I would guess Hang is about 60 years old. Every morning he presides over his coffee shop near the Neak Loeung Mekong ferry crossing, passing out Khmer language newspapers to his customers, mixing glasses of ice coffee, holding out 100 riel notes (≈ 3 cents) to the children who accompany the monks that go begging in the streets for rice in the mornings. I almost never see him wearing anything besides a pair of faded tan shorts and flip flops, and his shiny belly shakes when he dips into his repertoire of grunts, tailoring the pitch and pattern to the ears of whatever or whomever (cow, dog, mentally handicapped person) he’s trying to shoo away. He strikes you as a normal hard-nosed small business owner in Cambodia. Except the way he speaks. His speech, muffled by an embarrassed hand held over worn down gums and black teeth, is a choppy but fluent French-accented English.

I don’t know much about Hang’s life. I know that he had already received a bachelor’s degree in French language when the Khmer Rouge tanks rolled into Phnom Penh in 1975. I don’t know how he survived the regime as a Phnom Penh intellectual. I know he likes being overheard speaking to me in my native language, that he’s currently married to his second wife, and unpredictably (because of his seemingly modest lifestyle), he has 2 daughters pursuing post graduate degrees in New Zealand. Though more surprising to me is that during the national election campaigns in July, his storefront was just about the only building along the highway in my district not sporting the yellow and blue sign of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP).

Hang and many of his regular customers are among a small minority in my area that supports the opposition party, the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP). A French-educated former finance minister, Sam Rainsy was drummed out of a leadership role in the royalist FUNCIPEC party in 1994, went on to form his own political party in 1995, then later went into self-imposed exile in 2005 after his immunity as a member of parliament was stripped from him and defamation charges were brought against him for comments made suggesting that high level CPP members were involved in the intimidation of government critics and the murder of a union leader (Sam Rainsy returned to Cambodia in 2006 after being pardoned). At one time, he was known as the “Mr. Clean” of Cambodian politics for his remarks about endemic government corruption and his seemingly spotless personal record. Although 2003 national elections brought his party more than 20% of the vote, the 2008 round was a set back for the SRP, with the CPP consolidating enough control to rule without participating in a coalition government. The SRP seems to be supported mostly by a constituency of urban, educated Cambodians and Cambodian expatriates. My friend Hang doesn’t so neatly fit into either category, but no one can claim he’s not an independent thinker, and I think on some level he enjoys the lone wolf status that his conspicuous lack of enthusiasm for the status quo confers.

Gaining insight into Hang’s political thought is so interesting to me because, in hindsight, it appears to be very much at the center of why I decided to move from my host family into the pagoda more than a year ago. I arrived in my village in the spring of 2007 and was happy to find a friendly English speaker nearby, an adopted “uncle.” While I didn’t know what Hang thought about politics, I did know that it was the local election season, and I did know that at the head of the host family selected for me by the Peace Corps was a member of the CPP running as an incumbent for the office of Deputy District Chief. As a local official running for reelection, my host dad had to attend a lot of social functions, do a lot of glad handing, and of course a lot of drinking. He would come home drunk and sit me down— tell me the kinds of things I could and could not do while living in Cambodia. Not my favorite, although I was willing to try to roll with it. But things fell apart after he came home one night and told me that I would have “many problems” if I continued spending time at Hang's coffee shop. Call me culturally insensitive, but I didn’t understand what the issue was, and I felt there was no reason I had to live with a person (to whom I was paying rent) who was, at best, actively trying to constrain my behavior or who was, at worst, threatening me personally.

Looking back on that time from the national elections in July brings the embarrassing, ambiguous tensions from that relationship into sharper focus. From my host father’s perspective, he was chosen to be responsible for the well being of the white American volunteer and this meant big face: symbolic capital that he could drawn on— as long as I was happy and well behaved— to prove his good standing. But because I spent time with people who supported a candidate that opposed him, of course he felt awkward. My Western core tells me to immediately dismiss his behavior as petty small town politics. But the layer of American-living in-Cambodia skin that’s been growing for the past 2 years has a sense that clan association and patronage are (at every level of society) here essential to conveying power. I don’t know that I could have acted any differently in that situation (and maintained my sanity), but I’m grateful to have a clearer understanding of my host father’s motives. And it’s just one more reminder that my antennae are not naturally tuned to the art of indirect communication. My understanding of events in Cambodia is only ever a fragment, a guess at the truth from my own limited perspective.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I was talking to my uncle (my American uncle) on the phone recently. He asked me how Cambodians were reacting to the results of the American presidential elections. I told him that people— at least those well informed enough to know there was an election— in general were excited and had a sense of the positive buzz that surrounded Obama overseas. In the days after the election, however, several Cambodians did approach me to ask whether the American or the African won the election. This isn’t surprising because more than 90% of the Cambodian population is ethnically Cambodian. Although there are ethnic minorities with their own histories and cultures within the country, the words nationality and ethnicity are almost interchangeable in Cambodian. When people ask me who I am, they usually start with “What race are you...French?” A widely diverse multicultural society is as incomprehensible to my high school students as an ethnically and culturally homogeneous society is to me. So when the most common images of Americans that we export to the world are white, I’m not surprised Cambodians assume that all Americans are tall, blue-eyed men or blonde, big-breasted women. I’ve even had people tell me I can’t possibly be American because I don’t look a thing like Brad Pitt.

Anyway, there is 1 person I know who was well-informed about the elections but disappointed by their result: Hang. He made no bones about his preference for John McCain. He even told me once that if Obama were elected, it would mean the end of US humanitarian support and economic investment. I really couldn’t figure out where his ideas were coming from, but after the elections in November, I found out that on a visit to the States, Sam Rainsy made a visit to John McCane and voiced support. If the Republican had won, Sam Rainsy would have gained face. It’s ironic that the Cambodian politician most associated with educated urbanites supported the Republican candidate, but as my American uncle noted, our stereotypes break down overseas. We have no ownership over the perception of the images we export abroad.

I hope that for myself and for Hang Obama can make good (or at least not squander) the moment of good will that his election has evoked all over the world. I hope Hang isn’t too distraught about the US elections, and although I doubt he’d ever let it get to him, I’d hate to lose his confidence (and free coffee) over a few pro Obama comments. I still remember the time more than a year and half ago when he arranged a free ride for me to Kampong Cham province. A pickup truck transporting hundreds of bunches of unripe, grass green bananas pulled up to his shop. A man with a cigarette hanging off his lip stepped out of the cab, looked at me and said to Hang, “I thought you said he was your nephew.” Hang smiled, rotten gums and all, and chuckled, “Yeah, my nephew.”

I was in class teaching some vocabulary when a young man posing as a student (dressed in white collared shirt and black slacks) walked quietly into the room carrying a piece of wood as long and as wide as a baseball bat (maybe it was the leg of a desk). He passed in front of me, walked to the middle aisle, walked towards one of the students and brought the bat down. There was a stutter in his movement, and I’m not sure whether he was more interested in terrifying my student, or if the attacker himself was terrified about what he might actually do, but this hesitation allowed my student to evade the blow. The kid with the bat struck hard at the desk— crack! My student leaped up and ran into an adjacent aisle and up towards me at the front of the class. The kid moved to follow him. I couldn’t tell you how the other students were reacting; the impression left in my memory is an eerie silence except for the sound of the wood against the desk. Instinctively, as my student ran out of the classroom, I put my body between him and the attacker. When he was a few feet away from me, we made eye contact. He raised the bat at me, but I didn’t move, and I felt brain chemicals spirit this primordial resignation to violence throughout my body. But in less than a second, he decided it wasn’t worth hitting me (one of the perks of being the only white guy around), and he pushed past me. I tried to hook his legs with my foot, but the kid skipped over and ran out of the class. I followed out the door, and saw the students running across the school yard, although the kid with the bat dropped it after seeing the school director and some teachers coming. Just then I saw Mr. L, one of my coteachers, walking towards the class. This is one of the teachers who has been assigned to work with me in the classroom— translating and sharing the teaching load— but this is the first time I’ve seen him in 2 months. He’s been absent from school all this time because of a mysterious stomach illness, the symptoms of which have caused him to call me every Monday for the last 8 weeks (moments before class) to inform me that he will be absent on that day but will no doubt return the following week. I was distracted and buzzing on adrenaline and I’m not sure what I said but regrettably it had the flavor of “well look who the f@ck decided to show up.” I turned around and commanded my students, now flowing out the door, to go back into the classroom. My body had decided it was going to fight, so I sat on a desk for the few minutes needed for my heartbeat to slow and muscles to relax.

I text messaged the Peace Corps, because I want a record of this event in their logs, as it will be a part of my final report on the school. The director knew what happened, but didn’t discuss the event with me at all. Was I supposed to go to him? Was it disrespectful for me not to approach him? As an authority figure, I suppose I intuitively expected him to investigate and control the situation. When Peace Corps called me to ask about what had been said between us (nothing), they told me they might call to ask about the school’s policy on response to violence in the classrooms. I would much rather avoid any calls between Peace Corps and my school, so I figured this out on my own. Apparently the policy is that male teachers chase the offenders off the school grounds (and to their credit this is what they did).

Another interesting moment came as I was leaving the school. Mr. P, the school’s most notorious alcoholic, was entering the school grounds as I was leaving. He waved to me, and I was worried because he wasn’t shaking and covered in sweat. This meant that he wasn’t in withdrawal, he was drunk, and he wanted to talk. He was pretty far gone. He said he needed help with some directions, and showed me his teaching schedule. I didn’t really follow him. He said he didn’t understand his schedule. Then he pointed at the school gate, which is now locked after school hours begin to encourage students and teachers to arrive on time (at least that’s something). Mr. P. kept on asking why they locked the door on him, who would do that to him. I actually wasn’t sure what he was doing there, because he was trying to get in at the very end of the school day. He asked me to help him talk to the director about his problems. The absurdity of this request is impossible to fully express, but obviously a wasted middle-aged Khmer man asking me to represent him in front of another Khmer man who speaks no English whatsoever is bit unreasonable. Last year I tried for a time to work with Mr. P. (before I knew the full extent of his alcoholism), and although I was frustrated by the experience, now Mr. P. mostly just evokes sympathy. It was a pretty pathetic scene, and for a minute I calmly repeated that I was sorry but I didn’t have any information for him, he would have to find someone else to help him understand.

