I know it’s been a while since my last post, but quite honestly I didn’t feel like writing a blog since July. But today I decided to post a Happy Thanksgiving message to everyone reading. I hope that you are all watching football, eating copious amounts of food, and visiting with your friends and family.

My Thanksgiving was pretty simple. I taught an 11th grade class this morning, went to the market and bank around lunch time, spent the afternoon doing laundry and reading in my hammock, and then went for my evening run. On my way back from my run some of my students gave me some flowers that they had picked from the water lilies in the school’s fish pond. I gave some of the flowers to one of the neighbor boys and he promptly started eating it and told me it was delicious. I decided not to eat my remaining flowers, but put them in a jar on my table.

For my 2009 Thanksgiving dinner I cooked the most basic of basic meals….rice and beans with two eggs. This will be my last holiday season in Cambodia and I decided that celebrating my simple life here with a simple meal would be fitting. I also wanted to remind myself of the things I’m thankful for in my life: family and friends that love me, my health, happiness, and random students that give me flowers after my workout.

Next year though, watch out! The last place you will want to be is in between me and the turkey/stuffing/pumpkin pie. Happy Thanksgiving everyone and I promise to post more often after my 5 month writing hiatus.

I took a long bike ride today and was thinking about all of the stuff that I haven't done since living in America. Then I was thinking about all of the cool new things that I've done in Cambodia. Hope you enjoy the lists.

Haven't done in a year:

• Driven a car

• Used a washing machine

• Used toilet paper (it's true....not used here)

• Seen snow

• Gone mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, or camping

• Eaten a Chipotle burrito (used to be a staple in my diet)

• Bought gas or paid for insurance for my car

• Hiked a mountain

• Showered less than two times in one day

• Scraped ice off of my windshield

• Eaten a piece of pie (I've had two pieces of cake this year though)

• Pet a dog despite being surrounded by lots of mangy ones

• Eaten savory crepes at the Boulder Farmers' Market with my sister on Sunday morning

• Eaten a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner

New things I've done this past year:

• Sea kayaked on the Gulf of Thailand

• Learned to speak Khmer (or at least enough to get around)

• Taught in a classroom and people actually listened

• Wore the craziest looking clothes to celebrate weddings and funerals

• Seen Angkor Wat and ridden around the whole complex two separate times

• Ridden in a skinny river boat to visit a chunchiet cemetery

• Bathed fully clothed in a muddy river while the villagers stood on the banks and watched

• Spent weeks upon weeks alone at site with no contact with other Americans (minus the text messaging)

• Visited the market nearly everyday to buy my food

• Became addicted to coconuts

• Fed a monkey a banana

• Fed an elephant a whole bunch of bananas

• Kicked a dog in the face because it tried to bite me

• Ran over a poisonous snake on my bike (or at least I think it was a banded krait)

• Hitchhiked nearly every week to get to wherever I need to go

• Swam in the ocean in the middle of the night when the moon was out

• Slept in a bamboo hut

• Drank a little too much Lao flower wine during Khmer New Year

• Eaten the following: fire ant salad, fried crickets, fried grasshoppers, fish cheek, fried fish stomach, pigs' feet, cow intestines, chicken brain, chicken feet, chicken stomach, coagulated chicken blood, and basically every other part of a chicken that technically can be eaten but shouldn’t.

So as you can see my new list trumps my old list, so that makes me happy. I’m still missing America though…my family, the food, and the mountains. One year down, one to go!

Also, today was pretty hot and I went for a long ride and drank A TON of water…6.5 liters to be exact, and that doesn’t include the 1-1.5 liters I’ll drink before I go to bed. It’s sickening how much we sweat here. But don’t sweat it, because I re-fill my plastic bottles so they don’t end up in the burn piles.

For the Fourth some of us headed to Phnom Penh for a celebration at the US embassy. It was a really nice time with lots of good American food and a huge American flag cake. The cake was basically the highlight of the night. They brought it out and all of the PCV's swarmed the area. I pushed my way into cutting it and got the biggest stars corner piece with tons of frosting. This was the second piece of cake I've had in a year and anyone who knows me knows that chocolate Whole Foods cake is a Sunday night staple in my diet.

This summer is going well so far. We're now in the rainy season and the weather has cooled off a little. It still hits the mid-90's in the middle of the day with humidity, but in the evenings it'll drop below 80. So, there is no longer any reason for me to get out of the mosquito net twice a night to take a cold shower because I'm sweating so much.

School's finished. It's actually been winding down since February, but officially finished at the end of June. So for the next three months I've arranged to work on my school's farm with the agriculture students. It's nice to be outside (despite the heat) taking care of the vegetables and trees. Last week they taught me how to take care and fertilize a certain type of tree. They teach me the names of the plants in Khmer and Thai and I teach them the English word (if it exists). So many of the plants here are unique to the tropics, so I don't know their English equivalent names.

I've included the picture of me cutting the flag cake.

Traveling in-country is an undertaking that can turn even the most patient traveler into a raging lunatic. My 120 mile trip to Phnom Penh often turns into a two day adventure thanks to inclement weather, road maintenance delays, or missed taxis. Despite the seven hour trip, I look forward to weekends away from site when I can visit with my American friends, and eat food that is not rice. A few weeks ago I took a trip down south to visit my friend Kristine, and the taxi ride will be one that I’ll never forget. The 60 mile trip from Phnom Penh to her village took nearly 8 hours. I hope you enjoy my story.

“Hi, I’d like to go to p’saa chubah ambeuh,” I tell the tuk-tuk driver in Khmer.

“P’saa thmey (central market)?” he questions me.

“No, no, no. I want to go to p-s-a-a c-h-u-b-a-h a-m-b-e-u-h,” I restate slowly, knowing that my words are understandable so long as they fall on attentive ears.

“Ok lady, I take you to Wat Phnom,” he tells me in English.

“No, dammit. I want to go to p’saa chubah amebuh. It’s across the bridge on National Road No.1.”

“Oh! P’saa chubah ambeuh. Ok, I take you there.” He replies.

“How much for one person?” I ask in Khmer.

“Brahm dollah (five dollars),” he answers.

“Five dollars? To go two kilometers? No, I’ll pay you….a dollar and a half,” I bargain.

“Three dollars,” He counters.

“No, a dollar and a half,” I state and begin to walk away pretending to look for a cheaper tuk-tuk.

