My service is over and I am officially an RPCV. Well, not quite because to be an RPCV you must be a 'Returned Peace Corps Volunteer' and I don't plan on returning to the States for another month. Instead I'm zipping around Cambodia - as a sort of goodbye tour -with some of my very best friends from home. They arrive on Friday and I couldn't be more excited.

This last week was hard. Although not as hard as I imagined it to be. I had goodbye soup with my co-teachers one night, followed by goodbye soup with my students the next, and then goodbye soup the last night with my counterpart Soksara from the health center. The hardest goodbye was to her because she has helped me so much this past year with projects like Camp GLOW and CCPCR, as well as being a good friend and always being there when I needed help. It's people like her that make being a Peace Corps Volunteer a hundred times easier, and tolerable when dealing with so much adversity and intolerance that can come when being the only foreigner in a town of thousands.

My goodbyes are far from over though. Staggering throughout these next two weeks, as I travel around the country, I will eventually say goodbye to most of all my fellow K3s. It's nice to know that the majority of us will go back to the same country and I'm optimistic that I will see people again. I think that is the only way I can make these goodbyes tolerable.

I don't have much else to write. Saying goodbye is exhausting. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow.

To the United States of America,

This is your warning.

I am no longer the model citizen I once was.

Cambodia has changed me... maybe for the better and maybe for the worse. I want to warn you about a few things, however, that may surprise/disgust/frighten you. I've put them in an easy to peruse format for your reading pleasure. Here we go....

1) I spit food on the ground

2) I make strange noises like "ooooey" when I am surprised

3) I think an outfit can consist of a printed scarf with a striped shirt, sweatpant shorts, and chacos.

4) Do you need a tissue to blow your nose? Because I don't!

5) A palm leaf is a perfectly good substitute for floss

6) Anything can be a food. Why do we need to be so picky? I vote for termites to be adopted into the typical American's diet.

7) I bow to older people

8) I haggle over a 50 cent difference in price.

9) Soup or fried pork with rice are perfectly legitimate options for breakfast

10) Need to toast before every drink... literally

To be continued...

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

In one week it's over. My experiment/career as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cambodia is over.

It's been great, it's been horrible, it's went by quickly, and it also took forever. Right now I'm just trying to take one day at a time before I really take stock of the fact that there are people I will never see again, places that will never be the same.

Last Tuesday I finished my externship with CCPCR. It was great to meet those girls and young women and spend so much time with them. I'm a bit disappointed with how much time was forfeited to dengue. I lost two out of the four weeks I was given to work there and it cost me pretty much all that I had planned to do. The only thing I accomplished was a short workshop on health that I set up with a nurse from the health center in Romeas Hek.

Now I'm in Phnom Penh, trying to wrap up all my paperwork that I have - Description of Service, Site Report, Externship form, and about five other forms and papers - before I head back to site to say goodbye to everyone. I'm not really looking forward to it. I hate goodbyes. And everyone who has finished here , or are finishing up, said it has been the hardest thing they've done. EVER.

I hope I survive it...

The 12th of this month marked a month left of my Peace Corps journey!! What did I do to celebrate? I was curled up in the fetal position in a budget guesthouse in Phnom Penh and watching ridiculous movies like "She's Out of My League" and "2012".

On Monday I came down with a fever, chills, mind numbing headache, and sore eyes. At first I thought it wasn't that big of a deal because the fever was less than 102. Also I've been spending alot of time with young kids who are walking petri dishes of diseases and thought it was just a little something picked up from them. By Wednesday, though, I had developed a body rash and my appetite was nil so I made the call to our Peace Corps Medical Officer. Immediately I was whisked away to Phnom Penh to undergo the blood tests to determine if what I had was just a typical virus or it was the Big D - dengue.

What is dengue? It is a virus transmitted by infected mosquitoes and symptoms include "a fever, severe headache, severe pain behind the eyes, joint pain, muscle and bone pain, rash, and mild bleeding (e.g., nose or gums bleed, easy bruising)" (CDC). it is known asd "bone-break fever" because of the intesnse muscle and bone pain associated with the disease.

Luckily, my symptoms were not that bad (with the exception of an incredible headache). Every day for six days, I had to go into the Peace Corps Office to get blood drawn and have it tested to see what my white blood cell and blood platelet counts were. My white blood cells were low nearly everyday while the platelets were in the normal range. If the platelets get low then there is a chance of developing hemorrhagic dengue.

Over a week of having symptoms and hiding out in a hotel room in Phnom Penh, I finally got a clean bill of health today! I am looking forward to getting back to Svay Rieng and getting work done. I'll just need to be a bit more careful about mosquitoes once I get back. Now that I've had dengue once I am more susceptible to getting hemorrhagic dengue (the same as ordinary dengue except you bleed from orifices like your eyeballs etc.... think '28 Days Later').

Upon returning from up north for an engagement party, etc, I came home to my host sisters telling me a story about the sub-school director’s daughter. When I first came to site I had the opportunity to meet her before she left for Phnom Penh to study at a university there. I hadn’t seen her in over a year and so it was interesting that my sisters would want to talk about someone who, for the most part, was no longer around. What I remember of her was that she was a very pretty, smart, and confident young woman of 18. The story went like this: she went to a ‘beautician’ who said she could make her skin white. This young woman, like most women in Cambodia, let the ‘beautician’ put harsh chemicals all over her body. Apparently she felt the burning almost immediately. She is now in the hospital because her skin is literally falling off of her.

I recently read a NYT story about the increase of cosmetic surgery in China. And recently, Time magazine also wrote about the wave of popularity plastic surgery is seeing throughout Asia and highlights how the government of Thailand is even taking it upon themselves to “hawk” these medical procedures as tours. Not that this isn’t popular in America, just that in the US and Europe we have the benefit of certain controls that make these procedures a bit more safe than they would be otherwise.

“Elsewhere in Asia, this explosion of personal re-engineering is harder to document, because for every skilled and legitimate surgeon there seethes a swarm of shady pretenders”. - TIME Magazine: Changing Faces

It frightens me when I hear stories like that of my sub-school director’s daughter, or others, who choose to get a procedure done here because they feel “they need it” or in a foreigner’s case, because it is less expensive than at home.

In my ignorance, I really thought plastic surgery was something that people only with disposable incomes would even consider. One of my good friends at site, Nary, returned last month from Vietnam with a facemask on. I at first thought it was strange as she doesn’t usually wear one and so I asked her if she was sick. “No,” she replied,” I got dimples.”

Although Nary and her family are business owners they are not rich. So when she proceeded to tell me that she spent $1000 ($500 a dimple… a fortune here), I got a little angry. I got even angrier when she said that I should go get some for myself. For this I replied that I “liked my face already” to which her mother replied “Ooooh she thinks she is already beautiful.”

AAAH!

So I’ve now taken some time away from Nary and her family. It is not that I do not enjoy spending time with them it’s just that when I see what she has done to herself, and think about how much she spent, I get upset. As for the sub-school director’s daughter, she is still healing at the hospital. Her family says she may be able to leave in a week or so.

TIME Magazine: Changing Faces www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020805/story4.

Chinese Turn to Plastic Surgery in Growing Numbers

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/world/asia/24beijing.html

…is how the next few months will play out it seems. And my feelings about the whole thing

Currently I am writing from my site. I have been here for about a week since returning from Sumatra and now I’m planning on leaving again. Going – literally – across the country to attend a Peace Corps volunteer’s wedding to a Cambodian man. I really can’t wait:) It will be a bit difficult in the end considering that when I return next week and I will then need to help my GLOW girls host a workshop on leadership on the 5th and then -nearly immediately after-hold my 50th Anniversary “Clean-Up-The-Library” project on the 7th. Whew.

I will then attend our Close of Service conference from the 17th until the 20th. After that I will only need to teach until I start my externship at CCPCR (The Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children’s Rights) on May 30th. I will live and work there, in the provincial town for about a month. In July I will come back to site and say my goodbyes and then it will be off to Phnom Penh to meet my friends and finish all my paperwork. My Close of Service (COS) date is July 12th.

When I think about how much (or how little) time I have left I start to get very anxious and so I’m trying to take it all in stride…. And not really think about it. When I do I’m happy because I’ll be going home! But then I’m sad because I will be leaving Cambodia. But then I’m happy because I’ll have a washing machine and Starbucks. But then I’m sad because I don’t know if I’ll be able to find a job and the winter in PNW is very depressing in itself without being unemployed.

Anyways…....About Sumatraa!!!!!!

It is beautiful. And completely devoid of all those gap year kids and backpackers that crowd the nice places on mainland SE Asia.

When I initially bought my plane tickets to this (very large) Indonesian island I had no idea what to expect. What I knew about Indonesia could be summarized in less than ten words - them being - Muslim, tsunami, Bali, Barack Obama, rain forests, coffee, and Palm oil. Air Asia being awesome (although a huge pain in buying the tickets themselves) I was able to score round-trip tickets from Phnom Penh to Medan, Indonesia, for $130. And any plane ticket less than $75 each way is as good incentive as any for a vacation (also there were seven of us going on this trip so - no matter what - it would be a good time).

It was a whirl-wind trip. I still can't believe I was there for two weeks - it felt more like three days. So as to not bore you with the details, here are a few of the places we went and things we did/saw:

Medan: NOT A TOURIST town and could very well be the worst place I've ever traveled to... ever. It has the only airport in Northern Sumatra, so there was no escaping it's banality. It somewhat redeems itself in my eyes by having a Starbucks... but that is pretty much it.

Bukit Lawang: AWESOME. We stayed at the Ecolodge Hotel the first and last night and on the second went into the jungle. We trekked for the entire day - only stopping occasionally to eat and drink some water. Sometimes the trekking got a bit frightening as some parts of the hike were so steep I would say we were doing more rope climbing (although in this case the ropes were tree roots) than hiking. We hiked until we got to the campsite, a small place on the river, and refreshed ourselves by going swimming. That night it really POURED on us and, of course, my sleeping spot under the makeshift tarp tent had a hole in it. Eventually I was able to get some sleep and the next day we all did some more trekking along a ridge near our campsite. In the afternoon we packed up our (mostly wet) things and rafted back to town.

Berestagi: The next day we were off to see Berastagi and hike up a volcano! On our way there our helpful, and somewhat clingy, trek guide from Bukit Luwang came with us and so we wnded up stopping at a Crocodile Farm when we passed through Medan. It was a very sad place. The crocodiles had no room to move and were literally living stackeed upon each other. There was a pond in the back of the place where some of the crocodiles were allowed to swim. One of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers paid to feed a crocodile a live duck. Still am on the fence about how I feel about the whole thing. A crocodile has to eat... right??

Finally we got to our hotel, the International, and called it a night. The next day we were up and out early to hike up the volcano and hit up the hot springs. It was a really nice hike and mush less tiring than the trekking. The place smelled like sulfur, but we were all able to get a few good pictures out of the whole deal.

Lake Toba: The bonus about traveling in a group of 7 (or one of them) is that you get to take private transportation everywhere. So, after we gloriously triumphed in Berastagi, we piled in our third rented van and headed to Lake Toba, the largest crater lake in the world. We were actually going to stay on an island, Samosir Island, on the lake ( an island on an island...).

This was our most relaxing leg of our trip and nearly me favorite. We biked around the island a lot, swam, and played tons of Scrabble. We also discovered a place called Tabo that has beautiful bungalows, a bakery, and I really good buffet breakfast. We didn't stay there (we stayed at Carolina) but we did partake of their delicious baked goods and home roasted (and grown!) coffee.

On the 14th I was back in Cambodia and dreaming of Sumatra. If another chance comes up, I will definitely go back :)

If you want to read more about our Sumatra trip my friends were a bit more thorough... AND posted pictures... on their blogs.

Jen and Nathan's blog http://cambodiandays.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/sumatra-jungles-volcanoes-and-cannibals/

Cooper's tenthingsithink.com

Jacq's at jacqincambodia.blogspot.com

Kristin's at kristinincambodia.blogspot.com

and Jeremy's at http://dispatchesfromdeltas.com/.

Pictures of the world map that my students created in our library:)

I have four months left at site. It seems like enough time to do some serious work but when you take out the month of April (traveling to Indonesia and we have the entire month off from school)- and considering there are 5 days of national holidays the next month (King’s birthday (5/13, 5/14, 5/15), Buddha’s birthday (5/17), and the National Plowing ceremony (5/21))- May is pretty much shot too. This leaves me with two months to do everything I had hoped to do before my service ends. These things include finishing up the school’s library, spending time working for an NGO in Svay Rieng town, and putting together a camp GLOW with the other volunteers in my province.

Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is well under way!!! We are hosting it the last weekend of March (Mar 25th – 27th) in the provincial town. It is being made possible through a Small Projects Assistance grant from USAID. My counterpart, Soksara (a nurse from the local health center), and I will be doing two sessions and one activity. Our sessions will be on female body awareness and HIV/Aids. For our activity we will be showing the movie “Palace of Dreams”, a movie produced by the BBC, and made in Cambodia, that confronts HIV through a culturally-appropriate soap opera-like script. I thought it was pretty good and when I showed it to my host sisters they seemed to really like it as well:)

For Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary, 50 Peace Corps Cambodia volunteers were given $50 to do something in their community to commemorate it. In Romeas Hek, we will be having a “Clean Up the Library Party” at the high school. I don’t really know what will go into the party yet – only that there will be food, music, and lots of book organizing. The party is set for May 7th.

In June, I am looking forward to having an “externship” with CCPCR (Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children's Rights). My role there is not so definitive. I’ll be teaching English sometimes, and doing some basic health classes, but mostly just getting to know the girls and spending time helping wherever I can. The caveat is that I will need to move to the provincial town in order to work there and I’ll need to find a place to stay for nearly a month.

Most of my time these last few weeks has been spent working in the library and getting things together for Camp GLOW. The map of the world is pretty much done and, with a few applications of paint, the map of Cambodia will be as well. I have been so busy, actually, that I didn’t even notice that another barang (foreigner) moved into town and opened up a restaurant. My students were the first to tell me and then, as I was biking past it one day, I noticed it had a full bar with liquors unheard of in our rural part of the province (Malibu?! Bombay Gin!?). I figured I needed to check this place out (and the fact that my students had also told me that they have pizza there was an additional incentive). So today, when I met my Camp GLOW counterpart and my co-teacher for a meeting at their restaurant, I saw right on their menu, in ENGLISH, was about ten different types of pizza. I was blown away. Our provincial town doesn’t even have western food– yet Romeas Hek does?? And not only do they have pizza but they have chicken strips and fries, spaghetti, pancakes, and real sandwiches!

What happened to my rural site? The dirt track is now a paved national highway; there is now a factory here that employs hundreds of people; a guesthouse with a pool; and now this, a restaurant that beats any in the provincial town! The site I came two nearly two years ago has morphed into something completely different and I am worried that when or if I visit in the future that it will be a completely different place.

On Thursday, February 24th, I celebrated my 26th birthday. And because my Cambodian host-family put it together, and organized it, it was my most interesting and unique birthday of all.

I woke up that morning and came downstairs to my family and house-mates hustling and bustling around my house. My host sisters and mother were washing the 60 or so dishes for the party, my host aunt was chopping vegetables and spices for the curry, and Chin, one of our student boarders, was slaughtering his third duck. Now, if I had had the choice, I would not have had a birthday party at all. It was my host father who had come up to me about two months before and asked if he could make a party for me. To me, it seemed like a nice gesture, and so I said yes. I did not take into account that my host father has political ambitions nor that I know way too many people to feasibly ask them all to a party. But, somewhere along the way we ended up inviting over 60 people – and SURPRISE – about that many came.

At first it was a bit nerve racking. We had all told our party guests to arrive at 5 pm. But there I was at 5:30pm, in my party dress, staring at 50 + empty seats. Cambodians are notorious for coming late to things and so I didn’t really start worrying until 6pm when no one else had arrived. But, lo and behold, at 6:15pm, two students from my club arrived. I quickly sat them down and thanked them for coming. They, in turn, gave me birthday presents.

Birthday presents. Now, this was not something I had even really considered. And when they handed them to me I had no idea what to do with them; should I open them right then? What is the protocol for this? Where is a Cambodian Miss Manners when you need her?? Luckily, my host mother is very adept to my waves of panic and quickly guided me and the two presents to a card table with a beautiful red tapestry on it. This was going to be my present table for the night, it seemed.

After that, people kept coming. People I knew, people I didn’t know, people whom I had met before but couldn’t remember their names, and lots and lots of little neighborhood kids. And each one of them gave me presents. The card table quickly became filled and also became THE PLACE to get your picture taken with Kellee. I’ll post those pictures, here on my blog, so you can appreciate the present pile and mastery of my Cambodian family and friends to look so sad at such a joyous celebration. My favorite picture is the one of my host siblings and me. I have this giant smile on my face and they all look like they are about to cry. They REALLY were happy at the party, I swear.

