May 1st was my last official day as a Peace Corps Volunteer. There was no trumpet fanfare, no ribbon-busting photo finish, no moment of enlightenment. I mostly just wandered around the Peace Corps office asking, "Are you sure I'm done? Really?"

This means I should probably take "Volunteer" off as a blog subheading, but I'm going to wait a while; the promised events did transpire, and I do have ongoing thoughts about Cambodia and my service that I want to share.

Not to worry: I'm not spending too much time processing it all. I've been working on my sunburn during my brief tour of Cambodia and Thailand. Malaysia's next!

For the most part, I have gotten along pretty well with the little critters one has to live with on a day-to-day basis in Cambodia: the ants, the house lizards, the chickens, the mice, the mysterious flying insects, the bathroom spiders, the frogs, the bats, the birds. (This obviously excludes you, mosquitoes.) I've learned how to keep ants out of my room (by keeping no food whatsoever), as well as mice (ditto). I've gotten used to finding gecko and mouse droppings in unexpected places, and hearing the strange high-pitched cries of nocturnal animals that fly into my room in the dead of night. I've learned how to shoo chickens away from kitchen surfaces where people food is prepared ("Shhhhhh! Shhhhhhh!" you say to them). And so I believed we had come to an understanding.

Until recently. Recently I have been thinking that 2 particular members of the Cambodian domestic wildlife community have it in for me. The less egregious offender is the gecko. Geckoes are supposed to be friendly little creatures who eat bugs and look all tropical-country-iconic and shit. And for the most part they are. A few weeks ago, though, I brought some recently-washed-and-dried-on-the-line clothes into my room and hung them on a nail directly below my only light where the geckoes like to feast on little bugs. The next day I discovered that one anonymous gecko had had what we can call a severe gastrointestinal event all over one of my

shirts. Not just any shirt, but a teaching shirt.

(If I was a doctor and that gecko was in my care, I would have prescribed it a hefty dose of cipro. The poor little guy was obviously suffering.)

Normally this event would have been pretty annoying, because I hate laundry and all my efforts on this particular shirt would have to be repeated. But at that juncture it didn't bother me too much, because I was almost done with teaching, and who needs another teaching shirt over the vacation? Not me! At any rate, I tried (after an appropriate period of procrastination) to remedy the problem; but the shirt was irreversibly stained, and so it has gone into the rag pile.

The more egregious offender of the two is the tukai. Americans probably aren't familiar with these lizards, but they are all too well-known in Cambodia...or at least, their voices are. It's rare to actually see a tukai, because they're shy creatures despite living in close proximity to humans (as in, they live behind the poles supporting wooden houses--what the heck are those called?). As far as I can tell, they are about a foot long and nocturnal. The reason they're called tukais is that they make the strangest animal calls I have ever heard. It starts with a loud intake of (lizard) breath, which sounds like a fork being held against the edge of a fan blade: a quick, almost mechanical staccato. Then the lizard expels this breath in a series of 4 to 10 ear-splitting double clicks. It sounds like they're calling out "tukai," hence the name. My host mother has told me that a house where tukais cry a lot is a good house (I guess it's the same theory behind a house with a lot of plants?).(This may be a tukai. Then again it may be some other kind of lizard.)As long as I can remember, a tukai has lived basically 3 feet above the head of my bed. At one point, it actually fell from its usual perch and caught itself on my mosquito net. We had a stare-down, and then it wriggled its way back home. I don't know if it's always been the same tukai, but I'm beginning to suspect that a new, more aggressive resident has pushed the old fella out. Why? Because ever since the end of cool season, my little cold-blooded friend has been doing his outsized tukai cry several times every night. I used to sleep through the night despite the traffic noises, dogs barking, early-morning (4 am) music from the pagoda, etc. So it's possible the old tukai cried and I never heard it. But the new one is a different story. I'm now awakened at least once a night by a piercing "Tukai! Tukai! Tukai! Tukai!" that sounds as if it's coming from about 3 inches behind my eyeballs. I assume it is looking for mate, and if this is the case, it had better find one soon. Otherwise, I can't promise I'm not going to stick a broom handle behind that wooden post, get the tukai to latch onto it with its powerful jaws, and secretly set it free in an unsuspecting neighbor's house.

In the last 4 months, Cambodia has seen the births of 3 new years: international new year, lunar (Chinese) new year, and now Cambodian new year. Luckily, the best one was saved for last.

The Cambodian new year began at 1:36 am on April 14. The day before, Cambodian families prepared tables with fruit, incense and candle offerings. They put out plates of mangoes, bananas, lychees, and longans, added a bag of sand with decorative paper figures planted with sticks, and put up lights and other shiny decorations. The very devout (and the curious) got up in the middle of the night to light incense and watch the live TV broadcast of the gods accepting the people's offerings (though ours, despite this acceptance, were still on the table 3 days later).

(It looks even more festive if your hand slips while you're shooting.)

