Spellcheck

So....somehow I keep being involved with the process here for hiring new staff. This has involved coming up with job descriptions, questions for written tests and oral interviews, being part of the interview committees and a test proctor, and now--it meant reading through a stack of 30+ CV's that were submitted by people applying for two open translator positions (for those of you who speak American, a "CV" is a curriculum vitae, a document similar to our resumes, although a CV is usually longer and includes personal info--height, weight, marital status, hobbies--and complete work and education histories).
Trying to find the best wording to present yourself well can be tricky for anyone writing a CV or resume, and this becomes even more of an issue when you are writing one in a second language. I know if I tried to apply for a job in Khmer, things would not be pretty. That said, the accidental errors that applicants make and some of their word choices on their CV's are still pretty amusing. So, for a smile or two, here are some real live quotes from our recent batch of applicants:

“I have a good understanding about Abuse and other relevant tasks”
“Other skills: Driving—motorbike (brilliantly)”
“Completed the psychology course at Institute of European Onion”
“English skills: understanding the comprehension, speaking skill, and good writhing”
“I am familiar with using English as a professional and naive English Speaker”
“REFEREES: available upon request”
“Hobbies: Reading, Traveling, Searching on the internet, and all kinds of spots”
“Interpersonal skills: Honest, hard working, independent, communicative, friendly, and strict.”
“I hereby wish to make formal application for the position of a translator. I am tremulously optimistic that my qualification, skill, experience, and commitment person. I am not qualified candidate, but also energetic person and willing to do every wholeheartedly. In additional to my working experiences, I hold good and strong...ability to communicate with people at all levels, and under any pressure, and can be flexible enough depend on reality. I am good ply. With the above mentioned qualifications, I strongly believe that I am suitable and qualified for the position.”
“I’ve seen your recruitment posted on bongthom website. For this reason, I have sensitively found myself loveable and well-qualified”
“I was pleasant because of my students could understand what I taught”
“Additional skills: Successfully completed in Guiding Map to be the Lustrous Outstanding Leader”

Christmas in AV

The fact that it's nearly Valentine's Day shouldn't stop me from posting a few Christmas party photos, should it? I apologize, I had video clips from the Christmas celebration as well, but in a later mad rush to take photos elsewhere these got deleted to make more room in the camera. So at the bottom there are a few clips of some of our Child Development Program kids introducing themselves. Kids like these can be sponsored on a monthly basis, providing funds for the salary of staff members who work with the kid's families, facilitate financial saving groups that increase the well-being and resources of the whole community, lead Bible clubs, and provide supplemental education classes.

Recap on the Christmas party: this was not an FH sponsored event, but was a joint project put on by three local churches for the community as a whole. Many FH staff were involved in the preparations and goings on, and all staff attended the event as a staff Christmas celebration. About 500-600 people total were in attendance for the performances, a Cambodian speaker, sack lunch, and baptism. Included are several pictures of traditional Cambodian dancing performances, a Cambodian-style Christmas pageant, and guests at the party.

By Request

A blog post is long overdue, and so, by request: another day in the life of Katie. Sorry, this isn't a specific day, because really, my days aren't that exciting. But the below will give you a pretty good idea of what my days usually look like. And hopefully the internet will cooperate to let me tag a few pictures on at the end. Without further ado, the typical day:

6:00 am--alarm on my cell phone goes off. Drag myself up soon after, untuck the mosquito net from around my mattress and twist it up into a knot to keep it out of the way for the day. Proceed to get ready and eat breakfast.

7:25ish am--lock up and climb on the moto to head to the office.

7:30 am--devotions begin for all staff. We open in prayer, sing three songs in Khmer, read a chapter in the Bible (currently we are wrapping up the book of Luke), staff share their comments/questions/insights from the chapter, share prayer requests, pray all together, the end.

8:15-8:30 am--get to work. For me, I find a spot at a table in the main room at the office (where we have just had devotions), plug my laptop in, and check e-mail. From now until lunch I work on whatever my current tasks are--lately, I have been formatting some documents for HR, editing some donor reports in English, making travel and accomodation arrangements for a guest who shows up next week, and installing antivirus and web filter programs on staff computers. I also spend about an hour each day doing some language study, have a few meetings each week, and get asked for help several times during the day: "how do I add paper to the printer? what's this word in English? my computer is doing this ___________," etc. So, I also spend time looking up IT solutions online, when the internet is working. Somewhere during the morning I usually succumb to the call of nature and brave the office bathroom--no light, no TP, no toilet seat, wet everywhere....

12:00 noon--pack up and head to lunch. If it is my turn to cook at the house (my Swiss housemate and I take turns) I head to the market for veggies and eggs or "fresh" meat...somedays we also cook dry beans. Head home, put rice on to cook, chop and stir fry everything, eat up--usually around 1:00. Clean up and relax for a little bit.

2:00 pm--back to the office, more of the morning.

5:00 pm--pack up again and head home to whatever needs doing during the evening. Some of the exciting options are: getting gas or an oil change for my moto, going for a bike ride before it gets dark at 6 or 6:30, burning our trash, reading, looking at Internet news articles that I found during the day, watching a dvd, playing a few rounds of solitaire on the computer, taking a cold shower, petting the cat.

6:30 or 7:00 pm--heat up the lunch leftovers, which have been sitting on the stove and surprisingly do not make us sick, or make something simple for dinner. Clean up again and do whatever until bed.