There was lots of eating (four whole ducks went into that curry!) and lots of drinking. Sometime around 8:30 I lit the candles to my birthday cake and brought them out to the party. This was probably the most awkward part of the night. See, Cambodians don’t really celebrate birthdays and even when they do they rarely if ever have cakes with candles on them. I brought out the cake and then my host family and friends proceeded to stand in a semi-circle around me and light sparklers. We didn’t sing. And when it came to blowing out the candles my host parents decided to help me. Everyone then continued to stand in a semi-circle, in silence, smiling and waving sparklers until they went out. Then it was time to pass out the cake.

Now, when my host father approached me two months earlier he said he would take care of all the food, drinks, electricity, tables, chairs, etc. as long as I would take care of the cake. I thought, “No problem!” There, of course, was a problem. The problem was two fold. One, because I make $5 a day and cakes are expensive and two, there are no places that sell delicious (edible) cakes in my district. Luckily for me, I have some other foreigner friends in the provincial town who were able to steer me to a French restaurant in Phnom Penh that not only made delicious cakes but cakes that could travel and withstand the Cambodian heat for a week without refrigeration. And so I bought my birthday cakes, four of them, for $5 each. They were delicious, yet small, and when I cut them up for the 60+ people at the party each person had about a Costco-sample-sized piece of my cake. Somehow I was able to cut the things into 60 pieces. Even then, though, some people were not able to get a piece. I blame some of my male students, who by this time had partaken of the free beer and were a bit drunk.

After the cake was dance party time!! My host siblings rotated being the deejay and we had a good mix of traditional Cambodian music and even some newer stuff for the younger crowd. Sometime a little after 10, the crowd started dissipating and I was quickly pushed into the living room to open presents.

When I got into the room all my siblings were sitting around the presents and/or holding one. They were obviously very excited about all the colorful boxes and so I let them “help me” open them. This quickly got out of hand. Paper was flying everywhere – people were mentioned of whom I did not recognize – and soon I was holding a large plastic sailboat lamp/clock, a ceramic doll with pink hair, a stuffed animal of some sort and wearing a khroma on my head all the while having absolutely NO IDEA who or where those things came from*. My favorite presents were the most practical ones (and these I received usually two or more of) such as towels, soap, and toothbrushes. My favorite gift was a tube of Crest toothpaste which is not sold, as far as I can tell, anywhere in Cambodia.

I finally found myself in bed around 11, exhausted and still reeling from all the excitement of the last few hours. With a mixture of pleasure and sadness my Cambodian birthday was over and now, in a little over 4 months, my Cambodian adventure will be over too.

*Note to whomever is living or will live in Cambodia and may be in this situation – have someone more sober/awake than you take note of who has given you what present. This will come in handy when you run into someone at the market and they mention the present to you and you can quickly respond with a thank you instead a curious expression and a somewhat-rude-question of “what are you talking about?”

The world map is done!! Well, ALMOST done.

The holdup is trying to find a person to write the names of the countries in Khmer. Although I could write them in English I feel it will not help any of the students or staff members at Romeak Hek High School become more geographically literate. And they really do not know anything about geography.

I spend a lot of time in my school’s library – especially lately - as I’ve been finishing up on the map. When teachers or students come in I nearly always ask them to point to Cambodia on the map. I’ve had people point to a country in Africa, South America, and one person even pointed to China. Results are equally frightening when I ask them where the United States is. Rarely, if ever, does anyone point to the correct country. And when shown which country on the map IS Cambodia they always look very dejected, and often exclaim at how small it is.

This is why I gave permission yesterday for my English Club students draw a four foot map of Cambodia right next to the world map. I admit I was a little selfish of the world map. I had a few of my club’s students help me paint some of the larger countries, but the majority of the work was done by me. The map turned out fairly good (although I still can’t muster the energy to draw all the island countries in the South Pacific) but I am racked with guilt for not letting the students do the map themselves. So now they have their own map project and couldn’t be more excited. And I am happy because I know that Europe’s countries are, for the most part, in the right place.

February is nearly over which means my birthday is just around the corner. Surprisingly my host family asked me about two months ago if they could throw me a birthday party. I thought, sure, why not? So, this Thursday, I’ll have my first and only Cambodian birthday party. I’ve already been promised some duck meat, num ban chalk (Cambodian noodles), rice wine, and music. A few weeks ago my host dad sat down with me at the table and started talking about the party. He told me about all those things that he would get for the party but that he would need me to take care of my cake.

A cake. Easy. Right?

Only not in rural Cambodia.

In Romeas Hek we actually do have a family that supplies weddings, and other celebrations of the well-to-do families of our district, with cakes. I’ve had one of these cakes. And to put it lightly, they taste like chemical throw up. I will admit they ARE pretty but I’m fairly sure there is nothing in them that would make my birthday a sweet one.

Luckily for me there is a French restaurant in Phnom Penh that bakes cakes and packages them so they can not only travel but also SURVIVE without being refrigerated (there’s no frosting on them). So last week, when I had a dentist appointment in Phnom Penh, I picked up four of these cakes. As each cake is supposed to serve 10 people – and we are expecting 40 – I hope it will be enough.

This upcoming weekend I hope to celebrate again with some of my fellow volunteers in the big city as well as watch the Academy Awards. For the first time in my life I have watched every single one of the nominated films for Best Picture. Thank you, Cambodian Black Market, for making this possible.

In Peace Corps you come to terms with many things. And some things you may never come to terms with. For me, the risk of parasites has always been a pervading worry in my mind. Not a trip to the bathroom has gone by without me inspecting my poop in the toilet; a very sad, but true, fact of life.

I eat a large quantity of bean sprouts here – mostly they come in my morning soup although lately my host sister has been making stir fry with them. These sprouts are sometimes over 2 inches long and in their transparent and whitish color, it makes them hard distinguish whether or not they are parasites. Standing over the squat toilet, staring and scrutinizing over your poo can really make you crazy. It was a particular day last week- with some very questionable looking poops- that I became very worried. And no matter how long I stared at them, poked them with a stick, or swirled them around in the bowl, I couldn’t come to a concrete conclusion.

I thought about my options. I could put it in a Ziploc bag and take it with me to Phnom Penh the following week. Gross. I could touch it and compare its consistency with that of a bean sprout. NO WAY. So time wore on. And time in a mosquito filled bathroom feels like eternity. As each minute passed, I was increasingly becoming more anxious about the whole thing. Finally I made the decision to bring my host mother into the bathroom for her opinion. My host mother is a nurse, so I didn’t think it would be too weird to ask her to look at my poop, and as my host mother I’m fairly certain she is used to my eccentricities by now.

Now this is not a normal thing in Cambodian culture – and I have no idea what she thought when I invited her to go to the bathroom with me. When we arrived and I showed her the contents of the bowl, she looked at me with this look of disgust… and curiosity(?)… right before she grabbed the water bucket and flushed my excrement evidence down the toilet. I was a bit shaken up after all this – I mean – wasn’t she taking this seriously? I could be hosting a parasite party in my body RIGHT NOW! After we left the bathroom and went out to the table under the house (where the rest of my host family was sitting) she asked me what I had eaten in Phnom Penh. I said Chinese food. And then she looked into my eyes and asked me if I had eaten any American food.

I must admit, after my Phnom Penh trips I usually come back to site with some major stomach problems. It always worries my host family but then I usually just blame it on the fact that my stomach “no longer recognizes American food”. They laugh and then look relieved that they had not, in some way, inflicted dysentery on me.

This time I got a bit upset that she didn’t believe me. That and because she thought I had somehow ingested a three inch long parasite without my knowledge. I mean, it takes awhile for those things to get that long, right?

Since then, I have kept up with the poop patrol. I haven’t found any other evidence of parasites at play – which makes me happy – and a bit concerned that maybe I’m not looking closely enough. I’ve read enough frightening things on the internet (they can get into your brain! And lungs!) that I will keep up my duty with diligence. Now that I’ve been here over a year and had enough false calls (what do you mean my teeth are perfect? I swear I have a cavity right here!!) that only time will tell.

After rereading my blog post “Initial Reactions”, I have a few things to say…

First and foremost, it feels like I wrote that post only yesterday... not over a year ago. Secondly, most of those things I wrote about - namely my anxiety to move into a host family and my understanding of the culture – were in the most part correct. Those few months of training were the hardest I’ve had to go through – and I would never want to go through that again. Ever.

Having been thrown the question of “so what exactly ARE you doing over there?” more than once, I suppose now is the time to carefully write out what I have been doing all the way out here in SE Asia besides the obvious - surviving. Specifically, it is time to finally write down what I will do and DO IT. With only five months left I hope putting this "To-Do" list on such a public forum will give me some more incentive to see things through. So ...I expect all of you to hold me accountable for the things mentioned below.

I have laid it out in an easy to read format (bullets) so that you may peruse at your discretion.

- English/Leadership Club: Although I have been absent recently due to GRE testing and preparation as well as two New Year celebrations (Western and Chinese), I am throwing myself into it this next week – starting with essay writing. The students in the club requested that I teach it to them – starting with paragraphs- and so I plan on doing that for as many weeks as it takes. The leadership aspect of the club has been a harder subject to breach. My hope is to secretly teach them ethics, speaking, and things like that through the guise of essay writing.

- Library: Finishing the world map (finally) and getting the library into some kind of organized system. I’ve also been made aware of some grant money I can apply for that would help in getting some much needed, albeit expensive, items like a white board and reference books.

- Girls Leading Our World (GLOW) Health camp? Still a big question mark as we wait to see if we qualify for grant money… cross your fingers :)

- Studying for the GREs. I recently took them in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and could be much happier with the score I received. I hope to take them again sometime in the spring before they change the test again (for the umpteenth time). (Side note, when I told my co-teachers of my disappointment they asked if I offered some corruption to the test givers. When I said no, they just shook their heads and laughed. I still don’t know if they were telling a joke or being sincere. I assume the latter).

- Teaching. I have been doing a lot less of this recently though as my co-teachers seem to be on perpetual hiatus. For example, Chinese New year was celebrated this week and when I showed up to teach I was surprised to find most of the teachers and students gone. Some other teachers told me it was because of the New Years celebrations. Everyone seems to be Chinese on Chinese New Year. Here’s hoping to better attendance these last few months.

- Cleaning my room and washing my clothes. It takes enough time, and is such a pain, that it warrants at least an entire day of my week. Sad but true.

- Planning for the future? With the post-Cambodia future within sight, I find myself spending more of my hours at site thinking about those months following the end of my service. If any of you know of someone who would like to hire me from September/October 2011 until the summer 2012 – I am all ears. I have lots of skills such as… mosquito swatting, washing clothes by hand, and cussing in Cambodian. Resume available by request.

Also, one of my good friends - who is also a fellow volunteer but with Volunteer Service Abroad aka VSA (New Zealand's verson of the Peace Corps) has been volunteering at the Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children's Rights (CCPCR) for over a year now. CCPCR is an amazing and much needed shelter for women and children who have been, or are in danger of being, trafficked. Not only does it provide shelter to these women and girls but helps fund their education and professional training. Unfortunately their funding will dry up this month and so she and some people back in New Zealand and the United States (Thanks Mom!) are trying to raise a bit of money to see them through a few more months. To get more information about the center you can go to http://www.ccpcr.org.kh/program/?program=9&pro_id=16 and to donate please visit www.givealittle.co.nz/org/ccpcr. If you wish to donate please note that the currency is in New Zealand dollars and not USD.

The name of this blog entry was inspired by my little friend Roal who loves to munch on dry Ramen noodles and always leaves a little golden noodle trail behind him as he wanders. And he usually wanders to wherever I am (usually sitting downstairs reading or studying upstairs in my room) and where he thinks it’s the funniest thing to just smack me on the head while I’m distracted. And for a two year old he packs a pretty powerful punch.

I survived New Years and arrived back at site only to be thrown into more partying and feasting. My site celebrated Victory Over The Genocide Day two days before the official holiday of January 7th (as that was the day my district was officially “liberated” from the Khmer Rouge). My host family was hosting not only one party BUT two that day; one in the afternoon for visiting people of influence (i.e. traveling business owners, managers, government officials) and another in the evening for the young Vietnamese and Cambodian football (soccer) players who had participated in the tournament that day. The party in the evening would simultaneously be a birthday party for my host sister who had turned 13 a few days earlier.

Arriving around 1pm on the day of the festivities, I came in at just at about the “right time” – when everyone was either quite buzzed or very drunk off beer and rice wine. Getting out of the taxi van and seeing the dozen or so tables set up and filled with drunken Cambodian men I tried to make a quick beeline to my bedroom. Unfortunately I was not quick enough and was summoned almost immediately to the table where my host parents and the District Governor were entertaining some very important-looking guests. Luckily they weren’t half as drunk as I had assumed them to be and were very friendly to boot. One of them even spoke nearly fluent English and, as manager to half of all the rubber tree plantations in Eastern and Southern Cambodia, he is probably a good person to know. We even made our friendship “real”.

In Cambodia, to really solidify a friendship, you must hold the other person’s hand over a cup and then pour some kind of alcohol over your embraced hands. The alcohol then trickles into the aforementioned cup and after pouring a decent amount of alcohol, you take the collected liquid and share it equally between yourself and your new friend. Down the hatch with your collected dirt, germs, and sweat and out comes a real friendship!

My new friends invited me to go to Kampong Cham with them that day and EVEN offered me a car to take me back that night (“It’s only two hours away,” they exclaimed) but I opted to stay in Romeas Hek and watch the soccer games between my commune, the neighboring communes, and Vietnam as well as join the party that night with my host family. I was glad I did so, too. That night my host sister, her friends, and I danced up a storm. They all wanted to learn to dance “American style” and so I tried to teach them the most PG way to shake their hips without breaking any cultural norms. Essentially I gave them the elementary school version of high school dancing in America.

The night wasn’t completely innocent, however, as I was persuaded to drink some rice wine and some “medicine wine” from Mondulkiri (one of the most Northeastern provinces in Cambodia) with the adults. The Mondulkiri wine wasn’t half bad and went well with my Cambodian cold-noodle curry dish (called Num ban chalk). I went to bed around 8:30 pm although the party was still “raging”. I’ve now come to terms with how loud the music can be at these get-togethers and can even feign sleep although my room, bed, and I are vibrating with the pulse of the music coming from the three large speakers below my bedroom.

Around 3:30 am I woke up with a start. At first I thought it was a dream, then I thought it was my new anklet that had brushed up against my other leg, because it just couldn’t be what my brain wanted me to think…. that a rat had just walked over my legs. In my half-asleep state I just rolled over and assumed I was imagining things. That naiveté lasted only a second. As soon as that thought crossed my mind I heard it trying to escape my mosquito net. I sat up in a panic. The sudden movement must have panicked the rat as well because it jumped back on my legs to the other side of the bed. Scrambling over the pile of books, laptop, and other things that clutter my bed, I ripped the mosquito net open and I jumped to the floor.

At about this point I was shaking and nearly hyperventilating. I proceeded to just stand there, outside mosquito-netted bed, trying to calm down and listen for noises that indicated it was still trapped. Many things raced through my mind at this time. Mostly I just kept asking myself how that thing could have gotten into my bed… I mean, these nets are supposed to make our beds safe zones, HAVENS, from giant-flesh-eating-Cambodian Rats. I am not joking about the giant part and the flesh eating part was something I just heard about (after putting up a facebook status about my experience, a Cambodian friend reasoned that I was “lucky” because while he was sleeping a rat had started chewing on his ear – no joke.) If you want to see how big these things can get just google “Cambodian Rats”.

After waiting about 20 minutes, I deemed it safe to get back on my bed. My site doesn’t have electricity between midnight and 5am and so I had to really rely on my other senses – namely hearing- because the flashlight I have is dinky (to say the least). I didn’t sleep the rest of the night and left my flashlight on the entire time. If it was going to attack again – I’d at least be able to see it!

Initially I wasn’t going to write about this experience because it has been so distressing to my psyche (and I really wanted to forget it happened) – but now I find it all very cathartic – as well as helpful. After posting about the incident on facebook I got all kinds of helpful suggestions that varied from setting conventional traps, to sticky paper baited with fish heads, getting a pet snake, and arming myself with a fork under the pillow.

Now, after thoroughly cleaning my room and mulling the whole thing over for a day, I have come to terms with the fact that rats may just crawl on me again. However, if they have the cojones to do it again, I plan on being prepared. I don’t know if I am quite ready to get a snake, but am willing to set some traps and arm myself with a fork under the pillow. I may just even want to work on my ninja reflexes so I can just pick it up by the tail and throw it out the window in one quick move.

Or maybe, just maybe, I should sweep up the trail of ramen noodles that lead to the landing in front of my room.