“Ok, ok, ok lady. Two dollars.”

“Alright.” I finally agree.

I climb in and immediately sling my right arm through the straps of my bag. I don’t want to become an easy target for the notorious Phnom Penh moto thieves. They drive up next to tourists in tuk-tuks, grab their bags from inside and take off through the traffic, rarely to be caught.

We turn into P’saa Chubah Ambeuh at 9:30am sharp, like Kristine said to do. The tuk-tuk is swarmed by a crowd of Khmer taxi drivers. One grabs my arm, another grabs at my bag, and yet another hops onto the moving tuk-tuk to try and convince me to ride in his taxi. They yell their destinations at me:

“Siem Reap”

“Svay Rieng”

“Prey Veng”

Holding tight onto my bag I jump off the tuk-tuk the moment it stops. I shove a wad of khmer riels into the tuk-tuk driver’s hand and push through the crowd of men saying that I already have a driver and to leave me alone. I make my way to the taxi vans parked near the food stalls that sell everything from cold bottled water to fried grasshoppers to sugar cane juice served in a plastic sack with a straw. I find the only taxi going to Kristine’s village; it’s empty except for the driver and his wife.

An empty taxi in Cambodia is a bad omen because taxis only leave when they are completely full. There’s only one option in dealing with an empty taxi: get your iPod out, get comfortable, and patiently wait until it fills up. A thirteen passenger van is considered “full and ready to leave” when the three following conditions have been met:

1. There are at least 25 people crammed inside the van, plus another 5 sitting on top.

2. There are about 30 cases of Anchor beer, a few dozen chickens, a moto, and a few bicycles tied to the top too.

3. The Khmer music in your van is loud enough that it drowns out the Khmer music in the van next to you, which is only three feet away.

I take a seat in the back next to a window after negotiating the price with the driver. The May heat hits hardest around 11:00am. Today it has to be close to 100°F with stagnant and humid Asian market air sticking to every inch of me while I sit and wait. Every smell emanating from the market fills my nose and soaks into my clothes. I can smell the gasoline being pumped by hand out of hundred gallon steel barrels, the fermented fish paste that Cambodia is known for, and the rotting pile of trash that was soaked by a rainstorm yesterday afternoon and marks the beginning of the tropical rainy season. The sellers stop by my window every few minutes trying to convince me to buy salted river clams, bananas, bottled water, and cheap plastic toys.

“Lady you want buy something. I give you special price.”

“Lady you buy water.”

“Lady you want pineapple?”

The van slowly starts to fill with people and I continue to sit and wait. It’s been nearly two hours now. I’ve sweat through my tee-shirt and have been constantly wiping the drips off my face and arms with my favorite green bandana. The driver climbs to the top of the van to tie down some empty 5 gallon plastic gas containers, three bicycles, and an assortment of neon colored flower patterned body pillows. Out of the corner of my eye I see our driver fall off the van and land on the ground. The rope he was balancing himself with snapped and he went over the side, but fortunately he landed on his feet.

The anticipation of our impending departure makes me irritable. My mood does not improve when the young guy sitting behind me lights up a cigarette and fills the van with cheap tobacco smoke. My blood boils and I turn around to tell him that he should smoke outside away from me because the smoke makes me sick. He laughs at me and I realize that I’m just a foreigner with a silly accent who can’t express feelings of anger using only basic Khmer.

We begin to move after more than three hours, but five minutes into the ride I leap out of my seat when something furry moves across my foot. I don’t realize that I’ve scraped my leg on a loose piece of metal until after I look under the seat in front of me expecting to see a rat, but instead find a puppy wagging its tail. I don’t remember seeing the dog get on the van.

Now that we’re moving, my clothes start to dry out, I cool off a bit, and my mind is looking forward to spending the weekend with a friend, but mostly I am looking forward to getting off this van and having a cold bucket bath. We reach the Neak Lohm ferry crossing after an hour or so. The road we are driving, National Road No. 1, is the main route between HoChiMinh City and Phnom Penh. It crosses over the massive Mekong River and travels through the Mekong Delta, the largest rice producing region in southern Vietnam. To cross the river you have to take a ferry at the town of Neak Lohm. A few years back the Japanese government gave Cambodia close to $10 million to build a proper bridge that could handle the immense amount of traffic that travels this route daily. That money was “misplaced,” so here I sit at the Neak Lohm ferry crossing, also known as that absolute arm pit of the earth, waiting to cross the river.

I go through the motions again with the sellers who shove plastic bags of warm fruit, sunglasses, and styrofoam containers of rice in my face trying to entice me to buy their food. After refusing to buy anything they eventually leave me alone, only to be replaced by beggars, who reach in through the windows, grab my hands and ask for money. Again the young man behind me lights up a cigarette in the van. This time though instead of relying on my limited Khmer, I reach back and start grabbing for his lit cigarette to throw it out the window. He gets the point and exits the van to smoke outside. We eventually load onto the ferry, cross the Mekong River, and turn off onto a dusty cow path of a road through the poor rural areas of Prey Veng.

Soon after turning onto this dirt road, a foul smell begins to take over the van. Putrid smelling vans are part of life here and I’ve learned to always have a bandana with me to cover my nose and mouth as a makeshift face mask. Nearly two hours after turning off onto this rough dirt road I overhear the Khmer family in front of me say: “Gcong chikah slahp.” This translates to “baby dog dead.” Now I think I know what the smell is: the dead puppy underneath the van seat in front of me. I ask the family if we can throw it out of the van, but they say no because it will be cooked for dinner tonight.

The van ride ends 10 minutes later and I jump out never being happier to be finished with a road trip. The lesson of this story: if the dog dies in the van because of heatstroke, it’s too hot to be traveling in Cambodia.

I read over the previous post and I don't want to mislead anyone. I speak terrible Khmer. Most of the time I say things like "Me want chicken" or "I want go there."

We're officially on break from school for the Khmer New Year Holiday. This is a three day holiday, so obviously we need the entire month of April off. However, my school decided to start vaca back in late February for Khmer New Year, so I have not been teaching much in public school. I have been teaching a private class in the afternoons and it has been going really well. This past week we worked on paragraph writing and I really got into teaching this topic. It was a nice change from talking about grammar, which I'm completely inept to teach about.

Tomorrow I'm heading out for a two week vacation. After a short stint in Phnom Penh my friends and I will head south to the beaches. There's supposed to be some snorkeling spots on some of the islands off the coast. I'll post pictures after my vacation.