10:00 or 10:30 pm--hit the sack. Our landlords downstairs and the rest of Anlong Veng have been asleep since 8:30 or 9:00.

And that's that! On the weekends, switch office time to laundry time and house cleaning on Saturday, and church and helping with the kid's Sunday School/English class on Sunday. I know you all now wish that your lives were as exciting as mine :)

A few pictures to spice things up: a few of the guests in our bathroom this past week, and some shots of Preah Vihear, an ancient temple about 100km east of Anlong Veng. It lies directly along the Cambodian-Thai border, and while it is under Cambodian sovereignty, the temple area is disputed between both countries (hence the soldiers, weapons, and bunkers). There are occasional firefights and skirmishes here, sometimes leading people to evacuate the border regions out of fear that more intense fighting will break out--the chances of this are pretty small, though. Preah Vihear is a matter of cultural Cambodian pride. For more info, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preah_Vihear_Temple .

Prolean Village

This morning I tagged along with some of our Cambodian staff as they headed to the village where they work. The majority of FH Cambodia staff are called Community Facilitators--these are the staff who actually work with leaders and families in the villages around Anlong Veng. Each Community Facilitator focuses on walking with their village through one main skill or tool or focus: health and sanitation, agriculture, child development, or financial savings groups. Being Thursday, today is the day of the week that most of our child development staff have kid's club type programs in the villages. As part of my role here will be to assist these child development staff with their teaching techniqes, I try to tag along when they go to work with the kids to see what's already happening, what's going well, and where we'll be able to improve.

So--I headed out this morning with three of the staff on my team, Kunthea, Sovannary, and Thiera (the first is female, the second two are male). The four of us took two motos and headed out in our rain ponchos, as the after affects of Typhoon Ketsana, which caused so many problems in the Phillipines, were still giving us plenty of rain. Our goal was Prolean village, a widespread community about ten kilometers out with around 100 homes. We turned off of the main, paved road, and onto a more typical dirt road. As it is the rainy season, mud and puddles (or lakes...) and potholes are a matter of course, but after a few days of steady rain things get soggier than normal. Such was the case today after the Ketsana rains. We made it pretty close to the community before we pulled up on some pretty impressive flooding covering the road. There were several people taking advantage of this new water source close to their homes: a man washing his motorbike, a lady doing laundry, a whole herd of kids floating and splashing around. They made sure we knew the water was too deep to make it through on the moto without drowing out our spark plugs, so--we turned around to try a different road.

Luckily, because Prolean is so spread out, there are various roads to get there. One of these roads heads out through rice fields before emptying out onto a wide, flat, long stretch of gravel--Anlong Veng's very own landing strip for small planes. In fact, the Khmer word for "airport" is where Prolean village gets it's name.

We didn't take the road through the runway today, but the road we took did get us to the community just fine, albeit with mud-splashed legs. We stopped at the house where the weekly kid's club is held and washed up by scooping rainwater out of the large cement cisterns that are common here. Normally, schools in the Anlong Veng district have Thursdays off, sometimes holding classes on Saturdays instead, which makes Thursday the day of choice for our staff to run their kid's programs. Today, though, class was in session, so we ended up waiting for a bit for some of the students to finish up at school and head our way. Keep in mind that rural Cambodian schools have a lot of room for growth--most school days last for three hours or less, with teachers working either part-time or teaching two seperate groups of students in the morning and afternoon. The kids we saw today had already been to school and walked or biked the 10km back to Prolean in time to show up at our class around 9:30.

This lack of quality education is one reason our staff host kid's clubs--part of the material they present is basic language and math skills to supplement what the kids are able to pick up in formal school. The programs also feature some basic English teaching, songs, games, health and sanitation education (handwashing, teethbrushing, etc.), and, where village chiefs are open to it, Bible stories and prayer. Today's class focused on "a,b,c,d" and "door, apple, pig, dog". That along with a song or two and a stealing-places-from-each-other-in-a-circle game wrapped things up--while we have some amazing children's staff, as you can imagine there is plenty of room for growth in our kid's programs as well...

After today's class wrapped up, I went with one of the staff to visit a widow in the community. My guess is she is in her forties, with two children, the younger of which is about 10 or 11. A widow for ten years, she has been sick since this spring with some sort of abdominal ailment that leaves her looking like she is six or seven months pregnant. Treatment options are expensive, so we'll see what happens. We prayed with her and hopped back on the bike to head back to Anlong Veng for lunch. This afternoon it's back at the office, editing some English reports for our leadership staff and attempting to download a new antivirus program that I'll be installing on all the staff computers. With a little time out for some overdue blogging :) I apologize for the lack of pictures this time!

They Say That All Mammals Can Swim in a Pinch…

Tuesday night we had an interesting occurrence during dinner. Let me set the scene. In Cambodia, we are not too far north of the equator; thus, the sun rises and sets right around 6:00 am and pm, give or take a little. Coming home after a bike ride a little after 6:00, it was already very much dusk. By 7:00, when we had gotten around to eating dinner, it was fully dark. With no moon at the moment, a rain-cloudy sky, and no streetlights, it was pitch black. But, no worries, the electricity was working, so we and our meal were tucked away in the kitchen under the flourescent bulb, . Outside, we could hear the light rain falling, some frogs croaking away, an occasional car or moto passing by, and the cat that has been meowing away most nights lately. This is what we heard next:
Cat: “Meeoowww! Meeooww!”
Us conversing: “ Man, what is that cat’s deal?”
Cat: “Meeooww!” (pause…)
On the roof: (thump…scratch, scratch, slide, slide, scratch-scratch-scratch!!....SPLASH!)
Us: “Did the cat just fall in the water tank??”
From the water tank: “MEEOOWWWWW!!” (swim, swim)
Us: “Guess we need to go get the cat out of the water tank.”