As I stare at where my toenail once was (a sacrifice I made to the Running Gods for running the half-marathon) and fully take in the fact that 2010 is really over - my mind wanders to the near future when I will no longer be in Cambodia.

It is impossible to avoid going there.

2011 is the year I go home and the year I start the rest of my "adult" life. Although this year will be the year of change, I doubt it will compare to 2010 - the year Kellee lived, breathed, and nearly became Khmer.

The following are a list of memories/accomplishments for the year 2010:

1) Ate dog, spider, snake, and duck fetus for the first time.

2) Celebrated New Years three times (once in January, again in February, and in April)

3) Was bit by a dog (retribution for #1? I think so...)

4) Saw Angkor Wat not once but three times

5) Visited Vietnam

6) Sniffed someone for the first time

7) Learned how to REALLY dance like a Cambodian

8) Swam in the Indian ocean

9) Discovered Justin Beiber (which I initially disliked, was then indifferent to, and now sing along with and have on my ipod)

10) Made amends with the rats that take residence in the ceiling above my bed

11) Became a fan of Prahak (no easy task)

12) Introduced my father and brother to the Cambodian culture (and my Cambodian host family to American culture)

13) Was visited by one of my best friends and her boyfriend (if not my favorite couple)

14) Ran my first half-marathon

15) Drew the ENTIRE world

16) Drank Cambodian moonshine

17) Made some lifelong friendships

18) Read ALOT of books

19) Cried for no reason

20) Laughed for no reason

21) Questioned my sanity (more than once)

22) Learned to speak (some) Khmer

23) Biked more miles than I thought I physically could

24) Fell in love with Cambodia

I know I could never replicate 2010 and am so grateful for everything that happened... even the awful, dog-meat eating, crying-for-no-reason, rat-induced-insomnia parts. I know my toenail will grow back. It usually does. Now it is time to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new. I cannot wait to see what 2011 will bring :)

November 21st to the 28th, 2010; It was one weird week.

Not only was it Thanksgiving week and Water Festival in Phnom Penh but one of my best friends and her boyfriend had come to visit me from America.

I came in on Saturday to pick my friends up from the airport and see a little bit of the Water Festival. Water festival is HUGE in Phnom Penh. It is a holiday which celebrates the change in the current of the Tonle Sap River through boat races, fireworks, and lots of free concerts. These boats are massive and hold around 40 to 50 people. It is awe inspiring to see how coordinated the rowers can be in their strokes – when completely synchronized they look more like a mythological sea monster. One fin lifts, the other one strikes the water, one, two, one, two…

I had some misgivings about going to water festival to begin with. The crowds are awful. Some places you can hardly move as there are so many people in front, to the back, and both sides of you. And as a foreigner, you draw attention to yourself and it makes being pick pocketed or targeted for theft that much more of a possibility. Needless to say, I avoided the crowds and mostly stayed away from water festival (when I could).

It was great to see my friends Veronica and Ross and catch up with them after a year of being away. They looked good – a little white to me after being in a country of tan people- but overall healthy and happy (even with the jet lag – or “lack of it”). The next day we made to see Cambodia and good use of their short visit (they were only here a week).

Then I heard about the tragedy. On Tuesday morning I got a call at 2 am from a friend asking if I knew what the incident was that happened in Phnom Penh. As I was no longer there, I really had no idea and quickly set about searching it on the internet. The first few hits were a bit frightening. They spoke of people getting electrocuted on a bridge in Phnom Penh – of women inciting a stampede by running around frantically - and people becoming nervous and causing panic and a stampede when the suspension bridge started swaying. The first estimate of casualties was around 180 people.

It took a few days to sort out what exactly happened that night on the Koh Pich Bridge. Even now, over a week later and with over (or nearly?) 400 people dead, they still do not know where the fault lies. All I can say is that too many people got onto the bridge and when everyone panicked, people died. My host sister from training was actually on the bridge and, luckily, survived. She did have to stay about a week in the hospital as she was having trouble breathing.Now, two weeks later, she says it bothers her to laugh or talk sometimes.

After a tragic start to my friends' visit to Cambodia, we continued on to discover the beauty that makes it the "Kingdom of Wonder" including the beach, Angkor Wat, and Toul Sleng and the Killing Fields. On Thanksgiving we celebrated by eating an amazing Italian dinner at Luna D'autunno in Sihanoukville after asking a handful of restaurants if there was anything going on (i.e. Turkey dinners with the works) in town but, apparently, there is no love for that American holiday there. It all worked out though as the food and wine we had that night was amazingly delicious.

They flew out on the 27th and I went back to site the following day to a very, very busy week. Not only did I need to give a presentation to the Provincial Health Department about Peace Corps (in Khmer) but I had visitors coming to my site and I had to prepare myself for my first half marathon that I was running that Sunday. There was a lot of biking, nail biting, and sleepless nights but I survived the week triumphantly. The two things I was most nervous about (the presentation and the half marathon) went better than I expected. Following the presentation, the doctors and NGO staff said that I, and the other two volunteers who gave the presentation, spoke Khmer very clearly. We were giving the presentation in order to give the NGOs and others involved in health in Svay Rieng an idea of what the Peace Corps does and what we would like to do in regards to health. We were also doing it to help our cause in getting a Girls Health and Leadership Camp underway (something we wish to hold in the provincial town sometime in March next year).

My first half marathon at Angkor Wat was a big question mark when I bussed up to Siem Reap on Friday the 3rd. I had not been able to train the last few weeks before and had no idea if I would even be able to run the entire 13 miles as I had never attempted it before. Luckily, as with all things I build up in my head, it was not as bad as I made it seem. At times during the 2 hours and 8 minutes I was out on the course, I did psych myself out enough to stop and walk.... something I wish I hadn't done now so I would know what my real running time was for those 13 miles. The biggest regret I have was drinking nearly an entire water bottle around the 9K mark... which gave me a wicked side ache at the 10k mark... which led me to walk for over a minute... which then made my muscles cold and heavy and unable to move at the pace I set in the beginning and led me to walk more later in the course. Now I have my sights set on running another one before rainy season starts again:)

After all this running around, biking to and from from the provincial town and site, I still cannot relax. Tomorrow I plan on biking (sore muscles and all)to the provincial town in order to get a data projector from the provincial university so I may be able to (FINALLY) draw a world map on a wall in the school's library. Unfortunately, the University needs it back Friday night for a 7:30 am class on Saturday ... which leaves me with a little over a day to draw the entire world map on the wall of the library. I am hoping, wishing, praying, that everything goes as planned and that when I bike into town with the projector on Friday afternoon it will be with the knowledge I, and my students, have brought the world to Romeas Hek High School.

Wish us luck :)

So I guess I had to come to Cambodia in order to make my first batch of salsa. And learn about the caustic-ness of chili oil and what that can do to the skin. And meet a “witchdoctor”.

This past weekend all of the Peace Corps Svay Rieng volunteers met in the provincial town to do our own Thanksgiving dinner. Not being your typical place to celebrate an American holiday – the food was far from typical. It was "Mexican" – tortillas, fried beef in taco seasoning, beans (galore! .. even with some rocks in them!), CHEESE!, and salsa. I was in charge of the salsa making along with some other volunteers. We had all the necessary ingredients; tomatoes, onions, garlic, limes, salt, black pepper, and chili peppers. As I never really encountered these chilies growing up (I’m German/Irish – we eat potatoes and sausage and sometimes pasta) and having lived in a sorority with a cook nearly the entirety of my college career – I never considered those silly little spicy red plants dangerous. But, oh, they really really are. My painful experience can only be described as “the hotness” now.

Did you know they contrive the main ingredient of pepper spray from chili peppers (hence the name – pepper spray)? The horrible burning sensation on the skin and what causes all of your mucus membranes to go into overdrive is from something called “capsaicin” and it is some pretty nasty stuff. I had known a little bit about it – I mean everyone has heard of that friend, family member, or acquaintance who was dared to do this or that with some Tabasco sauce (aka my brother) – and so I knew to at least avoid my eyes. Hindsight is 20/20 and having not known the dangers to my skin I went ahead and handled the peppers liberally (I was told to make sure there were not too many seeds in the salsa -as that would make it too spicy- and proceeded to handle every single one of the peppers - carefully squeezing those little seeds from the red casings they came in).

It took about 20 minutes before I was seriously considering chopping my hands off. I tried everything … putting my hands on ice, in a bucket of water, rubbing them with soap, vegetable oil, salt, and lime juice. I would’ve tried milk if there was any - but that isn’t something Cambodian people have laying around the house. The only thing that worked was putting my hands in a bucket of uncooked rice (what they call angkah here) for about 30 minutes. And BAM – most of the burning went away. It wasn’t until evening the following day that underneath my fingernails finally stopped tingling though.

Info on Capsaicin --- (taken from livestrong.org)

A Science Daily article states that capsaicin is "an extremely powerful and stable alkaloid." It's produced in the glands located between the pepper's placenta and pod walls. When capsaicin comes into contact with your skin, it stimulates circulation and invokes a response in your pain receptors. Used in pepper spray and various insect repellents, capsaicin also deters human predators, as well as the pests that threaten your garden.

How to avoid Pepper Burn

Avoid the dreaded "pepper burn" in your kitchen by wearing rubber gloves whenever you handle chili peppers or measure out hot pepper oil. If you're peeling or chopping peppers, remember not to touch your lips or eyes, advises PBS' Scientific American Frontiers. Want to get rid of some of the heat in that hot pepper you're slicing? Carefully remove the pepper's placenta, or "midrib," advises the Chile Pepper Institute.

"First Aid" for Pepper Burn

If your skin accidentally gets exposed to capsaicin, first rub it with alcohol, advises the Chile Pepper Institute, then soak it in milk. According to Science Daily, capsaicin is neutralized by fats. Another option suggested by the Jalepeno Madness website by way of Poison Control is to wash the affected area with soap and water. Apply olive oil or vegetable oil. Rinse after one minute. If you get hot pepper in your eyes, the Chile Pepper Institute indicates that the only way to treat it is to flush your eyes with water.

The moral of the story? Use gloves. Or don’t use chili peppers. Or use chili prepared in one of those nice little shakers.

The dinner was fabulous in the end. Delicious tortillas filled with delicious things. And we were even able to score an hour in a local bread oven -which looked like it may have been from the middle ages – for some awesome brownies and pecan pie ala Kristin and Alan.

Ok enough about chili peppers…

Having just spent the weekend in lovely Svay Rieng town - I was told I must share the story of my experience with a "Kru Khmer" or a traditional Cambodian healer. As I may or may not have mentioned before, my house now holds five additional people (two highschool students, two Vietnamese men, and a male relative of my host mother's) along with my three sisters, brother, "uncle", mother, father, and myself. With all these people we also have/had some extra help around the house. Before what I will call "the accident" we also had an "ohm" (older aunt) who would do most of the cooking for the family during the day and go home at night. It was because of my Ohm that I finally got to meet a Kru Khmer.

As a health volunteer I had heard stories about the traditional Cambodian healers. Most of these stories left me with the image of a man with wild hair- possibly wearing face paint and a feather headdress- a “witchdoctor” of sorts. Needless to say I was a bit disappointed when this very thin, quite old, Khmer man rides up to my house on a decrepit bicycle last month. My ohm - who is in her late 60s - was trying to lift something much too heavy and rolled her ankle. Unfortunately because of her age her ankle no longer had the resilience to deal with it and didn't "roll" so much as break or was sprained … I still don’t know. When I arrived to the house my host sister had wrapped it in a scarf and told my Ohm to keep it still. After arriving back at home from teaching and seeing her in tears on the traditional Khmer table – greh- I started to tell her she needed ice for the swelling and quickly got a bag of it together for her. She took it from me and placed it ever so delicately next to her injury. By this time my sister had come back and told us that she had help coming.

And that was when, on his very sad looking bicycle, the Kru Khmer arrived. He was wearing the usual uniform of any rural Khmer man of simple means – a tshirt with an assortment of different sized holes, pants that are much too short, and a cigarette in hand. In his other hand he had incense and a bag of herbs. These herbs – when sniffed – reminded me of lemongrass and, maybe, spearmint? Anyways… the Kru Khmer quickly set about chanting and lighting incense. He gave my ohm one stick of incense to hold and stuck others in the ground around my house. There was some spitting involved in, around, and on my ohm, and in the end the herbs were placed on the injury and my bag of ice set to the side.

Now, a month and some days later, my ohm’s injured ankle is still injured and very very swollen. When I asked her if she had gone to the hospital she said no - that it will heal "in time". Now I pray that if anything happens to me - and I am somewhat unable to talk (unconscious or otherwise) - the first line of defense that my host family calls is the Peace Corps Medical officer and not the skinny, rough, smoking, spitting old man around the corner with the incense in his hands.

One question I've asked myself today: I wonder what the witchdoctor would've done with the hotness?

Have I really become so accustomed to being uncomfortable that I can sleep on a plastic fork all night and not even notice?

How can I look MORE American?

Was it the 12 or so shots of rice wine I had yesterday or my lingering cold that made my run today an ultimate FAIL?

Why can’t I stop eating noodle soup?

Can you be addicted to MSG?

Does a cell phone that is on make you more susceptible to being struck by lightening?

Does really long mole hair bring good luck?

Why do mosquitoes exist? Is it to torment me? And if mosquitoes lay eggs in the water that I bathe with, could they hatch in my wet hair?

How does Hillary Clinton look so good for being 60+?

What are the long term health effects of breathing the smoke from plastic things burning?

Did I just waste $190 to take the GRE if the world is ending in 2012?

Why do Cambodians love John Cena so much?

How long does it take to use a kilowatt of electricity on your laptop in rural Cambodia?

Went googling to find a Cambodian proverb to write on the wall of the school's library. The following is a list of 23 that I borrowed from the following website: http://www.special-dictionary.com/proverbs/source/c/cambodian_proverb/3.htm

(my favorites are in bold)

1. A husband should not talk of pretty girls in front of his wife.

2. Active hands, full bellies.

3. Cultivate a heart of love that knows no anger.

4. Don't let an angry man wash dishes; don't let a hungry man guard rice.

5. Don't let women who attract attention walk behind you.

6. Don't reject the crooked road and don't take the straight one, instead take the one traveled by the ancestors.

7. Don't shoot people you hate; don't lend to those you love.

8. Don't take rich people as examples.

9. Don't take the straight path or the winding path. Take the path your ancestors have taken."

10. For news of the heart ask the face.

11. If you are doing wrong, make sure you don't get fat from it.

12. If you are patient in a moment of anger, you will spare yourself one hundred days of tears.

13. If you know a lot, know enough to make them respect you, if you are stupid, be stupid enough so they can pity you.

14. Negotiate a river by following its bends, enter a country by following its customs.

15. People give, but don't be in a hurry to take.

16. Stealing may bring profit, but hanging costs far more.

17. The boat sails by, the shore remains.

18. The elephant that is stuck in the mud will tear down the tree with it.

19. The immature rice stalk stands erect, while the mature stalk, heavy with grain, bends over.

20. The tiger depends on the forest; the forest depends on the tiger.

21. With water make rivers, with rice make armies.

22. You can't claim heaven as your own if you are just going to sit under it.

23. You don't have to cut a tree down to get at the fruit.

This is the first thing the man who sells me coffee told me today. I was a bit confused at first but, after a minute or two, I figured out that he meant Ban Ki-Moon, and by here he meant Phnom Penh. Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary-General is in Cambodia this week to meet with people from the Khmer Rouge tribunal and, of course, Hun Sen. There are some reports that he will be meeting with those groups representing the people who will be – or are currently- displaced because of the Boeng Kuk lake development in the center of Phnom Penh. But this has not been confirmed. Information about his visit: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2010102544261/National-news/ban-ki-moon-visit-un-chief-to-see-court-drug-clinic.html

In other news, I am currently busy at site for the first time in months! My days range from hectic to slothful but mostly are somewhere in between. School is in session and so I am teaching nearly every weekday as well as running in the mornings. I am attempting to run my first half marathon in December although- between the monsoons, sickness, and an awful school timetable – I have been very bad at sticking to a training schedule. My goal is just to finish – whether it be by running, walking, or limping over the finish line.