These are curious anecdotes, but like so many of my experiences here, their essential value is in considering the ways I reacted to them. Both being threatened by a student with a piece of wood like a 2x4 and being implored by a drunken teacher to investigate the injustices committed against him would have totally ruined my day last year, maybe even 6 months ago. I would have felt responsible for the situations, and in my helplessness in finding a solution, I might have become frustrated and spiteful. But today these problems didn’t belong to me, and I didn’t try to control their outcome. Right now I don’t even want to consider if this is a good or a bad thing. Without judgment I want to say I’m still learning how to survive better in this environment.

Last Wednesday morning at 4:50 AM I got a phone call from my Aunt Lye to say that everything was ready to go. 10 minutes early. I was a little surprised because Cambodian People’s Time in the countryside is, in my experience, relaxed to say the least. Then again, my host aunt is a vegetable vendor in the local market, and the family’s livelihood depends on her getting her product out on the table before the sun rises.

I was joining my host family (the people I take my meals with) on a trip to my uncle Voeurn’s home town of Peam Sdai on the banks of the Mekong in Prey Veng Province. He was going home to pay respects to his ancestors and to the monks of his local pagoda for Pchum Ben, Cambodia’s festival of the dead. For the last 2 weeks of September every year, Khmers all over the country travel to their ancestral villages to offer local monks food and gifts in thanks for prayers for the souls of ancestor ’s that may be wandering in purgatory. The monks act sort of like karma brokers (who take their commission in cigarettes and banana cakes); they pass good karma points from the families to their ancestors, helping them get closer to freeing their souls. Before dawn for these 2 weeks, Cambodians wake up at 3 in the morning and head to the pagoda. After a prayer ceremony, they walk around the temple 3 times, and as they walk they throw small balls of sticky rice onto the ground. This is food for the wretched trapped souls, who have the most substance and power to eat at this early hour (it seems that ghosts in most cultures are at their strongest at dawn or dusk). For young people, it’s a great way to get away with pegging your friends with rice in the dark, and I can tell you how fun it is to pick sticky rice out of your hair, but Pchum Ben is among the most spiritually significant festivals on the Cambodian calendar. After circling the temple, the congregation places their unthrown rice balls in a mound. Burning incense is stuck upright into the rice (a symbol of death all across Asia), and the ah-jas (cantors) lead another prayer. Then, much like pouring out 40s for dead homies, the people pour bottled water onto to the ground so their ancestors may have something to drink.

I was excited to visit my host uncle’s home town. I had just finished a 3 week trip of Cambodia and northern Vietnam with my mom and brother who were visiting from The States. I was looking for a way to reconnect with my host family and with the Cambodian countryside after the time I had spent with my own family. There’s nothing like being with blood to make you feel what you’ve been missing-- and to remind you what pushes your buttons-- from your life in America. Likewise the trip made me recognize the Cambodian people and places I’m going to miss when I eventually leave the country. The other reason I was excited about the visit was that, due to the monsoon floods, the only way to get to Peam Sdai is to cross the rice fields by boat.

At just after 5 in the morning, 10 of us, and 2 ducks, piled into a longboat about 4 feet wide by 15 feet long. My uncle pushed us from the shore and the driver pull chord started a small outboard motor. It’s hard to describe the landscape of the flood plane this time of year. The river overflows its countless small tributaries and seeps into the fields. By September, several meters of water cover the paddies where farmers harvested just 6 months before. The only thing that distinguishes field from stream and stream from river are the palm trees that incongruously stick out of the water like flamingo legs.

I had neglected to ask how long the ride would be and by 6 o’clock I was kicking myself for not having found something to eat before leaving. Then, my Aunt Po opened up a crock of her delicious fried rice noodles with congealed pig’s blood. She dished out bowls and we ate cross legged, travelling over the rice fields and watching the sunrise over our shoulders.

I was told that we’d arrive in Peam Sdai some time after 8 o’clock in the morning, so I settled in to space out to the monotonous waterscape and the drone of the engine. We passed a handful of longboats, their bright red and blue paint dulled and flaking in the brown water. Men in kromas and women in pajamas were throwing out or reclaiming their fishing nets, their children rowing with long oars against the current. I was trying to figure out how anyone could navigate in this environment, when most of the natural landmarks have been replaced by a boundless sheet of water. I listened in to the conversation between my uncle and the driver and I realized they were using the same thing that Cambodians use everywhere to find their way: pagodas. They were counting the orange tiled roofs that we passed to measure how far we had come and where we were going. Even in the big city Phnom Penh, you can’t expect a taxi driver to know where a street is. But rest assured they’ll know the pagoda nearest the place you want to go.

Shortly after 9 AM we began looking for a waterway into Peam Sdai. My uncle began looking carefully into the thick brush, scanning the water at small breaks in the brambles to find a place where water was flowing out. These spaces were no wider than our boat and the water patterns seemed confusing, so we called out to a fisherman who was crouched with his toes curled over the bow of his longboat mending his net in his underwear. He pointed to a spot by some water lilies 20 meters away. We aimed for that spot and ended up beaching ourselves under the house of a young women who ran down her steps smiling and pointing to a spot a few meters away. When we finally found our way we got encircled so tightly by brambles that we all had to lie flat on the boat to avoid their thorns. The branches were so close that they caught against Aunt Lye’s gold bracelet and pulled it off. We started to turn around to look for it when her niece found it (in pieces) on the floor of the boat. The small trail of water opened into a large stream lined on both sides by houses on stilts. Their yards submerged, children and dogs sat bored on the stairs leading down into the water. Chickens and pigs floated under the houses in pens on top of thick slabs of grey styrofoam. Almost every house had several plants potted in empty paint and baby formula cans hanging in windowsills or sitting on stairs. I felt as if the villagers were trying to find a way to break the visual monotony of water and trying to meet a need to connect with the ground and the earth during the flood, months when the tedium of row, sit, repeat must take its toll.

We arrived at Voeurn’s house about 9:30 and sat down for a few minutes to make introductions and stretch our legs. Then it was time to go make an offering to the monks. As we walked to the pagoda, I got the usual barang in the countryside reactions. Small children rode on adult sized bikes holding their younger siblings on their laps. They shouted “HELLO!” and their younger sisters and brothers squealed in fear or delight. It seems that Peam Sdai is significantly poorer than my village on the highway. Far more of the kids there have hair bleached blond by vitamin deficiency. The older people walk slower and more gingerly. The houses are slightly less looked after.

The ceremony hall of the pagoda we visited was like one of those old cars cobbled together with cannibalized parts of different colors and textures from the junk yard. Parts of the hall were made of wood, others of plaster and brick. The rotted floors creaked and sagged everywhere. My uncle told me that some parts were almost 100 years old, though the ceremony hall— like at so many in the country— had been severely damaged when the Khmer Rouge abolished religion during their regime. Inside, teams of grannies wearing good silk skirts and lace blouses were arranging food for the monks. They laid row after row of dishes out on the floor, so many that they created an optical illusion in their symmetry. The head layperson at the pagoda called for the “nieces and nephews” from Peam Ro to come give their offering. I added about 5 dollars to the money my family was giving, which they placed on top of a tub full of fruit, blankets, laundry soap, and incense. We all placed a hand on the tub and slid it towards the monks. Then, as we bowed our heads, I listened to maybe the oldest monk I have seen in Cambodia incant mantras. He took a few breaks to hock one into his spittoon, and he had some rather gnarly neck mole hair, but he delivered his prayers in a nasal but quite beautifully haunting tone.

After leaving the pagoda, we had a big lunch of roast chicken and prawn soup with lemon grass, lime leaves and mushrooms on the balcony of Voeurn’s house. Then at noon— as we were looking at another more than 4 hour ride home, it was time to say goodbye. The sun was beating down, and I was glad to have brought a kroma to cover my neck and arms. But soon after we crossed back into the rice fields, we saw afternoon storms coming over the water. We tried to avoid the clouds by heading out into more open water, but the wind made for rougher going farther away from the protection of the trees. Voeurn and the driver thought it was better to get wet than to capsize. We motored on through the rain. I had brought along my raincoat, and the children with us huddled under a small tarp. Taking a circuitous route to avoid open water, we quickly ran out of gas. The driver refilled the tank, but he was having trouble keeping the engine running. After the 4th or 5th attempt, Aunt Lye chuckled and cracked open a can of Coca Cola, praying for the motor as she poured it over the boat. A few minutes later, after several more unsuccessful attempts, we heard a clank and the engine immediately died. The driver stared blankly and said that a belt had broken off and been sucked into the engine. We were in the rain with small children and we were hours from home with no motor. Aunt Lye gulped down the rest of the coke.