The week after that a friend and I are heading north to Ratanakiri Province (near the borders of Laos and Vietnam). The plan is to explore some of the jungle happenings, hike to a few waterfalls, try and talk with the locals (who speak a different dialect of Khmer than I do), track tigers, try the local cuisine (probably bugs, snakes, and anything else that slows down long enough to be thrown into the pot). Just kidding about the tigers, but I hear there are elephant rides and freshwater dolphins in the Mekong. Speaking of animals, a gecko just ran across my foot.

I'm looking forward to the time away from site because I'm incredibly bored. The most exciting thing to happen this week was waking up to rain this morning.

Pictures: A huge basket full of chopsticks drying in the sun (top), after my nightly bike ride down a very dusty road to a neighboring village (middle), I wear this silly looking mask a lot becuase the roads are really dusty (bottom)

This weekend I visited the Provincial town to pick up my mail, mail some letters, and go to the bank. It's amazing that these tasks require an overnight stay and about 4-5 hours of traveling all together.

In Cambodia there is trash EVERYWHERE! Without a formal collection system, the trash takes over my life. Sometimes people burn it (usually right as I'm sitting down to eat my dinner), sometimes it is dumped on the side of the road and just blows around in the wind, other times it is lunch for the cows. I honestly have no clue what to do with my trash. I can't bring myself to burn it, so I usually take it to the provincial town where there is a semi-regular trash collection program. I'm sure the trucks just collect the trash and dump it in the marshes outside of town, but this is the best I can manage.

My trash disposal plan involves throwing it into a duffel bag, riding the 35k to town, then sneaking around after dark trying to find an empty trash container to toss it in. This was my weekend....fascinating, right?

The night before I left, the neighbor kids were playing with a huge spider outside my house. They told me not to worry because they cut the fangs off and it couldn't bite. It creeped me out, but I had to take some pictures.

Now that I live at the school I cook for myself, which requires one or two trips to the market everyday. I don't actually go to the big market because it's kind of far away and I don't want to ride my bike in the afternoon heat, so I stop at a small food stall on the side of a dusty road near my usual lunch restaurant. I usually buy a sack full of vegetables for about 25 cents. I can not bring myself to buy meat from the market because it sits out in the heat all day long covered with flies, and is on top of the table that the chickens and dogs walk all over. So, the solution is to eat chicken eggs. Eggs and coconuts are my saving grace in Cambodia. I sure miss 24 hour Safeway with its endless dairy section, bakery, and ice cream isle!

This afternoon after class I bought a plastic sack full of eggs from the school and walked down to the food stand for some tomatoes. Long story short, I forgot about the eggs for a while as they were in my school bag. I got home and about half of the eggs were broken, but thankfully the plastic sack saved my books from getting warm egg goop all over my books.

I was REALLY angry at first because I wasted a whole 20 cents. But, it reminded me of this time when my sister and I were kids helping my mom carry groceries into the house from the car. I was in charge of taking in the toilet paper and Amy was supposed to get the bag full of 2 dozen eggs. Being Amy, she started hopping around like a maniac and flung the eggs over her shoulder and broke them all. My mom was so mad at her. We still won't let Amy live that one down. Kind of like the case of the missing Nike gloves (a decade long search and argument that ended last year when Amy came clean with the truth).

Anyway, I wanted to tell this story and post a picture of the egg incident and say "Hey mom, remember that time Amy broke the eggs and you got really mad at her because you had to drive back to the store and buy more?"

Also, the second picture is of my transportation to and from the market and some of the purchases from last week. I needed a new broom to chase the cockroaches out of my house at night. I hate them.

I recently taught some of my students how to say a Beatles phrase that I know my mom will get a kick out of. It took some explaining before they understood what "Eight days a week" means. I've created little monsters! Now they say that phrase with everything:

"Teacher, I miss you eight days a week."

"Teacher, you teach me English eight days a week."

Teacher, I eat rice eight days a week."

These outbursts are followed by fits of laughter by the students and me shaking my head thinking "that's great, but can you please finish conjugating these irregular verbs in the past tense?"

I moved up to the school on Friday and I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s taken my entire 6 months to come to terms with the fact that personal space and privacy are obscure ideas here. Large families and small houses are the norm, so I’m having to adjust my habits and responses to stay sane. The Khmer family I lived with previously afforded little privacy, and my living situation now has even less. I live across the street from lots of the teachers, and my house has become the new playground for all of the kids.

They love to watch me doing anything…..washing my clothes, reading a book, working on lesson plans. Today about ten of the kids were huddled on my floor watching while I cut up a pineapple. They make me smile and I’m learning lots about how to not let little things get to me. In conversations with other foreigners who have worked in Asia, I’ve learned that the lack of personal space is pretty spot on in most countries here. It’s a struggle some days when I just want to go get a coffee without 34 kids screaming “Hello, what’s your name? Where you go?” at me. The lack of privacy makes me appreciate the moments that I do find to spend by myself.

This evening I made some penne pasta with powdered pesto sauce that I bought at the Western Market in Siem Reap. The neighbor kids came over to my house to see what I was cooking and I offered them some noodles. They were so cute when trying the food. A few of them looked at me like I was trying to give them a poisonous apple. Eventually everyone tried the pasta, and it was quite a hit. I’m bracing myself to talk to everyone tomorrow about pasta, where it comes from, how much it costs, and if I like it more than Khmer food. I always lie and say that I like Khmer food better than non-Khmer. Inevitably everything I eat and do becomes the talk of the town. The fact that I didn’t eat my pasta with rice will be the newest joke to tell about the barong. Sigh.

I’ve been staying really busy at school lately. In addition to teaching my regular 11th and 12th grade classes, I’ve started a 3 month English camp for two students who have been awarded scholarships to study at a University in Thailand. Before they are accepted into the program they have to drastically improve their Thai and English language skills. I work with the girls 5 afternoons a week and I’m really enjoying it, despite it being an incredibly challenging task.

I thought maybe everyone would enjoy this picture, unless you’re a PETA supporter. It’s amazing how much stuff can fit on motos. I will try to take some good pictures of ridiculous moto cargo. A few weeks ago I saw a moto with three full sized mattresses tied on the back somehow. Once I saw three motos in a row cruising down the road and each one had four monks plus a driver. All you could see was a streak of orange. Cambodia’s nice this time of year. Come visit me!

