Graduation!

Slumber party!!

Human chair ice breaker!

Express yourself collage activity!

On our way!

35 campers, 2 guest speakers, 2 counterparts, 6 trainers, two peace corps volunteers and two sleepless nights later..and Camp Glow was a huge success! but I couldn't be more happy to be done with it, crawl into my mosquito net without the company of 42 high school girls, and pass out.

I went back to Seattle for three weeks to go to my best friend’s wedding…and man did it fly by!! It was quite an adjustment to go from my sleepy village days to the hustle and bustle of running errands, having social obligations, cursing at traffic, and eating SO. MUCH. FOOD. But it was amazing. I thought I would experience some sort of debilitating culture shock where I would be disgusted or overwhelmed by the consumerism of American society, but I’m maybe a little embarrassed to say…I wasn’t at all, in fact, I loved it all and didn't realize how much I had missed it. It was so fun to window shop for the newest trends, pay half a days stipend ($2) on a cup of coffee, drink red wine in real wine glasses and stay out past 6pm laughing with girlfriends. Oooh. And shopping in my closet was so fun. I would open my closet door and think ‘oh I forgot all about you!” and go to the grocery store in a silk blouse. So much fun. Also, being there for Carlyn on her wedding day was a unforgettable experience. And spending time with family. And smelling the crisp northwest air. And meeting my parents new dog. And going to the gorge….the list goes on and on.

That only lasted so long, however- then it was time to pop an ambien and get on that long flight back to the other side of the world. Luckily the day I got back to Cambodia was the day before the new group of volunteers came to country!! I was asked to do the welcome week by the Peace Corps training staff and I couldn’t have been more happy teaching the newbies how to wash their clothes, go to the bathroom without toilet paper, help them buy things in the market, show off some of my language skills, and just overall feel helpful. It was also wonderful seeing how far I’ve come in a year. Living as the only foreigner in my village, you are constantly reminded of how much you still don’t know. But to remember how you felt your first few weeks….well, it just makes me proud of myself and my fellow volunteers.

Summer has been jam packed and been flying by… Kelly stecker and her boyfriend colin (for those of you who don’t know them…. close friends from college) are here visiting my village!! It’s so great having them here to experience what life is like for me. They are both so curious about every experience, it’s really fun to be around them and answer questions about things they find so novel, but are everyday and mundane for me. Today we went on a jog in the rice fields, had some strong coffee and poked at the slaughtered pig heads at the market, then went to the crocodile farm. Now they are taking their afternoon nap then hopefully we will have a chance to go to the floating village. Then tomorrow they are accompanying me to the first day of CAMP GLOW!!!!!

So, Diana and I have been planning this girls empowerment camp for about 6-7 months now. After months of kissing up to ministry officials, grant writing and re-writing, endless amounts of peace corps paperwork, negotiating prices of every cup, meal, ride, and piece of paper printed… I can’t believe it’s finally here. The thought of being in charge of 40 high school girls for three days and two nights makes me nervous…but I will just have to have faith. Diana and I will be sleeping on the floor with them, waking up at 4am with them, and giggling about boyfriends after the lights go out. I just feel like I should be doing something to prepare more on the day before…but I really don’t know what else to do. I guess I just have to let go and let it happen. I will definitely give an updated blog post and let you know how it goes!

And an update about the drinking water project….it was a wonderful success!! We maxed out the budget of 500$ after some unexpected extra costs of PVC pipes that wouldn’t reach or fit…but the builders finished the project in about 3 weeks and now the hospital and health center have an endless supply of fresh drinking water. The staff was so pleased they gave me a silk scarf from Siem Reap - with the price tag still on it to show how much they appreciated the project ($10), and then invited me to the district meeting where they asked me in front of the staff for the entire district to build EIGHT MORE (one for each district health center- way to put the pressure on me!). I said my standard answer for projects that I didn’t think would happen (“um….maybe?”) and they thanked me again.

So THANK YOU! For all your support from back home. Sorry I havent’ updated in forever…. I promise to try and be better about it. All for now.

Rain water tank built in 1968 but still standing. (it survived the war!)

Boribo Health Center and Hospital Facility.

Hospital....opened in January 2010. I think that cow is chewing on an old IV bag...

I have a new water and sanitation project! My counterpart, the hospital staff, and myself are building two drinking water stations at the hospital/health center in my town. The funding will go to building PVC pipes to connect the rain water tank to water filters that the hospital will buy at a subsidized rate. The pipes will also connect from the filters to a drinking water tank that we will build. One will be placed outside of the maternity ward of the hospital and the other outside of the health center. Currently, there is no drinking water available to hospital/health center patients. The hospital sees over 100 people per month and the maternity ward births over 200 babies per month. The health center consults/vaccinates/and treats over 1,000 people per month. Check out the link below!

http://www.appropriateprojects.com/node/192

Pictures from the completed well project! Thanks to everyone for your support!

Well site number two, with well pipes drying in the sun before installing them.

Community members with the finished pipes of one well sites with my counterparts and some of the extra materials.

Little guy trying to cool off in the April heat (we're talking 105 degrees here!!)

I thought I'd leave a quick update on the wells. The builder finished all 20 pipes on time (go him!!) and we are just waiting for the pipes to dry in the sun before installing them into the ground. We are well within our budget and the community members are very very excited! Thanks to everyone for all your support. It looks like this community will soon have access to fresh water year around!

The last few days I was in Svay Rieng province visiting some volunteer friends and watching the national tournament. To those unfamiliar with the geography of Cambodia, Svay Rieng is a province bordering Vietnam. So for me to get there, I take a 3 hour van ride to Phnom Pehn, then another 3 hour van ride over the Mekong to the Vietnamese border. On my way back to site (yesterday) I found myself in the most ghetto torri van of all time.

