Weird crap I've eaten:

Fertilized duck eggs: like a soft boiled egg, but with a prize inside. I don't really like soft boiled eggs to begin with and the fetus doesn't make it any better.

Pig intestines w/ anus: as good as it sounds. And the texture.... the texture...

Fried crickets: think fishy peanuts but more delicious than it sounds.

Fish eggs w/ innards: pretty good, but the sauce is amazing.

Dog: nothing without the dog-sauce

I have one hour to kill before I go to the Takeo Regional Teacher Training Center to oversee the destruction of a septic tank and the excavation of a wetlands area. What this really means is that I'm going to watch heavy machinery trudge through black water and dig out a giant puddle of human waste. I'm taking over this project for a friend of mine who has to go back to the states early. We're re-doing the bathrooms for the teachers-in-training dorms which are currently a horrible mess. The septic tank, which is above ground mind you, is only half there and the smell is so rancid it stings the back of your throat. When we're done, the tank and the area behind it will be replaced with a wetlands area, a small pond full of plants that will process the waste that flows into it. My role in this is that of a book keeper. All I really do is show up, sign bake statements, collect receipts and bust heads to make sure the money is getting spent properly.

Other than watching poo get shoveled around life has been pretty uneventful. At my site class attendance is dropping steadily. My English club rarely meets anymore. I spend most of my time reading and studying Khmer - I started taking private lessons to learn how to read and my family uses it as an opportunity to make fun of me as much as possible. Every afternoon I play basketball with some of the more "gangster" students. You know, the kids who wear their hair in girlish mullets, keep one pant-leg rolled up and never go to class. It took over a week to get them to dribble with one hand and stop trying to handle the ball like they were playing volleyball - during our first game together, the ball rarely touched the ground cause they kept volleying it to each other.

Weddings. It's the dry season which means it's also wedding season (wet season weddings are synonymous with shotgun weddings). I've been averaging one wedding per week with my family and it hasn't been uncommon for there to be five weddings going on at the same time in a ten mile radius. Here's what you're missing: the color scheme of the decor and clothing is reminiscent of "Juliet of the Spirits" projected onto 80's prom dresses. Women wear big, over-styled hair and lots of make-up (some understand moderation but there are some older women who bare an uncanny resemblance to Tammy Faye Baker). Men just wear slacks and a nice shirt. There's always really loud, really bad music blasting from speakers or a live band. If it's a band, it's all Khmer pop and love songs. If it's a recording you get a lot of American hip-hop in the mix. I get asked to dance. A lot. And always by drunk men over thirty. When the party starts to wind down there's always a group of plastered men half-swaying in front of the speakers/stage, falling on each other and giving back rubs. It gets kinda weird.

The Ballin'est Morning I've Had So Far

It was a Wednesday. I know this cause I was sick Monday and Tuesday with the vomit/diarrhea combo. This is how it works: I get about two weeks (if I'm lucky) of regular solid poo, then two days of the runs - the first day is the oh-my-god-my-insides-have-turned-into-liquid-this-can-only-mean-dysentery-this-time-for-real diarrhea with explosive vomit (and let me tell you that a diet of rice makes for a very unpleasant texture for barfing) and the second day is really just like a couple squirts throughout the day that aren't so bad but they have a terrible way of shooting off-center towards the feet. Then there's also the unpleasant thought of "dammit, I have to clean this with my hand."

So that was my Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday I was rested and recharged and ready for an invigorating day of teaching English. And as I rode my bike into the campus I notice a rather drastic change in the landscape. The "basketball court" - which was really just the outline of a court done in cheap bricks that surrounded a patch of grass and there were two skeletal frames of where goals could go - had been dug up. Now I should mention that since I arrived in Koh Andet I'd been telling my school director, teachers and basically anyone who'd listen to me that if they fixed up the court I'd be able and willing to coach a team (only the "willing" part of that statement is true, but I got time to change that) and I was already preparing for the stress of convincing people to raise money, raising the money, and making sure the money raised went to the right use instead of, say, buying extra rounds of beer for the teachers and staff. So seeing that the old court had been removed could only mean one of two things: that we were getting a brand spanking new court that would be so awesome that we had to eliminate any memory of the old one or that they were just making space for something else. So I asked around and found out that, thank god, we were getting a new court. My director showed me the paper work and plans and not only do I not have to worry about raising money or any of that crap but I won't even have to paint the lines myself. So I get the court and all the trimmings without any of the hassle most other people have to go through.