Khmer new year is a time of revelry and relaxation, characterized by small trips to mountains and lakes, the throwing of water balloons at motorists, and the generous powdering of people's faces (did I mention beer? I'll get to that). Luckily, the Cambodian zodiac closely mirrors the Chinese one, so we have just entered the year of the ox and everybody is now one year older than they were in early April. I think this means I'm supposed to tell people I'm 29 now even though I'm just shy of my 28th birthday.My host family's house was a pretty central beer-drinking locale, collecting various neighbors, cousins, and even some local officials (since my host uncle is an official himself). The boys filled up an entire go-yu-an (open-bed "truck") with empty Black Panther cans. Sadly enough, I was not a big help in this endeavor; Black Panther upsets my tummy. Our town used enough electricity every day so that the supply station was out before 9 o'clock every night. This made it mercifully hard to have karaoke parties in the late night and early morning, which made for the best sleep I've had all year. Thank you, Khmer new year, for your generous gift of slumber. I hope it will be a happy and prosperous year for Cambodia.

In the name of all that is holy, I demand that you stop broadcasting CRI on the exact same short-wave frequencies that BBC and Radio Australia broadcast on. It would be only humane.

Thank you.

February 2009 is about to roll into March 2009. It's hard to believe that I've been in Cambodia for over 2 years now. My Peace Corps service is about to come to a close, and I will no longer be a Volunteer as of May 1st.

My general plans, after that, are to travel for 6 weeks in Southeast Asia (sometimes with company and sometimes without) and then to go back to the US in June. After that I'll travel around the US to visit friends and family. Then in August I'll settle down to conquer some biology and chemistry pre-requisites in preparation for an academic career in biological anthropology (even though I still can't identify those organs in my morning bowl of noodles).

Going back to the US, we've been promised, is a big change, and not always easy. We're different from when we left, our country's different, our friends are different, our family's different. (When we left, the economic crisis was not even a glimmer in Lehman Brothers' eye; ol what's-his-name was still our president; nobody was watching Battlestar Galactica; and I thought stripes and florals didn't match.) Being Americans abroad is easy: we can just chalk up personal quirks to our upbringing in American culture. But being an American back home is a little more difficult: do we even remember how to do that?

So if you have any American culture/re-entry advice or observations, please don't hesitate to advise me or observe to me. I still check my e-mail weekly. And if you've been meaning to send snail mail in this direction, it's probably best to post it before St. Patrick's Day, or April Fool's Day at the latest. (April in Cambodia is a month of holidays, so the postal workers here may or may not be sorting the mail then.)

I'm going to continue posting on the blog, as several interesting events (knock on wood) should transpire between now and when I leave. But I think it will go by quickly and the strangeness and beauty of America will be mine to experience again before long.

Somehow, more than two months have passed since the Angkor Wat Bike Race. How did that happen? I looked up and all of a sudden we were on the far side of Valentine's Day, not to mention President's Day, New Year's, and Christmas. But I didn't forget that I promised a post about the race, so here's what I can tell you:

Looking back on the race, I consider it an unmitigated success because(1) I got to spend a whole weekend in Siem Reap eating Western food and being decadent, aside from the pre-5 a.m. wake-up time for the race and the whole biking and sweating part(2) Several contributors gave generously to the race (thank you all!)(3) I rode the race in record time (1:13) for me compared to how long it normally takes to ride 28 km down the national highway to Battambang (1:20)(4) As souvenirs of the race, I got a pretty green biking jersey which I wear all the time at site because it wicks and a delicious breakfast at Alliance Cafe(5) As an added bonus, on this trip I got to visit Siem Reap's crocodile farm and throw fishes at the crocodiles in a not-entirely-successful attempt to get them to show their vicious natures (Would that we had had a camera!)

What more could I have wanted?

Here's a picture of me about to cross the finish line. Yes, I did the race in flip-flops. Tennis shoes are too heavy to put in my backpack for a weekend.

And here's a picture of Team Peace Corps after the sun came up and the race was over. We were down 2 members due to dengue and a forgotten helmet, but we made up for it by eating a lot of food at the post-race brunch.

Two friends of mine, Ming and Andy, keep a blog about their experiences working and living here in Cambodia. They collaborate closely with several high schools throughout the country on technology issues, and they have a thorough understanding of just how the "system" works.

One of my favorite entries details the school calendar for the 2007-2008 school year. (Each year is slightly different, as at least half of the Khmer holidays are based on the lunar calendar rather than the solar one. But the gist remains the same.) Officially, of course, for a list of school holidays one should consult the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport. But for a realistic picture of what happens in a real-live school, the unofficial calendar is more accurate.

So why am I not in a classroom on a Monday morning? Because we are welcoming in the Chinese year of the ox today. Happy Chinese New Year!

Towards the end of the rainy season, I decided to take a tour of my host family's garden to see what all was growing in it. There are actually a lot more kinds of plants growing out behind our house than I had originally thought, although I'm not sure if we eat all the fruits and vegetables we grow or not.