The adults started discussing what to do. Looking at the nearest pagoda, they recognized the area they were in and started to name the relations they could count on in the vicinity. In situations like this, it is easy to understand the necessity for the strong kinship ties that Khmer people so value. There’s no AAA to call, no police to bail you out. The only people that can help you are your family and friends, so you better know who they are and where they live. We started rowing towards the nearest village, but when we arrived half an hour later, my family realized they had long overshot the house of the school teacher related to them by marriage. We started to look for someone who could help us out, and eventually found a couple of guys with a boat who said— after taking a good long look at the white boy in their midst— that they would tow us back to Peam Ro for 50,000 riels ($12.50). My family groaned but they knew they were in a tough spot and bargaining was useless. The 2 men, one of whom was wearing a Beyonce t-shirt, pulled their boat alongside ours, then Voeurn, another uncle, my cousin, and I got into their boat, while Beyonce tied a line to the other. This new boat was a lot wider, deeper, and had a bigger engine. By now it had stopped raining, and we passed back into the rice fields towing the smaller boat (with my aunts and nieces and the original driver). The water was still rough, and although the larger boat cut through the waves, the smaller boat was tossed around in the wake. Everyone made it back to land in one piece, and though I had thought it was a high time, my aunt told me later that night that she had been scared. Her small daughter had clearly had more than enough and was in tears. The boat dropped us off a few kilometers north of Peam Ro, and we hailed a tractor to take us back to the village. When we arrived back at the house, I helped unload the sacks of rice my family had brought back with them from Peam Sdai. I rolled five dollars up and tried to hand it to my aunt, telling her I knew it had been more expensive to get towed home because I had been with them. She crossed her arms and laughed.

Like my mom said after she met my host family, they are “charming” people. Every day, without blinking an eye, they deal with a strange foreigner who falls asleep on their floor and can’t eat a meal without spilling a pint of soup on himself. Maybe more than any people I’ve ever met, they have the ability to roll with the punches. I’m going to miss seeing that and them, and I can only hope that a trace of their cool is rubbing off.

Sometimes I have occasion to be away from my temple at night. Either I’m visiting the project I’m working with in the big market town Neak Loeung, seeing a friend working with an NGO who’s coming through on business, maybe having dinner with the friendly missionaries who live near town. Before, whenever I was away after dark, the family I normally eat dinners with and the head monk at the temple acted very concerned about my safety. They tried to dissuade me from going, saying it’s not safe, asking me what would happen if I fell off my bike at night and I was all alone (I would be a 24 year old man with a skinned knee), trying to guilt me by saying I’m always coming and going (coming and going to them is leaving the village more than twice a year). It’s taken me a long time to establish some independence and get over the fear of plainly telling people what I’m going to do, whether they approve or not, but persistence has paid off. Being culturally sensitive is one thing (and the training I had beat me over the head with it), but you can lose yourself trying to fit into your host’s notion of what a foreigner should be and how they should act. Now instead of telling me that I can’t go anywhere at night because I don’t know what’s out there (which is true, I don’t), they just tell me to arrange a motorbike to follow me on my way back. I say I will and we leave it at that. But I’m talking about a 6km stretch of road through a well populated area, and I’m too proud to have a motorbike put along behind me in first gear for a 15 minute bike ride… though honestly I can see why they might be concerned. It’s not gangsters or potholes that are going to get me, it’s the dogs.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about dogs, but it’s because there’s so many of them and they’re always there. Always gnawing at their mange, scavenging, fighting, mating, howling to one another across the rice fields at night—spreading sound like fires along watchtowers— until every dog is barking for miles. Last summer a street dog bit me on the leg and I had to have a series of rabies shots as a precaution. A few months ago, I turned around to kick a dog in the face that was chasing me while I was running in the morning. I’ve run that path at least 2 dozen times. If the dogs aren’t used to my scent by now, I’m not taking responsibility for them picking a fight. Anyway, I didn’t kick it hard, more just kind of flicked it. It might have gotten air, but only a few inches. Last month, I saw a group of motorbike taxi drivers armed with chunks of cinder block chasing down a rabid dog in the street. When one of them cracked open the dog’s front leg with a piece, I watched the man toss back his head and laugh with malevolent schoolboy glee. I always root for the underdog, so I didn’t want to stick around to see the conclusion.

It’s almost pitch black when I ride my bike through Peam Ro District on Cambodia’s Route 1 at night. I can see the moon’s dim reflection off the Mekong River only a few meters away. I can see the eerie red signaling of the new cell phone towers spaced every few kilometers along the road. Otherwise it’s just the flashlight attached the front of my bike— no street lights, no cars, no glow from the houses. When the dark settles in, the dogs lose their timidity. They no longer have to contend with motorbikes and freight trucks. At night, the dogs take over the roads and act out their own dramas. When I interrupt them, they aren’t afraid of me or my bike. Even pedaling quickly, they will take on the chase and run after me, trying to go for my legs. The adrenaline really pumps then in the dark, when I race as fast as I can. I can’t see the dogs that are following me, but I can feel them there, I can hear the rapid clip of their claws against the asphalt behind me, I can hear their hard panting. The first time the dogs chased me I was terrified. I outran them, but just barely. The second time it happened, I was prepared, had a good idea where most of the dogs would be, and laughed out loud when they couldn’t keep up. The third time I came home at night from Neak Loeung, the dogs didn’t chase me, then I realized I was disappointed.

Earlier this year I bolted straight up in bed in the middle of the night. When I turned on my flashlight, I realized my cheap metal wardrobe had collapsed and crashed to the ground. There were a few straight, unrusted aluminum bars that I salvaged. I kept them, but I didn’t know what to do with them. Now I do.

Now when I go to Neak Loeung at night, I bring a half meter long stick of metal. On my way back, I keep a quick pace, but when I see the two round glints of their eyes in reflected flash light, I purse my lips together and suck in a bit of air (kiss kiss). That works pretty well to get them going. Then I just speed on as fast as I can. I understand that it’s stupid and reckless to taunt a dog into chasing you, especially in Cambodia and especially at night, but it’s pretty fun.

Sharing the road with cows, seeing the food I eat before it’s dead, and killing tarantulas with old copies of Newsweek has become a normal part of my routine, and I've stopped anthropomorphizing animals so much. I'm seeing them less as human, and I'm seeing myself as more animal. I love animals (including humans), but a part of my life in Cambodia is defending myself and my space from them. And occasionally, like when I’m out night riding, I will have a little fun with them. I’m not looking to beat a dog, because the thrill is in the chase, but I will hit one if I have to. In Cambodia, a pet dog is usually named “dog.” That’s because when it gets hit by a car, you don’t bury it in the backyard, you have a barbeque and invite the neighbors.

Last Saturday morning I biked along with some other volunteers to visit a festival in Ba Phnom. I was excited to go because there would be a carnival there, and my earlier attempt to experience one in January was thwarted by an unexpected dry season rainstorm. The Lang Neat Ta Festival is held for 3 days every year in June to celebrate the Cambodian general Mei Saw. According to an English teacher at my high school, Mei Saw was an inspirational military leader. She was famed for having driven back Thai invaders hundreds of years ago during the time when Siamese and Khmer rulers vied for territory and vassalage across the western part of the peninsula. Very much in the vein of Chinese historical myths, Mei Saw was apparently able to shoot fireballs from her hands to demolish her enemies. Now she is mainly honored as a sort of patron saint of prosperity. Those wishing to land a new job or win big at the cock fights might pray for providence from her spirit, which is still thought to inhabit the place of her birth in Ba Phnom.

Whatever its origins, the Lang Neat Tah Festival is now a chance for Khmer girls to put on their finest sequined and random English word covered t-shirts (“Dream Friends” was a favorite), for Khmer boys to grease up their Asian rock star mullets, and for everyone to go out on the town— in this case a large muddy field filled with cow patties and makeshift plastic tents. Inside the tents are all your favorite carnival games. A pop the balloon game with darts where 12 cents gets you 3 tries. Pop all 3 balloons and the can of beer is yours. Who knows how many balloons you need to pop to win the stuffed cookie monster without eyeballs (surprisingly creepy)? There are plenty of roulette, card, and other games of chance. My favorite is one where people lay their money down to spin a 6-sided dye on a pick. While the dye is spinning, it’s covered with a bowl. The person who bets the most money is allowed to lift the bowl to see the result, and the ritual is always the same. The gambling man gets down low, putting his ear to the table before theatrically pulling up the side of the bowl a centimeter at a time to peek at the dye, willing it to be his lucky spin.

This festival also has some of the most dangerous, and therefore most fun, carnival rides on earth. There’s a carousel where the horses aren’t held stationary to a moving platform. Instead they’re attached by 2 metal rods hooked to the rotating frame above. These things aren’t automated, they’re run using converted engines, and they go as fast as the dude sitting at the lever wants them to go, which is pretty damn fast. Not only that, but on the horses not ridden by sweethearts or parents holding their small children are teenage boys who of course want to see how far they can push this thing. As it spins around, they stand and start pumping the horses back and forth like a swing. With the centrifugal force of the carousel, they have these horses going completely horizontal outward as they scream around, passing only a few feet over the horde of kids who are waiting to do the same exact thing. As they wait they can watch a TV monitor mounted to the center of the carousel. Accompanied by speakers blaring Khmer, Thai, and Indian pop, the TV plays a video of an unattractive 60 plus year old white woman in a leotard dancing in a weight room. It seems to be a spoof on foreigners exercising. That’s fine with me, because I can only hope that we seem as silly to them as they seem to me; I certainly get a kick out of watching old Khmer ladies power walking around Phnom Penh in the early morning.

A converted tractor pulls a train of cars bathed in eerie dark green and red fluorescent light. For 12 cents (or 25 cents if you’re an American), you can enjoy being gently rocked over the oval track that provides great views of a late model Toyota Corolla parked in the middle. Not the most exciting ride, but a nice place to crack open a beer and toast the evening.

For thrill seekers, there’s the Ferris wheel trimmed with strands of malfunctioning Christmas tree lights. Although it was the fastest— and creakiest— Ferris wheel I’ve ever ridden, the stomach drop wasn’t half the fun, nor was the blast of exhaust spewed into my face every time I passed the motor at the bottom of the wheel. The real thrill came from pushing with 3 of my friends through a throng of hundreds of Cambodians (what lines?), everyone fighting to get inside a steel cage the size of a dentist’s chair. The fourth rider in our cage was a friendly Khmer boy who held one hand over his stomach and the other over his mouth for the entire ride. Despite the very real possibility of being sprayed by his dinner, we convinced him to ride with us a second time.