And so, we grabbed a flash light and my battery-powered lantern and headed out into the night. Municipal running water is unheard of in rural Cambodia; people draw water from wells or holding ponds or catch rain water in giant pots. Occasionally, people have various types of water tanks or cisterns. Our house has a large, open tank built like an extra room on the backside of the house. About eight feet tall, it collects rain water and holds it for our use.
So, we tramped through the wet grass and mud, around to the back of the house. I climbed up the ladder that allows access to the water tank (which, despite the precarious looking angle—see the picture—was actually quite steady). I peered over the edge, and—yep, there it was, a cat treading water. Unfortunately, the water level in the tank was a good four feet below the top of the tank--too low for me to just reach in and grab the cat, meaning that we needed to move on to plan B. Fresh out of any lifeguard/man-overboard equipment, my roommate had the idea that we could stick something wooden into the water for the cat to grab onto.

Fast forward a little bit—my electric lantern decided to shut off, the cat keeps swimming and crying for help, my roommate uses her little flashlight to find a big muddy plank among the discarded items in the grass, and a few minutes later: I find myself perched on the ladder, in the pitch black, in the rain, with plank in hand and a sodden feline clinging to the other end. Once the cat got on board, I expected it to run right up the new ramp we had just provided it with, but the cat had other ideas. So, thanks to leverage, I got to heft the cat up to the side of the tank. Tired from all the swimming and like most Cambodian cats, scared of people (even ones who just pulled it out of a tank of water), it crouched there for awhile. We headed back inside, duty done, and the cat cleared out sometime after, hopefully no worse for the wear. Poor thing! So our, our tank has been cat-free since then.
Bottom picture: The tank and the plank

Photos

Coming up with blog topics is not always the easiest thing in the world for my tired brain, so--here's a few things to look at instead of a lot of writing! These are just a few shots of some of the things I see on a regular basis in Anlong Veng. Starting from top to bottom, these are:
1. Rainy day view of our back yard. Luckily, the front yard doesn't get so muddy. But--we do get to pick our way through the back to throw out any food scraps, and after the rain stops, to hang our laundry up to dry.
2. One of the kids from a village munching on some freshly-cut sugar cane. If you've never tried it, you first work to peel off the rough outer skin, and then gnaw off a bite from the center. It's wet and sweet and full of fibers, so you chew on it for awhile to get the juice out and then spit out the leftover fibers. Sugar cane is sold by vendors as one of the many street-food options, either cut into bite-size, ready-to-eat chunks, or pressed into juice.
3. Lots of ducks and chickens running around the villages! (Along with plenty of other animals) The mothers waddle around with their broods, ranging in age from baby bird to elementary to teenagers--they are rather interesting looking in the middle stages. Here a mother duck has drawn in her ducklings away from some threat.
4. Vaccine time--I never did figure out what disease they were vaccinating against, but we arrived in a village one day at the same time as this doctor, and got to watch the process.
5. The local wats (Buddhist temples) send various processions along the streets once a week or so. Here you can see a local-style tractor, one of a parade of four or five making it's way through town complete with Buddha statue, monk, and loudspeaker.

Little Miss Muffet

Well, we don't sit on tuffets and we sure haven't had any curds and whey, but we do have a nice big spider that lives by the ceiling in our kitchen. We leave him there to eat all the smaller bugs for us. Sorry for the flash glare on his giant head....Anyways, note the smaller spider on the left. The smaller spider's body is about a third of an inch across, so you can do the math to figure out the size of the big guy. Don't know if this particular spider is edible or not, but there are plenty of other tarantulas around that get hunted from their holes in the forest, fried up, and eaten as travel snacks. Or if you prefer, there are also crickets, termites, and big beetles available. I have not yet indulged. And do not plan to.

Anlong Veng Once Again--A Few Observations

Chickens really do cross the road, and the cows really do come home. No flying pigs, though—they prefer to ride on motorbikes. The rain is good for everyone: it keeps the farmer’s rice crops from drying out, and keeps the rest of us from sweating for awhile. The frogs come out in the rain as well. One came into our house. He was tiny and I nearly missed him. It was a bigger storm than usual, with thunder and lighting, and wind that had me moving through the house to close the windows. The power had gone out as well, so I was putting buckets out to catch the rain by flashlight. I noticed a little pebble on the floor, and then—hop! That was the frog. I tried herding him to hop towards the open door, but he headed for the shadows by the bikes instead. And that was the last I saw of him. I hope for his sake he hopped his way back outside eventually.

We like the rain, too, because it fills ups the water reservoir built onto the back of our house. This is where our running water comes from. Occasionally, if it is very full, we have water at the kitchen sink. As the water level drops, we lose running water at the tap where we wash our clothes, and lower still, from the bathroom. At this point all our water needs to be brought into the house, drawn from the lowest tap of all, directly from the water tank out back. And if all else fails, we take out buckets to the well a few houses down the street. Or better, put them out to catch the rain as it falls.