Also, I found some old pictures of time spent in Tabernash during the teepee days. This one was taken when Marissa and Adrianne visited me. We had a big bonfire and lots of redneck fun and redneck beer.

I know it's been a while since the last post. My mom has mentioned this fact about 30 times in the past month. So mom, here ya go. I mostly didn't feel like posting the past month because I was pretty homesick over the holidays. Not that Christmas has come and gone (thank you for the fabulous Christmas packages everyone!) I'm feeling much more upbeat.

I stay really bust at the school and get home at night just exhausted. I have a new appreciation for all of the effort that my teachers in the past put into their classes. I've picked up some side projects and clubs at the school and I enjoy working with the students.

Since I'm so busy at school, I've decided to make a move from my current house up to the teachers' housing section at the school. Next weekend I'll be moving into my new place. My school really set me up with a nice place. The hospitality in Cambodia is incredible. I'll miss that part of the culture more than anything.

Today marks 6 months that I've been in country! I can hardly believe that I've only got a year and a half more to get all of my work done. Time is flying by.

I'll post some pictures and more stories soon (next week maybe when I have internet access at the school). Take care everyone.

Not much to update on this week. Two weekends ago I rode in the Angkor Wat bike race, which was a blast! Thank you to all who donated. We started out early in the morning right as the sun was peeking out from behind the temples. It was even a little chilly while riding through the gigantic forest surrounding the temple complex. My favorite part of the ride was when I was crunching the fallen leaves under my bike tires. It made me homesick for the Colorado falls.

The day after the race, some of the PCV’s and I went to a concert at Angkor Wat. The five famous temples were lit up and served as the backdrop of the stage. The performers were just okay at best, but the scenery made my night.

When I returned to my site, my host brother ran out to tell me that our dog had puppies! We’ve now got two mangy dogs and six adorable pups that can fit in the palm of my hand. They’re cute now, but I wonder how I’ll feel when they get fleas and start chewing on my things.

Last week I came to terms with the fact that I’m an awful English teacher. I don’t think that my students are picking up on anything I’m teaching about. It’s partly because of my complete lack of experience, and partly because the English materials we work with are useless. Incorrect grammar, spelling, and irrelevant story lines are the norm. The good news though is that I’ve taken over the library as my pet project. The Thais brought two new monitors for the computers that were sitting unused in the corner. Some of the twelfth grade students helped me to clean the inch of dust off the shelves. I’ve been spending my time trying to organize everything. Remember how I worked at Barnes and Noble for a while and hated shelving books after the café closed? Well, that’s now the job I have. Oh, the irony. It’s more enjoyable now though because I get to hang out with the kids. The school asked me to help write letters to NGO’s for more book donations. Originally I planned on doing this, but changed my mind after finding a couple hundred English books in the back room that were never set out for the students in the first place.

Sinking more and more money into a system that’s not working to begin with is useless, but seems to be the common method over here. My school has been given a ton of educational resources: microscopes, computers, lab rooms, even a small farm. It rivals many American high schools with regard to material resources. However, the science labs are always locked up and the director has the only key. The reasoning I’m told: “We need to protect the school’s things from the students.” I’m running into this issue daily and it’s hard to keep motivated. I’ve changed my focus from helping teachers improve their English to being a friend and mentor to the students. I keep a ton of office hours and welcome students in all grades to come practice their English with me. I’m working with students from a wide range of abilities. Sometimes the 7th graders come in to read with me, and other times I get questions about writing CV’s from the 12th graders. I like this approach better.

So goes life in Cambodia. From what my sister and my mom tell me, it’s been cold back home. I’m still terribly homesick, but it’s getting better. I anticipated being really lonely during the holidays, but it’s turning out alright. It’s hard to miss Christmas when it’s 80 degrees out and you’re surrounded by rice and palm trees. Merry Christmas everyone, and Happy New Year! Please eat lots of turkey, pumpkin pie and light a sparkler for me.

PS I took the last picture a couple of weeks ago when two planets and the moon happened to line up in a smiley face. My host family was so excited that I got a good picture and they made me show it to everyone who came over to the house for a week afterwards. First picture is of me (left) and another PCV in front of Angkor Wat. Second is of one of the pups.

Everything's going smooth at site. I'm finally getting some sort of a schedule down and meeting more and more of the students everyday. I have set up a fair number of office hours each week that students can come for English help and there have been a few that stop by to practice and ask questions. Last Thursday I helped a student for a half an hour or so and when getting up to leave he tried to pay me for the help. The school's are run a little different here because the daytime classes are free, but any private lessons are not. The catch is that some teachers withhold the important information from the day classes, thus forcing the students to pay for private lessons in order to get the curriculum that is covered on the national exam in May. Frustrating, I know.

This coming weekend I will be traveling up to Siem Reap to partake in a bike race fundraiser at Angkor Wat. I'm going to ride in the short 30K road race (on my PC junker of a mountain bike) on Saturday morning. It should be quite the event and I'm really looking forward to it! If anyone wants to sponsor me, visit the website at: http://www.villagefocus.org/angkor_marathon/

The organization putting on this event is mostly involved in anti-child trafficking and land mine causes. If you feel like sending over a few bucks, go to the website and click on the "Sponsor" link. Click on my name and follow the steps. Thanks in advance to anyone who donates!

I envision dozens of ways to kill him while lying under my mosquito net every morning waiting for dawn. I think about the most fitting death for that damn rooster. Beheading would be nice, but death by boiling in a pot of water would help with the hassle of plucking the feathers. Contrary to popular belief, roosters don’t crow at the crack of dawn. What a perfect world it would be if that were the case. Roosters crow before dawn, after dawn, mid-morning, in the evening, and undoubtedly will crow after the apocalypse.

This morning (Sunday morning and also my day off) he started in around 4:00. I’m reminded of that Alan Jackson song that my mom likes “Its 5:00 somewhere.” Presumably, the rooster wants to let me know that somewhere in the world the sun’s coming up, even if it’s still early morning in Cambodia. I think the entire rooster population of SE Asia is in an alliance to thwart my plans of sleeping until 6:00 on Sundays. Maybe one of the members lives on the coast of Vietnam and looked out east across the ocean this morning to see the tiniest sliver of light on the horizon. From that moment on it was a race against time to spread the news of the sun’s arrival to the roosters in Cambodia.