Not the least of the attractions was we 6 Americans ourselves. Certainly we were the only foreigners at the carnival, the only foreigners for miles around. Every time I looked around at the crowd I met the curious stare of scores of Khmers. Different people smiled at us, mocked us, waved to us, or tried to trip us all night. Young people followed us through the crowd for hours, trying to practice their English, undaunted by the growing silliness of our increasingly inebriated crew. The volunteer who lives in Ba Phnom said his host father was going to ask the music programmers to let us sing a song. Around 9 o’clock in the evening we were called to the stage. Armed with sticks and metal buckets, 3 of the volunteers sat down and started beating out a rhythm. I walked on and looked out at well over a thousand faces, then started clapping along. I picked up a microphone, pumped my fist and belted,

Buddy you’re a boy

Making big noise

Playing in the street

Gonna be a big man someday

You got mud on your face

You big disgrace

Kicking your can all over the place

Singing we will we will rock you….

I took the first verse then traded the mike for a bucket. Two other volunteers sang and the song ended with a face-melting a cappella guitar solo that would have made Brian May proud. When we finished you could literally hear the crickets chirping. The row of middle-aged men sitting at the judges’ table in front of the stage looked embarrassed. The rest of the crowd looked as if they were wondering what in the hell kind of karaoke is this…?

You might think we would have been humiliated by bombing in front of so many people. But we’ve all been living in the Cambodian countryside for the past 16 months, and humiliation has become a big part of our lives. The crowd’s reaction was exactly what we were planning for, in fact what we were aiming for. I felt like I was in a live production of Spinal Tap. We shouted “Thank you, Ba Phnom,” and afterwards, when we’d left the stage, couldn’t stop laughing. It was a blast, a great reminder of how unassuming and accommodating most Cambodian people are and how very strange I seem to them. I don’t doubt that the spirit of Mei Saw was looking over us.

My nipples are raw. For some reason my male friends and neighbors treat my chest like a stress ball, twisting and kneading until I slap their hands away or start grunting like an ape. I realize it’s a self-perpetuating problem, because now they like the reaction as much or more as they like feeling me up.

I’ll never forget the first time my nipples were tweaked in Cambodia. Last year on a trip to the provincial capital of Kampong Cham Province, I went to gas station mart and found a Snickers Bar, the first Snickers Bar I had ever seen in Cambodia. It was a lovely nuget-filled piece of America right in my hand. I walked out of the store into the noon sunlight, and from across the asphalt lot strolled a uniformed police officer. He smiled at me, asked me where I was going, reached out his hand, and through my shirt gave my nipple a generous twist. He was surprisingly accurate…I don’t think it was his first time. I looked at his smiling face, down to his hand, over to the Snickers Bar, then back up to his face. I said, “I’m going to enjoy my candy,” and I took a big bite.

I can think of a handful of reasons for the behavior:

One, although I don’t actually have breasts, I grew up eating plenty of protein and calcium, so instead of having a sunken chest like so many of my young friends, I’ve actually got some semblance of pecs. The monks actually say I’m like Rey Mysterio of WWE wrestling fame. That’s right. But let me reiterate that I fall well short of having man boobs. My chest is also hairy, so I can understand how this makes my body somewhat novel.

Two, I do walk around a lot without a shirt on. Pretty much anytime I’m within the temple complex where I live, I’m bare chested. In fact I’m usually not wearing pants either. Instead I’m dressed in my kroma, a cotton check patterned cloth resembling a kilt. It’s possible that walking around in a skirt shirtless is just asking for it, but then again this is traditional male attire in Cambodia.

Three, I am Khmer-sized. I’m 5 foot 6 inches on a good day and I weigh 140 pounds. It’s actually the first time in my life when I’ve lived in a place where I can consider myself of average height. I think people feel comfortable coming close and making physical contact with me because my physical presence is non-threatening. To test this theory I’ve asked another Peace Corps Volunteer, a former high school state wrestling champ who’s over 6 feet tall, if he gets felt up. Definitely not. And he thinks it’s his size, and the massive volume of sweat his body produces, that creates a ‘no grope’ zone around his person.

Four, repressed sexual energy and/or nonsexual ‘homosocial’ behavior. This is a culture that generally tells its youth that premarital sex is a sin, an indulgence of lascivious Westerners but not of the good Buddhist children of Cambodia (despite the large numbers of commercial sex workers that make a living from Cambodian clienteles). But of course some Khmer teens have sex because they are, of course, as horny as teenagers anywhere else. When they can’t— or choose not to— express their sexuality, that energy has to escape somewhere. I live in the all-male environment of a temple, and I can attest to the pregnant silence that falls as soon as the monks spot a beautiful young woman on her bike, then dozens of pairs of eyes follow her as she rides past the temple gates. Grabbing a handful of your buddy’s chest may be a poor substitute, but who am I to say? On the other hand, the behavior may have very little to do with sex, because I can also attest to open displays of same sex affection—hand holding, hugging, sharing a bed, etc.— that would no doubt be considered gay where I come from but seem simply to be normalized, friendly nonsexual behavior in Cambodia.

Five, why wouldn’t they touch my nipples? America creates hyper-individuated people driven to compete with— and consider themselves distinct from— those around them. I think my need for personal space, and the feelings of repulsion that I just can’t seem to get past when people ''invade" this space, are products of this kind of upbringing as well as a sign of the wealth of my country. The ability to feel entitled to the space around me is a luxury, because many millions of people are born and live their entire lives surrounded by family, friends, or enemies without a private place to consider their own.

I think all people need some sort of zone that belongs only to them. Whereas I can afford to see this place as a physical space, many people have to create this place internally. And I see Khmers do this often. Even when sitting in one-room houses crowded with their extended families, I have seen their bodies relax and their eyes glaze over. Maybe they go on a short mental holiday, where they check out from those around them and check in with themselves.

Having a problem with a stranger, or even a friend, touching my nipples is understandable, but I think it’s a problem relative to culture, perhaps even to the divide between rich and poor nations. Maybe the nipple grabber is thinking, “What’s his problem? Everyone’s got nipples.” That’s okay by me. I can’t promise to like it. I can’t promise not to feel like a spoiled American whose nipples should be respected. But I will probably continue to realize that what I learned about the world as I was growing up in America ain’t necessarily so. Many of the things I thought all people needed and deserved are really just privileges I’m able to take for granted as an American. If I can try to hold both what I thought I knew and what I now see everyday in my mind at the same time, I’ll be alright, and my nipples will heal.

March is blistering. The air is still and sporadic cloudbursts keep it unpleasantly humid. 8 weeks ago the paddies were thick with rice the color of Kermit the Frog's felt. Now the harvest is over and the fields are shallow empty trays, where skinny cows and buffaloes chew on hay blackened by sun and manure. April is the month of Khmer New Year, the biggest and most important celebration on the Cambodian calendar. With the farm work finished and the temperatures steadily rising, Khmers head home to reunite with their families and friends. Around mid-month in temples throughout the country, revelers dance slowly like Shakers in sex-segregated circles around tables at their local pagodas. The Indian influence is clear; fingers, hands, and arms sway, curl, then pause at precise and elegant angles. Old timers often dance this style whether the song is traditional or the latest karaoke hit. Later in the evenings, young Khmers take over the dirt dance floor and whip their limbs to the rhythms with abandon. Both styles are captivating. A profound cultural respect for song and dance and a lifetime of squatting, climbing, and balancing on branches and rowboats seem to give the Khmers in my village a graceful flexibility. Although to outsiders the dancing may look purely artistic and innocent, these gatherings are the time to find sweethearts, plan weddings, and drink glass after glass of home made rice wine (25 cents a liter in some parts).

Officially, the holiday lasts for three days in mid-April, but really the vacation stretches for weeks before and after. I haven't had any students in my high school classes for weeks. At first I would come home from school sour faced, talking to myself, making ridiculous "You people are all..." statements. I'm in the first Peace Corps group in Cambodia. There's been no one to tell me, "Hey, you really won't be teaching this month." Most Khmers in my experience are categorically non-confrontational, and by and large aggressive and open-ended how/why questions won't result in clear answers. But after serving for more than 12 months, through observation and simple impersonal questions, I've finally started to cobble together an idea of what a Cambodian school year looks like. Frankly, the Cambodian education system is all but broken in much of the country. It was like this before I got here and will be like this after I leave. It's not my job to make changes at an institutional level; it's my job to play frisbee, explain why American men don't like their nipples tweaked, and generally inoculate rural Khmers to the idea of living and working with American volunteers. Still a question lingers, and although it's not a black and white question, I suspect it will linger till the day I leave Cambodia. Am I creating a healthy professional distance from the things I cannot change, or am I getting jaded? Am I growing up or am I checking out?