Feeling recharged and rested and now excited about the court I went on to my classes. This became the day that my 10-A class became my most ballin' class in the school. Not only were they all actually participating - getting one student to say or do anything is usually a miracle and getting all 50 of them to participate is down-right mind blowing - but they were really getting into it. And they were loud. And.. and.. confident! It was like walking into a room that you expect to be destroyed by like a tornado or something only you find everything in pristine condition.. only maybe pristine-er than you thought it could've ever been. That's how I felt leaving the school that morning.

I went home for lunch thinking that my day couldn't possibly get more ballin' and my fam comes out with red curry soup; easily the most ballin' meal I ever get served. Not only does red curry soup have the flavor of like a roman god or goddess ground into a delightful paste - it's spicy, too - but it's served with bread instead of rice. Double score. And as I dipped heavenly host into delicious delicious hades, thinking about my day, I looked up and saw in the upper corner of the gazebo an over-sized gecko (they call them tuk-eye because of the horrendously loud sound they make, like Tuk-eye Tuk- eye - when I first heard the sound, at 2 in the morning mind you, I thought in my sleep deprived state that I was hearing some kind of cuckoo clock on acid until I realized that it would be absurd to think a family in rural Cambodia would have any use for a cuckoo clock... that only went off in the middle of the night; I've got a picture of one - it's blue and orange - up on facebook) fighting a snake. And eat your heart out Ray Harryhausen, this shit was for real. My little brother freaked out and ran away leaving me to enjoy my curry and the epic jurassic battle, which the gecko won but not without getting a serious licking from the snake.

So I suppose that first I should apologize for not updating that often... or at all. The left side of my keyboard on my laptop crapped out, making it a bulky dvd player, and it's just too hard to write anything coherent without the help of letters like A and E. Also, I'm just now able to sit down in front of a computer and not be all in a rush because I only have five minutes before a long awful meeting to check email and upload a picture or two.

So here's what you've been missing out on:

During the wet season my site is an island, technically speaking. It's name, Koh Andet, even translates as "floating island." To get there you have to go 15k down a bumpy-as-hell dirt road which is surrounded on either side by massively expanse of rice patties; a sea of bright green and baggy clouds that sag from the sky. The back end is entirely flood waters from the Mekong that make lakes along the entire province.

My school is decently large; maybe 1600 students total from grade 7-12. This doesn't sound like a lot, but considering that my town is a side-road on the way through east bumblef---, it's a good size. I've been watching my co-teacher for a couple of weeks now and I've been actually teaching for maybe a week and a half. Depending on the class it can be really fun or it can be 45 minutes of blank faces staring back at me with their mouths just slightly open like they're terrified of any question more complicated than "what is your name?" But they're all good kids. And even if they don't appear to be in class, they're all pretty excited about my prescence in town. My house is very close to the school and as they ride by on their bikes there is a constant flow of hello's a girlish (even from the boys) giggles.

I don't have much time, so a real post will have to wait for later.

I've been in Cambodia for barely two weeks. As far as weather goes, it's not very different from Georgia in the summer. It's hot. Really really really hot. Then it rains in the afternoon and it cools off a little.

I've been at my training site, a district town called Baribo for about a week. Every morning I take a "power shower" - a bucket shower performed over a squat toilet.. use your imagination. My host family is fantastic but I'm still not entirely sure who all lives there and who just hangs out. My mom is very lively and insists that I take at least three baths a day.

I really miss ice cream

Tomorrow I leave for San Francisco where I'll be until the 21st getting shots and what-have-you. From there we fly out to Phnom Penh, Cambodia with a layover in Bangkok.

Here's my contact info

mail:

PCT Robert Cunningham, Jr

PO Box 2453

Phnom Penh

Cambodia

email:

dadadadadont@gmail.com

RobertCunninghamJr2@gmail.com

Don't ask why I two gmail accounts, but I check them both regularly.