If you as a pale and obvious foreigner head out and about, the children shout “Hello!” to you from their homes and bicycles. Sometimes this is friendly, sometimes their mothers surreptitiously encourage it, and sometimes it’s disrespectful. The adults tend to limit themselves to over-the-shoulder peeks and stares, although some of them are eager to have a conversation. Sometimes our next-door-neighbor landlords like to peer through our windows, just in case we’re up to something interesting.

I have the same conversation over and over each time I meet new people in the villages where we work. In descending order of popularity, here are the questions everyone wants answered about yours truly: “What country are you from? How long have you been in Cambodia? Are you married yet? Do you want to marry a foreigner or a Khmer? How old are you? How many times a day do you eat rice in America? Why are your legs so fat?” This is accompanied by much shy giggling, admiration of my white skin, and abject shock that it's possible to survive eating bread everyday and rice only a few times a month.

Sometimes I feel like I’m living in not just another culture but a time warp as well. As mentioned above, we get buckets of water from the well. There are chickens in our yard. Oxcarts regularly drive by on the road. Most nights I end up doing things by lantern light, albeit an electric lantern. We wash our clothes by hand, hang them on the line to dry. Our food is stored in a cupboard, not a refrigerator. There are dirt roads, outhouses, and a lack of sidewalks everywhere. And of course, there are all those cows heading home—not sure if they count as part of the time warp, but they’ve got to count as something. ;)

AV House Tour

Welcome to our orange abode! Hope these video clips play well for you.

A Week in the Life...

This week I:

Drove my motorcycle through a herd of cows….three times.

Got plenty of practice driving the same motorcycle through puddles, mud, narrow dirt paths, and across plank “bridges.”

Ate Thai food at a Cambodian restaurant with Japanese people while the proprietor cranked up the John Denver and Johnny Cash, just for us.

In the process of using the roll of toilet paper in the bathroom, made some new friends who had decided to relax there for awhile: a mouse, a small cockroach, a big cockroach, and one baby scorpion.

Met the mommy scorpion while walking out the door to go to work.

Started riding my bicycle to and from the office once a day in order to get some exercise.

Realized just how much sweat this exercise generates.

Worked on materials for a staff orientation handbook.

Had my landlord knock on my door at 6:30 Monday morning to surprise me by delivering a bed for me to use.

Bought a mattress to use with the bed.

Tried not to fall off of the back of the motorcycle while my new Swiss roommate gave me and the mattress a ride back to the house.

Saw the aftereffects of a car driving off the road and under a house—“under” because the house, like many of the homes here, is elevated on stilts or beams. The car knocked over two of these beams—the house was still standing, but barely.

Visited two of the villages my team works in.

Attended several training sessions with the other FHCambodia staff, part of an ongoing training process in community development.

Had welcome bottle of aloe vera after-sun gel delivered to me by the American facilitator of these training sessions.

Managed to have my shoe fall off while driving my motorcycle; not once, but twice.

Prepared two new laptops for office staff to use.

Slowly started getting unpacked and moved into my new house.

Bought a few baguette-type loaves of bread, the only thing locally available. Saved one to eat for breakfast only to find out it had come complete with a family of ants living inside.

Gave a valiant effort at making tortillas.

Tried not to eat too much of my stock of peanut butter, crackers, and cereal from the city.

Watched a dvd on my laptop—while under my mosquito net and pretending my fan was turning faster than the low electricity was allowing it to turn.

Kept muddling through trying to get the hang of living here and understanding what is going on around me.

Made it through one more week in Anlong Veng.

Shakin' It Khmer Style

Last week was the annual FHCambodia staff retreat. Monday morning, all the Anlong Veng staff headed south, and the Phnom Penh staff headed north, and we all converged in the middle in the city of Siem Reap. Siem Reap is one of the big tourist destinations in Cambodia, because of it's nearness to the Angkor Wat ruins. This means that there are lots of hotels around, hence it being the site of our retreat. The upsides of staff retreat: air conditioning in the room for sleeping, hot water to shower with, and Western food to sneak out and buy during the afternoon breaks. The downsides: eating lots of sketchy Cambodian hotel food, spending many hours in teaching sessions on the hot hotel roof (see above picture), and attempting to understand and stay awake for said sessions. Although, while my understanding of the retreat speaker was limited, the Khmer staff seemed to soak it up. He gave a week of discipleship on the basics of Christianity--a good review for those staff who have been believers for awhile, and a good intro for those staff who are new Christians or are still Buddhist.

All in all, the retreat went fine, and Thursday evening was our big special banquet--meaning even more Khmer food, although this time the meal was sandwiched between speeches at the beginning and dancing at the end (see the picture at the bottom--the blond lady is our Swiss staff member, not me :) ). If you ever spend much time in Cambodia, you will get your fair share of chances to experience Cambodian dancing. Traditional Cambodian dancing (similar to Thai dance) is a very slow, stylized type of movement, with hand gestures and body position taking on significant meaning. It tells a story. Check it out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WEIPMPW0U or here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjteFhfRphw. These positions and gestures are called "apsara," and carvings of apsara dancing are found at Angkor Wat. Professional dancers start as children and study for years to master the art.