I hopped into a van and shared a seat with a motocycle...literally, they were transporting a broken motocycle and I sat there with my legs over the wheel. Then for some reason, we were getting stopped at every police checkpoint. Usually, you just slow down enough to pay the bribe and keep going, but for some reason, all the police officers took an interest in the licence plate of this moto bike. We would stop, the police officers would look all the passengers up and down, examine all the boxes we were transporting, them come across the moto bike. Then they would point to the plate and flick it up and down for a bit....then take some pliers and pretend to unscrew it. Once this proved to be too much work, they would settle on a bribe.

Once we got the the ferry dock, our car was too heavy/broken to make it up the ferry ramp. We got halfway up and then rolled backwards into the car behind. Lots of shouting ensued follow by everyone in my car shouting "No problem! No problem!". We then all got out of the van so it would be light enough to get up the ramp. We made it across the river alright, but once it was time to unload off the ferry, our van wouldn't start. All the other cars left the ferry and we were the only van left on the ferry...more shouting and claims of "no problem!" ensued and we all got out again and gave the van a running start off the ramp and then hoppped back into the moving van. I thought that would be the end of the troubles but the assistant driver spent the next twenty minutes hanging over me and the moto bike which i was sharing a seat with and playing with the wires under the front seat....i was a little nervous with this guy pretty much straddling me banging away with a wrench and pulling wires out from under the car. He caught my nervous glance and looked at me with a big smile and said "no problem!"

yea, no problem until we were stopped at our next police bribe station and the door fell off.

But i realized how Cambodian I have become after picking up my friends parents from the airport last week. It was about 11 at night and we were riding back in a pretty crusty tuk tuk. the moto bike overheated on the way back and we were stuck on the side of the road, conveniently next to a group of drunk men... and one was going "number two" on the side of the road. i saw the nervous look on my friends mothers face and with a smile said "no problem! no problem! this happens all the time"

So I got the funding for my well project...thank you so much to everyone that donated!! I got fully funded in less than a week. =) I just picked up my moneygram this morning and will spend the afternoon buying the materials. Tomorrow morning I will go to the village and check up on the savings group and tractor in the materials. Thanks again! I appreciate it so much! Below is the link if you want to see the page again, and for those who want to donate to other peace corps water/sanitation projects around the world!

http://www.appropriateprojects.com/taxonomy/term/33

The snake my neighbors caught in my backyard and my mom cooked for lunch.

My counterpart teaching the ladies in my community how to manage their savings group.

The past few weeks I’ve been pretty busy doing a little bit of traveling and attending meetings, so I apologize for being bad about updating my blog. Things in my village have really started to pick up and I’m feeling very positive about my experience- mostly thanks to my counterpart.

Let me start from the beginning, the first week of school a math teacher approached me and introduced himself. He said “Hello! My name is Vichara and I love community development!” He asked me if I would be interested in working with him and I said that I wanted to wait a few months before getting into projects but then we would talk.

So a few weeks ago I asked if he wanted to be my counterpart for my girls camp this summer and he agreed. We decided to go into rural communities and conduct a needs assessment. Upon visiting our first village, we realized that they had greater needs than a girls empowerment camp.

The community mentioned having inadequate roads, no bathrooms, and only three wells for a community of about 300 people. The families all have about 10 babies each, and there isn’t enough food, clothes, or water to go around. There are no jobs, and the women complained that since their husbands are unemployed, they drink away what little money the family has which leaves nothing left to buy things the family needs. Domestic violence is also a big problem within the community, as well as a lack of schools. (There was a school in the community at one point, but since the roads are poorly constructed the teachers just stopped coming and the school shut down two years ago.)

So a few weeks ago we set up a Women’s Savings Group. The idea behind the group is that each member contributes 10,000R ($2.50) to get into the group, then 2,000R (50 cents) each month after. When a member wants to take out a loan to start a small business or to pay for a medical procedure, the women are able to have some start up capital. Plus it’s a larger chunk of money that the woman is able to have control over of, instead of having to hide smaller amounts of money from their husbands.

It was very exciting setting up the group because the community was so involved. We set up a meeting and had 14 women and one man show up. We elected 3 leaders within the group – two managers and one cashier. The cashier (who is the man) is in charge of holding onto the money, and the two managers keep their own separate records of each person’s contribution. We then gave each member a tracking sheet (similar to a checkbook) to keep track of their contributions and loans (a minor problem is that about half the women are illiterate, so they have someone else help them). Then, as a group we decided on the group rules. The group was very interested and there was a lot of discussion about what would be appropriate.

The best thing about the savings group is that it is completely run by the community, so in theory (if all goes smoothly), it will be completely sustainable. My two counterparts (two math teachers) and myself will come back once a month to check out the balance sheets and make sure there are no conflicts within the group and do a health workshop. We are also working on a water and sanitation project in the community that I will tell you guys more about later once I write my proposal and get the funding…

So....yesterday I went to the American embassy because I was in Phnom Pehn and it was so crazy..the American embassy is SO AMERICAN! I was sitting in a chair freezing from the air conditioning and just staring at the carpet...all I could think was: "WHOA! I forgot all about carpet!!" and I was sitting in this American made chair and kept thinking "Wow, this chair is so great". It was a total sensory overload! it's hard to explain..I guess you would have to live in the Cambodian countryside for 8 months to understand. Later, I went to the bathroom and couldn't figure out how to flush the toilet or turn on the sink...and I realized it's because in America, those things happen automatically! Even the door hinges were American. It's those details that you don't realize you miss. I guess I'm a real country girl now.

here is part one of my house tour...it's very dorky and you can hear me speaking some very bad khmer....