I have also ambitiously decided to start a community service learning club at my school. This is ambitious only because a club has yet to be attempted – ever, it seems- at my school. I am lucky to have a very committed co teacher who is also the “head” of the English department at my school. He seems to think it will be successful and has conveyed this message onto the school director and sub-school directors. Who, when I met with them about the club, just nodded and smiled and said “okay!”. If only all meetings could go so well. Although I have a very strange feeling they may have just been humoring me…

Although I have been studying on and off for the last few months, I’ve only recently really started to commit myself to studying for the GRE and hope that three months of studying will be enough to do well on the test at the end of January. I took the test right after I graduated in 2007 but was not satisfied with the score, nor was ready to go to graduate school then. Now, with the many hours of self reflection that Peace Corps has given me, I am ready to pledge myself to two more years of coursework. Between studying, running, club planning, and teaching, I now have things to do everyday and a limited amount of free time - which is not a bad thing at all :)

Well, I’m hitting my afternoon slump (i.e. naptime) and must get back to facebook stalking and catching up on current events before I fall asleep. Until next time…

Recent developments have enticed me to write about something very near and dear to my heart, voting. I apologize for the soapbox rhetoric – but I need to get it off my chest :)

Before I became a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cambodia I worked for my county elections for about two years – including the summer in between my junior and senior year of college. While there, the majority of my time was spent on voter outreach which included, among other things, registering voters, filing candidates, and sending out ballots to registered voters (via snail mail, email, AND fax). I became familiar with the ebb and flow of elections during my time there. And, in contradiction to what many may think, elections staff members work year round whether there is an election going on or not.

Living abroad as a PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer), has made me appreciate my home state of Washington and for the efforts they’ve made to make it an example State for fair, open, and accessible elections since the election of 2004* (which can be considered one of the most messy, contentious gubernatorial races in US history). This year, being a big election year across the United States, many of my fellow volunteers have expressed to me their desire to vote. Truth be told, PCVs (or at least those now serving in Cambodia) are some of the most informed people on current affairs that I know. It is amazing how up-to-date we can be considering the majority of us live in rural areas without easy access to the internet or the monolith that is the American media. Difficult as it may be to get information on this year’s congressional and gubernatorial races, it seems even harder for some volunteers to vote.

Having sent my ballot in weeks ago – it is hard for me to fathom that other states choose to disenfranchise their overseas voters, however unintentionally. Luckily for me, my ballot was sent to me by email, cutting down the weeks it would have taken me to receive it here in Cambodia and allowing me to send it in four weeks before Election Day. If you are curious as to how email voting works, it is quite simple. A word document with an individually formatted ballot is sent to the voter. The voter than prints out the document and votes, puts the voted ballot in a secrecy envelope inside another envelope that includes a signed voter’s affidavit and then mails it to the individual’s county election department. Washington State is now nearly an entirely vote-by-mail state, with the exception of one (or is it two?) counties, which makes absentee voting from overseas incredible easy as their ballot is already assumed to be coming by mail.

As a UOCAVA (Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act) covered voter, I am guaranteed the right to register to vote and request an absentee ballot simultaneously, and use a "back-up" ballot for federal offices, called the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot. This is wonderful, although it only allows voters covered by the Act who have made timely application for, but have not received, their regular ballot from their state or territory (subject to certain conditions). Recently (as of this election year) UOCAVA has been amended to make voting easier for overseas citizens**. These amendments include the right to a ballot 45 days before an election and the acceptance of ballots that have not been notarized. Does this mean that it is being applied and that voters are aware of their rights?

No, it does not. In fact many of my fellow volunteers had no idea that they could vote by email, or that they could request a ballot that far in advance. Part of the problem is that the voters are ignorant to these subtle changes in election law and, really, who has the time to think about voting over a month in advance of Election Day besides those who are somewhat involved in politics themselves? What is also troublesome is that on many of the county elections websites that I’ve gone to, in order to help my friends, there was no clear language about this at all. And, entirely more troublesome, is the subtle (and sometimes not-so subtle) differences in the ways elections are conducted in every state. For federal election years this may not affect much considering a blanket FVAB (Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot) may be used by any voter, regardless of State but in mid term elections – which influence a voter’s life more directly- they stand to affect a great deal.

In this globalized (yes, I just made it an adjective) and digitalized 21st century – election administrators need to be thinking outside their county borders. We can assume the days of polling stations are coming to an end within my lifetime. People no longer have the time to take off work to go to that church or school around the corner, they need a convenient system of voting that reflects the way they live.

Now, two weeks before Election Day (November 2nd), I am convinced I could have done more to make my friends aware of their voting rights. My only wish is that there is some continuity in the future between our 50 states with voting from abroad so that it may be easier to vote in all elections, not those just for president. The Pew Center on the States, through their Voting Information Project, is working towards making elections information more accessible and the voting process easier to navigate. Information on that and other innovative projects having to do with election reform can be accessed at the following address: http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/initiatives_detail.aspx?initiativeID=31670

To end this tirade of word vomit that I just threw out to the World Wide Web, I want to sincerely thank the elected officials of Washington, Arizona, and other States who have worked to make it easy for me – an American citizen out in the middle of nowhere Cambodia – to vote in this midterm election. When I handed that envelope over to the woman at the post office in Phnom Penh, I felt not only connected to the country that I miss dearly, but more empowered than I have in months. It was awesome.

* To read the props for innovation in elections given to my home state, and that of Arizona, by the Pew Center you may go to this address: http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/report_detail.aspx?id=58215

** Information on the amendments made to UOCAVA, and the act itself, can be found at http://www.justice.gov/crt/voting/misc/activ_uoc.php .

As I was sitting down, reading my book, and enjoying my morning coffee at my favorite little coffee place I felt a nudge at my feet. The coffee place has at least two dogs that are always around - either picking up food scraps or sleeping underneath one of its few chairs and tables. One of them, the black one, was underneath my table. Nothing exceptionally unusual, but when I looked down at her I noticed SOMETHING coming out her back end…a red, squishy SOMETHING. And then I realized this dog was giving birth! At my feet!

The proprietor of the establishment noticed me looking at the dog and started laughing. "Crazy dog!" he exclaimed, and then proceeded in attempting to shoo it away.

I appreciate the miracle of life as anyone else but not with my morning coffee, and not at my feet. I quickly sucked down the last drop of my coffee (never one to waste that beautiful, brown liquid), paid, and left. I actually left in such a hurry that I forgot my rain jacket but was so uneasy by the morning experience I waited until well into the afternoon to retrieve it. When I did, there was no dog in sight.

Congratulations - you’ve won the golden ticket!

You’ve succeeded in securing the opportunity to serve the United States and the Peace Corps in one of the most amazing places in the world, Cambodia!

At first you may be a bit apprehensive. There were and are some strange rumors flying around out there about Cambodia – its people, culture, et al. Do not be worried though- only most of these are untrue.

What is true is that the people here are warm and welcoming and cannot wait to meet you. They will invite you in for lunch but you’ll stay until well after dinner. You will not be able to walk down a street without at least one child yelling “Hello!” to you or an older woman saying how beautiful you are (and this goes if you are a woman OR a man). And they will make sure that you are safe – even when you do not sense danger.

It needs your help though. Cambodia is rebuilding itself from basically nothing. Those five years under the Khmer Rouge cost it more than just that. Without educated people, communities went without education and reliable health care for a long time. Things are changing quickly, however, and I am constantly amazed at the incredible changes my rural community has undergone within the short time of me living there.

It is a very exciting time to be in Cambodia. And as a health volunteer even more so! The opportunities to affect and change other people’s lives are endless. My name is Kellee and I am an education and health volunteer. Our group, K3 (Kampuchea 3), was the guinea pig for the Peace Corps Community Health Education program. The K4 group was the first to have a group of just health volunteers; which makes you part of the second group ever, in Peace Corps Cambodia history, of Community Health Educators. While we fumbled around our health centers looking for ways to be productive and helpful, you will have a much easier time of it with the wisdom of two previous groups’ experiences to aid you in your encounters.

You may be nervous about teaching health in rural Cambodia. I was:

“Health?!” I exclaimed, “How can I teach about heath when I was a History major whose experience with Health is limited to a couple of CPR classes that the Red Cross taught me?”

My first hand experience has shown me that even something small, like teaching about hand washing, can go a long way. You do not need to be a Mayo brother to help Cambodia, just be flexible, open, and a good listener. And before you ever even step foot on site, you will have the benefit of some amazing training from Peace Corps staff that other volunteers here, outside Peace Corps, are quite jealous of.

So get ready to break out of the comfort zone, to do something different and amazing and meet wonderfully unique people while doing so! I am completely serious when I say you have won a prize by being picked to serve in Cambodia. It is a country rich with culture, beauty, and people who deserve your help. You can only be so lucky as to have served in Cambodia.

Best of luck in your service,

Kellee Keegan,

K3 Health and Education Volunteer

Romeas Hek District,

Svay Reing Province, Cambodia

As I was heading home from the K4 (Kampuchea group 4) Swear-In ceremony - also known as the “rabies booster and flu shot stick-it-to-em round-up” – I thought I was going to die. Actually, I was very certain of it. For starters, the taxi that was “supposed” to leave at 2pm …didn’t leave until 6pm. Us Peace Corps Volunteers are not allowed to take transportation at night because of a number of things … things which I discovered after my experience; reasons that were and are legitimate grounds as to why a person should not attempt a nighttime jaunt on a Cambodian highway. But I will get to those later.

I, aware (but only blithely so) of the dangers, gave it a shrug and a sigh and texted my friends back in Phnom Penh at how annoying it was that I had been waiting in a taxi van for over three hours to leave. Most taxi vans must wait until it is economically viable before leaving - usually this is a certain number of people and or packages. We, apparently, did not have enough. As soon as we started to move along, a little after 6 pm, the rain started. For the first 20 minutes it was a medium to light rain (a drizzle one might say), but that was only the appetizer. The real party started nearly half an hour into the trip. If I had been driving in the Pacific Northwest even I would’ve considered pulling over (and we PNWers have mad skills at driving in the rain). Well the taxi van DID NOT have functioning windshield wipers AND the driver still chose to drive like the crazy taxi driver he was/is and pass anyone who thought to go below the speed limit. Can’t see the road? No problem for Mr. Taxi Driver.

As the windshield wipers would stick mid swing he would continue to drive (the manual) van and reach ACROSS the windshield to unstick it. I was lucky to have a front seat ticket to this show. Anyone who knows me knows I am fairly nervous passenger and this definitely put me on – if not over- the edge. I started thinking of all the last text messages, emails, and phone calls I had made – the final correspondence in which I would be judged for the rest of my family and friends living memories. Madly I kept hitting the invisible brake with my right foot.

The rain lightened eventually (as did my heart rate) and we came to the ferry crossing. To get to my province or Vietnam for that matter, you must take Highway 1 which “crosses” the Mekong. Or will cross the Mekong within the next few years (they just started to build a bridge). Currently it has a ferry crossing – fine during normal daytime hours that are not holidays- but a complete nightmare at night. You must wait there until there are enough cars to make the ferry trip feasible. And the ferry wasn’t even on our side of the river. The good thing about it raining, and being dark outside, is that there wasn’t the normal amount of sellers hounding us to buy their wares. “Hats?” “Fried grasshoppers?” “The latest Cambodian fashion magazines?” “Coka?”“Beer?” “Wine?” “Cigarettes?” You name it – they got it.

Unfortunately I was a bit hungry at this point – it was nearly 8pm and I would not be able to make it to my house in time for dinner…and so I was kind of missing the drive-up service. I opened the door of the van and looked at the river of water which was flowing above the highway underneath my feet and then into the dark, peering into the surrounding abyss and searching desperately in the direction of something edible. The friend of the taxi driver saw my hungry eyes and volunteered to go get me some hot meaty porridge, or “bohboh”. I gladly accepted and handed him the money.

Usually I am not a bohboh fan, unless I am at a place where I know it will be good, like friends’ houses, or parties, etc. But “side-of-the-street” bohboh? Not so much. Of course it initially tasted delicious, but as soon as I got to the meaty parts I started to have second thoughts. In the catalogue of meats and meat parts I recognized some chicken and… squid? The parts of the chicken I recognized were leg and … stomach? Whereas squid… well it looked like squid.

After nearly 45 minutes we were off again! I was so happy just to be moving I nearly forgot that just an hour or so earlier I was thinking that throwing me out of the car was a safer option then being in the car itself. For an hour the ride went fairly smoothly. He dropped off a couple in Svay Reing but got in a tiff over the fare price (which the customers hadn't negotiated beforehand. After a few coarse words, the couple won out and so we drove away angrily in the direction on Romeas Hek.

We had a few close calls on the way back. The road to Romeas Hek is pretty quiet – although since it has been paved it’s become increasingly busy (hence all the car accidents I’ve come upon while bike riding back to site). There was a cow, a kid on a bicycle, and a few dogs. About a half an hour from my site I breathed a sigh of relief. We had almost made it! I hadn’t died and we hadn’t hit anything!

And then we hit the dog.

I noticed him a quick second before he tumbled underneath the taxi van’s wheels. I was sitting upfront (best seat in the house) next to another woman and the taxi driver. The woman’s reaction mirrored my own… she too had her hand over her mouth and had exclaimed a loud “Oh!”. The men at first were exclaiming how stupid the dog was… and then about 20 meters down the road the taxi driver started to slow down and ask his friends whether he should go back.

Now in the US, to go back after you hit an animal is to find its owner… or move it to the side of the road at least. No, they wanted it to eat. Tere is nothing that goes better with Cambodian rice wine and friends company than some fresh dog curry. We turned around and the taxi driver’s friend quickly jumped out of the vehicle and grabbed the prize. Eating dog has not always been a Cambodian tradition, in fact I have been told by a number of reliable sources that the taste of dog meat was adopted from their neighbors, the Vietnamese. Whether it is true or not, Cambodian men eat dog. Sometimes, as in this case, it is road kill. But sometimes the dog is just a tramp that happened to wander into the wrong place at the wrong time. Rarely, if ever, do I hear of a Cambodian person buying dog meat. I actually asked my host dad’s friends this question as they themselves were settling down around a plate of barbequed dog pieces as to where you could buy dog meat in town. “Dog meat? You never buy dog meat! It is much too expensive!” and that was when I got the answer as to where the dog they were eating came from. “It was wandering around the rubber tree plantation (that my host family owns)”.

So, I was already well aware of what happens to dogs in Cambodia when this event occurred. If I had experienced this before I came to Cambodia, I may have been shocked, felt ill, or even cried ( I was a vegetarian – and plan on being one again once I return to the USA). But now, things like that night have become almost second nature (although I still do recognize the weirdness of it all). That night was just an amalgamation of many different, frightening, and odd occurrences. When I got back to site I almost wept; I had survived!

Now those reasons that were and are legitimate grounds for not traveling at night in Cambodia (and these go for every mode of transportation):

1) The vehicle may or may not have functioning headlights and/or windshield wipers

2) There are rarely, if ever, seatbelts

3) Cambodian people, animals, et al. like to meet up in the night… on the highway

4) There is ONE brain surgeon in the entire country of Cambodia. And the chance the doctor is on vacation when needed? Very likely

5) No one is monitoring the speed of vehicles on the highways at night. People can drive very recklessly unheeded… and they do.

6) If you are in the unfortunate situation of being in a car accident at night, it may be a long while before anyone of authority reaches you. And by the time they do, there is a high likelihood that the driver and all the passengers (who were capable) would’ve left the scene.

***

I am at site now, and plan on staying here for as much as I can the next 11 months I have. I am aided in this by having an internet phone that can FINALLY (and hopefully will) become a modem when attached to my computed. So, hopefully, I will be able to post many more blog entries from my site before this adventure is over. As for this one, it has been posted in the lovely Provincial town of Svay Reing.

As I passed the year mark of me being a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cambodia, and said goodbye to summer and welcomed the new volunteers, I had the feeling of a high school senior who looks upon their last year of high school in anxiety and excitement. What will I be able to accomplish this year? And when the end comes will I know what to do next?

I was luckily enough to have my father and brother visit for nearly the entire month of August. It gave me the feeling of home without setting foot back on American soil.

And it gave me a little bit of an idea of what my family and friends think of my service in Cambodia. Sometimes it feels as if I am trying to run through water; exerting alot of effort but getting nowhere. It was nice for my family to be here because they showed me that even if I don't have something tangible to show after my year here, I do have many close relationships with local people that are as, if not more, important as anything else.

It was also nice to have my family here because I got to travel around Cambodia and see the tourist spots - Angkor Wat, Phnom Sampeau and Wat Banan in Battambang, and others - that I haven't been able to see yet due to lack of funds and/or time. Angkor Wat was just as magnificent as people make it out to be - albeit very, very hot. I still can recall the eerie feeling of being at the Bayon Temple and having over 200 giant faces staring at me; both awesome and creepy. The best part of the whole trip was when my father and brother came to my site. They were given the royal treatment to say the least. And everyone wanted to take a picture with my 6 foot, blond-haired, blue-eyed brother. Even the district governor went out of his way to welcome them to Romeas Hek. After a day of meetings in the provincial town he made sure to drive to my house at 10pm and have a nightcap with my father, brother, and I after which invite us to breakfast the following morning. I really appreciated the overall welcome that my community showed my family and I felt very lucky to have been placed in such a lovely place with such friendly people :)

Here are some pictures from the family adventures in SE Asia....