I heard them way out in the distance across the rice fields. Gradually the crowing became louder as my consciousness slipped out of pleasant dreams and back into hell…aka ‘the land of the perpetually crowing roosters.’ I waited in anticipation, knowing that the inevitable event that begins my every day was about to happen. There it is! That $#@ing rooster is sitting on the fence 2 feet outside my window crowing away. I looked out the window and he stared right back at me as if to say “I’ll stop crowing when you can catch me barong.” I told him that he better watch himself because Thanksgiving is less than a week away and I have yet to see a turkey in Cambodia. That rooster now has a name; Mr. Thanksgiving. Fortunately for him I will be away from site over Thanksgiving, but Christmas is just around the corner.

Happy Turkey Day everyone! I wish that I was there eating pumpkin pie with you all. Please send terrible thoughts about death and suffering to Mr. Thanksgiving. The family’s only been serving these weird eel fish the past few weeks and it’s put me in the mood for a drumstick.

Then again, without Mr. Thanksgiving around I’d miss the beautiful sunrises in Cambodia. Maybe I’ll just have to learn to tolerate him for two years. By the way, Sunday marks my fourth month in country. It’s flown by and time speeds up every day. Suksabie (good health) to everyone back home, miss you all tons.

Farm life has always enthralled me. I like the idea that one could conceivably grow and raise a good portion of the food that one family needs at home. It’s a world that I have little knowledge of, but much curiosity for. While I don’t currently live on a farm per say, just being in Cambodia puts me up close and personal with tomorrow’s dinner. My family has chickens and ducks that roam around the yard eating the rice scraps and whatever bugs they can catch. My evening commute home from school is often sluggish due to the traffic jam consisting of water buffalo driven carts, cows, and motos. All around me are miles and miles of rice fields.

I arrived in Cambodia during the planting season, so I’ve now seen one whole rotation of rice growth. I love riding my bike through the rice patties in the afternoons attempting to explore every road, path, and cow trail around my village. In August and September the feilds were nothing more than a billion brilliant green shoots sticking a foot tall out of the mud. Now that the raining season is coming to a halt, the rice has started to seed out at the top and turn gold. From a distance it looks vaguely like a wheat field in America (minus the palm trees).

On Tuesday my farm life curiosity got the best of me. I’ve been bothering my host family for weeks to teach me how to harvest rice, and they finally gave in to my requests. In the morning we headed out to the family’s plot about 4 miles from the house. My host dad rode his moto there while I followed close behind on my bike; peddling furiously to keep up. Upon arriving we were greeted by about 20 day laborers, who are paid 8,000 riel ($2) per day to cut rice by hand. I think this is the standard pay rate for harvesters, but it’s a wonder their families eat at all. You won’t find a Cambodian farmer with any body mass to spare.

First I’ll explain the rice harvest attire. Long sleeves are a must for sun protection, as is a brimmed hat. Most people wear mid-drift pants or roll their pant legs up since you stand in about 8 inches of water and mud all day. The women all wear kormas wrapped around their necks and faces. Nobody wears shoes since they’ll get sucked down in the mud after two steps anyway. You can imagine my hesitancy in kicking off my flip-flops and wading through the same mud that the Peace Corps nurse has warned us about. Most of the fish my family feeds me are caught from the rice fields, which are also habitat to snakes, frogs, mice, rats, birds and small crabs. Walking through snake water is not my idea of fun, but when in Rome…

To harvest, a big group of people stand side-by-side and make their way across the field while cutting the tops off of the plants. In one hand you grab a big bunch of the rice stalks and with the other you cut the top 8 inches or so with a crescent shaped metal tool. After gathering up a big handful of plants, you neatly pile them behind you. Someone follows behind the group of cutters and gathers all the small piles in one location.

The tools are incredibly sharp and you have to be careful to not cut yourself. I learned that lesson the hard way. I cut my hand without knowing it and suddenly I was bleeding all over. Guess I wasn’t ‘cut’ out for farm work in Cambodia. Thankfully it was just a shallow cut and didn't need stiches.

The woman who was teaching me how to harvest was great. She kept stopping to pick crabs out of the mud with her feet. Then she would shake the mud off and stick them in her pocket…presumably for lunch. It’s amazing how fast a group of people can clear a field. I was hypnotized while watching the workers’ movements as they made a path across the endless fields. My favorite part of the harvest though was the sound of people walking through the rice while their tools made the cuts.

Tuesday was a very good day.

Surprise, surprise this week is a holiday. Needless to say I’m out of school for a week. In Colorado they say the sun shines 300 days per year, but in Cambodia there seem to be about 300 holidays, festivals, or celebration days per year. I think my school has had one full week of classes since starting at the beginning of October. This is the week of the Water Festival: one of the main Khmer holidays. There are boat races and all kinds of celebrations in Phnom Penh. Sadly though, I’m not allowed to travel to PP because Peace Corps rules put me under a kind of house arrest for the first three months of service. No traveling for me, except to Siem Reap. So here I am hanging out at site wondering what I should do for 8 days. I’ve already ridden every road within a 15 mile radius of my town, scrubbed the bugs off my floor that reek like the market’s fish stalls, sewn up the holes in my mosquito net, finished my third book in a week, and I even sat on a rock and looked at a tree for an hour. You’ve got to make your own fun in rural Cambodia or the boredom will kill you.

On Sunday I returned to my home around 5:00 after a long bike ride, showered, and was hanging out waiting for dinner. Suddenly someone turned on the world’s largest speakers up the road from my house. In the distance I could hear Fergie’s “my humps” in Khmer and figured someone was throwing a party for the festival. My family invited me to go to the Wat with them after dinner, and of course I accepted. It’s not very often that I’m outside past dark here. Usually the gate’s locked up by 7:00 and I’m under my mosquito net by 8:30.

Upon arriving to the Wat, I was shocked to find that a carnival had been set up complete with music and lights (quite a feat when there is no electricity to speak of). I have no clue how they got the rides to my village and assembled without me ever noticing. The Thais had to helicopter computers in to my school, but somehow the Cambodians brought in a Ferris wheel by truck. Imagine the most dilapidated circus from the 20’s and you kind of get the idea of what this carnival was like. I started looking around for the bearded lady or the man with tattoos covering his body oblivious to the fact that everywhere I walked a crowd gathered. I was looking for the freak show, while the Cambodians had already found theirs.