We have a growing number of papaya trees. The fruits start out green, like they are here, just where the branches begin to stem from the tree, and slowly turn yellow and then orange as they ripen. Sometimes, because the trees are slender, they become so overladen with fruit that they simply fall over. Luckily this tree is still upright and producing more papayas.

We also have an eggplant, um, plant. Cambodians eat small eggplants, usually just raw with prahoc (fish paste---delicious!).

There are a couple of thin young sugarcane stalks too. My host mom used to sell sugarcane juice in her store in front of the house, but then she broke her wrist. Because selling sugarcane juice is physically a lot of work (you have to shave the stalk; then start the press by pulling a cord, like starting a lawnmower; then put the stalks through the press), she stopped doing that while her wrist heals. In any case, we could never grow enough sugarcane out back to supply the store, so I don't know why we have these plants. Back at the end of rainy season when there was very heavy rainfall, a couple of the stalks (on the right side of the picture) fell over because the ground was too saturated to support them.

We also have a banana tree or two. Bananas are so beautiful!

And we have some pretty flowers that seem to grow on a plant that has no fruit.

Finally, we have a couple of mystery trees. I have no idea what those strange round fruits are. I wonder if they are delicious.

My tour of the garden yielded so many interesting discoveries. My only regret is that we have no mango tree. Guess it'll be fresh papayas for dessert this season instead of mangoes.

Jumping around a bit chronologically, I want to talk about one of the projects I had way back in July: an art workshop.

Cambodian students seem to get pretty bored during the summer, with neither school nor organized sports to keep them busy and very little farming to be done. I wanted to give some local students something fun and productive to do and also encourage them to think creatively. So I put out an announcement that I would teach a month-long art workshop, and every day for an hour in July 10 to 25 students showed up at the otherwise deserted high school, eager to learn and do. I taught the basics of various art forms, taking about a week for each different subject. We started with visual arts: origami, cartooning, and collage using old magazines. The second week we talked about music and singing, including the Western musical staff and notation (was this concept extremely foreign to the students? Yes. Was it useful? Probably not. But that doesn't stop math teachers from teaching the formula for the volume of a cone so why should it keep me from teaching musical notation?). In the third week, we went on to poetry and rhyme, and the students tried their hand at writing a couple of short poems. The last week was all about Khmer dancing, including dances called the Madison and Cambodian cha-cha-cha. I'm no expert in Khmer dancing, but the school's PE teacher had taught me some basic moves that were easy to pass on to the students. We borrowed the PE teacher's car-battery-powered stereo and cassette tapes with Khmer music so we could all dance in sync. (If only we had had a tape with the Electric Slide!) Unsurprisingly, dance was probably the most popular unit.

The workshop was great fun overall, and I was struck by the talent a lot of the students displayed, especially during the collage portion. So I took pictures of a few of their collages. (My apologies for being an amateur and not cropping the photos. Technology is hard!) This first one is called The Green World and Beautiful of Life by a girl who gave herself the English name Lizzie. I thought she used an interesting combination of paper scraps and meaningful pictures to make a striking landscape. And she used the whole page!

This next one is called Advertise of Watch (no, I didn't connect students' grammar in titling their art. What kind of pedant do you think I am?). This one could be seen as a commentary on the large number of prominent watch ads in Newsweeks, our primary source magazine for these collages. Or maybe this girl really liked telling time. Either way, for some reason I was really impressed with it.

This last one is by a boy who gave himself the English name Peter. He created several distinctive collages using bright colors and basic shapes: this one of a fruit basket, a flower and a fairy, and a grinning pig's face (it's cuter than it sounds).

Hooray for art!

Another PCV found an interesting article recently about higher education in Cambodia, something that naturally interests a group of people who teach high schoolers. The article is a pretty stark indictment of the whole situation. Its key points are that educational quality is low in Cambodian universities, and most (as in 9 out of 10) university graduates don't get jobs. That's a striking number. Imagine graduating from a U.S. university with a 1-in-10 chance of getting a job. Here are some important bits:

A growing number of eager young Cambodians are finding themselves duped into a higher education system that suffers from weak management and teaching because it is geared more toward profit than learning.

As a result only one in ten recent graduates are finding work, a worrying figure in a country trying to rebuild after decades of civil war.

A few Cambodian students have asked me, their local American and one of the few teachers at their high school with a 4-year degree, for university advice. It's easy to tell an American high-schooler that going to university or even a community college usually makes financial sense, because of the increased earning power at the end of four(ish) years. But in Cambodia I honestly don't know if that's true. Here, the students who pass the national grade-12 exam and pass a subject exam can train to become public-school teachers at free public institutions for 2 years, at the end of which time they will earn a monthly salary of around $50 with modest yearly raises. That salary isn't quite enough to feed 1 person, much less a family; but it's almost a guaranteed job, since there just aren't enough teachers to go around. (For example, my high school has over 2,000 students and around 40 teachers, which averages out to 50+ students per classroom, a number that any teacher will tell you is ridiculous.) And a job as a public-school teacher is a good entree into the field of teaching private classes, which can bring in somewhere between $150 and $250 a month. That kind of money will definitely feed a family of 4.

