, my days are as follows: wake up around 5:45, leave for the office a little after 7, attend staff devotions at 7:30 for 45 minutes or an hour, spend the rest of the morning doing language study and online communication and whatever other meetings, etc. need to happen, lunch at 12ish (usually I eat Khmer food with some of the staff at the office, or bring a sandwich or something, and maybe once a week or so I go to a restaurant), relax or run errands, tutoring from 1:30-3:30, more office time until we head home sometime between 5 and 6, do stuff or chill until dinner between 7 and 8, relax, shower, go to bed. Weekends--Saturdays I wash clothes (and by that I mean that I myself wash the clothes, not put them in a machine), do errands, do something fun, etc. Sunday is Khmer church in the morning and English church in the afternoon/evening. That's the basics.

For some specifics, let's see...last Saturday I did the usual laundry, did some reading, got all showered up, and then went with my Cambodian roommate to the hairdresser. She got her makeup, nails, and hair done; I stuck with the hair. I perplexed them a little bit because they insisted my hair was too short to curl or pin up. So, I ended having all the ends carefully curled out and up and away from my face--they thought it was great, I felt like Farah Fawcett. Oh well, it only cost a dollar to get done. The reason for the hairdos--we attended a wedding that evening for the children of some FH staff members who are working in Anlong Veng. Cambodian weddings traditionally take a day or more to celebrate and involved numerous outfits for the wedding party; sometimes you can attend the actual wedding ceremony in the morning, or more commonly, do like we did and show up for the party in the evening. When you arrive you are directed to the nearest open seats, and once your table is filled up, you receive the appetizers for a 6-10 course meal. The courses follow one or two at a time. Later in the evening is cake cutting (but not eating) and traditional-style dancing (involving hand movements and walking with a group of people around and around in a circle).

Sunday--the usual two church services, watched a DVD on my laptop. At the afternoon service I joined the worship team to play the guitar and will do this on a somewhat regular basis. After church there is a felllowship time with yummy baked goods, and then usually heading to dinner with people.

Monday--regular day, except I skipped tutoring to visit the US Embassy and register my presence in the country. The theory behind this is so that, in the case of emergency, the Embassy knows where all the in-country US citizens are and can contact them with relevant information. The Embassy can also be helpful for things like voting from abroad. To register, I went through two security checks with metal detectors, leaving my phone and camera at the first one (no electronics allowed in, apparently). Then I waited in the right line (much shorter for me as a citizen than for people of other nationalities who were there for visas, etc.), filled out a form, turned it in, got my stuff, and left. Mission accomplished.

Tuesday--after tutoring, I ran errands--got gas in my moto (usually $2-3 per tank), stopped at a local bakery because I am a foreigner and like things made out of wheat, and went to the grocery store (yes, there are a few international-type grocery stores in the big cities, with local and imported food that foreigners like to eat). I got pulled over on my moto by the police on the way to the store because I don't have a license plate yet (something that is easier said than done to get)--they wanted to fine me ten dollars for this fact. More truthfully, as they told me themselves, there were five of them and they wanted some beer to drink (accepting bribes is very common in many professions here, and is not shocking--many jobs do not pay enough to live off of, and the system of accepting payouts is thus in place). With my small Khmer vocab, I managed to joke them down to $5, and then with a phone call to my Cambodian roommate to talk to them better than I could, we go the price down to 5000 Riel ($1.25).

Today (Wednesday)--normal day again. We all went to lunch as a staff as a goodbye thing for a man from Canada who has been here on a short-term trip for the past three months. Tonight I am eating dinner at the home of another American who I met through church and some other people.--yum yum.

Coming up--two more days of work/studying. This coming weekend we have a retreat for all the international FHCambodia staff--two Japanese staff members (one has been here over fours years, the other almost one), one Burmese lady (Burmese as in Myanmar) who has been the accountant for over a year, a Phillipina lady who got hired the end of December, a Swiss couple who will be starting soon, myself, and the country director and his wife (also American). So, I am working with one of the Japanese staff to lead worship for the event--need to get that ready by Friday, and then for the retreat itself we are using the pool and a meeting room at a local resort-type hotel, and then going home to sleep (doing it on the cheap!). Sunday--there is a potluck at the International church for two pastoral candidates that they are considering asking to co-fill the pastorate.