At first I watched the kids’ ride which was similar to ‘the swings’ at Eliche’s. You know, the ride where it spins really fast while you sit in a chair suspended by chains to a large metal frame. Well, the kids’ version had a mismatch of various plastic toys to sit on (a frog, a faded and cracked school bus, etc). There was a fan on top of the whole contraption that I presume was charging the battery that powered the lights. This was amusing and all, but the Ferris wheel loomed in the background begging for my attention.

I decided that I just had to ride it. In the back of my mind I wondered if I got hurt would the Peace Corps add “no riding sketchy Ferris wheels at Wats” to their list of rules. Let’s find out! I dragged my little host sister over there to ride with me. For 1,000 riel (25 cents) you get to ride the Ferris wheel straight out of hell for 5 minutes. The whole thing was powered by a gas engine hooked up to an old truck axel that spun a bunch of belts. No doubt it was handmade and had seen better days. I had to hunch down and crunch up my legs just to fit inside the cage. My particular cage/seat thing, lucky number 10, didn’t have a latch on the door. So there I am holding the door shut, my knuckles turning white from the death grip, and I’m coughing up a lung thanks to the smoke from the engine down below while a crowd of Cambodians gather round to watch the barong ride the Ferris wheel. At the end I jumped out thankful to be alive and thought, “Once is enough.” That wasn’t in the cards though. My students thought it was the most hilarious thing that their teacher rode on the Ferris wheel and soon they all wanted to ride with me. After a few more trips I had to quite and explain that the fish soup I ate for dinner combined with the motion was making me sick.

I then wandered over to the food area to see about buying a funnel cake and ice cream. Ha-ha, yeah right Rebecca. There were fried bananas being cooked over a small fire in the dirt…I declined. The darts were next. There was this large wooden structure set up and balloons were put in between the boards. A ‘safety net’ was strung up behind the contraption, but a lot of the kids kept putting their faces right up to the net watching the crowd throw darts. Thankfully no one lost an eye that night.

So that was the carnival experience. Sure there weren’t popcorn stands, safety ropes, or bearded ladies. But who needs those things when police with assault rifles slung over their shoulders walk around while the best internatinal dance song of all-time plays in the background…ah, the Macarena.

Some of you may already know this (and I don’t want to brag to my fellow PCV’s), but my high school is nothing less than beautiful. It was a donation from the princess of Thailand to the Cambodian people and has no physical resemblance to Cambodian high schools. I do however face many of the same challenges as other volunteers despite the new buildings and neatly manicured gardens. Email me about that if you’re curious. Back to the point.

One of the Thai teachers here who serves as the day-to-day contact with the Thai government invited me to lunch with the school’s project manager and all of the other “big wigs” who work for the princess. Of course I accepted! Eating yummy food on dishes encrested in gold with the Thai royal emblem while watching soccer on a massive TV was not what I had envisioned for my Peace Corps experience. But I certainly wasn’t going to complain while sipping down that ice-cold Coca-Cola.

The project manager and I chatted for most of the meal and he told me a lot about the buildings and the obstacles they faced in placing this massive school out in rural Cambodia. They actually helicoptered materials in from Thailand (like computers and tech equipment) because the roads to the site are absolutely horrific. He also invited me to come to Bangkok with the students who receive scholarships to study at universities in Thailand. Sounds great, but I doubt the Peace Corps would okay that trip. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to explore the sandy beaches of Thailand on my own dime over vacation next summer. Enjoy the snow everyone….I’m off to drink a coconut. Life’s rough here :)

Siem Reap synopsis: I bought the town out of peanut butter, drank a latte a day, ate Indian food twice, Mexican once, and maybe had one or two beers. It was a gluttony fest and just what I needed. Halloween was fun. I wore a rice sack and went as “white rice.”

For Halloween I’ve got plans to travel up to Siem Reap for a coffee, beer, and cheese fest with some of the other volunteers. Basically the plan is to visit as many non-rice serving restaurants as possible in four days. Maybe I’ll even make it over to Angkor Wat to see what the fuss is all about.

Cambodia, refusing to disappoint, has helped to kick off this week with a bang. Sunday overall was a fabulous day. I made banana pancakes for breakfast (impulse Bisquick buys in Phnom Penh sometimes turn out alright), ironed my teaching clothes the old-fashioned way with a heavy metal iron and hot coals, went for a long bike ride and got caught out in a massive rainstorm.

I would have made Bear Grylis proud with the shelter I made by propping palm branches up against my bike. I sat in the rice field under my shelter for a good hour while the cows and water buffalo wandered past me unfazed by the monsoon.

The storms here are something to be admired. At first the air becomes heavy and still; a few drops fall here and there. Within a minute it turns into a non-stop downpour. The wind will pick up causing the rain to come in sideways and the palm trees to sway and dance out in the rice fields. A single storm can fill a rice field to its brim and wash out the roads. One storm in Teuk Phos lasted non-stop for 7 hours. There was a bout a foot of water surrounding most of my house and the road out front turned into a lake three foot deep in places. The water buffalo were out in the marsh and all you could see were their cute faces sticking above the surface. My training host family didn’t seem overly concerned about the flooding. Plus, I was safe and sound in my second floor bedroom, so as they say in Cambodia: aut ei dtee (no problem).

Back to the story at hand: Sunday’s events. I debated whether or not to post the following part of the story. In the end though I decided to tell it because the sum of all my experiences (good and bad) in Cambodia will make my service what it is.

Sunday night was like any other; my little host brother was wearing my bike helmet and sunglasses, listening to my ipod, and dancing around my room. Suddenly a bat flew into the house and made quite the ruckus. It decided to hang out (ha-ha, literally) on one of the beams of the ceiling. My host dad, BunPa, grabbed a broom and hopped onto the crey (table/bed thing) and began swinging at the bat like it was a piñata. After three swings he sent the bat flying across the room and it landed in the spokes of my bike tire with a wham. The poor little guy was all tangled up in the spokes. BunPa flicked it outside and watched as the dogs pounced and tormented it. The bat was making such horrific noises and finally BunPa killed it with a sandal.

Some things in Cambodia will never sit well with me, I think that’s okay. I don’t have to agree with everything I see over here to be good at my job. Likewise, I cannot change everything that upsets me, nor should I try. However, it is hard to bite your tongue when your neighbors bet on chicken fights every afternoon, when people hit dogs just for the sake of doing so, or when the pigs squeal as they’re laying upside down tied to the back of the motos on their way to be slaughtered. The pigs really get to me because they sound like children screaming.