What this all boils down to is that I have a lot of free time on my hands. 2 weeks ago I went to visit one of the villages of some students that live at the wat with me. They come from Me Sang District, maybe 60 km from my village. In a country with more than 15 million people, there are only 270 some high schools. Many students live too far from the nearest school to commute; so many young men decide to live in the temple nearest a high school (I can’t speak for young women and the ways in which they try to access high schools, but certainly more boys attend than girls). These students (kon suh loak, "students of the monks") live at the temple cost free but are responsible daily for helping the monks beg for rice, prepare meals, wash dishes, and clean the grounds. It's not an easy life and being a kon suh loak usually connotes poverty. On a side note, it’s not surprising that the prime minister, the man who’s run the country for virtually 3 decades, is fond of saying he grew up in a pagoda. There’s actually a karaoke tune dedicated to it… from humble beginnings, right? Anyway, despite their struggles, the students at my wat have been incredibly generous with me. They've got my back. They have and ask for so little that I am sometimes at a loss for understanding. When 2 of them invited me to visit their village a few weeks ago, I was more than happy to accept. Ratanak, Ratanah (there’s a lot of common and similar sounding names), and I left Peam Ro on our bikes after 2 in the afternoon. It was a hot day, and I made them each pack bottles of water. I made a point of stopping twice on the road for sugar cane juice and some jackfruit and durian shakes. The ride took us farther into the rice fields than I’d ever ventured. By the time we entered Me Sang District it was nearing 6 o’clock. The red ball of the sun was burning through gray haze slung low over the gray fields. For miles we shared this scene with only some stray dogs and drowsy water buffaloes. It was one of the most beautiful and other worldly visions of my year, not to be diminished by a steady, eerie breeze that made wind chimes out of sun charred, bone dry coconut fronds that hung in black strips from the trees like skin from half-peeled, rotten bananas. Coming into Ratanak and Ratanah’s village, we passed through what us volunteer’s have come to call a ‘hello gauntlet.’ That’s the line of small Cambodian children that flail their limbs at you in greeting, screaming “hello!, I love you!, 1 dollar!, ” etc. whenever they see you coming into town. When we rode our bikes under Ratanah’s house, a crowd of locals pushed around me. My mind’s eye was immediately transported back to my first days of training when I first felt the buzzing energy of hundreds of curious eyes. But instead of wearing the anxious, plastic smile that accompanied me through my early weeks, in Me Sang I was actually able to relax and celebrate my progress gained through more than a year of living in country. I bathed behind the house after changing into my favorite kroma (the all-purpose, checker-patterned bathing suit-cum-towel-cum-scarf). Kids giggled and scrambled away when I splashed them with water and beat my chest like a gorilla (yes, kids, that’s chest hair). In case anyone's interested, Ratanah’s plywood and thatch house doesn’t have a well or an outhouse; the family collects and funnels rain water from the roof into clay barrels from which they take their drinking and bathing water. The bathroom is a designated area of the fields behind the house.

Afterwards I sat on top of a bamboo table and chatted with the neighbors. I counted 27 of them. It’s difficult to explain but I’ve learned to sometimes dull my senses. Last year I might have tried to acknowledge every individual around me, but I realize I can now respond from a quieter, more Zen place within myself. I smile, joke, reflect a few of the comments directed towards me. I cross my eyes and pick up a baby, waiting for a squeal of delight, a cry of distress, or that wonderful blank stare of baby indifference.

Ratanah’s parent’s fed us a simple but generous meal of stringy beef stir fried with green beans and tamarind. The family knew we had rode out several hours to get there and graciously allowed us to rest after dinner. Ratanah and I stretched out on a grass mat laid over the bamboo plank floor. Soft wind moved over me through the gaps in the floor and walls and I fell quickly asleep.

The next morning, Ratanah gave me a tour of the village, a few rows of dirt paths and simple houses set in a cluster of palm and coconut trees. We stopped by at the local temple, drank fresh and sour palm juice, and visited the equivalent of the town’s 7-11, a shack selling strong scented strips of red, fish jerky and rice coated banana cakes wrapped and boiled in banana leaves.

We came back to the house to watch a Khmer dubbed Chinese Kung Fu flick on a borrowed DVD player powered by car battery. Ratanah’s family again stuffed me with delicious food: this time it was a green chicken soup, colored by a paste of mashed lime leaves, chilies, and tamarind. You can’t beat the freshness either; I watched Ratanah deftly break the chicken’s neck before tossing it in the pot.

At midday it was time to go. I asked Ratanah to point me in the direction of the nearest town where I could pick up a van going towards Peam Ro. The ride out had been fantastic, but the dry red clay roads were cracked into rough geometric segments which had given me sore hands and a broken ass. Both Ratanah and Ratanak insisted on accompanying me all the way back to the temple, saying they would then return to Me Sang the following day. I told them that I was a big boy (almost 10 years older than them), and that it was ridiculous for them to head back to the wat only to return home the next day. But Ratanah’s family refused to let me leave on my own. As my hosts, especially as the hosts of a foreigner, they felt responsible for my safety. I relented but not before trying to put 15 dollars into the hand of Ratanah’s mother. She wasn’t insulted but proudly closed my fist around the money before pushing me out the door.

When we finally reached a highway an hour and a half later, I was dehydrated and had just poured the last drops of my water down the nape of my neck. When the 3 of us flagged down a van, and negotiated a price of $1.75 a person for both us and our bikes, Ratanah and Ratanak looked down and sheepishly told me they didn’t have any money.

Wait… I asked them not to come. I told them not to worry about me. They insisted, then didn’t have the money to pay for the hospitality they were forcing upon me. I had even offered Ratanah’s family money. I wanted to because they had been wonderful hosts to me. But instead of accepting it as a sign of my gratitude, I was now being taxed by these same hosts to provide a service I never asked for.

I was physically exhausted from the sun, the heat, and the biking. I lost myself in anger. I saw red. I paid the money, but not without letting everyone know how pissed I was. In front of the cab driver, in front of the other passengers, I chewed out my friends. I told them they were treating me like a bank. I told them the money really didn’t matter, but if they needed it, they had to ask me. Otherwise, what was I to think except that they thought very little of my friendship? Probably not the best things to say, nor the best time to say them, although I’m not sure they were totally unwarranted.

During the silence on the drive back to the ferry town Neak Loeung, I had plenty of time to think how foolishly proud I had been to believe I had learned to dull my senses and calmly gauge my reactions. My knee jerk anger was as raw and as superficial as it has ever been. I can pretend that Cambodia will chill me out, infuse me with a sense of Buddhist calm in the midst of chaos. But I think any actual progress will start with learning to better read myself, in this case admitting to being intense and entirely capable of rage. I trust that I will learn some more patience, and maybe even an increased ability to mask, if not temper, my reactions (at least hopefully in my dealings with poor kids trying to play by their parent’s rules). But that is going to come with realizing that I’m fundamentally different from my hosts, and I’m simply going to have to live with the volatility that these differences create. So much for that quiet Zen place.

In late January I visited my Peace Corps pal Chris in Ba Phnom, about 20 km from my home in Peam Ro. 10 km of winding, cratered dirt road from the nearest paved highway, Ba Phnom is fairly rural, even by Cambodian standards. But that didn’t stop a traveling carnival from setting up shop. Trying to convince me to come, Chris told me that the place was crawling with carnival folk, including gypsies and transsexual dancers. My God. Gypsy and transsexual carnies…in Cambodia. My head almost exploded.

Ba Phnom is a quiet town resting snug against the base of a small mountain. Although this “mountain”— the namesake of the town, which roughly translates to Male Mountain— is only a few hundred feet high, the peak offers panoramic views of the pancake flat countryside of Prey Veng Province. The smog-free skies are huge, and on clear days monstrous cloud cities stretch away, popping out against alarming, windshield wiper fluid blue. I must admit at times I miss the dull comfort of gray New Jersey skies. A year in Cambodia has forced me to realize that a childhood and adolescence steeped in carbon and sulfur dioxide has made me skeptical of nature itself.

Again, Ba Phnom is a quaint place off the beaten tourist path, and besides a few NGO branch offices that come and go with the tide of grants, there’s not too much excitement. The Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP), the party in Cambodia, has just finished a new local HQ, and CMAC, a mine detonating organization, occasionally blasts basketball-sized divots into an open field in front of the elementary school. Seeing women in their sarongs washing the families underwear by the well is about the raciest show in town, so it’s a big deal when the carnival rolls through.

In the afternoon after I arrived, I walked through the field where the attractions were being set up— the same field still laced with small, unexploded goodies. It looked like the usual cheap fair scams: ring tosses, a dart and balloon game, etc. I assumed the prizes were the crates of liter bottles of soy sauce and radioactive green soda of dubious origin. Of more interest was a small stage being erected in a corner of the field. I learned that for $1.50 you could get up on stage and sing your favorite karaoke hits in front of all your friends with your own transsexual backup dancers. It’s American Idol with lady boys.

I spent the rest of the day wondering which song I should sing that night, “I Love You as the Mouse Loves the Rice,” or “You’re My Angle” (it’s really spelled a-n-g-l-e). Alas, it was not to be. In the late afternoon, in the middle of the dry season and weeks since the last rain, the sky opened up and it stormed well into the evening. The mix of rain and shoddy electrical wiring deterred even the most intrepid from taking the stage. Even though I was bummed about missing the carnival, Chris helped cheer me up with mystery-flavored Vietnamese cookies and something called Black Dog Liquor.

The next morning I was lazing around, avoiding a sweaty, dusty hour and a half bike ride home. Chris and I were playing Cribbage on his host family’s balcony, when who should stroll through the gate but a trannie dancer. 6 feet tall, in full makeup and wearing day-glo yellow capris, she sauntered to the table under Chris’s stilted house, sat down, and gave us a little wave. I felt like I was in an old Looney Toons episode where Bugs dresses in drag to put one over on Elmer Fudd with a flirty “yoo hoo.” Chris and I sheepishly looked at each other and decided that the only neighborly thing to do would be to go down and talk to her.

A note about transsexuals in Cambodia (katoeys in Khmer language, borrowed from Thai): To define our term, I take transsexual to mean any member of a sex that identifies as a member of the opposite sex, whether or not they’ve had any surgery. In South East Asia, lady boys or female butches seem to be considered a natural occurrence (a third gender); sometimes a boy is born imbued with a girl’s spirit or vice versa. So despite that fact that Cambodia has a rather ethnically homogenous society, and despite the jokes and ribbing that transsexuals do face, they are shown a fair amount of tolerance and respect in Cambodia, even in rural Cambodia— far more, I would submit, than in the United States. Masculine gays and fem lesbians, however, are an oddity, and are not considered part of the sexuality spectrum. Across South East Asia they are simply men and women who marry and have children, then have other relationships on the down low. As John Burdett wrote in his slick police thriller, Bangkok Tattoo, “Queers are a Western import. Katoeys are as Thai as lemongrass.”