This restraint and hand twisting carries over into dancing in day to day life--at our retreat celebration, other big shindigs, and especially at weddings. Whoever feels like dancing (and whoever gets pulled out of their chairs to join in) forms a big circle, walks around the room, and does their best attempt at classical hand gestures (amazing how sweaty you can get walking in a circle and flapping your hands). In this type of dancing, there's a lot of repetition, and not much choreography or big movement. Sometimes things get exciting and they speed the music up a little faster, and sometimes you can change up the way you step around the circle (i.e. cross one foot in front of the other instead of behind!).

And that's about it. I find I have a little too much rhythm for this type of dancing...a little too much wanting to bust out some other moves. Although in all fairness, there are some variations: some dances you move towards and away from a partner instead of in a circle, some dances are very reminiscent of the Electric Slide, and sometimes for the last song all rules go out the window and people dance however they want (mostly however they see their friends dancing). It's pretty great--if you've ever wanted to do the Funky Chicken or Cabbage Patch or just flap your arms around, and have a dozen Khmer people start doing exactly the same thing--this is your big chance :) Never forget, too, that Cambodian dancing is accompanied by (loud) Cambodian pop music and live karaoke, so if singing is more your bag...you'll be right at home, too. Come on over.

Welcome to Anlong Veng

Here is the FHCambodia Anlong Veng staff! International staff included--you can see my pale face shining out from the back row on the right, and if you look closely you can find another white person or two, and two from Japan. Altogether, I think there are around fifty staff--not sure if everyone made it into this picture or not.

I have officially been in Anlong Veng for one week now. Currently, I am living at one of the guest houses, waiting for a bedroom to be built for me in the house rented by another FH staff member from Switzerland. Hopefully soon the room will be completed and I'll be able to move in with her. This will be good for my sanity, by letting me settle in, and for my wallet, when I no longer have to pay for each night at the guest house (although at $6.25 a night, the cost is not too overwhelming).

So--now begins the process of actually beginning to "work" and figure out what my job will look like. Up first are some tasks relating to IT (which I have been declared qualified to oversee based on the fact that I speak English and have used computers previously), working with other staff to develop a better orientation process for new Khmer staff members, and getting to know my fellow co-workers, especially those who I will work with on the Anlong Veng area team (there are four area team altogether). Needless to say, there is lots to figure out in order to get all of that accomplished--also add into the mix continued language study, and eventually work related to my main role, as an advisor for curriculum and training. Anyone want to come help out? :)

Bikes Galore

So, last Friday I bought a bicycle. The old-fashioned, single speed, pedal variety. It's the first bike I've owned since the green Huffy I won from Channel 2 in a contest in second grade. As you can probably tell from that long gap in bike ownership, I'm not much of a bike rider. But, because exercise options here are somewhat limited, and because driving a motorcycle around has gotten me back in the habit of riding around on two wheels, I decided to take the plunge.

Shopping in Phnom Penh involves knowing (or guessing) where in the city you can buy things. There are the classic local markets, which have fruits, veggies, meats, rice, and some common basic stuff--think the Cambodian version of a grocery store. Then you have the slightly bigger markets, which have the basic commodoties and a whole lot more--think Super Wal-Mart. This is where you buy clothes, dishes, bag and backpacks, shoes, dvd's, jewelry, sheets and towels, lightbulbs, moto parts, and so on. There's maybe six or eight of these markets in the city, and they each have the reputation of "specializing" in certain types of goods: gifts and touristy stuff and Western clothes, fabric and more Asian-style outfits, jewelry and gemstones. In general, whatever you need, you can head to a big market and find it.

But there are also plenty of items that are most often sold in shops rather than at the market. Take furniture, for instance, or larger electronics (fans and appliances), or phones and airtime cards. Groups of these shops tend to be located in a cluster in one particular area of the city--there is one street that is lined with motorcycle shops, another with cane and bamboo furniture. So--to buy a bike, we went to the bike section of the city. The older Khmer sister that I live with came along to show me where to go, help me buy the bike, and then to drive my motorcycle back home after the process. Through some manner of reasoning that makes perfect sense to her, we drove past various bicycle shops until she found one to her liking.

Here I had a choice of three styles of bikes, costing $37, 35, or 45, depending on which row I chose my bike from. Bike pedals are not attached until after you purchase the bike, so choosing one (especially for my friend and I who are uninformed about what makes a quality bike) was a matter of seeing what looked nice and seemed sturdy (i.e. thump on bike parts and see what happens). We got to sample the kickstands and sit on the seats, and to take care not to browse among the identical bikes two inches away in the next shop. During this process we also chatted with the auntie who owned the shop, and got barked at by her chihuahua dog, who sat in a box on one of the rows of bikes (chihuahuas in Asia?).

And then finally, bike selected, we made our purchase. Final price: $43, including the previously lacking pedals, a basket on the handlebars, a bell, a chain to the bike up with, and a light that you lean against the front tire so that it is powered by the friction of the turning wheel (if you stop you are in the dark, I guess). I don't know if that's a good price or not, but at least it was less than the $50 another foreigner spent at the shop next door. At this point, I remembered the length of time since I had last ridden a bike, and the interesting Phnom Penh traffic, and decided to take the bike home in a tuk-tuk (a cart pulled by a moto) so that I could take my first ride on quieter streets. This also meant that my first ride was in front of the Cambodian grandma at our house, to her great amusement. And once all of that had been accomplished, my next order of business was to remove all the pre-applied stickers off of the bike frame--I tend not to decorate my modes of transportation with neon flowers and blue eagles. Stickers removed, my new bike looks a little less reminiscent of my second grade Huffy, although I did learn that the decals had done a good job of hiding all the scratches and rust spots in the paint.