Here is a really dorky video of my room...check it out!~

SO...this past weekend I changed host families...and it's been a big upgrade in so many ways...

My new house is wonderful…it’s tucked away in rice fields close to my

school. It’s so quiet and peaceful. My family consists of an awesome

housewife/mom (she is so goofy and maternal), a very kind father, and

a daughter who is in grade 12…who I hope will become my new best

friend. She is so sweet and smart and funny. Her name is P’nut, but I

have been calling her Peanut. My host mom grows her own vegetables in

a lovely little garden (we have cabbage, morning glories, string beans

among other vegetables), many fruit trees (mangos, coconuts, papayas),

and we even raise our own chickens! Which are delicious…we had one

yesterday for lunch.

My room is equally as awesome. It’s on the second floor and it very

big. And they gave me my own bed and mattress! (last night sleeping on

a mattress for the first time in the villages was the BEST night of

sleep I’ve had since coming to Cambodia) They even bought me a brand

new chamber pot (yes, since coming here…I’ve become easy to please).

Yesterday my new family was so welcoming…and they told me they were

preparing me a special lunch the next day (today). They kept asking me

if I knew how to eat this animal that I didn’t know the word for…so I

kept saying I don’t know. They beckoned me to a corner of the house

with a clay pot and they pulled out a giant turtle. I was pretty

surprised, said I had never had eaten a turtle before but would be

happy to try it. And actually…it was pretty tasty! I think they must

have steamed or boiled it then chopped it up and served it in the

shell- with the head attached and everything! It ended up being a

pregnant turtle and was filled with these strange little eggs. Some of

them hadn’t fully developed while others already had the shell on

them. The first piece they served me was the foot….and I had to chew

around the claws and everything. Haha. I felt that I had to be brave

and eat it all since I knew it was such a special meal. The turtle

cost $20…which is ridiculously expensive. To put this in perspective,

a public school teacher only makes about $60 a month.

Other than that little tidbit….things at site are going great! I’ve

started my honors English class and I have 28 wonderful, motivated,

and very clever students. I have teamed up with Andy Harrington (who

teaches 3rd grade in Kirkland) and we are setting up a pen pal program

between our two classes. I’ve also started an informal reading club on

Tuesdays when I sit in the library. Students come in and we sit in a

circle and read English books out loud. It’s a lot of fun! My next

project is to start a women’s empowerment camp for high school

girls...this will be my big secondary project for the summer. I’m

working with three other volunteers over three provinces and we hope

to set up a three day camp filled with inspirational guest speakers

and workshops on self-esteem, women’s rights, career planning, and

goal setting, among other topics. I think my fellow volunteers and

myself have noticed a general lack of support for young women so we’d

like to try to alleviate that, even if it’s on a small scale. I’ll

keep you updated on the project!

So....the past two weeks have been a ton of fun. December 24th marked the end of our "lockdown" where we were finally allowed to leave our provinces...this means that now we have the freedom to travel around the country as long as it doesn't interfere with our teaching schedules. So, as you can imagine, on December 25th a whole slew of K3 volunteers flooded Phnom Pehn. It was so great. I hadn't seem most of my fellow k3 volunteers for a whole 3 months, and everyone was in a great mood since it was Christmas. And- not to mention that LEROY! (for those of you who don't know Leroy...aka Laura...she is a dear friend from home who is teaching TEFL in Ho Chi Min.) came in for the holiday weekend with some of her friends. I spent the weekend catching on girl talk, shopping (stocking up on peanut butter, oatmeal, and DVDs.)eating good food, and going out with friends. It was so surreal being in Phnom Pehn with Leroy... it was like having a little piece of home for Christmas. At one point we were walking by the Riverfront from our hotel to the Peace Corps office...and we just looked at eachother and said "WOW! we are in CAMBODIA, TOGETHER!!" it was really special. I couldn't have had a better Cambodian Christmas.

The next week I made the long treck down to the beach province, Kampot, for New Years. It took me about 8 hours total by bus to get there (including an hour stop for lunch in Phomn Pehn) but it was completely worth it. Kampot has a ton of expats...and where there are expats...there is expat food (do you notice a theme to my blog entries?? yes, I am getting tired of rice three times a day) so we grubbed on ribs and bbq and french fries. On New Years eve we went to a loungy bar called "Bohdi Villas" and had the whole crew there. At midnight everyone jumped in the river...but we really felt our ages when at 12:10am we called it a night...(when you go to bed at 8pm everynight in you village midnight is just too late) pretty lame of us, right?

On New Years day a smaller group of us headed to Rabbit Island (see pictures). Rabbit Island is a teeny tiny island that resembles the one of Lost (my current obsession). There is nothing but a few straw huts and a couple of restaurants. It's a bit rustic but nothing we can't handle. I really appreciated the island because the businesses were all Khmer run, plus there were a ton of Khmer tourists as well. So for two nights we just relaxed on the beach wearing shorts (!!! yes!! shorts! i haven't shown my knees in this country before this trip) and eating seafood (with no rice!) and just floating in intertubes and appreciating the beautiful scenery. it really was heavenly!

Well I hope that everyone at home enjoyed their holiday season...I've been missing everyone so so so much and promise to update more often from now on. I am purchasing an internet phone this week so I will be able to be in better correspondence with my loved ones back home. =)

Here are some more village pictures. The first one is with some 10 grade english students outside of school and the next two are pictures of the kids that live down the path from me who scream "HELLO HELLO!" and run after my bike every time i pass by

So an update on language...it's been difficult to gauge how my language has been progressing since I've been at site. During training we had 4 hours a day of constant drilling, memorization and structured conversation. Although I do feel confident that my listening skills have improved. The other day I had one of those 'ah-hah' moments...when I realized I was starting to understand the naughty market ladies...