I love Cambodia, I swear!

After re-reading my previous blog entry, I realize just how whiny and depressed I sounded. This entry is to redeem myself as well as give a more accurate picture of my life in Cambodia a year after I arrived here.

School "concluded" for the rainy season in June (the exception being the 12th grade students who had their final exams last week)- which means I have four months of vacation from teaching until school officially starts on October 1st. The first month I took it easy; read ALOT, visited the provincial town nearly every weekend (yay internet!), but mostly just hung out with the people at my site. It has been awesome because I have been able to relax with my co-teachers and get to know them better. One of my co-teachers and I are even taking Chinese classes together starting at the end of September... cant wait :)

It was interesting celebrating the 4th of July in Cambodia. The US Embassy had a party/carnival - lots of live music,good food and beer, and a pie eating contest (I didn't participate). If it only had some fireworks I think it would have been perfect. Afterward, some volunteers and I met up to continue the merry-making and go dancing. The only unfortunate thing about the trip was that I had to bike from my provincial town back to site - with a 40 lb backpack on my back. No Fun. But I think that kind of forced exercising is responsible for the 12 lbs I have lost in Cambodia so far.

Minus the physical hardship, biking back wasn't that bad...especially towards the end. I had only been gone about 4 days but people were yelling to me from the sides of the road, on bikes, and on motos "you're beautiful! where you go? we miss you!" NOW if only I had a homecoming like that every time I came home :)

Captured Animals and Dead People

The wet season is in full swing which has brought about a plethora of insects and animals outside and INSIDE the house (spiders, ants, mosquitoes, rats.. you know, the usual). My family has taken the opportunity to catch some of these wild animals in cages. So far they have captured two Mynah birds and a bunny. My eleven year-old host brother has trained the birds to follow him around the house and sit on his shoulder... impressive considering these birds were wild only three weeks ago. The bunny has, unfortunately, already seen its end. It wasn't surprising considering no one ever gave it anything more than leaves to eat OR drink. Without an autopsy, I can assume that its death was gross malnutrition/dehydration.

The death of the bunny wasn't the only one I encountered that week - actually it was the third. The first was a boy on a moto... and NO he wasn't driving. He was laying there, limp as a rag doll, with very grey skin wedged between the driver and his friend who was holding him up. I was sitting outside my coteacher's language school when they passed by. Apparently he was a 12 years old and had "fallen in the water and drowned".

The second was the most strange. I was about an hour and a half into my bike ride from the provincial town to my site when I saw a large crown of Khmer people standing in the road around a woman. Her head was bent at an unnatural angleto the left6 and the rest her body was positioned to the right. I stood fopr awhile outside the crowd wondering if it would be okay to keep riding my bicycle or to do something... help somehow? It took about 5 minutes for the cros to recognizee the foreigner in their midst. When they saw me they started to smile and wave - gesturing me to continue biking on the road. Some Khmer men took it upon themselnes to shield me from the carnage by moving two motos around the body. It was too late though, I had already seen everything, and their attempt to hide it was in vain. When relaying the story to my host sisters they smiled and asked me, "How many people were there?"

Does your brother have all his teeth?

One afternoon as I was sitting, enjoying the company of Nary and her mother while watching people go into and out of the market, Nary started talking about how she recently had a tooth pulled. I asked her how much it cost and if she always got it done when her teeth hurt. She proceeded to open her mouth and show me all her missing teeth. Nary is 24 and the fact that she is missing 5 teeth already depressed me. She told me it was $5 in Vietnam and that it "didn't hurt". I went on to give her the dentist's spiel of brushing at least twice a day (I would've mentioned flossing but I have already been told that floss is too expensive for most Cambodians - my host family uses palm leaves instead AND it works - each of my family members have a beautiful set of teeth).

They then asked me if I had all of my teeth. When I said yes they demanded to see... as if they didn't believe me. After I opened my mouth to show them they then asked me about other family members' teeth... particularly my father and brother (who will be visiting in two weeks:)). When I, for the second time, told them that yes... my brother has all his teeth... the conversation dissipated into nothing and we sat there in near silence, watching the people go in and out of the market with their wares.

Living in the middle of Nowhere, Cambodia, you come to rely on some things to keep you sane. For me, those things were my shortwave radio and my laptop computer. Every night I was able to catch up on the world news via the BBC and maybe watch a movie once or twice a week on my laptop. I looked forward to these things and relied on them.. maybe a little too much.

This all changed less than two months ago.

First to go was my shortwave. I have to admit, I may have had a hand in its demise. I often keep my window shutters open (much to my Cambodian mother's chagrin) and, as my room is little more than a closet, means that my things have a very close proximity to the windows. These things can (and do) get very wet when it starts raining. More than once I have returned to my room after a day of teaching only to find my mattress is sopping wet and pieces of the mango tree outside my window are littering the floor. This may also be the reason as to why my room has developed a particular funk to it...

Anyways, it was after one of these storms that my radio just stopped working. I was going to Phnom Penh a few days later and kind of put my loss on the back burner and promised to grieve another, more convenient, time. I was also naively optimistic that after my return from Phnom Penh it would just start magicaly working again.

My first morning in Phnom Penh, I grabbed my laptop and went to "the usual" breakfast place to eat a bagel and skype with my family. After a wonderful two hours of skyping, my family and I said goodbye and I went on to do some some other work on the internet. Less than 5 minutes later the screen went black. No amount of turning it back on would work. I wasn't completely convinced that it was broken though, the lights on my keyboard DID light up - which meant it did turn on. I took it to THE place to get computers fixed and after a week, and relinquishing $20 to them, they weren't able to tell me what the problem was.

Maybe it is the stress of being in a foreign country - or the emotional attachment I had to these machines - that I kind of flipped out in the computer store. While I sat there, head down, letting the loss of not one, but two, of my most treasured possessions overtake me ... the store clerk just stared. I was lucky it was a nearly silent affair... but I still didn't appreciate her gawking and quickly left the building for some icecream therapy at the air conditioned mall a block away. Her reaction, coupled with my entire last year of experiences, has convinced me that most Cambodian people do not cry (which is in entirely opposite to anything you might see in a Cambodian music video). At nearly every function I have been to relating to the Khmer Rouge, there will be that one woman or man who will be crying. These people are often stared at, pointed to, but for the most part ignored. Not that I am comparing what they went through to MY loss, just that their stoicism in the face of their tragic past baffles me... and leads me to believe that they have a very hard time -even some 30 years later - dealing with what happened. Something that I like to call "emotional constipation". A condition that I may even suffer from and may justify why I broke down in Phnom Penh and then a week and some days later when I couldn't find a level for my World Map project in my provincial town :P.

Now, since it is summer vacation, I am drowning in free time without the few things that used to keep me distracted from the heat, mosquitoes, and overall loneliness of being in a foreign and isolated place. It has definitely forced me to get creative with my time. I have been working on my blood-pressure taking skills, training for a half marathon, participating in a language exchange with one of my co-teachers, studying for the GRE, and I'm going to hopefully start studying Chinese at a nearby Chinese school. Since this technostrophe, I have also been biking the 40k to my provincial town twice a week (making a total of over 110 miles a week on my bike!).

The loss of my computer took a toll on my blogging...which is why it has been about so long since my last entry. I will be back in town next week to fill you all on what has been going on at my site and in the Peace Corps world of Cambodia.

Until then :)

On April 3rd, I set off for Vietnam on vacation. Schools in Cambodia close for Khmer New Year for the entire month of April (although officially the New Year is only three days long) and so I decided to take this as an opportunity to venture out of Cambodia. Vietnam was an obvious choice because it is so close to where I am currently living (which is about 8 km from the Vietnam border) and I am often in contact with Vietnamese people. Two friends and I took the bus from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City (better known as Saigon) where we spent a night before catching an "open bus tour" north. We stopped in Dalat, Nha Trang, Hoi An, Hue, Hanoi, and Halong Bay. It was a whirlwind two weeks. My favorite spots were Hoi An and Halong Bay. Hoi An because of the large number of wooden houses from the 16th and 17th centuries as well as all the fun dress shops (where you could get outfits made for less than $20!); and Halong Bay because it was breathtakingly beautiful. On the 14th I returned home to celebrate the three most important days of the Khmer New Year.

New Year in Cambodia (Chaul Chnam Thmey in the Khmer language) is all about spending time with family. It depends on their lunar calendar but this year we celebrated on April 14th,15th, and 16th. People who have moved away from their homeland will come back for at least these three days. Romeas Hek (my site) is moderately sized (in rural Cambodia terms) – and has a population of somewhere between 5 and 10 thousand people. Due to lack of jobs and overall lack of amenities, most people choose to move away; mostly to larger towns where they can get a job in one of the many gament factories. The population at least tripled for Khmer New Year. An interesting fact about Cambodians and New Year is that, for the most part, everyone just turns a year older at the new year. They do not (usually) celebrate their birthdays. I'm definitely not the sharpest tack in the box because it was maybe around the 5th or 6th person telling me their birthday was April 15th when it dawned on me that everyone celebrates on the same day.

Every morning, for each of the three days of the new year, families go to a Pagoda and give food and money to the Buddhist monks after prayer. Sometime after lunch, people will then go to one or more of the private and public parties happening all over town. Nearly all day, every day, I ate, drank, and danced with people in my village. The best party I went to was at the nearby Wat (temple/pagoda). Here there were at least 100 people – many of them dancing, many more just watching, while gaggles of children threw powder and water on EVERYONE. I hope to upload some pictures on Picasa (a web server for pictures) soon. If you are on Facebook the pictures are uploaded already and are included in the album "Welcome to the Wat Party".

Although Cambodia doesn’t have the most official public holidays in the world (though close to it with about 25), I cannot doubt that it has the most UNOFFICIAL holidays. As I mentioned earlier we had the entire month of April off of school. This month, I am told the school may be closed more days than it will be open. This is due to King Norodom Sihamoni’s birthday on May 14, (3 days), the Royal Plowing Ceremony on May 12 (1 day), and Labor Day on May 1st and the fact that one day off usually leads to two days off or more.

Every Thursday I sit in the high school’s “library” for two hours. I offer this time so that high school students may ask me questions regarding English (or anything, really). It either hasn’t caught on to my students, or they’re too busy, or they just don’t care, for (with the exception of about 5 students) the last few months I have been sitting by myself nearly the entire time. The problem could be in my advertising (there is none), the fact that the library is situated quite close to the school director’s office (location, location, location), or (and this is probably the real reason) is that the library is little more than a storage place and home to many rodents and birds. Not the best place to spend a few hours of your time, eh? It wasn’t until last week though, when two of my (brighter and more motivated) students from my 10 B class came to visit, that I really felt as though the office hours in the library were worth it.

At first they just came into the library to say hello, but I quickly persuaded them to “koy lange” (sit and visit). Off handedly I mentioned that there were a few dozen new English books in three cardboard boxes in the room, left from the last (and first) Peace Corps volunteer at my site. That was all it took. Together we ventured into the books, donated by the Asia Foundation. After a few minutes they stumbled upon a textbook called “My World”, a geography and history text book in one, and from the very first page were hooked. “Where is this Teacher?” they asked, pointing to a picture of the Acropolis. “Greece”, I tell them. “Where is Greece?” they ask innocently. I bring out a map and show them. Although nearly all of the students at my high school take “Geography” almost none of them could point to Europe on the map. It has me very interested in sitting in on one of their Geography lessons. The book has them engrossed for over an hour and has me answering questions like the following:

“What is nahto (NATO)?”

“Have you ever been to the pyramids? Why not?”

“What is that?” (pointing to a picture of the international space station) I answer that it is “a home in space” and that people from different countries live there. Their eyes become wide, then narrower as they are obviously mulling it over. They give the picture one more glance and then turn the page.

My office hours go by quickly that day and I bike home even more certain than ever that I want to finish what the first volunteer at my site attempted to do, and bring a library to the school. Luckily for me, I have a new school director who is seemingly behind the project. It won’t be easy by any means though. The “library” as it is now is a desk (for the “librarian”), a table, chairs, a shelf with unused/discarded textbooks, and a medley of different items that have found storage there. Mice and birds have taken up residence and their excrements cover nearly everything. The walls need to be painted, tenants evicted, shelves built, and books obtained. All seemingly easy except for the fact that nothing is as easy as it seems when you are a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cambodia*.

This week we have our In Service Training (IST) and I will hopefully be learning the ins and outs of grant writing and fundraising in Cambodia. No doubt I will keep you, my faithful blog reader, abreast of any developments as well as the address to send your check so that you may get involved in the project as well :)

Aside from teaching at the school, I also teach every Friday at the local Health Center. Many of the nurses there are between 30 and 45 years old and, if you are unfamiliar with Cambodian history, the years these individuals went to school were the most turbulent of any in the country’s history. Needless to say, they were not given the opportunity to learn English (although some do know a few words of French). When I began these lessons I had to start at the beginning – the ABCs. Most were familiar with them but could not recite them from memory nor remember all the sounds they make. There are two nurses, ages 24 and 25, who know quite a bit and seem glad to have a refresher course. Without a doubt I have the most fun teaching this group. Mostly because they want to be there and are eager to learn – but also, because I have been observing at the center for as long as I have been at site, we are all very comfortable with each other. Jokes abound and we seem to always end the class laughing.

Interlude: A library emerges out of the rat nests…

In December I filled out an application to an organization called Room to Read that was offering English books to needy schools in Cambodia. I had almost forgotten about it when I received a phone call from them asking if I could come by and pick up the 600 books they were giving my school. After a very turbulent weekend in Phnom Penh, I arrived at site with three very heavy boxes containing 600 various English books. The next day my host sisters and I together opened the boxes and happily went through the contents; “Magic School Bus!”, “Clifford!”, “Books on Teaching!’ I was very happily surprised with the selection.

We sat down, my sister Kohnteet and Sampoa, and for five hours wrote “Witchee-ah-lye Roomy Hike” (Romeas Hek High School) in permanent marker in every one of the donated books. I think it was around the 100th book that I realized I could write the name of my school in Khmer by memory. It is the only thing I can write in the language, but I’m proud. Khmer is not the easiest language to learn to write…

Later that day, our hands a bit sore from all the writing, my sisters loaded their moto with the first box and I followed in my bike. After three trips, all the books were safely inside the library. The next day, I had a sit down with the sub-school director who, thankfully, speaks English (my Khmer isn’t THAT good yet). We talked about the library and cleaning it up. He said he would talk to the school director and get back to me. The next day I got full reign to do whatever I pleased in the library as long as I didn’t throw out any books and on Thursday, the “official” cleaning day at the school, I would get at least thirty students to help me :)!

I was ecstatic – and full of dread! The library hadn’t been cleaned in at least fifteen years. The Ministry of Education has a policy that the high schools keep all text books for at least five years. My high school had …excuse me… has some dating back from 1996! I recognize this hording of books may be their showing appreciation for something they did not have twenty or thirty years ago. But can a worm eaten, rat poop covered, petrified to the floor, textbook be any use to anyone?

Well Thursday came and I made sure I came fortified with at least three cups of strong Vietnamese coffee in my system. Arriving thirty minutes early I took stock of everything that needed to be done, and where things would go. I was a bit overwhelmed. The coteacher assigned to help me, Mee-it, showed up soon after along with a twelfth grade student who had promised to help. We started clesning out the shelves and soon were joined by at least thirty of the 10th grade students. And then the “librarian” came. And any vestige of control I had over the project quickly was transferred to her and my coteacher. IT was all for the better actually, as I really didn’t know what to do with half the stuff we came across in that room. Medical supplies? A box of Khmer rice wine? Ten spools of copper wire? And somewhere around the time of discovering the iodine and drip bags a rat ran across my feet. I screamed (who wouldn’t??) which elicited many laughs from the students. “Teacher is afraid of mice!”, they taunted. After that I kind of stood towards the back and watched as the students moved the books, furniture, and miscellaneous things around and cleaned. There were too many hands in the kitchen, as some would say. And I did not want to risk having another rat crawl on my body. I may be in the Peace Corps, but you have to draw the line somewhere.

The students found four very large rat nests, dead birds, and many many books.Some were even petrified to the floor behind some of the shelves!

After returning to site from my glorious 10 day trip to Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, I came back to site with about $80 in my pocket. The following two weekends I proceeded to go to my provincial town and then Phnom Penh. Needless to say, when I came back from PP, I was broke as a joke. I had enough to get back to site with $10 left over and two weeks until my next "pay day". Could I survive at site for two weeks on 75 cents a day?