Chris and I sat down across from her and made the traditional introductions to establish name and age. I asked her what we should call her, and she told us we could call her “older sister” or “older katoey.” She told us that she came from Phnom Penh, but for a $45 monthly salary, occasionally went out on tour with the fair. Normally she spent her days doing nails and makeup and her nights selling her body at Wat Phnom, the park that commemorates the founding of the capital. Her candor— after a year of experiencing the chaste, polite veneer that Khmers present to the world— was simply shocking. Because she was so forthright, both Chris and I started asking questions. She said she’d had many boyfriends, and many offers to pay for surgery, but wasn’t interested in any operations— besides maybe a bigger ass and fuller lips. She said she wasn’t worried about HIV/AIDS because she usually only gave hand jobs or oral sex, and when she did have sex she used condoms. She said her favorite johns were foreigners, especially masculine ones with facial hair, and pointed coyly at Chris’s stubble as an example. I was suddenly very glad I had shaved the night before I left my village.

Older sister told us a ridiculous story about a group of 7 German men who came to Wat Phnom, having one of them “test her out” in a nearby car, then accompanying all of them to a hotel for an all night photo shoot. Whether or not she was lying or embellishing the truth is beside the point, because she does exist and represents a rawer, grittier aspect of Cambodian society that is so often swept under the rug to save face.

Both Chris and I were so wrapped up in the conversation that we completely forgot where we were. As our older sister was loudly describing sucking off a German man while sliding her finger over her tongue, I looked up to see Chris’s 14 year old host sister and 16 year old host brother standing 10 feet away; they looked impossibly confused, scandalized to the point of utter bewilderment. I think I coughed and nudged Chris under the table. It was at this point that older sister edged her plastic chair closer to Chris and asked if he was lonely alone at night and did he need a girlfriend. Even though Chris said he only liked girl-girls, older sister still offered to give him a massage, promising to keep her hands above the belt. Now, I’m a vain man and sometimes feel left out when others are flattered and not me. But honestly, I have never been happier to be the ugly sidekick. It was even more entertaining because Chris, an unusually tolerant and easy-going guy, is from Oshkosh, Wisconsin and is as white a white boy as I am. He didn’t want to hurt older sisters feelings, so we kept telling her how beautiful she looked with her golden dyed hair and nose ring.

By this point Chris’s host mother had had enough. It hadn’t dawned on us earlier, but perhaps having a transsexual prostitute graphically describing her sex life under your house isn’t good for your social standing. Chris’s mom stepped out of the small kitchen, where she’d been listening to the entire conversation, asked loudly if Chris and I were having fun, picked up a broom, and literally started sweeping older sister away. Not oblivious to the situation, she stood up, put her purse around her shoulder, and as proudly as she’d come, strolled calmly out the gate and down the dirt road.

But before she stood up to leave, she had said one more thing. She opened her purse, pulled out a single condom, put it to her lips and said, “I had 5 when I came here.” No one is innocent. Not even the good people of Ba Phnom.

Semester 1 exams are being held all across Cambodia this month.

Without a trace of self-consciousness, one of the strongest English students at my high school told me he's bribed the teachers that proctor his exams to allow him to look at his text books during tests. When I asked why a smart student like him would do that, he replied with a smile that the tests are hard. The next day I learned that the teachers haven't received their monthly salary since the end of December.

Shit rolls down hill, then somehow manages to roll back up.

I had to think long and hard about this story before deciding to share it. It pains me to think that I might be exploiting a life, but ultimately I know it will teach me many things, and that is why I share it with you.

My journal entry from January 27, 2008:

Yesterday, Jhom Ratana (that was how he spelled his name in English) drowned in Peam Ro Village. He was 15 years old. If I told you he weighed 90 pounds it would be a generous estimate. He was so thin he had to wrap his pants around his waist and fold them down like a bath towel. For such a skinny kid, he had big feet and an enormous head. His teeth were a nightmare. He was studying to become a monk. He was my English student. Whenever I asked him how he was doing, he always responded in English, "I am very well, thank you." Whenever he passed by me, he said, "Excuse me." In the few months that I knew him I never once saw him wear shoes. He had long and dramatic karate fights with imaginary enemies. He ran away from dogs. He was surprised and happy when I brought him homemade soy milk from the market. He couldn't swim. He died less than 3 meters from the bank of a small, shallow river that feeds the Mekong.

I was away during the morning visiting my friend and fellow volunteer, Chris, in Ba Phnom, around 20 km from my village. In the early afternoon I came back to the temple. Phun Sophourn, the head monk, came to me and asked me to translate "drowned" to English. I asked why, who drowned. When Sophourn said Ratana, I asked when, today...yesterday, is he dead. The monk said he didn't know, but that Ratana had been missing for about an hour by the Peam Ro Bridge.

I rode my bike the couple kilometers to the river and saw a small crowd gathered along the far side. When I crossed and headed downstream, I saw them gathered around a white dress shirt and blank pants in a pile along the bank. I turned and walked to the edge of the rice fields that skirt the river, thinking maybe he left his clothes and went for a walk. It was a hot day and all I saw were a few farmers and buffalos resting in the shade. I turned back and asked as best I could if anyone had told the police, the village or the commune chief. This sent someone off on a moto, but they had already organized a search party; row boats were drifting slowly across the water dropping poles every meter or so. I reasoned that anything floating would be further downstream, so I started walking further down the river.

I didn't see anything but as I passed through shady patches along the bank, I thought how beautiful this spot was and that I should come back another time. The fact that this thought came to me as I was searching for a body is both mysterious and frightening to me. Even more so, however, -- and painful to admit-- was the thought that I hope I find him. Even if I just find a body, I hope I play some part in this story. I can only attempt to explain this half-conscious desire to make this ordeal somehow about me by recognizing that I didn't know he was dead. I thought he was dead, but I didn't know it. My self indulgent fantasies immediately disappeared once the impossible distance between thought and knowledge was crossed.

I came back to the quickly growing crowd and saw Sophourn being interviewed by a police man using a cell phone with digital video capabilities. There were now boats with motorized air pumps near the bank (the same pumps that people use to fill up tires at gas stations). Men were taking tubes connected to the pumps into their mouths and diving in the water. Within a couple of minutes, one pulled Ratana from under the brown green water. As his body came up, dark and blue, children screamed and scurried away. No resuscitation was attempted. No one would have known how, and Ratana had been at the bottom of the river for at least as long as I'd been there-- more than 20 minutes (likely he'd been under for more than an hour).

I was called down to help move the body up to a grass mat that had been placed on higher ground, but as I dropped my hands to Ratana's shoulders, the monk Sophourn turned me away. So I stood over the mat as they laid his body down. I still see the images of his head lolling backwards and his mouth opening up at me. White foam poured from his nose and mouth. I wanted to shake him and press on his chest but I didn't. There wasn't any hope and I wouldn't have been able to explain what I was doing. I was also very afraid. Even if there had been a chance, I honestly don't know what I would have done. Now, more people were pouring down the river bank, and I heard them shouting "barrang." Literally it means Frenchman, but effectively means any foreigner with white skin. I was in shock and wanted no part in a spectacle. During the short bike ride back to the temple, I burst into tears.

I sat stunned on a stone bench trying not to think and feeling like I'd just swallowed a tin can. After a while another student who lives at the temple rode up in a moto and asked me to help him find a bed, which we carried under the ceremony hall (an open air building on stilts where the monks go to eat and meditate). Shortly after two men arrived carrying Ratana on the grass mat, which was now hanging below a bamboo pole. The man walking in front was stumbling drunk but coordinated enough to get the body onto the bed. News spread quickly and high school students leaving class started to come to see the body.

Some of my students, after seeing the body, turned to me with bright smiles and asked me how I was doing. I stared blankly, incredulously. One young girl asked if it was really Ratana who died and then started laughing. Another student started miming drowning and asked, "What's this in English, teacher?" Another, "How do you spell 'drown', teacher?" I suddenly felt like an alien visitor to a strange, far away planet. I was infuriated and mystified but somehow had the presence of mind to simply walk away without trying to respond.

The rest of the day passed in a haze. Several people told me either to not be too sad or to not think too much, usually while smiling at me. (Were they trying to be strong for me? Were they embarrassed by their own feelings or for my own open and red eyed expression of shock and sadness?) Grief is by no means one size fits all. I'm trying to realize that death is a much more present part of life in Cambodia than it is in the U.S. Recovering from genocide and living in poverty without basic medical care, it should hardly surprise me that rural Cambodians are fatalistic. But this realization didn't help confront my astonishment at seeing Khmers seemingly brush off a violent death (I will have to deal with this more later). Anyway, after noticing that I had forgotten to bathe, Om Eng (Great Aunt Eng), the good woman who makes me dinner, gently admonished me after I finished eating that night. She said, "Child, your face is red and you smell. Go home, take a bath, and go to bed." She's one of my favorite people. Back at the temple I dutifully cleaned myself up, took a pain killer, and waited for sleep.

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This morning I stayed in bed until 6:30. I left my room and found out that Ratana's cremation ceremony was about to start and that I should hurry up and get dressed so I could help. During the night a simple, open casket had been built. I held incense and walked, along with the students that live at the temple, behind the procession of the body and Ratana's mother and younger sister (who had arrived during the night). We circled the ornate crematory behind the temple several times while men prepared wood for the fire. Monks arrived, and led by Sophourn, delivered a short prayer before the casket.

When it ended we put our burning incense into a vase. Ratana's mother began to cry as she led her small daughter away. I stayed to watch the men remove the sheet that covered the casket. Ratana's arms were crossed over his chest but slightly raised above his body in rigor mortis. Emptied plastic water bottles had been filled with flammable liquid and they were wedged between his legs and in his armpits. The casket was lifted and quickly slid into the oven. I stayed long enough to watch the smoke start to rise from the chimney high above.