When I visit the market the women get so excited. They poke and prod me and tell me I'm getting too skinny and force feed me peanuts, cakes, fruits or whatever is lying around. They tell me my hair is long and pretty. They ask me how much my shirt/pants/shoes/mascara/nail polish costs. And inevitably, they ask me if I have a “special” (boyfriend/finance), when I'm going to get married, how many children I am going to have, and what their names are going to be.

This happens at least once a week:

Market Lady: “Keiko, you have a special?”

Me: Nope.

ML: Why not? You are at the right age to get married. Let me find you a handsome Khmer man to marry.

Me: No thanks. I am too busy. Maybe in two years when I get home I will marry.

ML: Can I come to your wedding?

Me: Yes, of course.

Last week though, the market ladies took a spin on the conversation. And I should have known by the naughty looks on their faces that they were going to makes jokes at my expense...

Market Lady: “Keiko, you have a special?”

Me: Nope.

ML: Why not? You are at the right age to get married. Let me find you a handsome Khmer man to marry.

Me: No thanks. I am too busy. Maybe in two years when I get home I will marry.

ML: You know the cold season is coming up.

Me: Yup, it's almost December.

ML: I think you should get yourself a poisach to keep warm.

Me: poisach?

(market ladies burst out into laughter. Slap me on the back.)

After asking clarifying questions that included the ladies acting out a man laying on top of a women, I realized that poisach literally translates to “Meat Blanket”. The conversation ended with one of my market friends saying “Make sure you get yourself a small meat blanket. You don't want to be squashed by all his meat”. Followed by more tears of laughter and back slaps.

I walked away from the conversation telling her she was a dirty woman and shaking my head. But I also felt a small feeling of accomplishment that I could understand more than a standard conversation about where I'm from and what I'm doing in Cambodia. Then I was able to get her back the next week when she was complaining that she was cold that morning by telling her that maybe her “meat-blanket was too small for her.” I had the whole market rolling with laughter!

Now that I'm at permanent site, I've completely let myself go it seems. I no longer wear any make up, my hair is permanently in a pony tail, and besides when I'm teaching (when I'm strapped into a tight floor length skirt with material that resembles drapes and a long sleeved collared shirt...in 90 degree tropical weather no less) I am biking around in my uw basketball shorts and an over sized I love NY t-shirt (Thank you Maryann!) It's incredibly freeing to not ever worry about your appearance. And no matter what I look like, the market ladies still faun over me just because I'm such a novelty. =) it's in those moments when i sit back and laugh at the absurdity of the situation, and how this would never happen if I were still living in the States.

So, my dad asked me what I wanted for Christmas...and this is all I can come up with so far: Old Spice Long Lasting Stick (Original Scent), Velvetta Shells & Cheese, and Cheetos. When did my life get so simple?

Well I've now been at site for A WHOLE MONTH! I can't believe it! I was so nervous to move to site and be the only American/Native English speaker in my entire village, and it really has been a pleasant experience so far! My family is wonderful, my school has all the normal struggles that other Cambodian schools have but I have been able to make some solid relationships with my co-teachers, and my community has been very receptive to some of the projects that are in the planning stages.

The first few weeks of school were pretty frustrating. I had more than a few instances of teachers not showing up without letting me know. Which left me sitting outside of a classroom full of kids that were waiting to class to begin, instances when male teachers felt that class time would be better spent drinking...on school grounds...while the kids were waiting for class to begin. Not to mention countless instances of miss communications resulting in mix ups in meeting times/places/etc. Apparently nothing out of the ordinary in a Peace Corps Volunteer's experience.

Luckily, the last two weeks have been a turn for the better. I decided I wanted to clean up the library and turn it into my office/a space for students to hang out and practice their English. I asked to see the "library" and was a bit...er, surprised. I don't think anyone had been there in years. There was a huge pile of English books that were thrown haphazardly in a pile on a shelf covered in years of dust....the floor was covered in empty liquor bottles, beer cans, bowls of rotting food..and every corner seemed to have a big scary spider guarding it.

Equipped with my dust mask and Ipod, I decided to get to work. After two hours sneezing and dusting, I started to lose motivation for my project. It was just such a yucky, daunting job. Just when I started to feel bad for myself, two of my students came into the library and said "Cher! Cher! What are you doing?" (short for teacher) I explained to them my plan and the next thing I knew, the entire library was FULL of maybe 40 students. They took all the books off the shelf and were sitting on the floor and the bookshelves looking through these books they didn't even know had existed in this dirty old room. They were asking "Cher! Cher! What is this word? Cher! How can I help? Cher!" It was so great! The kids were so excited, and it was a resource that had already existed in their school...all it needed was a little hype. Next week I have students volunteering to come help me clean the library, and I have students scheduled to come chat with me about "American Culture".

I really want to be a resource for the kids who want to go to University. Every twelfth grader I speak to tells me they want to go to University but that their parents are unable to pay for it and that they have no access to information about scholarships. So I've talked to Peace Corps about getting information about scholarships and I'm going to try to be a bit of a college counselor for these kids. I also want to set up a class that helps work on professional skills for the students- how to write a CV, cover letter, and how to behave in an interview. So many ideas! I've also met with an Italian NGO that is trying to introduce reproductive health in high schools. I sat in on one of their sex ed classes... it was so awesome and awkward! I'm really excited that my school is so progressive! I've chatted with them about getting resources getting put in the library and to start a more comprehensive program.