The math gets a little more complicated for university. Yearly university fees range from $200 to $600 (cheap!), on top of which students often forget to factor in living expenses and books. Salaries upon leaving university, though, are often $100-250 per month. That's if you can get a job, which apparently 90% of graduates do not do. Goodness only knows where they go, but sometimes it's back to their parents' house to help farm rice or sell bicycles or noodles or cell phones.

I can't, in good conscience, tell students to "do what they love, and the money will follow" because that's just not how it works in Cambodia. What things does money follow here? It follows farming huge plots of land, working in the tourism industry centered around the Angkor Wat temple complex in Siem Reap, retailing goods from a stall in the market, etc.

Here's my favorite part of the article:

Qualified university professors complain that many students rarely do their work and cheating is rampant.

Um, the professors are complaining about cheating and students not doing their homework? Has it ever occurred to them to fail a student? I think low or failing grades might be discouraged by university officials, as they could cause students to enroll at different institutions which will give them a similar degree for less effort.

As we speak, my host sister is studying toward a four-year degree in accounting at a Cambodian university, and her little brother is studying rural development at another one. I haven't had the courage to show them this article. I'm hoping that they will be among the lucky 10% to secure employment when the time comes. And I'm hoping that someday, the Cambodian universities will be able to offer something better to young people hungry for education.

Now that the Angkor bike race is less than a week away (there's still time to donate!), I can reveal a secret: my bike helmet was stolen recently. Riding a bike without a helmet is a big Peace Corps no-no, so if anybody had known I was riding around without it, something bad could have ensued. Here's the story.

When I first arrived in my town, I locked up helmet and bike in the schoolyard every day during the hours when I taught. Then, people started asking me why I locked them up. "Gom aui kay luich," I replied, which roughly means "So no one will steal it." Well, people laughed at that. No one's going to steal your ridiculous foreign bike, they implied, nor your ridiculous helmet. Seeing as how barangs (and specifically Peace Corps volunteers and Mormons) are pretty much the only people in Cambodia who wear bike helmets, it would be silly for someone to steal such a distinctive helmet. I took this to heart, and pretty quickly stopped locking my bike up in the schoolyard.

Fast forward 18 months. One afternoon early in November, I proctored an admission exam for my computer class. As usual, I left my bike and helmet unlocked in the schoolyard, and didn't lay eyes on them for about 4 hours. When I came out of the exam, I found that my helmet, which had been hanging from the bike by its strap, was gone. I approached the only teacher left at the school, you might call him the disciplinarian/caretaker, and reported the loss. "I bet the little kids took it," I told him. There's a gaggle of small children who play around the high school, since it's such a stimulating environment (people! cows! a pond!). They like to ring the bell on my bike, and I figured they might've gotten curious about the helmet and taken it off to play somewhere else.

The caretaker reported to me the next day that he had asked all the kids about it, and they had said they hadn't seen it. "That's what they would say," I thought, but didn't say anything. I started asking other teachers about it. The strange thing is that their first response, when I said it was gone, was "Is your organization going to buy you a new one?" They have had so much experience with wealthy NGOs with money to spend that they assumed any loss would be quickly remedied by my "wealthy" NGO. I explained to them that no, since I had not locked the helmet, Peace Corps most certainly would not replace it, and further that I was pretty SOL, since you can't buy bike helmets anywhere in this country (as far as I know) and I would henceforth be breaking a big Peace Corps rule.

Once they realized I really did need the helmet back, it came out that some teachers had seen a student wearing the helmet around the schoolyard. At one point, a teacher saw him wearing it as he rode away on a moto. What a ridiculous picture that must have made. At any rate, no one thought to stop the student and ask why he had the helmet, though everyone knew that it belonged to me. And no one knew the student's name. The school's vice principal made an announcement to the whole school that whoever had taken the helmet should return it. This, sadly, produced no results.

By pure chance, shortly after that I went to visit a favorite student of mine who lives about 7 km down the road. I wanted to make sure he hadn't dropped out of school, since I hadn't seen him at all this year. Luckily, it turned out he'd been in school the whole time. I told him my story about the helmet, and he said he knew the student who took it. "But Teacher," he informed me gravely, "he is a gangster." Helpfully, he added, "It's OK, because he is also my friend."

I enlisted this student's help in getting the helmet back. Only a couple weeks later (I was on vacation for part of this), my student brought his friend the gangster to my house, where he handed me back the helmet. I silently rejoiced. I could once again conform to Peace Corps rules and simultaneously keep my head from being squashed like a watermelon by trucks carrying sand/pigs/tractors down the highway at reckless speeds.