A lot of things over here don’t make sense to me, and I doubt they ever will. Regardless, I’ll keep trying to make a place for myself and learn as much as I can. Thanks for reading everyone and a special hello to Kristine’s mom (Mrs. Hart). Kristine told me that you have been following the blog, so I promised to say hello for her. I’ll try to post another story next week about the upcoming happenings in Siem Reap. Happy Halloween everyone! Please eat an extra Snickers bar for me.

Pictures: (first, my bedroom at site; second, a very nice Khmar style kitchen)

It’s been nearly 2 weeks since I arrived at my permanent site in Kampong Thom province. I’ve made friends with a lady who sells coconuts at her food stand, had some teaching clothes made at the market, explored the nearby temples of Sambor Preh Kuk, and eaten a cow’s stomach. It hasn’t been an easy week at school, but I’m trying to make a place for myself in Cambodia.

Each morning I’m up before dawn stretching and preparing for a quick run through the rice fields near my house. My new house has something that resembles running water, so after my run I take a cold shower and get ready for school. However, there is not electricity available at my site, so I use a car battery to charge my cell phone and power a small light in my room. On school days I get dressed in the traditional Khmer teaching garb (yes, I look ridiculous) and ride my bike up to school (about 2k away from my house). Before class I grad a quick breakfast of rice, and veggies for 2,000 riel ($0.50) and then observe 4 hours worth of English classes. At 11:00 I go home to change clothes then head to the market to eat lunch at my family’s stall. The rice is not so bad…I now prefer to have duck eggs rather than chicken eggs served on a big pile of rice with lots of soy sauce. I sure miss bread and cheese though! Depending on the day, I will hang around the market for a while to practice Khmer, go for a bike ride, or go back to school to observe more classes. Since everything is so new, I do find myself very bored at times. Last Sunday I had absolutely nothing to do, so I went to breakfast, worked out for a couple hours, went for a 2 hour bike ride, ate lunch, then rode my bike to the nearby temples and wandered around all afternoon. I spend a lot of time on my bike.

Living with my new host family is working out well so far. I have a younger sister, Bun yah, who is 13 and in 7th grade. She is such a sweetie and I’m trying very hard to help her with her English. This is her first year studying English formally and she is really shy to practice with me. I understand completely because I usually feel very shy to practice my Khmer.

My host brother, Bun nah is 10 and hilarious. Last week he was riding my bike around (it’s beyond too big for him). I borrowed someone’s mini sized kid’s bike and rode down the street after him. All of the neighbor kids were rolling on the ground laughing at the site of us. Last night he was looking through an American magazine of mine and was SO excited about all of the car ads. Tonight I’m going to buy some glue on the way home so that we can make car book covers for his school books.

I call my host parents older brother and sister since they are fairly similar in age to me (30-something and 29, respectively). They own a stall at the market and sell TV’s, radios, cell phones, and car batteries. I think that they get frustrated with me because my language skills are by no means impressive, but they do show me a ton of patience when I try and verbalize my plans or what I did in the day. I don’t think that I would be able to stick things out here without them.

The work situation is beyond frustrating for me right now. The 10th grade still has not shown up yet, only about 1/3 of the students have books, the computers would be better served as doorstops because they don’t work with any regularity, and I can’t even get someone to give me my own bathroom key. Ugh! It’s just going to take time for things to take shape. I’m trying my best to get used to the pace of life in Cambodia and show the same patience that the Cambodians have shown me regarding the language barrier. Thanks for the letters and phone calls from home everyone! They keep me smiling and cheer me up when I’ve had a rough day. Take care and write often.

Pictures: first (the K2 crew after swear-in ceremony October 4th), second (interesting tree cluster at Sambor Preh Kuk), third (me standing on top of a huge stone archway @ Preh Kuk), and fourth (over-grown temple @ Preh Kuk)

Susedi from Kampuchea! I arrived at my permanent site on Sunday (my house is on the left) and had two days to settle in and get ready for school to start. Monday morning I spent a good two hours boiling water over a fire so that I would have enough drinking water for the week. I then ironed my clothes the old-fashioned way using hot coals in a heavy metal iron. I got the chance to explore this massive temple complex a few kilometers away from my house named Sambor Prey Kuk. I'll be posting pictures of it as soon as I can, because it is nothing less than amazing. Wednesday was my first official day of school and I spent the morning observing classes. I developed a weird rash on my legs and the medical officer said I probably got scabies from one of the grungy guesthouses in Phnom Penh last week. So yesterday afternoon I rode my bike to the provincial town to pick up the medicine. It took quite a while to get here because it's about 30k away from my town and down a very bumpy road. It's funny when riding my bike 30k in the afternoon sun to get my scabies medicine becomes enjoyable. The provincial town has a western style restaurant, so for dinner last night I ate a cheeseburger, french fries, and a banana shake. It was fabulous and a nice change from the rice. The kids in my host family (far left - cousin, middle - host brother, right-host sister). Take care everyone! Miss you lots. Keep checking my blog and put in some requests for topics you would like to hear about.

Greetings to everyone from back home! I hope you all are happy and healthy. I’ve finally found time to post my first story from abroad. It’s been almost three months since I jumped on a plane to Cambodia, but it feels like a year has already flown by. I am in my last week of training and currently preparing for the Peace Corps swearing-in ceremony on October 4th. That marks the day when I actually become a volunteer. After that, it’s off to my permanent site in Kampong Thom province for my two year stint as a high school English teacher.

The past 10 weeks have been occupied by non-stop cultural and language training. I’m by no means proficient in Khmer (pronounced Khmai), but I can go to the market, travel alone, and order food at a restaurant, etc. Conversation with me pretty much goes as follows:

Host mom: What are you doing today?

Me: I like chicken.

H.M.: What time are you going to school?

Me: I go to school today.

H.M.: What time do you go?

Me: Yes, I like bananas too.