It took some heavy budgeting and a severe case of diarrhea but I made it with a dollar to spare:) Not only did I spend all my money in Phnom Penh but also picked up a lovely intestinal bug which kept me at home (and near the toilet) for four days. You could light about 10 houses for a week on the power I unleashed in that 4 by 6 foot room. When and if you ever come to Cambodia, take this advice seriously - DO NOT eat fresh fruit and vegetable without peeling them or washing them in bleach first AND always pick places you know will take food prep seriously. The upside of not doing these things is that you may get very ill and not want to eat. And if you don't want to eat then you won't spend any money. And if you don't spend any money then you might be able to afford the $20 entry fee into Angkor Wat.

Enough about my cash strapped, volunteer life. The next two weeks the entire high school where I teach will be taking their semester finals. As a volunteer, I do not need to be present during their exams and so I will be sitting under a mango tree and doing what I do best, studying Khmer, reading and/or staring into space. Having learned my lesson about going to Phnom Penh too often, I am opting to stay at site and only go into my provincial town when absolutely necessary.

Well Christmas in Cambodia can both be a blessing and a curse. There are no Christmas displays, ads and commercials, or pressure to buy the perfect presents for my family and friends (if I had the funds that would be different). There is nothing even remotely Christmas-like in Cambodia; or at least in the provinces. With the exception of the other volunteers, the downside of it all is I have to bear through it relatively alone. Although it doesn’t feel like Christmas, I surely know its happening back home and it is hard not to think of eating delicious pies and cookies with good friends and family. The one place you can find Christmas in Cambodia is Phnom Penh. That was the surprise awaiting me and some of the other volunteers when we arrived on Christmas evening. The restaurants catering to foreign guests had all the lights and embellishments (TINSEL!) that we had been deprived of. We soaked it in. After our three long months of “lock down”, many (if not all) of the volunteers were ready to celebrate – not only Christmas but their freedom. We ate pizza and drank margaritas and danced like Americans. It was the most un-Christmas Christmas I have ever had.

Given the choice to return to site for two days and then come back to Phnom Penh and Siem Reap (for New Years), I opted for annual leave so I could stay on and eat more cheese, and potentially lay by a pool (or two). It made my Christmas and New Years vacay a total of nearly ten days, and it was wonderful. I admit, after three months of limited (to almost no) electricity and no running water, I was ready to spoil myself. What is there to do in Phnom Penh? For me it was eat American food and go shopping. I ate to my hearts content, pizza, macaroni and cheese, quesadillas, bagel pizzas, bruschetta... the list goes on. The only thing I can truthfully say I did NOT eat was rice. It did not make sense for me to spend money on something I have to eat three times a day, seven days a week. Instead I focused on my favorite three food groups – cheese, bread, and pasta. Atkins has nothing on me.

On the 30th I packed my bags and headed to Siem Reap, a 5 or so hour bus ride from Phnom Penh. Siem Reap is famous for Angkor Wat and some other, beautiful and terribly old, temples. That was not my reason for going there though. Knowing that some friends and family will be coming to visit within the next year I opted to focus more on the city itself. I did not want to burn myself out on the temples before my loved ones had a chance to see them – it just wouldn’t be fair to them. So I stuck with what could never get old to me – shopping and eating. Five other volunteer girls and I bought new dresses for New Years Eve and that night had fun dressing up as though we weren’t in the Peace Corps but foreigners on vacation. It was a BLAST. As hundreds of other people on a crowded street in Siem Reap started counting down to 2010, we counted along with them. Six months in Cambodia down and with nineteen left to go, who knows what the New Year will bring to this small group of bleeding hearts halfway across the world from everyone else they know and love. For that night we were excited and happy and danced the night away; hopeful of a wonderful and successful year ahead. It was one of my best New Years so far.

I returned to site on the 3rd, happy but broke. Why does happiness (i.e. air conditioning and cheese) have to cost so much? My host family seemed happy to see me after my ten day disappearance. Unfortunately my bed was covered in dead bugs – a surprise because my mosquito net covered it entirely during my time away – and I quickly set about shaking them out and straightening up my room. Tomorrow I would teach again, and it would be much easier if I had my stuff together.

The students were better behaved than I remembered. Maybe it was like the old adage, “absence makes the heart grow fonder”. Or maybe it was the short week ahead which brought about their remarkable upbeatness in the face of English grammar. The 7th of January is the day when, in 1979, “Vietnamese troops captured Phnom Penh establishing the People's Republic of Kampuchea.” The official rule of Pol Pot’s regime was over, although they continued to hold onto parts of Northwestern Cambodia until the late 1990s. Although my town celebrates this holiday on the 5th, because that is the day when they were liberated from the Khmer Rouge, we also have the 7th off. Out of my four day workweek, I would be teaching two days. It is no wonder why many people say that Cambodia has the most official holidays out of any other country in the world. Teaching was a breeze that week.

Currently I am in Svay Reing catching up on any internet time I did not get in Phnom Penh while also compiling a list of English names for my students to choose from. How appropriate do you think the names of Apple, Coco, Pax, and the Hulk are? They reflect people's names for our generation in the English speaking world. My Cambodian students should be made aware of them and prepared to meet people with names like these. It is only fair.

"Hope Bai , Kellee!", Nary yelled to me as I sat in a plastic chair in the front of her famiy's shop, watching people go in and out of the market.

Every week I come to Nary and Narin's house to have lunch and chat. Nary is my age and Narin is 22 years old, both unmarried, and so they make for good company. Narin moved to Phnom Penh, however, in October to go to school. For $500/year he studies Korean 5 days a week. When he comes home he gives his notes and books to his older sister so she can study off them too. As with most Cambodian, as we as Vietnamese (as Nary and Narin are), families in rural Cambodia they support their male children to go to school while their daughters stay at home until they get married (usuay around age 18). One of my male students said that his sister wanted to go to study at a university but their parents refused to support her. In order to get money to fund her ambitions, she moved to Phnom Penh to work in a clothing factory. Her brother says she is still working there two and a half years later.

Both Nary and Narin are studying Korean so they can move to South Korea next year. Narin wants to get a job assembling cars and Nary is just looking for a "sales" position. I wonder what their family will do once they both move to Korea. With the absence of Nary especially, I think it will be much harder to run their shop which sells everything from fruit to pots and pans to children's toys.

I sit down to their table in the center of their one story home. In front of me are some fried duck eggs, rice, and some very questionable meat (brains?).

I ask Nary "What is this?" in Khmer, pointing to the bowl of brains. I forget the word for brains and ask, "is it from a head?"

She nods yes.

"Pig's head?"

She looks at me, disgusted. "Pig's brains are not good! Not delicious!"she says, matter-of-factly. Then goes to bite into a few more river clams that have suddeny appeared on the table in a bowl next to the bowl of "questionably-not-pigs" brains.

"Cows head?"

She looks at me and then her 3 year old little brother who is doing laps around the table with a tricycle. When she looks back she nods a few times and smiles.

"Yes. They are very delicious - my little brother's favorite!" She then proceeds to take a spoon to the brains.

I take one more helping of fried egg.

I have been in Cambodia for about four months so far, two of those at site. Living in Southeast Asia is no longer a novelty but a fact of life. Starting at about 4:30 am every morning I expect to hear a dozen or more roosters cawing, dogs barking, babies crying, and women and children sweeping their homes. Within the last few weeks I have even begun to dream about Cambodia and me in it which means that I have both consciously, and unconsciously, accepted that I now live in Cambodia.

My days are really laid back, sometimes so much so that I end up feeling guilty about it; such as on November 9th. This day is a national Cambodian holiday and commemorates Cambodia’s independence from France. I had no idea that I would not have to work that day until a student came to my house the Saturday before and told me (if it wasn’t for him I would have showed up at my school, books in hand, waiting in an empty classroom for tardy students that would have never showed up). Anyways, I had not planned anything to do that day and so it took me by surprise. My town is only so big. And by so big, I mean very small. There aren’t many options for things to do in your free time unless you count housework or planting or replanting rice as options. On holidays I usually see groups of men sitting in a circle drinking shots of palm wine, playing cards, and eating. The children run around and lately (I assume because now we are out of the wet season) have been flying kites. They make these kites themselves and I have been impressed at how well, and how high, they fly.

We do have a thriving market that is very busy in the morning which becomes a ghost town after noon except for a few tailors and seamstresses. Don’t even think about going at 4 pm, you will be the only one there. So I went to the market, ate breakfast (Ramen – no meat- and iced coffee), and wandered around. I bought some clementines (which are in season here and are awesome) and some nome tian (a gelatinous ball made of rice flour and filled with coconut, cashews, and sugar). After which I sat and gossiped with a friend of my host family who has a shop at the market until about 9:30 am. After which I decided to go home, where I stayed for the rest of the day. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to be social but it gets so hot during midday and with having nothing to do I saw nothing better than resigning myself to a lazy day at home. I ate some clementines with my host sisters while chatting with them and then sat down with a book until lunchtime (lunch was stir fried pork and pineapple with rice). After which I took a three hour long nap and, after waking, proceeded to read again. I read until dusk (when the electricity turns on) and went about finding a way to assess my students’ knowledge of English on my laptop. And at 8pm I went to bed.

Instead of just sitting down and to read one book I have decided to read many books at once. This often helps me when I have an exceptionally long day with many hours to kill. Currently I am reading “A Walk in the Woods” by Bill Bryson, “Tellers of Tales” an anthology of short stories from 1947, and “A Prayer for Owen Meany” by John Irving. They have kept me very well distracted from otherwise itching my mosquito/unidentified insect bites or getting upset over the fact that the ants had got into my peanut butter AGAIN.

I promise you most days I am not that lazy. So if you are looking at become a Peace Corps volunteer or have recently been accepted to go to Cambodia, let me tell you it is no 'walk in the park'. During the normal school week the days go by very quickly and I do not have that much time to read or sleep the day away. My days go somewhat like this:

5:15 am: Get up and go running.

6:00 am return home, take bucket shower etc.

6:30am eat breakfast at a local food stand (usually I eat a sandwich or noodle soup accompanied with a few shots of delicious Vietnamese coffee).

7:00 am arrive at school and start teaching

7:05 am the class monitor tells me that the coteacher has a meeting in the provincial town and that I will be teaching the class myself. As my Khmer language skills are elementary (at best) I resort to doing lots of miming and drawing of the English words on the chalkboard in order help the students translate the words into Khmer (how do you draw the word "cause"? Oh let me show you...). I do this until I realize that there is a dictionary in the back of the teacher’s book which translates the words from English into Khmer.

9:00 am move to the second class of the day. The coteacher shows up on time and everything goes smoothly until I am broadsided by a question about an obscure grammar rule from my coteacher in front of the class. I try my best to bs through it until I must give up and say I will come back with a better explanation at the next English class.

11:00 am I go home to read and prepare for class in the afternoon

12:00 pm I eat lunch with my host family (Yum, fish soup and fried frogs).

1:00 pm take a nap

2:00 pm I grab some coffee by the market and, literally, jump on my bike so as I am not late for class. When I arrive the coteacher has just arrived as well. It is his turn to teach and so I sit to the side of the classroom and assist with pronunciation and reading dialogue.

4:00 pm take a short bike ride with my friends Nary and Narin.

5:00 pm stop by the Metphone business. I have made friends with the manager and a few days a week I can go there and use their internet. This can only happen when the town has electricity between 5:30 pm and 10 pm every day.Recently I have discovered that Metphone blocks facebook. FACEBOOK?!? My only real reason to go on the internet now a days... urgh.

6:00 pm after using the internet I go home. I visit my sister who is cooking the dinner for that night in the back of the house. As we don’t have electricity everything is either fried, barbequed, or boiled over an open flame. We have lots of sour fish soup and boiled frog (I made the mistake of saying that I like frog to my family and now I have it about four times a week. I appreciate them trying to accommodate me but I can only eat so many frogs. )

7:00 pm I sit down to dinner with my entire host family and their friends. They seem to be constantly hosting guests at our house. Currently there are 8 people living in the house and with the additional guests it brings the party to 12. I spend the dinner time answering questions about why I ride my bike everywhere, if I miss my family, why I choose to wear short sleeves, and why I am so fat.

8:00 pm I take a bucket shower and settle down in my bed to listen to BBC radio on my shortwave and read a little.

Around 8:30pm or 9:00pm I go to sleep

Of course that is just an example of my schedule. Lately I have come to find that an entire class of students may be excused from class to harvest rice, or if it's raining, may just decide not to show up at all. On those days I just sigh, get my books together, and head to a coffee stand to sit and practice Khmer with some local people. For the most part the students themselves seem to be motivated to learn English. There is one class though that I feel like I am pulling teeth to get any student cooperation. I have started to incorporate more games into my lessons. It gets them more involved in class, but I fear it isn't doing much for their language ability. My bachelor's degree in History really did not prepare me to teach English to Cambodian students. I work hard every day though to take notes and work on my lesson plans in order to more effectively teach them. Some days seem awfully futile.

Before I came to Cambodia there were many things I never imagined doing. These things include eating ants and crickets, pooping in holes, being hit by moto scooters, wiping my butt with my hand, and doing my laundry with a bucket and brush. Recently this has come to include extracting bats from my mosquito net in the middle of the night. Imagine yourself in my position, sleeping after a long day of teaching and suddenly waking up to a bat flying around your face. I almost screamed. Quickly I grabbed my headlamp and jumped out of my bat cell. After about five minutes I had calmed down a bit and lifted one edge of the mosquito net, carefully so as I would not be hit by the aggravated bat on his way out. I tried my hardest to make a large enough opening that the bat would take notice and fly out to freedom. After five minutes the bat did just that.

How did this bat become trapped in my mosquito net? As previously mentioned, my mattress is WAY too big for my bed frame making it very difficult to tuck all the edges of my net under my mattress at night. After a few weeks I had given up on one side of the net for convenience sake allowing those mosquitoes smart enough to get in to bite me to their hearts content. Little did I realize that this also gave clearance for other creatures; namely, bats. Since this episode I have been sure to tuck ALL my net’s edges under my mattress at night AND weigh them down with books. It not only saves me from bat invaders but gives me a little library to choose from at nighttime without having to leave my bed :)

Before I came to Cambodia I never really rode a bicycle. I knew how to ride but as my mother was always very (almost overly) nervous about us riding our bicycles anywhere but the driveway, I never became very confident with the bicycle. And as I grew up I never really considered it a transportation option. However, now that I am in Cambodia and a Peace Corps Volunteer, my bicycle has now become my only transportation option as taxis are too expensive (for me) and I am not allowed to ride a moto. Just recently I made the 40 km (26 miles – a marathon!) commitment to ride to my provincial town. It went by surprisingly quickly. It was fun to see the other parts of the province next to where I live. To make it even better, when I stopped for a cold beverage at a sugar juice stand a policeman bought me my drink.

I try not to go into the provincial town too often, because I do not want to make it seem like I do not like my site. I love my site. The people are incredibly friendly and nearly everyone in the town knows by name now. When I go into the market to buy fruit I almost never have to spend any money, the sellers give me the fruit for free. They get offended when I insist on giving them money and so now I have stopped trying and instead make sure to stop by their stand every so often to chat.

School has been great. I have recently started to teach. This year I will teach three 10th grade classes and one 11th grade class for a total of 16 hours a week. I haven’t done anything too crazy or new (yet) but have been taking good notes on what students need help on. My teaching has been pretty much by the book. And by “by the book” I mean by the English For Cambodia” book 4 and 5. There are some INTERESTING stories in there, let me tell you. If I have time one of these days I will definitely copy a story into my blog for your reading pleasure. You may laugh, you may cry, I think you may just be confused by the story/stories. In any case, I am sure you will find them interesting.

On Sunday I will take the road back to my site making my total miles traveled by bike this weekend to 52+. After two years of traveling that distance every other weekend I am sure to log a total of 2704 miles just going to my provincial town and back. Whew – it’s a long road.

Before I came to Cambodia there were many things I never imagined doing. These things include eating ants and crickets, pooping in holes, being hit by moto scooters, wiping my butt with my hand, and doing my laundry with a bucket and brush. Recently this has come to include extracting bats from my mosquito net in the middle of the night. Imagine yourself in my position, sleeping after a long day of teaching and suddenly waking up to a bat flying around your face. I almost screamed. Quickly I grabbed my headlamp and jumped out of my bat cell. After about five minutes I had calmed down a bit and lifted one edge of the mosquito net, carefully so as I would not be hit by the aggravated bat, and tried my hardest to make a large enough opening that the bat would take notice and fly out to freedom. After five minutes the bat did just that.

