First month at site

Everything is going pretty well. I am still adjusting to my new home and to working exclusively with Cambodians. Working across cultures presents a unique set of challenges.

One challenge is teaching. I started co-teaching with other English teachers. Each class has about 40 students with varying English skills; in every class, there is at least one student who speaks extremely well and usually about five students who cannot speak a word. In addition, many students do not have books and the book is not very good, but we are supposed to use it. There are ways to work around these challenges, but they require a lot of lesson planning that my co-teachers do not really want to do mainly because of them being too busy and “too busy.” They seem to have plenty of time to invite me to parties though.

It’s very early in my commitment though, so maybe things will change. A teacher that worked with the volunteer who was here before me is very committed to lesson planning and finding creative ways to teach. He does not teach grade 10, so we have not been teaching together. We have been working together on health projects though. We had a meeting for class monitors about swine flu, the flu and the common cold. The monitors will teach what they learned to their respective classes. A lot of what we taught was basic stuff and made me more aware of how undeveloped the health infrastructure here is. For example, students know little about the difference between a common cold and the flu.

This teacher also helps to organize an alcohol campaign on the commune level. They try to make villagers aware of the health dangers of alcohol. Many Khmer people do not know that alcohol can be dangerous and bad for your health. Some people think it makes you strong and helps cure diseases. The campaign is also trying to make it illegal to drink at pagodas and to buy alcohol when you are under the age of 13 (If there was a Cambodian prom, I imagine they would have a different set of problems compared to ours). The campaign also had a march around town and I gave a small speech. There were about 70 people there. My co-teacher will be writing a grant for this campaign to do more activities and I will help him.

An interesting thing about working with Cambodian people is their sense of time. Many of them do not plan ahead. They frequently call me and ask me to do something at that very moment. “Where are you? Come to this gathering now.” Or, I will see them when I am walking and they will invite me to have dinner with them in a half hour. Compared to planning oriented America, this can be difficult at times, especially if I already have plans. They believe I can drop all my plans to do whatever they have asked me. They also do not know how long things will take. I was not feeling well at the alcohol campaign and my friend told me it would end at 9am (it started at 7:30). It did not end until 11.

So how is my standard of living? I have no running water and pour a bucket of water on myself to shower. I do have a washing machine, so I don’t have to wash my clothes by hand. The washing machine is actually a very big deal. Hand-washing clothes can take hours, so I am lucky. We only have electricity for about four hours every day, so I get to use my computer at that time if I want to watch a dvd or something. When I do get the internet, I usually put a bunch of news articles in a word document on my flash drive so I can read them when I am home (so feel free to email me interesting articles). When I have electricity, I have a fan, which cools off my room. But usually, my room is very hot. I generally fall asleep sweating once the electricity goes off.

I’ve been eating pretty well. I have rice with every meal and my family usually provides me with two meals a day, if I do not go eat with a community member who will typically invite me at the last minute.

The interesting food I have eaten this week in baw baw. It reminds me of grits. It’s like rice, water and oil with vegetables and meat in it. You can make it spicy if you want. It’s delicious.

I found good internet, but the connection is not that great today. I was not able to upload new pictures, but here is what a Cambodian barbershop looks like from training:

From PC Training

The haircuts cost about 50 cents and are amazing. Here is their diverse set of tools:

From PC Training

Everything has been pretty good since I’ve departed from site. I’ve been here for two weeks now.

The day I arrived, I took a taxi from Phnom Penh with four other people from my province and got off at the market shop where my family works. I wasn’t expecting to be nervous, considering I had been to my site already and knew my family, but there was definitely a shock of “wow, this is real:” the only American in a foreign, developing country. It’s funny that that is the experience I’ve wanted for a while, yet it’s weird when it finally comes. My friends in the taxi were feeling it too. As a result, I basically forgot most of my Khmer for my first afternoon at site.

The next day, I went to school and met with the school director and started to meet some of my fellow teachers. I also worked with Sopheap, one of my co-teachers and my Khmer tutor, on the speech I would have to give on Thursday for the school-opening ceremony. Oh, and the speech would be in Khmer in front of about 1500 people. No big deal.

Skipping to Thursday, the ceremony was pretty cool. The school director and district governor talked about the importance of education and gave me praise for helping. My speech was nothing glorious. I had to laugh in the middle of it because I would make mistakes and the students would giggle. The speech consisted of me thanking all the important people there, introducing myself, saying what I will be doing, apologizing for being bad at Khmer but saying that I will learn, then thanking all the important people again. Respect is very important in Cambodian culture.