Finding a store that carried bike helmets was another story altogether, but--that has been accomplished as well, and I am now ready to hit the road!

Rainy Season

The rainy season has officially been here, in full force, for the last two weeks or so. Typically it starts in May, so mid-April was a little early--although the hot season came early this year, too, so the rainy season was more than welcome to start when ever it felt like it. We've had some big stormy downpours, and a few lighter rains as well. The downpours do a good job of flooding anything that happens to be lower lying that what surrounds it. Sometimes this means flooded streets or sidewalks, sometimes property. On the lot where I live, there are three houses. Two of these (mine included) are smaller and newer, and are built up a foot or so higher than the rest of the lot. The third house is actually sunk a few inches lower than the rest of the lot. And in general, all the land surrounding out lot is higher than we are--our lot is sort of at the middle of a "bowl." So--yes, guess where all that flooding rainwater goes? Right onto our property! (And plenty of other properties as well, we are by no means the only ones.)

Therefore--the two lowest areas of our lot, the ground floor of the large house and the "yard" in the back of the lot, have turned into two small lakes for the duration of the wet season. Other areas of the lot flood or dry out depending on how much rain we have. This morning they are basically dried out, although over the weekend we had the most standing water we've had so far. There was enought water that Tol, the younger sister of the Khmer family I live with, caught an 8-inch fish swimming around the front yard. Said fish has now been passing it's time in a water-filled garbage can until Tol decides to cook it up for dinner. It is a little disconcerting wading into the flooding and wondering what else is lurking in the muddy water besides just fish. The lake in the back yard is now home to scores of black water snails. Where they came from, I don't know, but there are plenty of them. The biggest ones have shells about an inch and a half long. The water also means that some of our residents ants have abandoned their wetter homes and now spend their days tramping in lines across my front porch. And of course, there are always the choruses of frogs that croak away day and night--a whole range of sounds from baby to grandpa frogs. I kind of like it.

Thankfully, my little house has been up high enough to stay high and dry. However, I do get to wade through whatever water is in the front yard to get from my house to the big house or to the road and back. Also, we park out motor bikes on the ground floor of the big house, where they can be locked in so they are not stolen during the night. So--between going to and from my house, and driving my bike in and out of the lake that is the ground floor, I have been hanging out in lots of water. I try not to think too much about what all has washed into the water--just rinse my feet off when I get a chance. And so far so good--no wierd skin funguses or anything :)

But--flooding and wading aside, the rains do cool the weather off, which is MUCH appreciated. Plus a good storm is enjoyable when you are dry and inside, and even if you are out and about in it--life goes on. Packable plasic ponchos were made for just such an occasion.

Travels

So.

Today is my first day back in the Phnom Penh office after three weeks of travelling to and fro. I spent one week, give or take, in each of the following places: Anlong Veng, attending a training for the FH staff there; Siem Reap, a mid-Cambodian city, meeting with my contact person from FHUS; and in Phuket, Thailand, for a vacation with two friends. At the moment I am glad to not be on a bus, plane, or taxi, even though occasionally those forms of transport were air-conditioned and quite comfy. I was even actually cold on the airplane, imagine that. I enjoyed it; I don't get to have goosebumps very often anymore. During some of my hotel stays I also got to enjoy luxuries like hot water. And television. In English. And being cool enough at night to sleep under a blanket. I walked on a carpet.

And then there are moments like landing in the Bangkok airport to transfer to our flight to Phuket, and realizing that there is an Auntie Annie's soft pretzel shop. I've never wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time just because I get to spend ten bucks for a pretzel and some lemonade. Thailand also has world wonders like Burger King, Pizza Hut, Au Bon Pain, Starbucks--I don't even drink coffee, but I was still happy to spend some time at Starbucks. The wonders didn't stop there--at the grocery store, I bought cereal for only two dollars a box, not eight. The mall sold real live Nike and New Balance and Reef shoes. Every road we drove on was not only paved, but smoothly paved. We played frisbee on the beach.Those may seem like small things, but if you have never spent extended time out of your home country, it would surprise you what what things can take on a happy, meaningful poignancy.

But here I am back in Cambodia, catching up on e-mail and convincing myself to ramp back up to start language tutoring again tomorrow. It is an interesting feeling to have left the country after being here five months, but only to have gone elsewhere in Asia and come back.Even so--Happy Easter to you all, and here are a few pictures of happy vacation memories: a few beach shots, the lights and sights of FantaSea (think a toned-down Asian Disney World, minus the rides but plus lots of elephants), and water fights on the street in honor of the Lunar New Year (celebrated in many SE Asian countries).

Now Official

I’m assuming that everyone reading this has, probably more than once, had the experience of getting something done at the DMV. Keep that DMV encounter in mind as you keep reading—you may soon appreciate it a little more!

Today I got to experience the Ministry of Transportation—DMV Cambodian style. Before today my most exciting DMV story involved trying to find parking, walking through some sidewalk dice games, and people-watching at the Denver Five-Points DMV office. The Phnom Penh MOT may be giving Denver a run for its money.