Ratana's mother was standing in front of the ceremony hall with her daughter. She was on auto pilot, doing what Khmer women are trained to do from birth: offer food. The students just kept walking past her, but when she got to me, she touched my arm. That moment of human contact was enough for her to release. She collapsed into my arms crying uncontrollable. Tears streaming down my face, I held her tight against me. I wanted it to be just like that...I wanted her to scream and wail, because that I would have understood. But she composed herself after a few moments and again told me to eat breakfast with her. The only explanation I have for her choosing me is that emoting in public in front of strangers seems to be an embarrassing loss of face for Khmer people, but I'm not Cambodian, so maybe the rules do not apply.

I followed Ratana's mother into the ceremony hall. We shared cold rice and fish soup and tried to hold back our tears. An old man appeared and handed her 7000 Riels (about $1.75). I quickly took the cue and emptied my wallet. I gave her a little over $4-- insignificant, but far more than millions of Cambodians survive on every day. She wished me a long and happy life, then left. I've found out that the family will try to entomb Ratana's ashes at the temple. They'll be looking for funds to help pay for the shrine and the ceremony, and I will give generously.

In the afternoon I woke up from a nap to hear crying coming from the cell next to mine. Veasna, Ratana's older brother and a monk at the temple, had come back from taking a Pali language exam in the provincial capital (Pali is the language of Buddhist scripture). He wasn't informed about Ratana's death sooner because the monks wanted him to concentrate on his exam and not forfeit an entire year of studying, but apparently, he had just heard the news.

I tried to work during the rest of the day today. I'm functioning but still feel like there's a brick on my windpipe. There are shades drawn over my eyes and I can't seem to open them wide enough. Writing is helping. I'm more able to focus on words and conversations. But it's only been one day. I'm still in shock over the mystery of the terrifying and lonely death of a 15 year old boy near a busy bridge in the bright sunshine.

I need to make the disclaimer that this anecdote is pretty gross and will only be appreciated by shameless, low brow individuals such as myself.

I'm in Phnom Penh for a few days on medical leave. I came to the capital because of a hemorrhoid that I couldn't get rid of after a week of treatment. It was getting pretty painful, too, because my Trek 3900 mountain bike is my only form of transportation, and I'm probably distancing 40-50 miles a week on it.

Anyway, I meet the Peace Corps Medical Officer, Linda, she takes one look and says that's a blood clot sticking out of my ass and she's going to need to lance it. Less than thirty seconds later I find myself in just a tee shirt on the examining table in her office. I'm on my knees presenting myself like a cat, and Linda's just shot the first of two Novocaine doses into my anus (which you should never, ever let anyone do to you). Then as I watch from between my legs, she gets a scalpel and proceeds to cut my ass. At this point I'm trying to keep things light and easy by telling her I should have drawn some math problems or a smiley face on my butt to keep her from getting bored. But she doesn't respond because, although I can't feel it (I'm all numb from the Novocaine), apparently I'm bleeding all over the place. The next few minutes are kind of like a bad comedy sketch. As she's trying to mop off the blood that's dripping down my balls (awww skeet, skeet, skeet....), someone tries to come into her office. Linda lunges over to shut the door, but I continue to bleed. Then she's kind of flying back and forth across the room in fast motion grabbing gauze, telling someone outside to go the hell away, and mumbling to herself about all the blood. We finally get the situation under control and stick an ice pack in my crack. 10 minutes later I'm wearing two Kotex pads and hobbling away like a cowboy.

However disgusting the story may be, there is a point to it. Back in America this kind of experience would have mortified me. It would have given me all kinds of anxiety. But as I was leaving Linda's office, the only thing I said was, "That was fun. We should do it again some time." It was just one more strange experience in a flowing river of strange experiences that make up life in the Peace Corps. If I took myself as seriously here as I did when I was back at home, there's no way I would have lasted this long. That's a damn good lesson learned.

A few weeks ago I was eating one of my favorite Khmer meals, chicken soup with banana flowers, red chillies, and coconut milk. But Khmer soup isn't like Progresso; it's country style and that means picking through gristle, unplucked hairs, and tiny bones to get to the tasty bits. If you're eating Khmer food and your hands aren't covered in meat juices by the time you're finished, well, you're missing something. Anyway, I was rolling around something in my mouth, sucking at it, but it didn't taste like regular chicken meat. I spat it out into my palm, and there staring up at me was the tiny skull of a chicken (whose brain I'd been trying to suck out through its eye socket). Quietly I said "choy et," a common expression of surprise which means f@ck a giant, and I popped it back into my mouth like a gum ball.

I decided to give one of my 9th grade classes English names. Giving students names from the language they are studying is a common method for teachers to introduce a new culture and unfamiliar sounds . My 7th grade Spanish name was Carlos. The fact that this is one of the few things I remember from that Spanish class is a testament to the idea. But I wasn't motivated by any noble desire to impart knowledge. Frankly, my 9th graders are a bunch of rowdy delinquents, and because I can't remember their Khmer names-- so foreign to my ears-- I needed something to yell at them.

Apart from giving me a way to better manage my class, the English names have given me ample opportunity to have some fun with my students-- at their expense. I let them choose their own names, but only from a list I drew up. So now instead of forcing the hamster onto to the wheel in my brain to grasp for Sovannarith or Phorn Gek, I get to say, "Cookie Monster, stop copying off of Magnum P.I.,"and, "Hey, The Sizzler, why are you always so late?" It's even sweeter because I gave them all card stock and crayons to make their own name cards. It makes me feel warm inside to think that a student I don't particularly like stayed up half the night working by candle light to create a beautiful card that proudly reads Tony Danza.

Maybe I should be a bit more careful. I probably have a bigger impact on these kids than I'd like to think. For most of them, I'm the first white person they've ever met face to face. And maybe I should be worried, too. If I do my job too well, someone might learn enough English to figure out I'm having a bit of fun with them.

But ultimately, a sense of humor is a matter of survival here. My job is to entertain the Cambodians for 2 years. The least they can do is give me a few laughs... even if they don't realize it.

In Cambodia you share your living and work space with all kinds of domesticated animals: mostly cows; goats; pigs; horses; ducks; and chickens. At first it was disconcerting to look out a class room window and see 2 goats having sex, but this coexistence is pretty easy to get used to and it's actually quite enjoyable. I can't tell you how fun it is to ride your bike up behind a dopey cow and give it a big, open-palmed slap on the ass. And from extensive observation I can tell you that chickens are nothing more than tiny dinosaurs covered in feathers. If they tell you otherwise, they're damn liars. But for me the most fascinating of them all has got to be the pig. You see them strapped upside down to the back of motorcycles futilely flailing their legs and wailing. It's a chilling almost-human cry; they seem to know they're about to get the axe. Even more eerily human though is their round eyes with bright, clear whites and pale green to blue grey irises. Usually there's nothing behind their glassy state, except when they're charging from 5 meters away.

On a lazy weekend afternoon a few weeks ago, I was exploring the old graves and stupas that fill the forest behind my wat. I felt this romantic Indiana Jones energy as I stumbled through thick brush to discover crumbling tombs coiled with vines. I came to a small clearing lined with 3 pink, granite head stones covered with Chinese characters. The hoof-chewed soil around the graves stood up in little peaks and valleys, and I thought this has got to be a cow path. Clearly I don't know the first thing about animal tracks because from behind me I heard that unmistakable swine squeal. From the path where I had entered the clearing (and the only exit from the clearing) lumbered a pig, but not just any pig. This is the mother of all pigs, a 4 or 500 pound behemoth that I have named Voltron. She's famous even; a monk told me she is known from 2 towns over for her legendary girth. Usually, Voltron's a classy pig. Most of the time you can find her sprawled out in the shade letting small children throw flip flops at her for sport. But it appeared that I'd come upon her private lair.

Voltron wasn't making any sudden movements, but it was clear she was upset by my presence. When she'd shuffled within 2 meters of me I got nervous and climbed on top of one of the graves. I decided I was going to quickly but calmly get down off the side of the grave and walk away towards the path without looking back. I thought maybe Cambodian pigs are like Cambodian dogs; they usually only bother you if you show them you're afraid. But by the time I got to the path at the edge of the clearing I could hear Voltron gathering steam.

Instinctively I stated to run on the downhill path back towards the temple. After a few steps, I turned around to see Voltron cresting the top of the path and pouring down the hill. I turned around and ran a step but instantly realized I wasn't going to make it. On a downward slope, a 500 pound pig becomes an inexorable pink wrecking ball.

Without really thinking about it, I decided I was going to have to be the dominant animal if I wanted to come out unhurt. I picked up the nearest thing, a dry thick branch about 12 inches long, and I hurled it at her face, screaming "Blarrghh!" It nailed her in the snout, she let out a squeal of defeat and shot off at a right angle. When I calmed myself down, I was finally able to move my adrenaline-frozen feet. I backed out slowly, keeping my eyes on the forest. When I got back to the temple, I told the first monk I saw what had happened to me with my amazing Khmer language skills. "The big pig tried to eat me." He offered me a patronizing chuckle and walked away. Apparently he'd heard that one before.

At least now I know what to do if a pig charges me. I'm not as cool as Indiana Jones, but maybe I'm more badass than I thought.

In September I moved out of the house I was living in near the Mekong River ferry crossing at Neak Loeung. I left a loud and crowded place and moved into a Buddhist temple (wat in Khmer) 6 km north of the ferry. The temple is a large complex set off from the highway and surrounded by tall palm and coconut trees. Behind the temple, there's a small lake filled with morning glory and hula hoop-sized water lilies. Farther back, the land flattens out into a vast patchwork of rice paddies waiting for the floods to recede to be planted. I share this place with about 45 monks and 15 high school students, but the head monk has given me my own large cell. It has been good move.

I wake up every morning at about 5:30. If I have no classes until the afternoon, I'll set some clothes to soak so I can wash them later. I'll pull on my cross trainers and go running along the river. I carry my ipod in my left hand (lately it's all about Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul) and a dog-whacking stick in my right hand (Dogs are feral animals in this country and attack if you enter their territory. They're not lovable pets, but they are delicious).