I'll let you know how it all goes! That's all for now! I miss you all! Send me lots of comments and ideas! Love you guys!

Above is a picture from my room at sunrise. This is the view I wake up to every morning that I eat my oatmeal and drink my coffee to. Enjoy!

Today, I had the most fun day. The day started off kind of lame...I showed up to school at 7am when school 'starts'... the same that I have been doing every day 6 days ago. And I spent over an hour sitting outside an English classroom full of students waiting for the teacher to show...after an hour I finally track down the phone number of the teacher and she tells me she isn't coming to school today because she was busy. I then call the other English teachers and they all proceed to tell me that they are busy too and would not be attending school that day either.

Frustrated, I text some of the k2 volunteers to ask if this sort of thing is normal and they said yes, this is very normal and things just take a little patience around here.. so I headed home and read for four hours.

During lunch my family tells me that they are headed to the Tonle Sap river to hang out and that I am invited to join. I am more than happy to go, and since I cannot ride a moto, I biked the 10 kilos to the river while they rode their moto along side me. We get to a floating village and hop in a motorboat. Driving through the floating village is insane. When I say floating village, it's literally a entire village of people in the middle of the river. Families tie shoots of bamboo together and that is the foundation of their house. Then they simple build a hut on top of it, choose who they want as their neighbors to be and simply tie up. And it's not simply a residential village, they are equipped with floating health centers, gas stations, cell phone stores, and even a school. They are typically fishing communities that are often of Vietnamese or Chinese decent.

We drove through the floating village until we reached an island. It was something out of a movie. There were hundreds of people flocking to this island, and there was some sort of celebration going on. There were lines and lines of street vendors selling sugar cane juice, fried bananas (my favorite), fermented duck eggs (not my favorite), and balloons...among other goodies. We walked into one of the wats (Buddhist temples) that was especially crowded with people. Inside, we found yeays (grandmas) dancing khmer style, men playing the bongos and a Cambodian looking guitar, and people being blessed by monks.

Outside of the wat, there was a Cambodian style 'carousal'. Which is literally a merry go round type thing with old motor bikes attached by elastics bands that spin around. I'll upload a picture when i have more time. I find it slightly terrifying, but the kids seemed to have a lot of fun.

After some more wat-hopping- consisting of praying and lighting incense. We treated ourselves to some fried bananas and sugar cane juice then hopped back in the boat to head home. On my bike home I reflected on how much fun it is to take part in a cultural practice even when you have no idea what is going on. I wish I could do more justice to my experience than what has been described in this entry. I think you guys are just going to have to visit and see it for yourselves. = )

So here we are.....(crickets) or more appropriately (frogs croaking).... Last weekend we were in Phnom Pehn for our swear-ceremony. It was a lot of fun with lots of dairy consumption (my last bites of pizza before the three month long lock down), laughs over beers, and massages ($7 for a 60 minute Thai massage-heaven! I got one two days in a row....shhh). The swear in ceremony was in the NIE (National Institute of Education) which is a very nice building in Phnom Pehn. The minister of education as well as the U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia both gave speeches (check out my photo with the both of them...yea, I was feeling pretty important that day!) and many returned peace corps volunteers, other expatriates, and all our school directors were in the audience. It was pretty fun! The day after swear in it was time to say our good-byes and head out to site. It was a little bit sad and strange saying good-bye to my fellow trainees knowing that I wouldn't see the majority of them for longer than I have even known them. For two months I had spent every day with them- struggling through four hours of Khmer language every morning and making stupid jokes to keep each other awake during our long meetings after lunch when everyone else in the country seemed to be napping to escape the heat. It was daunting to let go of the escape of being able to walk next door to my next trainees house, or the short bike ride to the market where we could share a coconut (and maybe a beer when we were feeling crazy) and vent about how I just couldn't sit through another Peace Corps safety session..how how much I really missed toilet paper. So the morning came where it was time to pack up and jump on the bus. I was lucky to have 2 other PCV's (Peace Corps Volunteers) on my bus. I hopped off at my site with my huge western backpack, bags of western groceries (oatmeal, peanut butter, and mac and cheese for a lonely day), and my yoga mat - and said hello to my new home. This time around, it didn't seem so small and claustrophobic, in fact, it looked pretty big! I had only been there for one weekend before, so I headed down my little dirt road hoping that my memory served me correctly and I would find my new home. While walking down my muddy dirt road I came across a pack of half naked five year olds. On cue they started screaming 'HELLO! HELLO! AMERICAN! HELLO WHAT”S YOUR NAME! WHERE DO YOU GO?” and they walked me all the way home. Haha. I was quite the spectacle! And it was a really nice way to be welcomed into my new community. My family was there to greet me- two older sisters (age 40, and 43) one of their husbands, and a grandpa and showed me my room. My room is so awesome- it's huge and has a big beautiful bed (same Peace Corps “mattress” and a nice wooden desk and....electricity! Woot woot!. I immediately unpacked and it already feels like my room. I have my books and DVDs all lined up, my world map, and I'm trying to find a creative way to put up my pictures. I have a really nice bathroom with running water and a toilet that flushes- I'm the envy of all my fellow PCV-ers. School hasn't officially started but I showed up the last few days for the school clean up. (Yes, here the students come to school a week early to clean...can you imagine that happening on Mercer Island?) Before the clean-up the students all line up according to their grade while the director made announcements. I was just sitting there in silence and kind of zoning out since I couldn't understand half of what was being said. Then all of a sudden the school director shoves the microphone in my face and tells me to introduce myself in Khmer. So I got up and made a really awkward speech in front of two thousand students in Khmer...hopefully I gave them something to laugh about in their day. All in all things haven't been as scary as I thought. I've been keeping busy going to the market in the morning and making friends with the market ladies. I even have a free hook up at the bike parking stand – that saves me 300 riel! (about 8 cents). There is this one lady named Sutjeeah that sells vegetables in the market that is my homie. I go to her house in the afternoons and chat with her and her 18 year old daughter. I also go on long bike rides...the other day I was laying in my room with nothing to do, and I probably would have slept away the day if I didn't force myself to get out of the house. So I planned on going to the market to go chat, then at the last minute decided to take a left and discover the rice fields. I ended riding for over an hour in the fields. Its so beautiful out there- just green fields and rivers and palm trees that go on forever. That's also where the serious poverty is. People just live in homemade huts that don't even have a bathroom (which is why you don't go swimming in their streams). I'm also very lucky because my site was one of the training villages for the volunteers last year. This is great because people in the community are very aware and supportive of Peace Corps and had some people very excited to meet me (i.e. vegetable lady). It's also great because lots of volunteers come back to visit their training families. Just today two volunteers visited and I got to crash their lunches with their families, and on Friday another volunteer is coming to visit. The other K3's are jealous of this as well I think. Well I seemed to have written a short story so I'll leave it at that for now. I'm really excited to be here, and I think I have some tricks up my sleeve to fill my free time to keep myself from going crazy (yoga and poetry in the jungles of Cambodia?...and lots of DVDs from the Russian Market). So i'm feeling really positive...although it also means that I need your care packages/emails/letters more than ever. =) I love you guys! Thanks for all your support and don't forget about me!