Although I bought my motorcycle in November, I have until now been driving it around sans license plate. And while traffic laws here are a little more open to interpretation and a lot less often enforced, these laws do exist—one law being that vehicles should in fact have license plates. I have been pulled over by the police twice for not having one, and each time had to call a Khmer friend on the phone to help be bargain the officers down from the extortionary fine originally quoted to me ($10-15) to a more reasonable price ($1-3). I could easily have been pulled over more often, but a few facts about Cambodian law enforcement worked in my favor. One, police officers pull people over who are driving towards them, rather than following you and having you stop. So they are facing you as you drive by, and do not see the rear end of your moto—with or without license plate—until you are already past them, and it is too late to be pulled over. Two, Cambodian officers are nine times out of ten on foot. Their preferred method of catching traffic offenders is to stage a stakeout of five or six policemen, who wait on the far side of a traffic light. When the light turns green, the traffic begins to flow through the intersection, and the officers jump into position, stretching themselves out in a line across the lanes of oncoming traffic. They act as a human net to catch whichever motos are not able to slip through the gaps. In theory, there may be a law about needing to pull over when an officer asks you to do so, but—there is no penalty or police pursuit if you do not. Thus—unless an officer is particularly daring and steps directly in front of your moving bike, this is not the most effective means of asking people to stop.

So—while it would have been good to get a license plate before now, it was not a big problem that I did not. The first step in getting one requires establishing proof of residence in the city. This is done by getting letters from your village (neighborhood) leader and your district leader that state you do in fact live in those places (although how they determine if you actually live where you say you do, I don’t know—luckily, this step was taken care of for me by my Khmer friend/coworker/roommate). Palms must be greased at each step, although as with the police, there is room for bargaining.

Once you have the official letters, you can take them along with your moto ownership papers to the Ministry of Transporation, like I did this morning. This is where the steps start to get a little fuzzy. Again, luckily, I was accompanied by my Khmer friend, who took care of things, and even though I was there, I’m not entirely sure what all happened or why. I do know we opted for the “fast” version of getting a license plate, meaning we paid more money so we could actually receive the license plate today, and not a few months from now. I also know that the place was a busy beehive of activity, with various desks and windows and lines and people with bullhorns. The day proceeded something like this: we waited at one desk, I wrote my phone number and put my thumb print on some forms, I got told to wait there while my friend and the staff person left for awhile, they came back, they talked, I stood around, we left so my friend could have noodle soup for breakfast, we waited in a seating area in the middle of all the mobs and lines while watching karaoke on tv, went back to wait at the original desk, had my picture taken, paid, made the unusual request for a receipt, got the license plate, waded back outside to get my bike from the parking area, wheeled it back across the street and into the building, waited for my friend to return to the original desk to see if she could exchange my plate for one with "a bigger number," turned in backwards to get in line with a hundred other motos, finagled our way to the front of the crowd to have the plate pneumatically attached to the bike—this last under a sign that says “plates attached for free”, where we paid the men who performed this service. Also during this process, we were hot and sweaty as a happy little bonus….:) Then we went back to work.
So, hopefully no more getting pulled over for me! Here’s a picture of the “line” for getting the license plate screwed onto my moto:

The Language Saga Continues....

So...ongoing language study. I'm still doing it. And it still wears me out. Lately I've been learning grammar, and trying to figure out the ins and outs of Khmer sentence structure. In a lot of ways the language is very simple. For instance, there are no verb forms. In English, we change the verb "to cook" depending on subject and tense: I cook, I cooked, I am cooking, he cooks, they will cook, etc. In Khmer, the word "to cook" is exactly the same in all of those instances. Nor does it change, like in French or Spanish, based on gender. There is a slight variation for putting a verb into past or future tense. To do so, you simply add the "past word" or the "future word"--like saying "I DID cook" or "I WILL cook." Past and future tense can be expressed in other ways as well, but the word "cook" itself does not change at all--simple.



Until things start to get a little more complex. Sentence word order in Khmer can be similar to English, or it can be very different. There are also differences in how many ideas one word encapsulates. For instance, there are some things in English that we express with only one word; some of these concepts are expressed with more than one word in Khmer. Take the word "know". We use this word in English to express a variety of meanings. In Khmer, however, there are different words depending on what it is you are talking about knowing: "know a fact/information," "know a person/word/location," or "know how to do something." Or take the English word "carry." You will need different Khmer words to say carry on your back, carry slung over your shoulders, carry on the back of an animal, carry on your head, carry in your arms, carry a light object in your hands, or carry a heavy object in your hands. This works the other way too--sometimes English has multiple words where Khmer has only one. In Khmer, "ree-un" covers the concepts of both "study" and "learn."



And then there's the Khmer word "owie." Depending on how it's used, "owie" can be translated into English as: to, from, give, cause, for, let, tell, ask, and probably something else. It can also be added to a phrase to mean "I promise I will do this." Or in some cases, it can be added to an adjective to turn it into an adverb (from "quick" to "quickly"). This is the grammar that I mentioned I have been trying to learn. Needless to say, it is a little confusing! I'm still working on exactly when and where to insert an "owie" into my sentences.

A Few New Relationships

While I've been busy learning Khmer, I've also been in the process of building new relationships here in Cambodia. This, of course, is important on a number of levels: relationships are a great way to practice language and learn about culture, they are good for my sanity, they are the means through which I will hopefully be able to impact people's lives (and have mine impacted in return), and so on. Navigating how to build relationships in a new culture can be a little interesting, but it is also enjoyable. At some point down the road I'll maybe have some deep insights into how Cambodian's interact with friends, family, coworkers, shopkeepers, strangers, and everyone else--but today my head is tired from my language lesson. So this post will be a little lacking in the deep insights department.