Everyone thought I did a good job considering I’ve only been speaking Khmer for two months and everyone was happy to have a foreigner at their school trying to learn their language. Cambodia is basically the opposite of America with respect to xenophobia. If someone who could barely speak English gave the speech I gave in America, they would be ridiculed (or in all likelihood not asked to give a speech at all). In Cambodia, I was great.

I’ve been taking advantage of the fact that Cambodians like foreigners so much. I’ve been walking around my village, meeting people. They are always happy to talk to me. It’s also a great way to get some exercise (which Cambodians think is hilarious) learn about my community and practice Khmer. A frequent conversation topic is if I am married and why I will not get married while I am in Cambodia.

In the days leading up to the school opening ceremony, I spent my mornings at the health center. I got really lucky because the second day I was there the village health volunteers had a meeting and I joined them and now I can go to their meetings. The village health volunteers are an important resource for me. They are the people in the community that are turned to with questions about health. They also do outreach activities, like encouraging parents to take their new-born children to the doctor frequently. Some of their projects are supported by NGOs. Many of the village health volunteers are very nice; I had lunch at one of their houses over the weekend. I hope I can contribute to their activities and they can help me with future projects.

I also started classes this week. I will be teaching grade 10 and working with three teachers. This past week and next week, I’ve been observing classes to see how I will be able to help the teachers improve, learn from them and reach the students. When I get settled into teaching, I will go into more details about what the Cambodian education system is like.

Interesting food of the week: Prohap. It’s basically stinky fish goo. I’ve had maybe one bite. My family eats it every single day and it’s disgusting. They think it’s funny that I don’t like it. A funny thing about the Cambodian language is instead of saying I don’t like prohap, what my family says to me translates into English as I don’t know how to eat it. I would also like to remind everyone that I eat rice with every single meal, totaling 5-7 bowls a day. I’ve loved the western food people have sent me, but if someone could mail me ice cream and a pizza that would be great.

That’s all for now. Next time I post (hopefully within the next week), I will probably describe a typical day and go into more detail about how rugged I really have it. The fact that my family has a washing machine is a big deal. I also may have a good internet situation, but I'm still figuring it out.

About to head to site. . .

*One thing I forgot to mention in my last post is that I will also have visual aids for teaching health that have pictures and Khmer writing. They will also help me communicate.

Pictures. For the first time since arriving in Cambodia, there will be pictures in my blog. I will mix them in with the text, and at the end I will provide additional pictures. This post is a little disorganized since my computer/the internet has frozen so many times while putting these pictures in place. I finally figured out how to do it in spite of the slow internet, so future posts will be better. Please note that since I wash my clothes by hand and do not want to appear rich to my Cambodian friends, I wear a lot of the same clothes.

If you want to see all 379 pictures I took during training (probably so you can find the perfect pictures of me for your screen saver), you can follow this link:

PC Training

So, I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer instead of a Peace Corps Trainee. Tomorrow, I will go to my site. It was sad saying goodbye to my the friends I have made here, but we will have much to share through text messaging and when we get together again.

For the next three months, we are on what we call "lock-down;" we cannot leave our province. The reason Peace Corps has this policy is so we will make a good impression on our community and make it clear that we are living there. So, I will spend a lot of time at my site and with the volunteers in my province (of course, I will spend a lot of time at my site after lock-down too).

Training wrapped up nicely. We returned from our health trip and I gave a presentation to about 40 Khmer students on hand-washing. It was a little awkward since it was my first time presenting information in a foreign language, but I will certainly improve.

Then, it was a Buddhist holiday in Cambodia: Pchum Ben. It is a day where the family goes to the wot and gives food so that their ancestors receive good things in the after life. It was a lot of fun. I hung out at the wot a bit and then spent a lot of time with my family.

After the holiday, we took our language test. I passed! I feel pretty comfortable with basic conversation and, by being outgoing at my site, I think I can speak a lot and continue to improve.

On our last day in our training village, we had a part for our Khmer teachers and our host families. It was great: we cooked pancakes, carnitas and other American food. We were lucky that one of the host-parents professionally had parties, so he was able to provide a tent, tables and chairs. The Khmer people really enjoyed it and we all had fun cooking and then hanging out. But, it was sad to leave our village.