Dear Friends and Readers,

Well, it's that time of year: the Angkor International Half-Marathon (and Bike Race!) is upon us. December 6, to be exact. I've signed up for the 30-kilometer bike race (something like 18 miles), and pretty soon I'm going to stash my mountain bike under a 45-passenger bus to get it over the harrowing road to Siem Reap so that I can test my athletic prowess against people from many nations.

The purpose of the race is to fundraise for Village Focus, an NGO that works with vulnerable communities in Cambodia. Village Focus has kindly waived registration fees for Peace Corps Volunteers. The least I can do in return is appeal to you for a donation, in any amount. You can make the donation online. Just go to http://www.villagefocus.org/angkor_marathon/sponsor.htm, look down the registrant list (I'm under "Elizabeth," not "Liz"), and click on my name. This will take you to a site where you can make a credit card donation. This would really help me look like less of a deadbeat on the registrant list.

I know this is awesomely timed, considering the current economic situation and the upcoming holiday demands on everyone's budget. My appeal is that you do it for the children! Don't you see, the children are our future...

Also, I will throw in a bonus blog post (with pictures!) if even 1 person donates. Isn't that special? Surely.

I love rainy season in Cambodia, really I do. But lately I've been finding myself wondering idly when it will end. I ask Cambodians, and they say "Soon." But that word, here, means, "sometime between now and then" so I've stopped asking about it. When I get this equivocal answer, I start wondering if I'm going to regret wishing for dry season once it arrives. I guess a good, scientific way to find out what I really want is to make a list of likes and dislikes about rainy season, and see what comes out on top.

Like: I can fall asleep at night to the gentle sound of rain on the roof.

Dislike: I am often woken in the middle of the night by a storm that is trying to come in through my window to shake my hand.

Like: all the plants are a beautiful, lush green.

Dislike: every surface in my town with an elevation lower than 100 m is now a pond, including my school and parts of my front yard.

Like: the rain washes away the accumulated afternoon heat.

Dislike: the rain re-washes clothes that I have left out on the line to dry.

Like: rambutans, papayas, oranges, dragonfruit, and pomelos are ripe during rainy season.

Dislike: Durians, longans, jackfruit, mangoes, manogsteens, and milkfruit are not ripe during rainy season.

Like: rice needs lots of rain to grow.

Dislike: rice needs lots of rain to grow.

Like: getting stuck in a random place by a heavy rainstorm, making conversation with an interesting new person.

Dislike: that little fountain of mud that bike tires kick up when driving over particularly muddy ground.

Eh, it comes out about even. I don't really have much say in the matter anyway, so I guess I'll wish for the world to keep on turning and be satisfied with what outcome that produces.

Do any of you Wellesley grads out there feel a secret modicum of chagrin when reading the Wellesley alumnae magazine?

My parents sent me 2 of these mags in a recent care package. They're full of stories of impressive accomplishments, successful careers, graduate degrees, awards, promotions. As I read through them, the magazines seemed to be eyeballing me back, asking me what I'm doing with my life.

Well, magazine, here's what I'm doing: lying under my mosquito net, quietly sweating, trying to decide what I should open first, the M&Ms or the Nerds Rope my mom sent in that same care package.

Just doing my best to make my alma mater proud.

There is something great about taking a shower while it's raining.

My family's kitchen and bathroom are both in a small building behind the main house. This building has a corrugated-metal roof. When it drizzles, the raindrops tap soothingly against the metal. And when it rains hard, the roof makes a clattering racket.

Part of the reason for the metal roof is, it is a useful component in a rainwater catchment system. Rain pours off the corrugated metal into gutters, which lead to several different cisterns around the property. One PVC pipe leads from the roof gutter, through a small hole in the side of the building, back to the cistern in the bathroom that is used for bathing. So when it rains hard, a constant trickle of water enters the cistern. When it rains softly, the trickle becomes a slow drip.

And "scooper showers" create a unique sound too: the splashing slap of the water hitting the bathroom tiles.

These sounds, the rain on the roof, the dripping in the cistern, the splashing on the tiles, weave a soothing melody. It quietly taps out all thoughts and worries. There is nothing like showering in the rain.

At a recent training for the new Cambodia PCVs, a monk described Buddhist theology.

Nirvana is like a boiled coconut, he said. If you take a regular coconut and stick it in the ground, it grows into a tree. If you leave a regular coconut sitting around, it rots. But if you boil a coconut, it neither grows into a coconut tree nor rots away. It simply stays the same forever. That is like nirvana.

Is that a selling point?

This is the last picture ever taken of JoJo, I think sometime in November of 2007.

She died just before the Cambodian election, in July. I had left the house to buy some water and then got sucked into watching part of an election debate at a friend's restaurant. When I got home, I saw the neighborhood kids gathered on one of the bedframes that sits in front of a neighbor's house. They were looking at JoJo, who was lying on her side on the ground. They told me that she had been hit by a moto. She didn't look so bad; there was a little blood on her muzzle. But she was seizing slowly, as if trying to get air. Every few seconds she would draw her chin toward her chest, tensing all her muscles, and then relax again.