one last thing...when i walk anywhere, i have people scream "HELLO HELLO WHATYOURNAME" but when i go on a run they scream "HELLO HELLO RED FACE FOREIGNER HAHAHA HELLO" just a funny image to get through your work day...

Hello everyone!

This past weekend was one of the biggest holidays in Cambodia called Pchum Ban. Similar to the Obon festival in Japan, it celebrates the spirits of your ancestors. According to this holiday, the spirits of your deceased friends and relatives come back to their home town pagodas to visit their families. So this is a time where people from all over Cambodia travel to visit their hometowns to pay respect to their ancestors and have a huge celebration. Typically people go to their pagodas at around 4am (you go when it is dark because the spirits are scared of the light and probably have no clothes on) then you pray and throw rice balls in the air as an offering to the spirits. My host family didn't go until about 6am, but when we did we walked around, bought balloons for the children, ate shaved ice, gave offerings of food and money to the monks, and chit-chatted with the neighbors, teachers, students and pretty much anyone else in town.

In the afternoon we just sat around with the family and hung out- eating tons of fruits and snacks and playing games. Since everyone seems to be related in some way in my village, people were walking around the neighborhood saying hello and sharing food and playing with babies.

Later in the evening we had a ceremony at my house. They filled one of the rooms with a shine decorated with incense, snacks and surrounded by a feast of about 10 plates. I struck up a conversation with an 80 something year old man that told me that he has been a soldier of Buddism since 1956 and hasn't had any teeth since 1975 (that was literally our entire conversation) Then, the whole family(about 25 people) piled into the small room with the shine and feast while the man with no teeth led us in a prayer. There was plenty of commotion in the room with babies crying and people adjusting and great-great grandparents unable to hear or wanting to tell everyone in the room the right way to do this and that....finally we had everyone quieted down and a peaceful rain had started to fall the man with no teeth started the prayer. the second that the group seemed to be ready for this special religious moment ...my host grandma (or the lady who probably isn't related to me, but told me to call her grandma) barged into the room and said "YOUR BLANKET IS ALL WET AGAIN! "(in khmer of course) since i had left my laundry out to dry that afternoon. this resulted in everyone getting up in arms and chatting and arguing over where the best place was for my blanket. it was pretty funny! finally we were able to quiet everyone down and have a proper ceremony for the spirits which ended with a giant dinner.

In a few days I will be leaving my training site and heading off to Phnom Pehn for our swearing in ceremony when we officially transition from the title of "peace corps trainees" to "peace corps volunteers." although i am ready to be done with training...i will be very sad to leave my host training family! They are already trying to get me to promise them I will spend Khmer New Year with them..but I think it's a little early to make promises. =)

How is everyone back home? I was super stoked to learn that the HUSKIES BEAT USC!!!! GO DAWGS!

since my last post so much has happened i dont know where to begin....

I visited my permanent site last week!! I will be living in Kampong Chhnang province (translates to Port of Pots....lots of clay pots made here) , in a district call Boribo (translates to ''perfect'') which is the water buffalo district....haha there are so many water buffalo in my town! It's right off of the Tonle Sap which is exciting because many families go visit the Tonle Sap to go swimming and have picnics...there is also a floating village and a water fall close by. Interesting fact-Phnom Pehn is the intersection point of the Tonle Sap and the Mekong- the two larget rivers in Cambodia. During the end of the rainy season the Mekong river floods so much that it feeds into the Tonle Sap which results in having the river flow backwards. The Tonle sap then becomes full of fish and everyone goes fishing and celebrates the abundance of food. So I'll be looking forward to that.

In other news, the last few days have been busy. last week we had a speaker on landmine removal which was really interesting. yesterday we went to a vocational school. it's a building funded by the government and other donors that offers classes in sewing, hair dressing, veterinary skills, and wedding outfitting for widows and orphans . then we visited handicap international- an NGO that is funded mostly from the UN that offers prosthetic legs to landmine/traffic accident victims and health services to children with cerebral palsy. it was really really interesting and quite impressive, the staff seemed to really know what they were doing. then we went to the local orphanage where. in the orphanage there are 110 kids- and only one "mom" that oversees all the childrens activities and one director. it was really crazy! the orphans performed traditional dances for us. although it was very sad to think about how so many of these children has no family, the orphanage seemed very well run and the children were very talented.