Us with our carnitas creation:

From PC Training

Me with my host-dad:

From PC Training

Sweet shot of the party:

From PC Training

Our Khmer teachers:

From PC Training

My friend, Nathan giving a speech about our village:

From PC Training

Then, it was off to Phnom Penh to wrap things up. In addition to some final trainings, we went shopping (I bought a lot of cheap DVDs) and ate delicious food. My province does not have any non-Khmer food, so I had to get as much ice cream, pizza and Indian food as possible.

I have a lot of expectations for tomorrow, which I won't bore you with, but please wish me luck. I hope to have internet once a week at my school or in the provincial town, but it may be once every two weeks while I get settled.

Here are more photos:

From blog slideslow

Me with some Cambodian children at the market. They are always eager to speak with a foreigner.

From blog slideslow

Me with my host parents.

From blog slideslow

Myself in front of some houses by the river.

From blog slideslow

At the zoo, you can touch the animals.

From blog slideslow

My friends and I enjoying a coconut after a long day.

From blog slideslow

The monkey that escaped from next-door and scared the family dogs and my host-mom. I am not kidding. My host-dad ran next door to get the owners. My friends and I aren't really sure why they have a monkey. My host-dad couldn't tell me, but when I asked if it was for safety, he said yes. But that could be just because I know the word for safety in Khmer.

From blog slideslow

The view from behind my house in training. Eat your heart out, benjaminnorman.com (a site that I highly endorse)

From blog slideslow

The shower facilities at my training site. Pretty typical. I scoop water from the basin with the bucket and pour it on myself.

From blog slideslow

A typical toilet. In addition to learning how to bathe during training, we had to learn how to use the toilet.

From PC Training

My host dad watching tv in the living room. The room also houses his car.

From PC Training

Frontal view of of my house in training..

My host-dad watching TV in his living room.

From blog slideslow

Me at our going away party with the people from the breakfast place we ate at every morning.

To answer Tom's question

Tom asked how I will be able to inspire volunteerism and teach health if my ability to communicate is limited.

Volunteers are not expected to accomplish much, outside of teaching English, for their first six months or so. During that time, I will be interacting with a lot of people and learning a lot about the community. From my interactions, my language ability will improve a lot and I will be more aware of the community's needs. I expect that by the middle of my service, I will communicate quite proficiently and know what I can do to help.

My language ability has improved a lot already. Yesterday, I spoke to my host-dad in Khmer for about an hour and a half. Yesterday was also a Khmer holiday and I had conversations with a lot of random people. So, I will continue to improve.

Tom, thanks for asking that question. I look forward to answering more questions on my blog.
I will post more about this week and pictures in a few days.

Health trip so far

I am writing from Battambang Town in Battambang Province. It's been a busy, tiring and fascinating few days. I’ll talk a little about what we did in terms of NGO’s and adventures. I’ll also discuss the expectations of being a health volunteer a little more. Feel free to skim the NGO stuff if it doesn’t interest you; I posted it because I think the work they do is a cool thing to share.

We left Takeo Province on Wednesday to go to Phnom Penh for a night. The highlight of the first night in Phnom Penh was eating delicious Indian food.

The next day, we visited Resource Development International (RDI), an NGO that works with communities to provide clean water and other sustainable practices. They are a foreign NGO, but most of their production costs for producing water filters are covered by sales. Their sales also cover their marketing, which is how they explain the importance of clean water. They do this through a variety of medias, including a Khmer Sesame Street! The reason they sell the water purifiers is so the people who buy them take ownership of them in terms of taking care of the filters and using them (an interesting concept as opposed to giving the filters away).

RDI relies on donations to conduct research about clean water and other innovative development efforts, like a non-smelling (or less smelly) pig for people to raise and eat. Donations also pay for some of the foreign staff. RDI also works with foreign universities and has students come to Cambodia to work with the Cambodian staff to conduct research projects. This helps the universities and builds capacity for RDI. One of the universities they work with a lot is UNC. A lot of the furniture I saw had UNC written on it.

The next day, in Kampong Chong Province, we shadowed IRD, another NGO that works on caring for infants. We saw the NGO staffers lecture people, and do one-on-one sessions within the community. What was cool about their work was that they operated within the village framework by working alongside community leaders. We saw a session on making a nutritious porridge for young children, saw a counseling session, and saw someone in the village make soap to kill scabies and lice (it is hard to get this soap normally for Cambodians and lice and scabies are quite common).