After this had gone on for a few minutes, she stopped moving.

I ran off to cry, vaguely wondering what is done with animal corpses here. Do they get buried? When I stopped crying, I went out by the garden in our backyard, which, I felt, would be a fine place to bury JoJo. It looked like my host grandpa (really my host mom's aunt's husband, who lives in the house behind ours) was making some preparations, getting ready to light some wood. Was it to be cremation then?

Alas, no. I think I was being willfully stupid while the preparations were going on, but when one of the neighborhood boys started filling an enormous pot with water, I finally had to ask. "What're you doing?" "Preparing JoJo. To eat," he said matter-of-factly.

And that was the fate of my beloved dog. All that evening, the scent of something I didn't want to think about wafted through the house. When dinnertime came, my family was tactful enough not to offer any of it to me: only the people at grandpa's house and some of my host brother's friends ended up eating it.

More recently, I mentioned to my family during Pchum Ben (the Cambodian ancestor holiday) that I missed JoJo. They decided that, since I didn't have any local ancestors to honor during the festival, I could throw my balls of rice to JoJo's spirit the next time we went to the pagoda. The thought of feeding her spirit was some consolation, but I still miss her. All I can say about that is, she was a good dog.

This week I'm going to make my third trip to the Preah Vihear dipterocarp forest, to finish up the English classes Miyuki and I began last month (Miyuki braved the forest and the classes alone while I was out of commission). The teaching has been a really good experience, and although many of the hours surrounding the teaching were boring, I think I learned a lot and met some interesting people, both Khmer and foreign.

On the way to Preah Vihear the first time, we visited an ancient temple called Koh Ker (pronounced more like Kaw Kai) which I heard somewhere used to be a "rival capital" to Angkor Wat itself. It's in the middle of a large forested area, and the road conditions make the temple difficult to get to. It's a fairly run-down temple, and you have to wonder how many more centuries it can withstand before it becomes just another pile of rocks. Around the edges of the complex, a series of smaller pathways lead to shrines in various states of disrepair.

Some of the ancient Khmer writing on the shrine/temple walls is still fairly clear, despite the temple's degraded condition.

The pathways and small buildings follow each other back to the big temple of Koh Ker itself. Until recently, you could climb this temple, but it's probably not safe to do it anymore. In any event, the stairs are blocked off.

I can't imagine the temple in the dry season: without the greenery it probably seems very lonely.

So I have finally, finally, really seen one of the great Angkorian temples. Entrance cost $10, half of the Angkor Wat park entrance fee. I was certainly reluctant to release that crisp 10-dollar bill, but in the end I guess I don't miss it (too much).

I appear to be the proud owner of a brand-new dermal staphylococcus colony, which is mercifully retreating in the face of some hard-core antibiotics. How great is Science? So great!

Well, my most recent trip to the forest lasted just under 48 hours. I was so over Siem Reap (was preparing to kill the next driver who shouted "Lady, tuk-TUK!" at me) and ready to get back into the teaching groove, which had really been the highlight of the forest (students who cared! and paid attention! and looked forward to learning! it was crazy). Miyuki and I had bought a badminton set, and I bought a corny cross-stitch with two small people in a boat (I think--does it get clearer when you stitch it?), and we had replenished our book supply. We were going to kick boredom's ass.

And then I got this weird rash on my leg (pictures coming soon). And it's not like it was a big deal, except that when you're about 5 hours away from the nearest hospital (not to be snobby but a local government hospital doesn't count), medical issues get more important more quickly. If you know what I'm saying.

Truly, it looks like a small octopus had a fight with my inner thighs, and it's not clear who won. So I asked a doctor in Siem Reap about this thigh rash. He was Thai, so our communication wasn't great. At one point, I thought he said something about "Maybe it comes from sex?" And I very emphatically told him "No, definitely not from sex." The other PCV with me, Ms. Michael, burst out laughing. "Insects! Insects!" she said. Oh. Sheepishly, "Yeah, maybe it comes from insects." And then we all couldn't stop laughing. Because that's ridiculous! Or something.

Despite all this feel-good haha stuff, I still don't know what the heck is wrong. I'll post an update once I find out more. If you're not busy, please send some non-hypochondriac vibes my way. I think I'll need them.

I am told that most of Southeast Asia used to be covered by a deciduous dipterocarp forest. This kind of forest is hard to imagine if you've never seen it. It's a very open forest, covered at the ground level by small shrubs and grasses (and water, in rainy season). If this were an airline, the trees in this forest would be flying first class because they've got all the room they can handle. It's an unusual (read: Weird!) kind of environment, one that takes a lot of getting used to. It can be beautiful, although capturing the beauty on film usually requires standing in one place long enough for something to bite you. This forest is home to some truly evil biting ants.