When I get back to the pagoda, I take a cold bucket shower and then get dressed. I ride my bike to the nearby Peam Ro market and buy food to make myself lunch. I've been doing a lot of stir fried noodles and vegetables lately. Sometimes I make fruit salad with papaya, bananas, and sour mangoes. Other days I'll make a fried duck egg sandwich with hot sauce (I'm grateful for baguettes, a vestige of French colonial days).

Then it's back to the well for more water to wash my dishes. Then it's time to scrub my clothes with powdered soap, ring them out, then wash them again to get the soap out. By the time I put them out to dry, the sun is beating down and it's time for a nap.

In the afternoon, I'll ride my bike over to the high school for classes. My classes are large, between 40-60 students, and the materials are scarce, maybe 4 or 5 text books for the class. I feel more like a ring leader than a teacher. I'll do the best I can to entertain the kids. We're listening to Queens “We Will Rock You” on my ipod speakers this week to review the simple future tense. I'll air guitar with a bandanna on and the kids will go nuts. Maybe only half of them will understand, but even the students who've already fallen through the cracks will think, "Who is that white jack ass?" At least that's something.

At 5 I'll head back home to the temple, make some green tea and relax before dinner. At 6 I'll walk to eat dinner with a family that lives across the street from the temple. The food is always delicious; last night was fish soup with taro, fried beef and pork with bitter greens and green tomatoes. At 7 I'll walk back to the temple and help some of the monks study English. It usually degenerates into them singing Asian remixes of “My Humps” and asking me for euphemisms for the words penis, vagina, breast, erection, and sex. By 8 I'm beat. I'll scrub the dirt off my feet, crawl under my mosquito net, and blow out my candles.

My town, Neak Luong (Yellow You), lies on a gentle bend of the Mekong. Its population is around 19,000 and as Chris, a fellow volunteer, says, it's a "seedy little burg." It's an apt description. A steady flow of drifters, merchants, prostitutes, and foreign aid workers (in their ubiquitous white SUVs) pass through the town because it has a ferry crossing. Coming north from Vietnam, it's the first place in Cambodia that you can take public transportation across the Mekong. In fact, any road vehicles going to Phnom Penh from Ho Chi Minh City(or vice versa) has to pass through Neak Luong.

The town centers around the ferry. A sprawling indoor market next door sells congealed pig blood and fake Gucchi purses. I have a few friendly vendors that I frequent. There's the tailors that repaired my messenger bag and refused to accept money (or fruit), and the eccentric and totally flaming noodle soup guy that screams at me from 50 ft. away to eat with him (He's been dubbed the Cambodian Rip Taylor). He's so pleasant that, even though I once found a bit of glass in my soup, I come back for more. But mostly I avoid the market. No matter how many times I go there, because Neak Luong's a transportation hub, there's always new people there who assume I'm a tourist and treat me like one. Not much of a community feel.

Besides the market, the town has 2 paved roads, one heading southeast to Ho Chi Minh City and the other following the Mekong north to Phnom Penh. I live north of the ferry along this second road. Behind my house is a lush garden of banana, papaya, coconut, orange and mango trees (chemical free and maybe the best fruit I will ever eat). On the other side of the highway there are kilometers of flat rice fields, their dry yellow quickly changing to an incandescent green as the monsoon rains pick up.

My everyday life is spent riding my bike back and forth on this highway. There's something disorienting about living on a straight line. I move up and down this line, but I have trouble defining a sense of interconnectedness. Every place seems a knot on a rope, distinct and separate. There's the high school where I teach 10th grade ESL, the various NGOs (many of which have closed due to lack of funds or motivation), the roadside food stands, several Buddhist temples.

But as I live here longer, patterns of life begin to pop out at me. The same neighborhood kids playing soccer at the temple every weekend. The same old men drinking coffee and playing chess at the coffee shops. The same women and girls carrying baskets of sticky rice and fried crickets on their heads for sale at the market. I'm trying to pay more attention to when and where people interact. Tapping into their networks is the only way I'm going to feel that I'm part of something-- absolutely necessary to my survival. This Saturday I'm going to a party that some of my students are throwing to kick off the start of summer vacation, even though school doesn't officially close for another 3 weeks, but that's another story. I'm doing everything I can to be mentally present and accept opportunities to socialize. The feeling that this whole thing was one big camping trip has vanished, and now it's time to start negotiating reality.

Last Thursday a dog bit me on the leg. Don't worry mom and dad, I'm fine. It doesn't hurt and the wound isn't deep, but I was bleeding. Because dogs are rarely vaccinated for rabies or other transmittable diseases, bites can be serious. So I get to go to the Peace Corps medical office in the capital to get some more shots. It's overkill, but the doctor said she wants to give me the "gold standard" treatment. Fine by me. I get to stay the weekend in a hotel with hot water and satellite TV. It also gives me a chance to catch up on my emails and throw some pics up online. I've spent the last 2 and a half hours trying to upload and all I've managed are 19 photos. Nothing too special but if you want to check them out they're at http://picasaweb.google.com/zachild. When I have more time and patience I'll try to post some more. Everyone pray that I get bit by more mangy dogs. I could get used to this.

Last night I ate dinner at the house of one of my host brother's friends. It was the first time in 2 months that I had dinner away from my house, so I was excited for the change of pace. Rahsee (my brother) and I showed up at the designated hour of 5, and then we waited an hour for our host to arrive. His reason for being late: "go play." He had been tooling around on his motorbike. As I write this I realize that I would have considered the behavior thoughtless in America, but at the time it didn't phase me. Time just has a different value here (maybe I'm even starting to adapt) .

The three of us sat town outside at a plastic picnic table under the hum of a fluorescent light powered by a generator chugging along a few meters away. We wouldn't be eating with the whole family because the guest must be fed first with the choicest selection; the rest would eat later from what remained (It reminds me of the lioness who catches the prey, then waits to eat whatever the lion leaves behind.). Mom was preparing the first course: enormous loaves of French bread; sliced boiled pork; fried chicken eggs; and chopped raw mint, tarragon, and cucumbers. I was drooling over the spread, the closest thing I'd seen to American cuisine in almost 4 months. It was delicious and I impressed myself that I was able to eat a whole, overstuffed loaf. I leaned back and, patting my belly, said "full." Mom laughed as one of her daughters carried plates of vegetables and raw meat to the table.

Course 2 was hot pot Cambodian style. Translated into Khmer as "beef climbs up the mountain," it's thin strips of egg-coated beef dipped into an oil-filled wok at the center of the table, then into bowls filled with oil, lime, salt, and pepper. The beef was served with piles of green tomatoes, bean sprouts, and raw onion. Everything was washed down with whisky and club soda.

In my experience this is not a serve yourself culture. It seems that the graciousness of a host is measured by how much they can stuff into you before you double over. I feel my life was saved only by the fact that my companions combined weight was around 200 lbs. They couldn't eat or drink anymore than I could.

We threw our napkins on the ground and left the table. The mess would be cleaned up by the women of the family. Down a flight of stairs into a half-submerged garage/living quarters I saw the family enjoying the national pastime: karaoke. I don't know when it started, but Thai and Khmer pop karaoke has monopolized the music scene. It seems that Cambodians (especially young ones) prefer crooning with an echo effect, "You went away, so I must say...I miss you" to listening to traditional dulcimer music.

It wasn't till I started looking around the room that I realized the poverty of my hosts. I was sitting in a windowless room dimly light by a single bulb. In one corner was a squat toilet. A wire string was hung across the width of the room with the wardrobe of the family. Although Khmer people are meticulous about personal cleanliness, this room was covered in grime. Empty cardboard boxes and rusted batteries lined the floor. People sat on overturned buckets or broken folding chairs. Use your imagination. Picture a poor home in the Poor World and you won't be far off. The only new, clean things in the room were 2 impressive cabinet speakers, a high-end amplifier, and a karaoke disc player.

I thought about the dinner I had just eaten. It was lavish by any standards I know. The family clearly spent what was a lot of money to them to entertain me. When it was my turn, I belted out some of the English songs they had on disc and we all had a good laugh.

As I was leaving, the young man who invited me and his younger sister asked me if I could teach them private English lessons at my house. I've faced this question more than a dozen times in the last two months. After their genuine kindness that evening I didn't want to say it, but the answer is always the same. "I'm sorry but I can't." I have a full teaching schedule, I lead an English club at the high school, and I teach my brothers and sisters a few nights a week. If I want to spend two productive years here, I have to stop myself before I get in over my head. Sometimes it's easy to say no-- like when people ask me for $500, for my glasses, or for my bike (I have heard these questions several times). And sometimes it's hard-- like when intelligent people, who believe speaking English can improve the quality of their lives, make an earnest request. But I'm learning the necessity for self-preservation very quickly. I'm also learning a lot about generosity.

Kampuchea 1 (K1) is how my Peace Corps class is catalogued in the list of 138 countries where volunteers have served. Kampuchea is the Khmer word for Cambodia (Least there be any confusion, Khmer is the word for the Cambodian people, culture, and language. It has nothing to do with the Khmer Rouge). 1 because this is the first group to serve in Cambodia.

#1. I'm proud to think of myself as a trailblazer. In the hot afternoons I daydream about 2 years from now. I'm in America casually revealing my accomplishment to a new acquaintance. "Oh, yeah, after college I was in Cambodia with the Peace Corps." Instant Credibility.

Cold water splashes against my face. I'm in my host family's outhouse bathing myself with well water from a bucket. Back in the house I sit down to a bowl of fried crickets and fish head soup. Sometimes I feel more like a test dummy than a trailblazer. I look up and my mom is flashing me her beautiful 'tell-me-my-food-is-good' grin. I chuckle and say "this is so delicious." She giggles and watches me eat. I've grown comfortable with the attention and the silence.

I'm letting myself daydream about my family, friends and the future, but there isn't much time to sit and stare. I have a lot of work to do and none of it is boring.

The views expressed in this blog are my own and do not reflect the attitudes or policies of the Peace Corps.