An exciting thing about this day was taking the bamboo train for 45 minutes to and from the site where the NGO works. Don't let the word "bamboo train" fool you; this journey was far from glamorous. The bamboo train consists of a board, which may have a mat, and a motor going on a train track. About 22 people were packed on this board.

The fun part: it was pouring rain on the way there. In addition, for some reason there is only one track for both directions that trains go in. So, every time a bigger train approached, or a bamboo train that was bigger than us (usually because of lots of logs), we had to get off the train, pick up the plank and then take the wheels off the track. This happened three times on the way there in the rain, but only once on the way back when it was not raining.

The next day, in another province, Pursat, we learned more about the health system in Cambodia. From this trip, I've learned a lot more about my role as a health volunteer in Cambodia. My job will be to teach people about health. I will do this by talking to people in the community, particularly around the health center, to see how I can teach people about health. To make my work sustainable, I will hopefully have volunteers from my village to work with me.

Basically, my job is to make friends, see what they need and how I can help. Some Volunteers who have been here for a year came and spoke to us, and said to just talk to a lot of people. Cambodian society is built around relationships, so I will need strong relationships to do my work.

Lots of the stuff I will teach is pretty simple, like the importance of washing your hands. Supposedly, something like 60% of childhood illnesses in Cambodia could be prevented by hand-washing (maybe adult illnesses too, I don’t have the statistic in front of me)

To practice, this week we are doing a community project in our training village. My friend Philip and I will be talking about the importance of washing hands (We will instruct in Khmer). Our project will be part of a bigger project conducted by all the Trainees. Other Health Trainees will be doing other presentations, and the Community Development Trainees will be organizing a school clean up, a talent show and other activities.

Another interesting part of the trip was visiting a social enterprise called DVD. They do data entry, but they recruit and train their staff from disadvantaged groups in Cambodia, such as people who have been trafficked, have disabilities, or are poor. The data entry is a profitable business, including clients like Harvard, Tufts, US government municipalities and a Dutch newspaper. The non-profit side is the training and outreach they perform. Pretty cool, huh?

That’s all for now. With a little luck, this will be my last blog post without pictures. Next week, when we go to swear-in in Phnom Penh, I will bring my lap top and post pictures. That is, assuming that the internet works.

Interesting fact of the day: When we go to swear-in, we become Volunteers as opposed to Trainees. The oath we say is the same oath that the US Vice-President says. Pretty cool, depending on what VP you think of.

Brief Update

Site visit went great. Everyone is eager to work with me and my host family seems great. I have lots of expectations, but I don't want to lay them out because, apparently, Peace Corps Volunteer expectations change a lot. I will give you one: I expect to have internet once a week! There is supposedly internet at my school that I can use and it requires a generator. My school director will let me use it for free and I will teach some of the teachers more about computers, particularly the internet, which they know little about.

We saw the Khmer Rouge tribunal on our way back from site visit. Duch, the guy on trial, was in charge of S-21, the Khmer Rouge's most notorious prison. Much of the questioning was pretty boring because they are nearing the end of the trial, so they were interviewing obscure character witnesses from the late 90's (his atrocities were committed in the 1970's).

A fascinating part occurred when Duch himself was questioned. He claimed he did what he did to protect his family and because he was forced. He also said he converted to Christianity and was working on repenting. However, his claims are denied by much of what I have read. He is not mentally ill by conventional standards. An opinion article also argued no person who was not running the prison by choice would be able to have his position without feeling grave remorse. He would also have gotten killed or lost his job if he was not passionate about it.

The setting of the tribunal was also interesting. It was conducted judges and lawyers who are Cambodian and other nationalities. So, the proceedings were in a variety of languages and we had head sets that gave us translations. The trial took place behind glass and there was stadium-like seating. There was even a refreshment stand outside the court room (but we could not eat or drink inside the court room).

Other than that, not much is going on. We are leaving for our health education trip tomorrow. We will get to see four provinces. Then, there is a big Khmer holiday, our language test and swear-in. I am feeling pretty good about the language, but I need to get better at listening.

Interesting foods I've eaten:
spider - has bbq flavor on the outside, but the inside is gross
snake - gross
frog - delicious

Lastly, I have my mailing address in my province (posted on the right-hand corner of my blog). Send me something!

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?