And I think that is enough for now! Just about time for me to head to dinner. :)

Christmas Part Deux

Ok, I'm a little behind the times with my Christmas posts, but here you go anyways. Thought you might like to see my gift from our office gift exchange. Everyone picked someone else's name from the pot and bought them a gift--in the US equivalent, a decently nice gift, in maybe the $15-20 range (here, $5-10). In Asia, you do not give gifts halfheartedly, even if you are not the wealthiest person in the world and it is only a random office gift exchange. Anyways, on the big day, we all gathered together and one person at a time retrieved the gift they brought and gave it to the receiver. This must be done in the following manner:

1. When it is your turn to give your gift, get very excited, and also a little embarassed. The other participants will aid you in this by clapping and hooting.
2. Stand in the middle of the circle with your gift. Melodramatically make a big show of pretending to give the gift to several of those present. Again, the other participants will aid you by standing and pretending to take the gift from you.
3. After an appropriate length of time, present the gift to the actual recipient. The clapping and hooting will continue. IMPORTANT: do not actually let go of the gift until you and the recipient have both paused and smiled at the camera for the official "handing over of the gift" photo.
4. You can sit again as things calm down and the recipient opens the gift. Once the gift is opened, everyone will be happy about it, and the recipient will thank you very politely, and the next gift will now be given.

So--here it is, a video of my gift. Keep in mind that this was not a white elephant, gag-gift type of exchange--this is considered a quality gift. And I must say, my pens and pencils have never had such an exhilerating place to reside. Turn your sound up and watch the clip. Prepare to be jealous...

Good Eats

So, Cambodian cuisine--it offers quite a few tasty dishes (and a few more...interesting options. Tarantula or fermented fish paste, anyone?). And one of the highlights of food in Cambodia is the number of yummy fruits available, most of which are unlike anything available in the States. Culturally, fruits are often given as gifts, or served occasionally as a dessert. They are also eaten as snacks, and many fruits can be eaten while unripe--when eaten this way, they are often dipped into a mixture of salt, sugar, and chili flakes.

Earlier this week one of the fruit trees in front of the FHCambodia Phnom Penh office produced some ripe fruit, and after ripening further in the office kitchen, we cut them up and ate them today. May I introduce you to--jackfruit! This is a jackfruit from our office tree--you can tell it's almost ready from the big split up the side, and when it's all the way ripe you can tell by the strong, jackfruity smell.

Jackfruits are large--most of them are the size of a watermelon (the big ones, not those little seedless ones). They can grow larger, though; according to Wikipedia, a single jackfruit can grow up to a length of three feet and weigh 80 pounds. In fact, they are the world's largest fruit that grow on trees. They are tasty, too, with a flavor like a mix of pineapple and banana (and I think some overtones of peach and strawberry). A jackfruit is hard and knobby outside, and lined with a number of seeds on the inside. Each seed is similar in size to a peach pit, and is surrounded by a "pod" of fruit. This pod is what you eat, although the seeds themselves can also be cooked and eaten, and are supposed to be similar to chestnuts. Also according to the internet, jackfruit is full of vitamins, minerals, cancer-fighting antioxidants and phytochemicals, and even fights ulcers and indigestion (and here I thought it just tasted good!). For more variety, jackfruit can be eaten cooked (some Indian dishes use it in curries), dried, or unripe, when it can be used as a vegetarian substitute for chicken (who would have thought?). If you need a few more factoids, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackfruit or Google "jackfruit".

The one downside of jackfruit--eating it fresh leaves you with sticky fingers (in fact, unripe jackfruit pulp can be used as glue). This stickiness wears off after a few hours, but can't be washed, rubbed, or even hand-sanitized away before then. Luckily, the ingenious Cambodian people have figured out a simple and workable solution: human hair. Rubbing your jackfruity fingers through your hair in some magic way takes the sticky off your hands without transferring it to your locks. I don't know why, but I can vouch for it working!

Soo-us-die Ch'nam Tuh-my!!!

And that, my friends, is Khmer for "Happy New Year"!!!! (a loose direct translation of it is "hello year new.") So--welcome to 2009! Hope you were all able to celebrate as last year wrapped up and we head into this one. I have had good intentions of blogging some more about Christmas, but here it is already past New Year's and that hasn't happened, so...we'll see if I can get to it in January. But--might as well spread a little New Year's cheer while I'm still on top of that.

New Year's Eve is not a huge holiday in Cambodia--it gets usurped by the celebration of Chinese New Year and Khmer New Year later in the spring. In fact, New Year's Eve I spent at yet another Cambodian Christmas celebration (think sitting in a chair for a few hours listening to people sing and then eating some kind of fishy Cambodian food) with the extended family of the family that I live with. We also had a big rain storm, unusual for this time of year (the dry season). New Year's Day--a holiday from work, so I spent a lazy day catching up on some reading and heping to clean up the flooded first floor of our house, compliments of the rain storm (Happy New Year!).

So--I've been in Cambodia a month and half and have made it through the celebration of my third major American holiday. In the coming months we can start on some of the Cambodian ones! May you see God's goodness and care in the coming year!