I'm going to try to upload the video i took from there but we'll see if this internet is fast enough.

Mouse update- arrrrrrrrrrg. i went to do my laundry on sunday and when i emptied out the box where i keep my dirty laundry what falls out? mouse poop. the mouse had eaten through two of my shirts (a large percentage of my total shirts in this country) and 4 of my underpants. the other day the mouse stole my bracelet and left his poop in the place of the stolen goods. this mouse is seriously playing mind games with me. i told my host family that "the mouse is smarter than me" and they got a big kick out of it.

Hope everyone is doing well back home! I'm jealous that you guys are moving into fall....i miss my boots and scarves. =) to those headed back to school soon- good luck!

So this last week has been a long, exhausting blur! We had teaching practicum, which was a chance for us to be thrown into a High School classroom and practice teaching....I had a class of over 50 students...many of them without books. This made it difficult to do the 'reading exercises' that I was supposed to assign but I made due...

What took me most by the surprise was the amount of respect the teachers are given here. When the teacher walks into the room, all the students stand....and they continue to stand until the teacher tells them to sit down. This is something that took a while for me to catch on to....I would walk into the class and the the students would stand. Then I would start to prep the whiteboard...when I would turn around 2o seconds later...they were still standing! haha. Also, when the students come in late, they stand by the door and beg for forgiveness "Please Teacher, I am sorry I am late, may I come into the classroom?" also....they don't seem to challenge the teacher...I would give directions...much to quickly so they wouldn't understand, I would ask if they understood, the students said yes, but then they would just sit there because they had no idea what I just said. Hm....something to learn from....speak slower, and check for understanding.

so this week marked my one month in country date. very exciting! in a sense, i feel like i've just gotten here, and in another sense, i feel like i've been here forever! hard to explain...

so this week is suuuuper busy but very very exciting! this tuesday we have site announcement! which is when they tell us our permanent site....we are all very excited and nervous...

After site announcement we go straight to phnom pehn for 2 days to have a conference with our new co-teacher who we will be working with for two years, then a 2 day visit at our permanent site to meet the new family and check out the town. it's an opportunity to look around and see if it's right for us. if we hate it, we can request a new site which is nice.

Then 3 more days in PP....we are sitting in on the Khmer Rouge Tribunal at the UN building on our last day in PP. I don't think excited is the right word, but we feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to sit in. Peace Corps got special permission for seating for all 45 us of. It's crazy, my last paper I wrote in college for my International Humanitarian Law class was on the KR Tribunal...and now I'll be sitting in on it! I'll let you know how it goes. We will be sitting on Doik's testimony, who was one of the main prison guards who ran the Tuel Sleng prison where he tortured and executed countless victims. He was discovered after he changed his name and became a born again Christian while working for World Vision relief fund. Talk about a change of heart.

The training village i am in now was heavily carpet bombed by the US in the 70's...it's all very timely. I think that people in the community are more open that we think about sharing their experiences during the KR regime and the period of rebuilding afterwards....but I am lacking in my language skills. The best I can do is bargain for fruit, talk about my daily activities, and ask for directions...so I guess I'll hold off for now.

Hi everyone!

Today Peace Corps gave us a treat and we all went on field trips. Some people went on a hike, some went to a zoo with dancing elephants and boxing orangutans...but we went on a boat trip and to a temple on an island. It was great! Once I get to Phnom Pehn I will be putting up pictures..but that might not be for another month...

i've been thinking a lot about the cambodian people recently. it's insane to think about what this country went through 30 years ago. this year marks the 30 year anniversary of the liberation from the khmer rouge. considering my host mother and father are in their 60's, and the fact that my host father was a high school chemistry teacher means that they both endured the nightmare of the genocide from 1975-1979. and as a teacher, my host father was a target of the khmer rouge (since they wanted to execute anyone with an education and especially those who were educators). i think that the genocide in the 70's to the current youth in cambodia is like the vietnam war to our generation. something that our many of our parents dealt with but that we can't really relate to.

once of our teachers spent five years of his life in a refugee camp in thailand. to think about where he has come from, and then coming back to a country with a education system that was destroyed and is slowing being rebuilt, then seeing what an accomplished intelligent man he is now...is really incredible. his passion for his country is so inspiring.

anyways, life here has been amazing. i have no complaints. i eat ridiculously well, i spend my days learning a new language and hanging out with new friends, i am outside all day, the weather is beautiful, the fruit is delicious and exotic, and everyday from class i am greeted by at least 10 smiling family members and just want to chat and play and make my life and comfortable as possible. i hardly notice not having electricity and running water...although i'm still getting used to not having toilet paper.

the only real annoyance i have are the mice in my room that terrorize me everynight. they crawl around my room and squeek and eat my soap and my notebooks and steal my things and move them around my room so i can't find them in the morning. the other night i woke up disoriented by the sound of mice feet, for some reason i thought there was a mouse in my room so i SCREAMED really loud. and i live in a wood house with 6 other people. i woke up the entire house at 2:30am....they all got out of bed and were knocking on my door and were like ""keiko! keiko! what's wrong keiko?"! and i had to attempt to explain to them in my broken khmer that i had a bad dream and everything was find and i was so sorry for waking them up. anyways the next morning at breakfast they just laughed and laughed at me...and apparently it's the village gossip because cooper (a volunteer that lives next door to me) said that over dinner his family kept saying my name and fake screaming and laughing...oh boy. i will never live this one down. that will be my legacy in the tramkak district of cambodia.

what's new in everyone's life? keep the comments coming! i love to read them!

hello everyone! i can't believe it's already august

i''m starting to feel as if i'm starting to communicate with my host family. it's great! every night at dinner i read off the new words i learn and they help me with my pronounciation. i think they try to use the same words that i tell them i know so we can have more of a conversation. they are awesome.

my days are long and exhausting. i starting running and i think that is going to be my saving grace for my sanity. i usually start to wake up at about 4:30 am when the roosters are crowing and my grandma starts blasting a khmer music tape. then i doze in and out of sleep until 5:15 when i get up, empty my chamber pot, spray the bathroom for bugs and then head out for my run. i run for about 30 minuutes and people think i'm crazy. this morning it was pouring down rain but i ran anyways. it was wonderful. it was the first time i wasn't hot in the country.

my host mom is such a good good that she has a restaurant on the side of the road. my language teacher's house is only a 2 minute walk from my house so my language classmates come over for breakfast everymorning and then we walk to class together. right next to my language teacher's house there is a coffee stand so we all get an iced coffee to go....which is a little bit of coffee and a lot of ice in a plasitc bag with a straw.

language class goes from 7:30am-11:30. my language group is awesome so it makes it bareable. my teacher is laid back and likes to take lots of breaks. we pretty much just deliriously laugh at eachother once the heat starts to get to us at about 10pm.

after lunch we usually have to head to the wat (temple), high school, or market for lessons on khmer ceremonies, gender discussions, classroom observations, or health information. this typcially goes from 1-5. then i bike home, take a shower, and have dinner with my family. after dinner i fight them to try to do the dishes, then they make some excuse and send me off to bed. then i crawl into my mosquito net where i feel very safe with my headlamp and read or do homework until i pass out. (haha i usually pass out about 8pm).

in other news...for those who were worried about me losing weight...fear no more! during meal time my host mother produces huge amounts of food in front of me...and every bite is delicious....

also, the fruits in cambodia are amazzzzzing!!! mangosteen, lychees, dragonfruits, and rambutens galore....i always try to save room for fruit (which is always eaten after a meal) but it's hard when all the food is so delicious.

well, all for now. i have to hurry home for lunch. i miss everyone and am loving your comments! please keep them coming!

things have been a complete blur here. we are still in the provincial town of takeo for one more night staying at a guest house. this will

be our 'hub site'during training that we will visit about once a week

for the first three months. peace corps rented out a school building

and we have lots of long meetings there. this morning i woke up at

5:30am and went on a run along the river with some volunteers. it was

beautiful watching the sun rise over the river. people

think it's hysterical that we run. exercise is a novel thing to khmers

i guess. running in a group is helpful because stray dogs bark and

charge at us. (we had a health presentation today. all i know is i hope i never get raibes) we just run with a few rocks in our hands and throw them

in the direction of the dogs to scare them off. after the run and a

shower we had breakfast at a place across the street from where we are

staying. yesterday for

breakfast i had rice porriage, today i had noodle soup similar to pho.

it has lot of cilantro in it but i'm trying to learn to like it. i tend to stay away from the meat and usually just eat the vegetables and rice. today we had a plate of sauteed ants for lunch-

but i wasn't quite ready to for them.

i've been so impressed with the level of structure of our training.

the khmer staff is AWESOME. they are so kind and smiley and fun. my

language teacher kim kong is so warm and makes us all feel really

comfortable practicing the language. the language is

interesting...it's not very complicated as far as grammatical

structure (there is no 'to be'verb, thank god) but the sounds are difficult to

reproduce and i seem to instantly forget words that i learn.

i hope to have the chance to upload some pictures soon. the internet is slow and unrealiable. it takes long enough to even sign into gmail. thats all for now. tomorrow we meet our host family and we are all beyong nervous. i only know a few phrases at this point and i dont think a khmer conversation with me wouldn't last more than 60 seconds. so the rest of the time will probably be spent staring at eachother, smiling and giggling nervously. wish me luck!

Sah-Wah-Dee-kah!

Greetings from Bangkok International! We'll we've had quite the trip so far...3 days ago approximately we left San Francisco airport. 11 hours later we arrived in Tokyo, after a 3 hour layover and a bowl of ramen, we boarded our 6 hour flight to Bangkok. We got in at around midnight, checked into the hotel across the street, then woke up 3 hours later for our 4:30am wake up call. Upon arrival at the Bangkok airport, we find out that 9 out of our group of 45 (myself included) would not make it on the flight to Phnom Pehn.

We decided to make the best of it by locking up our luggage at the airport and taking a cab into the city. We visited the Grand Palace with the famous Emerald Buddah, enjoyed a delicious lunch, and walked around some markets. We even saw a monk holding a monkey wearing a skirt, halter top, earrings, bracelets and.....glasses! seriously, the monkey was wearing pink rimmed glasses.

Despite only getting around 9 hours of sleep over the last three days and being up since 4:30am, I've had a blast. I feel like I've been laughing non stop...possibly because we are so delirious from lack of sleep. I feel like I've bonded so much with the group and that everyone is really great about looking out for each other. In a few short hours we will be hopping on our flight to Cambodia. The rest of the group has been there all day and aparently had a warm welcome from the current volunteers, but the rest of us are pretty stoked we got to spend the day in Bangkok. We all even bought matching pairs of knock off Ray-Bans. After getting checked into our flight I immediately fell asleep face first on the airport linoleum floor. Also, I've already been nick-named "snack queen" because I am always snacking or on a mission for my next snack.

We'll I'm sorry this post isn't so interesting and may or may not make a lot of sense. The next time I get internet is up in the air. All I can think about is my head hitting my pillow in PP. More later. I miss everyone!