How did this bat become trapped in my mosquito net? As previously mentioned, my mattress is WAY too big for my bed frame making it very difficult to tuck all the edges of my net under my mattress at night. After a few weeks I had given up on one side of the net for convenience sake allowing those mosquitoes smart enough to get in to bite me to their hearts content. Little did I realize that this also gave clearance for other creatures; namely, bats. Since this episode I have been sure to tuck ALL my net’s edges under my mattress at night AND weigh them down with books. It not only saves me from bat invaders but gives me a little library to choose from at nighttime without having to leave my bed :)

Before I came to Cambodia I never really rode a bicycle. I knew how to ride but as my mother was always very (almost overly) nervous about us riding our bicycles anywhere but the driveway, I never became very confident with the bicycle. And as I grew up I never really considered it a transportation option. Now that I am in Cambodia however, and a Peace Corps Volunteer, my bicycle has become my only transportation option as taxis are too expensive (for me) and I am not allowed to ride a moto. Just recently I made the 40 km (26 miles – a marathon!) commitment to ride to my provincial town. It went by surprisingly quickly. It was fun to see the other parts of the province next to where I live. To make it even better, when I stopped for a cold beverage at a sugar juice stand a policeman bought me my drink.

I try not to go into the provincial town too often, because I do not want to make it seem like I do not like my site. I love my site. The people are incredibly friendly and nearly everyone in the town knows by name now. When I go into the market to buy fruit I almost never have to spend any money, the sellers give me the fruit for free. When I insist on giving them money they get upset and so now I have stopped trying to give them money. Instead I just make sure to stop by there stand every so often to chat which seems to make them happy.

School has been great. I have recently begun teaching. Currently I teach three 10th grade classes and one 11th grade class for a total of 16 hours a week. As I am new I haven’t done anything too crazy yet like making up weird games or doing anything too creative. It’s been pretty much by the book. And by “by the book” I mean by the English For Cambodia” book 4 and 5. There are some INTERESTING stories in there, let me tell you. If I have time one of these days I will definitely copy a story into my blog for your reading pleasure. You may laugh, you may cry, I think you may just be confused by the story/stories. In any case, I am sure you will find them interesting.

On Sunday I will take the road back to my site making my total miles traveled by bike this weekend to 52+. After two years of traveling that distance every other weekend I am sure to log a total of 2704 miles just going to my provincial town and back. Whew – it’s a long road.

I arrived at site on September 27th, fairly confident that I would get along fine the first few weeks. I was right in some respects; there were no incidents which deterred me from liking the place or for people here to consider me an “ugly American” (or if there were they were quiet about it). Mostly it was just awkward. Three weeks later it is still awkward only now my family and most people in my village recognize that I cannot speak fluent Khmer. Patiently they have taken time to teach me some Khmer words that I failed to learn in the first two months (surprisingly I did not know the Khmer words for “to clean” or “schedule”.. I wonder if this was some kind of Freudian slip?).

My first step to become a resident of Rumeus Hek was to buy a mattress. I have a very small bed frame at my host family’s house and was looking for something equally as small. There were none to find. I had to go ahead and buy one that was equal in length but twice the width for a whopping $30 (for a volunteer who makes less than $4 a day…it is a lot). Every night I have to be careful not to move around to much as to fall off and take all the bedding with me – a big pain in the butt considering my mosquito net takes up almost the entirety of my room and gets caught in my hair when I try to move around the out skirts of it. My family has been helpful with getting me settled in. For the first week I had no money and had to rely on their generosity. I was especially thankful to them when I heard from a volunteer in another province that her family had withheld food from her because as she had not been able to pay them yet. Equally frustrating for her was that her town had been affected by a hurricane and did not have any electricity, so even if she could withdraw money from the bank she would not be able to (we all had to wait until the 1st of the month for money to arrive in our accounts).

It has been surprisingly easy to make friends here. For the first few days my host sister and I went to a seller near the market to eat some Cambodian sandwiches for breakfast. The seller is a very friendly woman who unfortunately likes to give her three year old large doses of coffee to the detriment of her customers. Mostly this child just cries bloody murder until it gets the coffee and then after the coffee is consumed screams for more. This is depending on the time of day; often if I go in the evening (and many doses of coffee later) the child is screaming that it doesn’t feel well. I have yet to find out whether or not it is acceptable to tell this woman that giving coffee to a three year old is not a good idea. It was only last week that we swapped phone numbers and on Sunday she called me to see if I had done my laundry. I think we are getting closer to that level in our relationship… but maybe I’ll wait a month or two…or maybe I’ll never tell her. She makes the best Cambodian sandwiches in town and to jeopardize that relationship early on in my service would be fatal to my Peace Corps career. What is a Cambodian Sandwich? I assume it is like the Vietnamese sandwich on the crusty roll but as I’ve never had it I can only guess that it is similar. It is a toasted baguette with pork, what I call “rooster sauce” or spicy ketchup, cucumber, and other delicious sauces and spices. It is 25 cents a sandwich (or 1000 riel). Usually I accompany this with a shot of coffee with a bit of sweetened condensed milk which costs me 700 riel/20 cents. All together a great breakfast for less than 50 cents : )

Not surprisingly I acquired other friends while looking for food. Peace Corps has encouraged us to go out and meet people and really get to know the community during our first few months here. I always seem to need a destination or reason for going anywhere and thus interpreted it as “go and buy food and other things and make some conversation along the way”.

As I was passing the entrance of my market I made eye contact with a woman selling fruit. She recognized that I was wandering and invited me to sit down. I ended up sitting there for two hours. She kept giving me delicious fruit for free (Mangos, bananas, Lychee fruit, and oranges) and, because nearly everyone going to the market passes by that particular spot, after about 10 minutes of me sitting down we had a pretty decent crowd around the fruit stand. She has three children that live at home; a daughter (24), a son (22), and a 3 year old. I have become quite good friends with the 24 and 22 year old and we have gone on a few bike rides together. They have made it their mission to teach me Khmer and said that within 5 months I will know Khmer fluently– I hope they’re right. Before I left the stand that day the family, unsatisfied by the 2 kilos of fruit I ate, came out with some kind of packing material that looked somewhat like wax paper. The 24 year old woman, Nary, put it in her mouth and offered me a sheet of packing material as well. I thought it looked interesting and – carefully (it had sharp edges and treads) - put it in my mouth. At first I was certain that it was some kind of joke; “Look at the foreigner, she doesn’t know anything – she can’t even recognize that she is chewing on a large piece of plastic!” Luckily they sincerely eat the stuff and had given me some waxy paper material made out of rice.

My weekly schedule consists of working at the public high school with a coteacher, the health center, and having lots of free time. I work at the school 16 hours a week and at the health center 4 hours a week. There are practically no women teachers in my school and as I feel uncomfortable here around large groups of men (maybe this will change once I become proficient in the language?) I usually navigate towards the students. This not only helps my relations with them but helps me gage their language ability. On my first day there a group of 11th graders approached me and wanted to practice their English. They had the usual questions how many brothers and sisters do you have? What do your parents do? How old are you? How much do you weigh?

Nearly every person I have met has asked me how much I weigh. My family owns a pig scale and brought it out the other night to see if “maybe I would like to weigh myself in front of everyone?” I said “no thank you” and that “I do not want to know how much I weigh”. This last statement delivered some very quizzical looks but the fact is I can almost guarantee I am the heaviest woman in Rumeus Hek. This has recently been confirmed by working at the local health center. About once a week I go and observe the nurses in action (once my language gets good enough I will be hope to do more – just last year a volunteer became a midwife!). My time there is mostly spent watching the pregnant women come in, get a brief check-up…and get weighed. The average weight has been about 45 kilos or 100 lbs. I try to boost myself up with thinking that if anything they are jealous of my weight because after saying “you’re fat” they usually follow it up with “you’re beautiful”. But, me being an American woman, I am VERY self-conscious about my weight and would rather not weigh myself in front of everyone or tell all the people in my village how many kilos I am. Maybe that will change over time…

…especially if I try to keep up with my running schedule. We are currently in the midst of the rainy season and as there are no paved roads in my village, running is a very messy ordeal. I have limited my running to mornings following dry nights. It has been over a week since I have been able to go on a run : (

My experience thus far has led me to conclude that the people in my village are very generous and thoughtful. Here are a few examples….

Example 1) The other day I rode my bicycle to the market (as always) and forgot it in the hot afternoon sun. When I came back to where I left my bike it had been moved, thoughtfully, under the awning of the market and in the shade. I was so thankful, the seat of my bicycle is black and when left in the sun it becomes unbearably hot. I looked around to see who the Good Samaritan was, but they could not be found.

Example 2) I was invited to my student’s house to drink a Coke and talk with them in English. As we were conversing, they asked me how many teaching skirts (sampots) and shirts I had. I said two but that I was planning on buying one more. My student’s mother overheard that and asked me to follow her into her house. She had me try on a few of her sampots and shirts. At her insistence she tailored her own skirt to fit me right then. That day she gave me, a perfect stranger, a shirt and a sampot.

When I am not co-teaching, at the health center, or wandering the streets of Rumeus Hek, you can find me reading. And reading A LOT, like hours at a time. I have already devoured three books (Pillars of the Earth by Follett, Me Talk Pretty One Day by Sedaris, and Undaunted Courage by Ambrose) and am unfortunately left with two books to last me two and a half more months. That is when I am officially off what we Peace Corps Cambodia Volunteers like to call “Lock Down”; the mandatory three months we must stay at site without going into another province or Phnom Penh. Unfortunately for us in Svay Reng, Phnom Penh is the only city nearby (without crossing a border) where we can find decent English books or American food (Burgers!!Pizza!!!Cheese!!!!). This is not the case for those lucky enough to be placed in Kampot, Battambang or Siem Reap (think Angkor Wat) Provinces. I have tried to take my reading in small doses but cannot stop. I feel there may be dark days ahead.

The time spent here thus far has been fairly great. Of course I miss home and, especially, speaking English. I can already tell that I am becoming bit more Khmer and a little less American to my detriment or not. Evidence is everywhere. Such as the other day when I decided to use the toothpaste that the mouse chewed up and when I ate an entire frog head and everything. In the Unites States I would have thrown the toothpaste away thinking that I could get the Hanta-virus from it.And I would have never eaten a frog… ever. My coworkers at my school joke that they will get me too eat dog one day. I hope that day will never come. No matter how successful of a volunteer I am - the experience will be worth it.

The journey has no doubt been long. To us, the two months of training have gone by exceedingly fast while at the same time being incredibly slow; especially those first two weeks with our host families. Without being able to speak the language the days felt like years (at least now we have a bit of a foundation for moving to permanent site).Tonight was our, K3’s, last night together until our mid service training in February. No tears were shed but by looking at everyone’s face you could tell that we all will be missing each other when depart for our permanent sites tomorrow. It’s daunting to know that we will be without a “support system” within our towns and cities, at least until we build those relationships ourselves. For some of us it will be the first time away, on our own, trying to navigate that kind of relationship building in another country. Although we were and are all fully aware that we would be living with a Khmer family, surrounded by Khmer people, and not having another volunteer or American close to us… now that it is upon us we are all a bit apprehensive. Over and over we kept talking about how it was for Peace Corps volunteers nearly 50 years ago when the first volunteers went to Africa. They did not have cell phones or the internet. And getting to their sites sometimes took days. It all made our “grievances” look very trivial in comparison.

This last week has been one of the longest during my training. Last weekend was Pchum Ben, a holiday only celebrated in Cambodia (that I know of). It is hard to explain but I guess you could say it is similar to that of Day of the Dead in Mexico because it is dedicated to the departed and lifeless. The holiday itself is 15 days long. The very last weekend of the holiday the families travel to their ancestral home and meet with other family members. And on the last Saturday they go to the Wat (Buddhist Temple)and pray with the monks in front of the stupa, where their dead family members’ ashes are entombed. They give gifts for their ancestors and to the monks. And throughout the day they eat A LOT of food. It was not until Pchum Ben that I had my first bout of diarrhea. I blame it on the sheer quantity and variety of food they made me eat. It really bummed me out because I was trying to win the prize for the only volunteer to never get it in Cambodia. I failed, miserably.

The rest of the week was filled with getting our stuff ready to travel to permanent site, taking our language proficiency interviews, saying goodbye to our training families, and getting sworn in as volunteers. All of us passed our language proficiency interviews (go K3s!). I think I have a bit of test anxiety because just the idea of taking the test made me nervous, and so during nearly the whole thing I was a bit of a wreck. Luckily the only question that I feel I really “messed up” on was when the tester asked me to compare Khmer culture and American culture. Only hours before had I even heard the word “culture” in Khmer and knew no other substantial words in Khmer to make an intelligent answer. What I came up with was this: “Cambodia has Pchum Ben. For Pchum Ben they go to the Wat and sit in front of their dead family and eat a lot of food.” I didn’t even mention anything about American culture. Luckily I passed with an Intermediate Low which is what the majority of the other trainees received.

On Friday, September 25th we were sworn in by the American Ambassador to Cambodia, Carol Rodley, in Phnom Penh. It was a fun day. Our school directors came from each of sites for support and to have a brief conference before the swear-in. After the ceremony we were able to mingle with some RPCVs (returned Peace Corps volunteers) that live in Phnom Penh. Many of them have prestigious jobs with organizations such as USAID and Helen Keller International. It is safe to say that many of us are looking forward to the possible opportunity to work with an organization such as those in the future. Also in attendance was the Cambodia’s Minister of Education, Im Sethy. Thirty years ago he was one of a handful of teachers who came to Phnom Penh to build Cambodia’s Education system from the ground up. The following are links to articles about our swearing in ceremony:

http://khmernz.blogspot.com/2009/09/us-peace-corps-volunteers-sworn-in.html

(more websites to come.. .hopefully)

What was the funny thing that happened to my on the way to becoming a volunteer? It was how much I enjoyed it. When I first arrived here I was set on to prepare myself to serve Cambodia as much as possible. In the process of doing so I not only learned a great deal of technical information but also how to have fun here. The kind of things that will help me be mentally stable while being away from so many people I love back home. Silly Khmer card games? Check. Good places to get ice cream in Phnom Penh? Double check. How to order the best coffee and sweetened milk combination? You bet :)

Tomorrow I leave for Rumeus Hek. Who knows how frequently I will have internet but I will try to post as often as possible :) Thank you for reading!

It all began on a Wednesday morning. I and nine other Peace Corps volunteers set out to learn more about the health system in Cambodia, and the needs of its people. As we will be the first set of Peace Corps Volunteers in Cambodia to work in health and it is very exciting (and necessary) to see what we will be able to (and must) do in our communities.

The week was a whirlwind. From 6 am to 6pm we had meetings and language classes somewhere in between. We visited NGOs that teach women and village health volunteers about nutrition and the importance of breast feeding. Near Phnom Penh we visited IRD, a nongovernmental organization who does anything and everything in terms of making a healthy and sustainable Cambodia. We met with representatives from a group called Friends Helping Friends, HIV positive Cambodians supporting other HIV positive men and women in their communities by educating prevention, teaching trades in order to help them make enough money to get the care they need as well as help their families, and support groups to share their experiences. We went with them to the hospital to see the some people who are currently living with AIDS. It was sobering to see the effects on people once the disease has set in. There was a young woman who had lost both her parents when she was very young to the disease only to then get it herself. She was in the hospital for a brain tumor which had only recently been discovered when earlier that week she had randomly lost the ability to talk. Her grandparents were at her side laying packs of ice or her body. She lay very rigidly, staring at the ceiling moving her hands rhythmically over her body, constantly petting her arms or her stomach. Next to her were two people who were nothing more than skin and bones. The representatives from Friends Help Friends said that these people had given up taking their medications and had succumbed to AIDS. They did not move while we visited the ward. We left the hospital in complete silence – many of us crying. Cambodia has one of the highest HIV rates in SE Asia. You can read more about it at http://www.aidsalliance.org/sw7234.asp .

“Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink”

Many many many of the places and people we visited talked about water. It is a big deal here in Cambodia. The funny thing is, the problem isn’t with scarcity – there is a whole bunch of it here (almost too much during the rainy season… at least to walk in ;) ) – it’s just that it is really really dirty. Fecal matter, arsenic, you name it, these are just two of the most common and dangerous things found in water here. The arsenic is naturally occurring and is found in deep wells around the Tonle Sap. There are a few NGOs working in partnerships with American universities, such as IRD(www.irdc.org) , that test for arsenic as well as educate the public about the dangers of arsenic (FYI arsenic is undetectable through the senses, no taste, no smell, no anything). Fecal matter is a whole other issue. Animal poop as well as the human kind is prevalent on the ground and in the drainage ponds, waiting to be consumed, made into fertilizer, or stepped on by a young naïve Peace Corps trainee. Unfortunately the poop also finds its way into the drinking water, causing severe diarrhea to those who consume those evil microorganisms. Most adult Cambodians seem to be immune to them as I have seen them not only swimming in, but also drinking out of, these shallow ponds. The children are not immune and diarrhea (i.e. dehydration) is one of the main reasons why young children are even admitted to the hospitals here. Because of this and other health related problems caused by water, most of the presentations we saw were on how to keep water clean and healthy.