Instead, here are a few pictures. This is me and a few of the Phnom Penh FH staff at one of the local night markets, where you can get a meal for fifty cents or a dollar--soups, fried noodles, creamy coconut drinks, fried sweet breads. Eat at the market, where there is a communal pot of tea and set of cups on the table, or have your food put into plastic bags and take it home. Your food will be made to order, quickly and piping hot. Grab some utensils from the bin on the table, give them a wipe with the kleenex or toilet paper provided for this purpose, add soy/chili/fish sauce as you like, and enjoy! Note on the pictures--I promise these friends were enjoying themselves; smiling is just not necessary in Cambodian picture taking! In the photo on the left, from left to right: Sothea, general office administrator; Sarith, daytime office guard; and Ouk, office "cleaner."

A few other types of relationships--lately the froggy friends have been coming out in full force. I usually disturb a few of them in the evenings when I'm watering the plants around my house. I probably blinded this poor guy who found himself perched on the armrest of a chair with a flashing camera in his face. Most of the frogs I see (and hear!) are small, two or three inches long. Kind of fun to have them around. Bigger frogs than this make a good food source--grilled frog legs are readily available in the markets next to various other meat-type products (no, I haven't tried any). According to my tutor, toad legs are also quite tasty, but not very appetizing due to their bumpy skin. And last picture--recognize these guys??? They are always around but there seems to be less of them some weeks and plenty of them other weeks. Either way, mosquito repellent has become a part of my daily morning routine!

Chicken Stories

This is too rich not to share. Here at the FHCambodia Phnom Penh office, the lead accountant is a Burmese lady (from Myanmar) named Theingi (pronounced "teeng-gee"). She lives here in the city with her brother. Last Friday, most of the staff here, including Thiengi and her bother, went to a wedding: one of the other accounting staff members has an adopted son, and he is the one who got married. In Cambodia, you invite pretty much anyone you know to your wedding, so as co-workers we were all invited to the wedding.
The wedding was held in the countryside. Phnom Penh is a little bit like Washington, D.C.; it is it's own independent municipality but not a "state" or province. However, it is surrounded by a province called Kandal Province--this is where the wedding was held. Getting there involved maybe a 45-minute drive, and a little trip across a river on a ferry. The ferry consisted of two big rowboat-type things. A deck of long planks was laid across the boats, providing room for one car and maybe a dozen motorcycles to drive on. With a car engine for a motor, the ferry took a smooth, five-minute ride across the river, and everyone was free to go their way on the opposite bank. It was a little disconcerting to drive onto some wood laid over a rowboat, but the ferry proved quite seaworthy and held us all up very well.
But I digress: back to Theingi. After the wedding, we made a quick stop at the groom's family home, where we were given fresh sweet corn (very tasty!). Theingi and her brother also picked out a nice, teenaged country chicken to bring home. And so, less than a week later, we have been hearing daily chicken stories about how the bird is settling into his new home. Chickens are not a usual house pet here (are they anywhere??), so these stories are quite amusing to the Cambodian staff--and Theingi laughs at herself, as well.
I wish you could hear the stories as Theingi would tell them. They go something like this:
"My chicken, oh--he is very clever! He is a clever chicken! He is very strong. At night, I put him here, like this..." (pats her lap) "...and then, I should do like this..." (strokes her head) "...and then he is going to sleep. Yes. And now, he is wearing the panties!" (a chicken diaper, perhaps???)
So far, the chicken cries if it is put to bed without having it's head petted. It also enjoys watching evening tv, and so it stays up past the normal chicken bedtime of 6 or 7 pm to catch a few shows before being petted to sleep at 9 or 10. Theingi carries him to bed once he's sleeping ("He is like the child!"), and tucks him in to sleep in his basket under his very own mosquito net. Staying up late makes it hard for the chicken to wake up in the mornings--he can't be roused until 7am, long past the normal chicken waking hour of 4 or 5.
And as Theingi says: "Maybe, every two or three days, the chicken--we should take the bath to him. Maybe right now, my brother is taking the bath to him!" Once he's clean, he has his feathers blow dried--which apparently makes him as sleepy as when he has his head stroked. Last but not least, for his poultry enjoyment, Theingi's brother helps the chicken call her several times a day because he likes to cluck to her over the phone (you thought it was bad when your kid wanted a cell phone, wait until your chicken asks for one!).
So there you have it--the latest chicken stories, hopefully with more to come later!

Things I've Learned in Cambodia

1. The best thing about using a motorcycle is driving fast past all the little white tourists.

2. If you want to make ramen noodles even more nutritious than they are in their natural state, fry them in oil and add some sugar and soy sauce. Veggies and meat are optional.

3. Merging is preferable to stopping and looking. Unless, of course, it would have been better for your health to have stopped and looked.

4.There really are a lot of edible parts on an animal.

5. Nothing says "masculinity" like cruising around town on your hot pink motor bike and matching helmet.

6. If you drive a Lexus, make sure people are aware of this fact by having the word "Lexus" painted in foot-high letters along each side of your vehicle.

7. Saturday mornings were made for waking up early and cleaning the house.

8. If the dog pees on your bed, your electric lights quit working, and your wall is covered with ants, it's nothing to worry about--just keep watching tv.

And a few random pictures for you viewing pleasure: