Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Got my site placement

We got our site placement today! I'll spare you the anticipation that they made us go through, but I am going to Svay Rieng Province. I basically got everything I wanted for a site. It's two hours down the road from Phnom Penh. It's about 10k from the provincial capital where there will be more things. Another volunteer lives there and I can bike in pretty easily to see her. The internet is said to be spotty there, so who knows how much internet access I will have.

In addition to a school and a health center, there is a microfinance institution near by. The town is also walkable, though I will ride my bike lots of places.

My site is a replacement site, meaning a Peace Corps Volunteer was there before. Hence, I received a report written by her. She had excellent relationships with her school director, a co-teacher and he volunteered at the health center. I look forward to building off of her work.

Svay Rieng has few westerners (Lonely Planet says you can see the entire province through the window of a bus), so I will be immersed in Khmer and have to do my work in Khmer.

Unfortunately, I do not know my particular living situation yet. Peace Corps said there are plenty of families that I can live with, but they have not narrowed it down yet. So, I will stay with a teacher when I go to visit the site this weekend.

I will provide more details once I see the site.

Peace Corps has had our site chosen since Saturday or Sunday, but has made us wait until we were all together for a seminar day (the group is split into two training districts). Everyone was pretty anxious to find out their site and when we got to Takeo, they made us sit through a presentation about mental illness and dermatological health. Our poor Peace Corps Medical Officer had to try to keep our attention while we were waiting for our site announcements.

After her presentation, we went outside where there was a makeshift map of Cambodia with flags for each site. The staff drew an envelope which had a trainee's name on it. The trainee came up, read their site, found it on the map, and then had to draw another envelope for the next trainee. Luckily, I was one of the first to be called, so I found my site quickly. Overall, it seems everyone got what they wanted, but we'll see what happens once site visit comes about.

Please comment on my blog: Do people have questions? Am I painting a clear picture of Cambodia?

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Cambodia Adventure and Practicum

Still been pretty busy, but I am enjoying it. Last week we went on Cambodia Adventure. I went with two fellow trainees, Jen and Nathan (who are married). We visited James, a current volunteer in Memot, near the Viatnamese border.

Getting there was kind of intense. We stuffed in a taxi to go from Triang to Phnom Penh. It was a sedan with 5 seats. We had seven people in the car, all trainees. On the way back, the driver put his friend in the driver's seat to bring, the total up to eight. Apparently, that is not considered a crowded taxi in Cambodia. The driver was someone's host dad, so I guess we got a luxurious ride. Also on the way back from Phnom Penh, the driver stopped for about an hour to get a custom hat made. The sense of time in Cambodia is just so different.

In Phnom Penh we took a five hour bus to Memot. It wasn't too bad except it left late and the driver was on his cell phone picking people up. We actually got our own seats though.

James lives in a dorm at his school, which is a unique living arrangement. He has an English club where he works with his students on reading. He mostly works with the best students because they are the ones who study the most. Many of the other students don't have the time to study English, so do not participate as much or show up to class. This is unfortunate, but when Peace Corps Volunteers focus on human development, they need to work with Cambodians who will reciprocate.

The same is true when working with co-teachers. Volunteers look for teachers who need improvement, but are willing to work with the volunteers. Some teachers are just stubborn and won't change their ways. The harsh reality is, there is little we can do for them.

Memot is in Kampung Chung (sp?) province, which had amazing food. We ate some great fruit and fried noodles. We also spend time playing frisbee with the students and had dinner and drinks (warm beer mixed with ice) with James' co-teacher.

Overall, we had a wonderful few days outside of our training village.

When we returned, we began Practicum week. We were in groups of three and paired with a Cambodian co-teacher. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we each taught Cambodian students for an hour. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday, we each taught an hour to the same class with our co-teacher. There were about 45 students in the class and we had to spend a lot of time lesson planning.

My group was lucky that our co-teacher was nice. It was a wonderful exchange; she learned from us and we learned from her. I lent her some of our training materials, so that she can continue to learn.

Throughout the week, we became more fluid as a team and I certainly improved as a teacher. It was my first time teaching a large group over a sustained period of time.

While all the trainees improved as teachers, others were not as lucky as us in terms of their assigned co-teacher. Some trainees had co-teachers who refused to lesson plan with them, would talk over them in class and would refer to them to their faces as "bad teachers."

During the afternoons of Practicum week, we would continue our language training. My language skills are continuing to improve. I still confuse and mispronounce a lot of words, but every day I am saying more.

Now that Practicum is finished, we are leaving Triang for a little while. On Tuesday, we go to the provincial town, Takeo, to find out where we will be stationed for our two years. We had a few interviews and the anticipation is building. I hope to post details about my permanent site in a few days.

As a health volunteer, I know my site will be the right size for me and contain a health center and a school. Our training officer visited the health sites and says the health center director is eager to work with us (more about health in a few paragraphs).