This week I finally had one of those moments of, “OMG I’m in Cambodia” and I was really happy about it. This week was inspirational not because of what I learned but who I met. If you ever want to meet someone who truly wants to make a change in the world, come to Cambodia and talk to any one of the staff at their NGOs, health clinics, or hospitals. I would write more about the specific NGOs and people I met this week but I think I will save that for the book :)

I am excited to get to site and really get to know my community. It will only get harder from here though… so maybe ask me about it in a few weeks.

A week and a half until swear in and then I move out to my permanent site:)

Is a very rural town 13 km from Vietnam and about 40 km from the provincial town. On Tuesday I was told that is where I will be living for the next two years and on Friday I went for a two night visit. The family is wonderful and, believe it or not, they have electricity. It is only for about 4 hours a day but it is enough for me to charge my phone and computer if need be. My father works in the District Office in town and my mother works part time at the referral hospital. That is another benefit of Rumeus Hek.. it has the referral hospital. For a 25 mile radius it is the only hospital to speak of. With two/three doctors it can be very busy. I was able to meet with some of the staff on Sunday to discuss what kind of role I can play at the hospital and community, both as an educator and volunteer. This part makes me a bit nervous as I am not an expert in health education or teaching English as a foreign language. Due to it being a very poor country and Rumeus Hek being a very poor district, the doctor made it clear that human resources are invaluable to them; especially someone with a college degree and a little experience. I cannot wait to be of some help :)

The family has four children, three girls and a boy. The eldest daughter is at University in Phnom Penh and the other three live at home. Their house is large by Khmer standards and has two large community rooms – one downstairs near the kitchen and another upstairs with a television. My room is adjacent to that room and has two windows that look out over their fruit trees (Mango and Coconut, mostly). I am still unsure of how many “bedrooms” they have.. .this seems to be a bit of a challenge as Khmer people often sleep in the same room they cook/host guests/watch tv etc (also having only known them for two days I felt it a bit awkward to just walk around their house).

One more month until swear-in after which I will move to my permanent site and I am getting increasingly anxious. I will not have internet access in my town and the nearest internet café is a 40 km bike ride away. If you would like to get a hold of me you may write to me (although my mail will be in the provincial town i.e. 40 bumpy km by bicycle) or you may call me. Send me an email for the digits

Will I know enough Khmer to survive? Will I be able to handle the 40 km bike ride to my Provincial town? Will a day go by in which a mosquito does not bite me? Only time will tell...

August 22nd 2009 started out as a wonderful day. The sun was shining and I had a really great lesson planned out for my last day of Practicum. I started the day as usual, had breakfast at a restaurant near the market, downed two coffees, and set off for school. School was great and my lesson went off without too many hitches. Myself and two other Peace Corps Trainees handed out the certificates of completion to the students (along with some delicious candy) and called it done. Don't get me wrong, I definitely believe that the six days of Practicum teaching are beneficial, but after leaving that classroom at noon on Saturay I couldn't be happier that it was over. Another Peace Corps trainee, Cooper, and I decided to forego the normal, safe backroad route to our host family's houses and to instead take the busy road so we could check if our friends were at the Tela (the blessed air-conditioned gas station) celebrating the end of a VERY long week.

Of course, me being who I am, I decided to ride ahead of Cooper. When I came to the intersection (about 100 meters or less away from the tela) and veered to the left WHAM!!! a Moto hit my almost straight on. Luckily I was not hurt in the slightet. Cooper has told me that after I was hit I alm ost immediately stood up and smiled.... I can not really remember what I did immediately follwing the crash. And, unfortunately, the Moto driver did not stay around for us to check if he had any major injuries. My bicycle was totalled and I had to take a tuk-tuk home that afternoon. I have since received a replacement bike that I will use until I am in my permanent site.

Permanent site placements will be announced on Tuesday, August 25th. As a health extension agent as well as English teacher the staff told me to expect a rural placement. I am both nervous and excited, overall just anxious, to know where I will be living the next two years. I am just hoping that I have electricity...and a comfortable home... and a nice Coteacher...and internet? Ha Ha Ha. I can dream :)

Since setting off for Cambodia a month ago I have noticed a few things:

1. Spiders no longer scare me

2. I will never be able to keep my feet or nails clean or my white clothes white

3. If an ant is crawling in my rice, I will attempt to pull it out but if I am unable to find the said ant, I will eat my rice anyway (ant and all).

4. Khmer people will smile at you but will not smile for cameras

5. I like Durian, but only in smoothies.

Life here has been going by fast. After we learn of our site placements we head off to Phnom Penh for a few days to met our Coteachers for a 2-3 day conference. On the last of our conference days all of the Peace Corps Trainees have been given the opportunity to attend the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. Hopefully it will be an interesting day at the tribunal.

If you are interested in writing me my address is:

PCT Kellee Keegan

Peace Corps (PST K3)

P.O. Box 2453, Phnom Penh 3, CAMBODIA

Think good thoughts for my site placement!

My training village is Tramkok - a small but somewhat wealthy town about 12 kilometers outside of our hub site Takeo. Out K3 group is split between Tramkok and Traing and so on any given day I could only see about half (usually less) of my fellow Peace Corps Trainees. Tramkok is nice (or a bit better than Traing) because we have an air conditioned gas station that sells (gasp!) cold beverages, an internet cafe, and a tuk tuk stop. This becomes incredibly useful when we need to travel to our hubsite once a week for seminar and need to have the option of traveling by tuk tuk instead of riding our bicycles.

My family is still wonderful and I (finally) have a sense of who my family members are in my immediate family. With so many extended relatives and neighbors hanging around all the time it was quite impossible to tell who was who. I have three sisters, two brothers, a mother, and a father. I was a little bit confused about the whole father thing when I first moved in with my family though. It was not until yesterday that he showed up and I am almost afraid to ask where he has been as some Cambodian men have two lives (such as a wife and a mistress) and must (more often than not) live in different cities. I do not know what my family's situation is.. but I have yet to feel comfortable enough to ask them... especially while he is there.

Names names names. I have been told that that there are only about 40 names used in Cambodia for the majority of the population. There could be as little as 10 names in Cambodia and I would still get my family member's ames wrong. For some reason.. on my first day when I asked my little sister what her name was she told me Keena (or what sounded like Keena). She has been the one that has helped me with everything - from setting up my mosquito net to practicing Khmer. For the last two weeks I have been calling her Keena and she has been responding to it. It was to my great surprise then, when my language teacher came to my house to find that her name was not Keena. Her name is Duh. How ironic is that?

So after that embarrassment I have decided to just call them all my little brother, big brother, little sister or older sister until I know, without a doubt, what their name is.

The last week and a half have been a whirlwind. I moved into my host family last Wednesday and they are wonderful. They do not speak English though ( there are a few exceptions as some of the younger family members have taken a year or two of English in school - I have only heard them say "hello" "goodbye" and "are you hungry?" however) and so I have become very good at pantomiming riding my bicycle, learning khmer, and asking questions like "Where does that Chicken lay it's eggs?". Needless to say they laugh at me a lot. They laugh at me when I sit down for dinner...when I try to speak Khmer and especially when I attempt to wash my clothes. Let me tell you it is quite embarrassing to wash your underwear in front of your entire Khmer family that you've known for only a few days. To them it does not seem to make a difference though as they helped me through the entire process (underwear and all). It has taken me (on average) an hour each time to do my laundry. 1 bucket and brush for washing + 1 bucket for rinsing + tons of elbow grease = my maytag for two years.

I have the deepest respect for my Khmer mother who washes the entire family's clothes by hand, makes all the meals, cleans the house, butchers the animals, and burns the rubbish. Maybe after two years here I will become like the Khmer... as it is though I am having a difficult time with some of the weasiest things .. like getting used to the bucket showers and squat toilets.

The bucket showers aren't that bad.. I take them twice a day.The bathroom is outside, connected to the kitchen, and consists of a tub full of water, a bucket, and the squat toilet. The only problem with the bucket showers is that the tub attracts the mosquitos and I have received a few bites on the bum while using it. The squat toilets are going to take a little bit longer to get used to. Yesterday I was using one and not really paying all that much attention. When I got up to throw the water in (to wash down the bad stuff) I noticed that I had missed! I desperately looked around to see if there was any way I could remedy the situation. Luckily it was a #1 and I just thew a bunch of water on it. Hopefully my family did not pay that much attention to the excessive amount of water around the toilet.

Food Food Food. It is amazing. I was so pumped to come here thinking that I would lose tons of weight. Ha. My family feeds me three HUGE meals a day. And all of the current volunteers have said they have gained weight since moving here. Terrific. Knowing this I was like.. "No big deal.. I will go running and continue to eat as much as I want". Ha Ha. There are a ton of feral dogs in Cambodia. Most of them are pretty small but they are all very very scary. On Monday I got up at 5 am, put on my running shorts and shoes and went outside. The first thing that happened was all of my family's dogs jumped on me (they have five). The second thing that happened to me was that my aunt came over and looked at me very questioningly .. like "Where in the h*** could you be going right now?" When I pantomimed running she laughed at me and then shoo'ed (sp?) me out to the street. That is when it got really scary. There are no street lights, speedlimits, or laws governing the roads at all. With the combination of feral dogs following me, motos driving as close as possible, and poop on the streets I decided it was time to turn around back to my house. You should have seen my aunt's face when I returned after a four minute run. She was laughing very hard. Quickly I took off my shoes and went up to my room to sleep for another hour.

The meals I receive at my host family's home always consists of rice, a soup, and some kind of chicken, beef, or pork dish. This is always follwed by some kind of desert such as fruit or fried bread. When I am not at my family's house though I go a little "crazy" with the food. There are so many different kinds of food here that we do not get back in the States .. specially fruit such as Dragonfuit, Mangosteen, Durians, Mien, etc. Some Cambodians also incorporate insects into their dishes. Apparently insects were not introduced until the Khmer Rouge time when food was very scarce. Since then they have really perfected the fried ant (called Ang-Krong here). The ants were spicy and crispy and all together not bad. I did not like their wings though as they tended to get stuck in my teeth.

Wow- my last post needs a bit of editing.

Our first night was spent in Phnom Penh. Thankfully the day was spent doing, for the most part, things that did not require much brain power. The jet lag has not been too bad but sometimes I find myself staring off into space for minutes at the time and having trouble compiling decent sentences. As soon as we arrived we checked in, used an internet cafe, and had lunch at a traditional Cambodian restaurant. The staff introduced themselves and we were each given a tube of Deet to keep the mosquitoes away. Dengue (Ding-gay) is in season right now and they (as well as myself) do not want to take any chances. When you have it you catch a high fever (102 F +) and it supposedly feels as though someone is crushing your bones or stabbing you all over your body. There also is a lovely hemorrhagic (sp?) version. Because of this I am religious about slathering myself in Deet twice a day. I find that it has to be better than the alternative.

After lunch a few of us, along with some current K2 volunteers, grabbed beers at the Foreign Correspondents Club before catching a boat ride on the Ton la Sap river. At this point my jet lag must have caught up with me as I spent most of the time sitting and gazing out over the river as well as getting the back story on my fellow Peace Corps Trainees.

There are 45 of us K3 (Kompuchea 3)Trainees - age ranges from 21 to 50+. There are 14 boys (3 are married) and 31 girls. All of them are wonderful and I am looking forward to learning Khmer and experiencing the culture with them.

Since Phnom Penh we have moved to Takeo City (about an hour and a half by bus south of Phnom Penh)to do some initial culture and language training before we move into our host family's respective houses on Tuesday, July 28. I am excited to move in with my family but also incredibly nervous as my language currently consists of hello, goodbye, sorry, my name is, I am from, and I feel happy/sad. After language training the staff and current volunteers demonstrated bucket showering, hand washing clothing, eating etiquette and using the toilet. The squat toilet demonstration made me laugh but only out over nervousness (not excitement). The Khmer people do not use toilet paper, they use a bucket of water and their hands. Apparently this is why, when eating food with their hands, they never use their left.

Tomorrow we continue with our education of the culture and Tuesday we head to our training villages where we will spend 6 days a week preparing ourselves to become volunteers. Which, if all goes well, I will become on September 24th. Permanent sites will decided upon sometime in September.

Overall the few days I've spent in Cambodia have been wonderful. Though I have really come to realize how much I stand out as an American and white person. Yesterday a few of us decided to go to the carnival in town to attend a concert of a popular Cambodian band. Everyone stared at us as we walked into the melee of people. No joke, it was as if we were in the mosh pit of a concert. For the solid two hundred yards of concert and carnival it was shoulder to shoulder, chest to back. People yelled "hello" to us from everywhere. At the time I thought that this may be what a famous person must feel like. Of course that was before a passing male grabbed my crotch and I realized that a famous person would have a body guard (or two) and would not be walking through a crowd of people, especially oone who did not speak their language.

It is about 8 pm now and the mosquitoes are starting to bite. There is an Ämerican restaurant next door and I plan on eating a burger (!) before I settle into my rice only diet.

This must be quick as i was just told that I have 5 minutes left at the internet cafe. Please excuse any typos or misspellings :P

Phnom Penh has been wonderful thus far. The Peace Corps staff is incredibl;y friendly and we were able to speak with some current vollunteers about there experience so far. All of them seem very excited to chare their experiences which bodes welll for a nice future here in Cambodia.

There was a bit of a snaffu with the flights. After arriving in Thailand we styayed at the Novohotel in bangkok for five hours. We arrived about two hours before boarding on july 24th only to find that 9 of our fellow Peace Corps trainees had been "mistakingly" been put on stand-by. We begged and pleaded with them for an hour but were not able to get them on our flight. Currently they are still at the Bangkok airport.

When we arrived in Phnom Penh we were greeted by the PC staff and current vollonteers. They had made us fans and signs to welcome us. After a brief picture taking opportunity (pictures will be on shortly... I promise) we jumped on the airconditioned coach to go to our hotel.

Tommorrow I will have orientation and will receive my cell phone and all of my shots :( Can't wait!

As I am writing this I am probably half asleep as I could not sleep the last week before I arrived.

The plane from Seattle was late as there was a dangerously thick cloud cover hanging over SFO. When we arrived, two hours after our initial arrival time, my other PCT (Peace Corps Trainee) friend Meghan (who amazingly enough is also from Olympia) were surprised to find four other trainees like ourselves on the same flight. Apparently this group of Cambodia Peace Corps volunteers is disproportionately representative of the Pacific Northwest as about 7 or 8 of the 45 of us are from Seattle and the surrounding areas.

After stowing our bags in our room we had just enough time to run downstairs and get in line to register to become a Peace Corps Trainee. Our orientation began soon afterward with some wonderful ice breakers and a workshop on Peace Corps policies.

The whole orientation lasted about 4 or 5 hours. It definitely helped me with the fundamentals. Working as a Peace Corps is a commitment and comes with many rules.

We were all starving and decided to meet downstairs at 7:30pm (we are staying at the kabuki Hotel in Japan Town in San Fran... IT IS FABULOUS). I had been able to have some wonderfully awkward but funny conversations with some other trainees durring the day but was very grateful that we had the night to go out and get to know each other better.

Tomorrow we check out of the hotel around 7:30 am. Our flight to Tokyo leaves around 1:30pm. They expect that we will need to get on the plane as soon as we check our baggage around 11 am. For the next few days we will be flying. First to Tokyo, then Bangkok (where we will stay for five hours at hotel) and then Phnom Penh on Friday.

Staging (where we will receive our shots, further information on rules and policies, and other additional information) will take place in Takeo about an hour south of the Capital. I hope hope hope I will be able to post a blog our two during that time. Internet Cafes are common in provincial cities but may not be as accessible with our training schedule. I will try to post as much as possible.

♥

“March 25, 2009 Dear Kellee, Congratulations! It is with great pleasure that we invite you to begin training in Cambodia for Peace Corps service. You will be joining thousands of Americans who are building stronger communities throughout the world. This call to action gives you the opportunity to learn new skills and to find the best in yourself…” I had originally submitted my application in March of 2008. Because of many unforeseen hurdles along the way in my application process it was not until a year later that I received my invitation to serve in Cambodia as an English Teacher.

Tentatively, I am to leave on July 20th for two days of staging (i.e. receive shots, some important information regarding Cambodia, and to sign paperwork) after which I officially begin my Peace Corps Training (PCT) in Cambodia on July 22/23.

Cambodia is one of the fifty “least developed countries” according to the UN http://www.un.org/special-rep/ohrlls/ldc/list.htm. It has been ravaged by war and instability for the last 40 + years. All of which has contributed to its lack of infrastructure and wealth. For comparison the IMF states that the United States GDP per Million is 14,264,600, a harsh contrast against Cambodia’s 28,239.

I cannot wait to begin my Peace Corps journey. I am starting this blog so that friends, family, and those I may have never met will get a better understanding of Cambodia and the Peace Corps.