Anyhoo, my coteacher Miyuki and I spent a couple of weeks near a village in the forest, teaching English. Hard-core birdwatchers go up to this site to catch a glimpse of the giant ibis and white-shouldered ibis, two endangered bird species. We managed to tag along on a couple of these birding trips but honestly can't tell a parakeet from an ibis, especially as everything we saw was pretty far away. Miyuki later did her "sleeping ibis" impression for me.

Our job was to teach the local committee some basic English to help them interact with the bird-watchers. We had 4 hours of class every day, 2 hours for the committee

and 2 hours for teenagers from the village who are on school break and have more free time than they know what to do with. Everyone's favorite unit was when we had them play Bingo to practice numbers, although the unit that provoked the most hilarity was practicing "th" sounds for "this" and "that." Having students watch each other struggle (and sometimes fail) to get their tongue out between their teeth is not good for classroom decorum but excellent for morale.

Aside from teaching, Miyuki and I didn't have a lot else going on. We read through a whole box of books, played long games of Skip-Bo, and fantasized about food of all kinds. I also spent a good deal of time asking Miyuki stupid questions about Japanese culture, the answers to which I have now forgotten.

But that's OK, we'll have a chance to go through them all again, as we're going back to the village to teach for another couple of weeks. Woot?

So I sit down this morning to check my email at the Sam Veasna Center. (I returned from the forest last week but am planning to go back again soon. Hot damn, is it good to have phone service!) And who sits down at the next computer but an IT guy to update the Center's computers. I field a call from a very persistent student wanting a letter of recommendation (after having ignored his 2 phone calls before 7:00 am this morning), and the IT guy overhears me mention my permanent site by name and when I'll eventually go back there. The IT guy then tells me he's from a village, Boeng Pring, about 10 km from my site. And he says his brother studies at my high school. And in the end, it turns out that his brother not only studies at my high school but is one of the better students from my English essay writing workshop, one I named Nicholas. Crazy!

I'm still trying to figure out if it's a small world or if Cambodia is just a small country.

P.S. Pictures of the forest are coming soon.

My apologies for not writing more often recently! I've had a rare eventful patch and Blogger has also been kind of a brat. Time for some back story:

Cambodia's national election was held July 27 this year and to my surprise was briefly reported on in the Western media, ranging from a BBC "Yay happy democracy, gift of the UN" piece to a thoughtful and probing Australia Network one. In no relation whatsoever to this (nope, no relation) a prominent politician visited my school in June. Conveniently, this happened the week before exams were due to start, thereby abrogating any review time teachers may have thought they had. Students were tasked with beautifying the schoolyard and their classrooms by taping up posters, sweeping the rooms, and clearing out the lilypads choking the school pond.

Meanwhile, I was busy spewing nervous energy in all directions, as my normal outlet of teaching was not available. Instead, I deeply annoyed anyone that crossed my path during this week: "Why are they cutting down that tree? Can't we just have a one-hour review session? What are you going to wear?"

In addition to all the beautification done in advance, on the morning of the visit, someone actually pulled out (and dusted off) a red carpet.

Tents were erected to shade all attendees, although the angle of the sun caused those in the first row to break a sweat just by blinking.

I was one of these unfortunates, but at least I wasn't wearing a silk skirt like all the other female teachers.

My luck changed, though, since just as a speech was beginning, my cell phone rang. Hooray! I snuck off behind the school building and away from the powerful loudspeakers. Turns out it was the Sam Veasna Center, an NGO that does eco-tourism projects involving Cambodian bird life. Peace Corps had hooked some of us Volunteers up with summer projects this year to explore relationships with different NGOs and to prevent a summer cloud of ennui from descending upon us. SVC was calling me to set up a project.

So the long and short of it is, I'm going to a small remote village tomorrow to teach English in connection with this eco-tourism project. I'll be mostly out of cell phone contact until late August. This village is in what is known as a "deciduous dipterocarp forest," which judging by pictures I've seen looks like some fields with scattered trees. I hear that when you actually get there, the forest is stunning and lush so of course I'll be posting pictures when I drag myself back to civilization on an oxcart. Til then, I'm wishing you a happy Olympic season! (Let me know how it goes...no TV in the village.)

I have made my decision. I would like the situation at the Cambodia-Thai border, with all the troops and the weaponry, to go *poof* and suddenly become a happy lucky special birthday party with lots of cake and ice cream. I'm sure this is entirely within your powers.

Please do your utmost to remedy this situation as quickly as the cake can be ordered.

Love,

Liz

You know that when the streetlights on one of the main east-west boulevards in Phnom Penh (Sihanouk) are out, you are going to have a more-harrowing-than-usual bike ride to the post office.

Cambodia's Preah Vihear temple has just been inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I keep hearing rumors about worrisome events surrounding the inscription, but it's hard to get accurate news in my town. Apparently, Thailand and Cambodia have been disputing the temple, which is on the border of the two countries, for years. Of course, Cambodians, including the former king, claim the temple belongs to Cambodia. Many Thais say the temple belongs to Thailand. The Thai foreign minister who signed off on Cambodia's application for inscription has resigned due to this disagreement. Rumor is, the border between Thailand and Cambodia in the area near the temple was closed off for a while. I'm not sure if it's open now or even if it was ever closed.