After Takeo, we head to Phnom Penh to meet teachers from our permanent site. We will then depart with us to visit our permanent sites next weekend.

When we return to Phnom Penh we are going to a Khmer Rouge Tribunal. I'm really happy that we will get to go because a colleague of mine from Haverford visited and she attended one of the trials. I hear it is a powerful experience.

We will then return to Triang for about a week and then we go on our health road trip. We will go to on an eight day trip to learn about the health sector in Cambodia. Out of the 45 trainees, 10 are health volunteers. We are the first health volunteers in Cambodia. Like I said, this means we will volunteer at a health center in addition to teaching.

At the end of training, when we do our community project in Triang, our training village, the health volunteers will do a health presentation. . . in Khmer! We apparently have a long list of health vocabulary to memorize.

The new interesting food of the week is fried sweet potatoes covered in sugar. They actually taste just like Frosted Flakes!

That's all for now. I look forward to finding out my permanent site. Again, I am sorry for the lack of pictures. I don't think I'll be able to post pictures until I can use wireless internet in Phnom Penh. Right now, I am at an internet cafe in Takeo.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Stuff

Things are still pretty busy around here, but I actually have some time on the internet right now. Usually, I am trying to squeeze it in before our seminars, which are in a different town from where I live.

We had to come here today to go on a field trip. We just got back and I have the rest of the afternoon, so I am taking advantage.

Our field trip was to the Cambodian zoo: Phnom Tameo. It was kind of like a safari and you could walk up to all the non-dangerous animals. I got a cool picture with an antelope, which I will post here eventually.

There were no tour guides, but some kids followed us around and pointed things out. People are always staring as us in Cambodia. Most of them have never seen a westerner before. And little kids yell "hello"and, occasionally, "I love you" when we pass on the street. They don't know much English.

Other than that, everything is still good. I've been eating lots of rice, working on the language and learning about my other responsibilities. In addition to teaching English, I'll be working at a health center and using my role as a teacher to teach community members about health. I'm also hoping to work on some microfinance/business development projects, but it depends on my permanent site placement.

My host family has been quite helpful with me learning Khmer. I need to listen more though. It's tempting to dive into the language, but so many of the sounds are so different from any sound I've ever made. I attempt to speak a lot, but listening is so important.

I've been lucky to have internet so much in the past few days, but this is unusual. Over the next few weeks we have our Cambodia Adventure, where we go visit a volunteer at their actual site and we have to get there by ourselves in small groups. We also have our practice teaching with real Cambodian students. Wish me luck!

Monday, August 3, 2009

Training

Training is real busy and my training village doesn't have internet. I'll try to bring everyone up to speed and fill you all in on what I've been up to. Yet again, I'm a little bit rushed because we have to be at training soon, but hopefully this all makes sense.

We left Phnom Penh for Takeo Province which is two hours away. We stayed in a hotel for a few nights and had seminars all day about safety, langauge, culture and our work, among other things.

Then we split up to go to to training villages. I was placed in Triang with half the volunteers. We will be there for the next two weeks except when we go to the District Capital for Seminar days where the whole group is together. We are there now and got there a bit early, so I am able to get on the internet for a few minutes.

My host family is really nice. They speak all Khmer which is helping me learn. I can actually kind of speak it, but the pronunciation is a little difficult. I'm learning a lot though. I live with a mother and father. They have a son who speaks a little bit of English. He lives in Phnom Penh, with his wife and child, but we speak on the phone sometimes and he came to visit. His daughter (my niece) is afraid of me. My family thinks its hilarious.

I think my arrangement is perfect. My family is nice and patient with me. And there is an English speaker available (in addition to my language and cultural facilitator who trains me during the day), but for the most part I am immersed in Khmer at home.

Here is a typical day for me when I am in my training village. This encompasses Monday- Saturday for the most part:

5:30 AM wake up. I take a bucket shower and brush my teeth. I am lucky that my family has electricity.
6:30 Meet up with my language group (four other people) for breakfast. I have rice, pork and vegetables for about 75 cents. Then I take my malaria pill after I eat.
7-11 Intensive language class with my five-person group. Sometimes groups combine and we have ten people. I like the way we learn languages. We do a lot of speaking and conversations, and do interactive activities like go to the market to learn to bargain. For the most part, we are just learning to speak and listen. I hope to teach myself some writing when I get to my permanent site.
11-1 Go home for lunch with my family and nap. Maybe do a little cleaning.
1-4 or 5. Learn about teaching English in Cambodia
5-7 Eat dinner and study Khmer. Try to chat with my family.
At least 60% of what i eat is rice. Some cool things I've eaten:
chicken foot
ants
awesome tropical fruits
7 Wash myself with the bucket and get ready for bed.
8-9:30 read and go to sleep

That's a typical day for me. Sorry for the lack of pictures. I miss everyone.