H.M.: (gives me a strange look and walks away)

Although my language is very basic at best, I am somehow finding a way to function over here. Most days follow a predictable schedule. I usually wake up a handful of times each night to the barking werewolf dogs, the mice in my room, or because of the chirping bugs and frogs outside. Then at 4:00am every morning the monks begin beating on the drums as a reminder to the farmers that the sun’s coming up and the rice fields need to be tended to. Unfortunately for me I live across the street from the Wat and my bedroom window also faces that direction, so sleeping late in Cambodia is never an option. I lie awake and wait anxiously for the sun to come up because I’ve got to wash yesterday’s clothes before I leave for breakfast at 6:30. I walk or ride my bike to the market (p’saa) and usually buy some fruit before meeting my friends at our usual breakfast place on the main road in Tuk Phos. At the food shop you either order noodles or rice with one of the following: veggies, chicken, pork, or beef. I usually get noodles and veggies with lots of hot sauce. I have yet to get sick over here (knock on wood) and I attribute that to the massive amount of Thai peppers that I eat everyday, and the fact that I eat a coconut every afternoon.

After breakfast, all of us head to language class for four hours. Yes, four hours of language class! It’s cruel. In my training village there are three groups of roughly four people each. Each group is assigned a bilingual host country national who teaches us the basics….new words, pronunciations, and sentence structure. After being grilled on the Khmer that I’ve already forgotten from the previous day’s lesson, I go back to my house and eat lunch with my host family. Usually we’ve got a little break in the middle of the day so I sit in the shade and drink a coconut before taking my second bucket bath of the day. It’s so hot here that most Khmer people take 3-4 bucket baths per day to cool off. I’m happy to follow suit because I drink an ungodly amount of water and sweat it all out between 1 and 2 o’clock. Later in the afternoon we typically have teacher training, a community development session, or cultural training for a few hours. By 5:00 I’m on my way home to eat dinner with my family.

Dinner is awesome in Cambodia. Until a few weeks ago I ate on top of the crey (short table thing) with the family. We now eat at a table for some reason or another, maybe because I was terrible at sitting Khmer style. The food is served communally on one big platter with 2-3 different dishes. Either my host sister or myself will dish up the rice in a particular order; guest (if there is one), host father, host mother, host sister, and me (if Srey Mom is dishing up the rice she is last). Then we all dig in taking one spoonful at a time from the platter. My family knows that I love hot peppers, so they give me my own bowl of soy sauce loaded with those little guys. My host mother is a fabulous cook and I do enjoy most of the food. We eat a ton of fish soup, grilled frogs, and various stir fries with meat and vegetables. However, I have eaten some things that were a little too different even for my taste: a pig’s foot, cow tendon soup, chicken brain, chicken stomach, pig intestine, and fish eyes (although Amy and I used to eat these as kids) top the list.

After dinner my host sister and I clean up and I take another bucket bath in the kitchen/cooking shed out back. I usually study Khmer, write letters, read a book, or watch TV with my host family and try to pretend that I know what they are saying to me. I’m under my mosquito net by 8:00 every night and soon thereafter I fall asleep. One thing that shocked my about the tropics is how short the days are. We only have about 12 hours of light because we’re so close to the equator. So, it gets light around 5:45 am and turns pitch black by 6:30 pm. The bugs come out of the woodwork at night too, so I like to be under my net to keep them at bay. I spend the rest of the night drifting in and out of sleep, and waking up often to scare the mice back into the walls. My favorite nights are when I lay under my mosquito net and read while listening to the rain and the croaking frogs.

As you all can tell I am enjoying it here in Cambodia very much. Occasionally there are days when I’m so homesick for Colorado that all I can think about is riding my bike in the mountains and sometimes there are days when I want to hide from everything Khmer and not eat a single grain of rice. But those days come and go and I always find a way to get through it. But in general I enjoy being here and I am looking forward to the next two years as an English teacher.

Thanks for reading everyone! Keep checking back for new posts because I will have access to internet in my new village starting on October 5th. Also, check out the pictures.

Things I learned with sister over the past 24 hours:If you're going to buy 5 singles out of the beer case, you may as well buy a six pack. Zohan is the worst movie ever. Bring a bottle opener to the movies or you will have to use your keys and end up spilling all over your pants. DUBS is the Ustedes version of shut upDon't hastle people in dark parking lots...even if they almost run over you. Savory crepes are the only acceptable kind of food for Saturday morning breakfast. See below for the new trick I learned on the slackline. PS I'm leaving Denver on July 16th for San Francisco for a few days of hanging out. Then on the 19th I check in to Peace Corps training. Leaving for Phnom Penh on the 21st with layovers in Tokyo, and Bangkok. We'll arrive in country the morning of the 23rd. What a long trip! PSS Hello to any fellow volunteers who are reading this. I can't wait to meet you all.

Here it is! You all may not know why you're looking at, but I see months worth of spring cleaning sprees. Granted I would be unable to move these things on a scooter, but a regular car would do the trick. I have managed to sell, donate, or throw away about 2 Subaru loads of stuff. What you see in the picture is really everything I own (minus my 3 bikes, of course).

I've spent the past few months giving away my furniture, throwing away questionable t-shirts from way too long ago, and forcing numerous kitchen related items on my my sister (including my beloved omelet pan). Last week I sold Gary, my camping buddy/Grannie grocery getter/snow plow. It was a little tragic to watch the Subey drive off and leave me in the dust, so I treated myself to a strawberry milkshake as a pick-me-up. Ah, much better.

I guess I'm almost ready to go. All I have to do is learn to speak Khmer, figure out how to teach English to non-native speakers, and find out how to use one of those squat toilets. Piece of cake, right? Oh, and I forgot to mention...I've heard that Cambodia has snakes. Seems that I've had my fair share of snake sightings this year already. Not okay with me!

A few months ago I went to the reptile shop as part of my self-prescribed ophidiophobia treatment. I held that little guy on the left for a while, which was barely tolerable. Then the shop guys brought a big boa out of its cage and it started hissing at me. I just about lost it when it gave me the "I'm gonna eat you" look. The second run-in was with some funky road kill....gross. Then a few weeks ago I nearly ran over a huge bull snake on my mountain bike. Outta my way!

This weekend I'm racing again and real nervous that all of the ice cream I've been eating lately will not actually make my legs pedal fast. We'll see. For anyone who's interested (Meg and Lieschen), I'll be riding in Winter park on Sunday. Just assume that yes, I would in fact like a beer at the finish line. Here's a pic from the hill climb race two weeks ago. I jumped up to the Expert class this summer and I'm now racing with the fast girls who completely kick my butt on the climbs.

Thanks for reading my blog everyone. I will try to post somewhat regularly about my adventures abroad. Maybe I'll even throw in a picture or two of Angkor Wat.