Cambodians don't tend to express strong opinions around me, but if I ask them to explain the Preah Vihear situation, they immediately make nationalistic noises. They tell me that Preah Vihear temple definitely belongs to Cambodia and the Thais have no right to it. I've also seen fervent text messages that declare the temple for Cambodia. (Due to the poor quality of the roads that access the temple, however, I don't know many Cambodians who have actually visited it.) I think I'll get a chance to see it with my own eyes sometime this summer, and I can't decide if I should hope for the situation to have settled down by then or to still be seething...

Wow. Thank you for your prompt response to my earlier request. 4,100 Khmer riels is a highly satisfactory exchange rate.

Love,

Liz

The Angkor Wat International Half Marathon and Bike Race is only 6 months away. Time to start training!

For those of you who like the idea of exercise but dislike its manifestation, there are also 10 and 5k races and, even better, a 50k bike rally! (The last is my chosen event.)

If the name alone doesn't convince you, check out the maps! You get to do athletic crap at Angkor Wat! How cool is that?

Of course, sane people would say, "I could go to Angkor Wat and *not* overexert myself at 13 latitude." To you people I have no coherent response.

OK, I'll admit that before, I didn't fully understand the theological underpinnings of Visak Bochea. But recently I was talking to a monk at a nearby pagoda, and he filled me in. First, it's pronounced Visaka Bochea, even though my calendar leaves out the final "a." Apparently, this day is the commemoration of 3 events that all happened on the same day of the lunar calendar, the full moon day of the 6th lunar month: Buddha's birthday, the day of his enlightenment, and the day of his death. Now I'm no scholar, but trying to put it into my own frame of reference, I thought that would make it like rolling up Christmas and Easter into one. A big deal, right? It turns out that the actual celebrations resemble those of a typical holy day at the pagoda: laypeople bring food and incense, and prayers and chants are offered. I guess Buddha, in the spirit of humility, wouldn't have wanted us to go to too much trouble.

I know your ride on the currency coaster has been thrilling and now you want to kind of sit there laughing dazedly for a while, but I was hoping you could, y'know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, just a bit, just to maybe 4,000 Khmer riels. Because 3,993 is a really awkward multiplier.

I'm sure you'll take this into prompt consideration.

Love,

Liz

The Cambodian public schools use a book called English for Cambodia that supposedly integrates culturally relevant content with English grammar points (non-explicit) in a series of 6 books. Theoretically, 11th graders learn out of Book 5.

Chapter 6 of Book 5 is entitled The Importance of Education. The second section is called Life Skills. The grammar points to be focused on in this chapter are "either...or" and "neither...nor." Just to give you a little taste of the, um, really interesting content of the books, I reproduce for you the first third of the selected text.

"Education has various purposes. One purpose is to prepare students to meet the demands of society. Society, however, needs well educated girls as well as boys. Both girls and boys must, therefore, be given the same opportunity to go to school and find a job when looking for employment. They can hardly succeed in this, however, if the content of the materials they are provided with focuses neither on the real needs of society in general nor relates to both boys and girls in particular. Rather, educational materials need to focus on life skills - skills that are needed for work and everyday life in society and at home. Without them, students will neither be able to learn anything useful for themselves, nor want to take their education seriously."

The irony is painful.

I've been playing around on the internet a lot today, and I decided to calculate my carbon footprint. This should be easy, right? Just type "carbon footprint calculator" into Google and have my pick of corporate, NGO, and government-sponsored calculators. Here's the problem. Most of these calculators assume that you live in a developed country, usually the U.S. or Europe. I did find one that had "China" as the only Asian option, so I selected it. But then the questions started: "How do you insulate your house from the cold?" Um, how do I break this to the calculator? It's not what you might call "cold" here. The house I live in is made up of one layer of boards, placed next to each other, with no insulation. Any insulation would just fry us all in our beds come hot season.

The calculator also wanted to know what my primary vehicle is: a motorbike, diesel small car, diesel truck, or regular-fuel car or truck. I looked hard but couldn't find "mountain bike" in the list of options.

Clearly, I am not emitting enough carbon to use these fancy calculators. In fact, my internet search for carbon calculators today has probably resulted in the emission of more carbon than any day full of normal activities back at my site. Still, I'd like to know for sure.

April lies at the epicenter of Cambodian holidays, with many public employees (or at least schoolteachers) taking the entire month off. May is not far behind, with some esoteric holidays of its own. Starting off on the right foot, May 1 is International Labor Day. Just when you're about to despair, having worked for nearly 2 weeks straight, the king's birthday affords you 3 days of relief: May 13, 14, and 15. Coming right on its heels is Visak Bochea, or the day Buddha was born (and walked on 7 lotus flowers). Finally, the Royal Ploughing Ceremony rounds off the month with 2 days of festivities involving oxen. Who could ask for anything more?