MISC.

This week I had the pleasure of explaining to my khmer tutor that sperm and bacteria are not the same thing.

So, I am prepping this lesson on reproductive health. Really basic stuff; these are the kinds of birth control available, here is how they work, these ones are the best, etc… I doubt that any of my girls actually need this information but many of them will probably be married soon so I figure I might as well give them the info now. My Khmer tutor was helping me to go through the lesson and translate it. Even though I have help with translating the lessons while I teach them, I try to make sure I at least understand the basics of the language necessary so I will know if there is a major mistranslation. This particular topic is proving to be a challenge, not because I am shy about teaching it, but because getting someone to translate it is proving difficult. Trying to explain what I want to say when my teacher does not have the vocabulary in English, or the practical knowledge in her own language…tricky. This challenge led to an interesting conversation during my last session. My tutor was explaining to me that she knows about condoms because she teaches HIV/AIDS education. She is a primary school teacher. I got rather excited thinking that they actually taught sexual education in my district. WRONG. They teach HIV/AIDS education in 6th grade, but from what I gathered, there is no sexual education taught in the schools. I have been here long enough not to be surprised by this, but I have to say the logic seems faulty, teaching safe sex to kids who probably don’t even know the mechanics of it. I know there is debate even in the states about how much should be taught in schools but it seems to me that if you are going to teach about things like condoms you should probably make sure people know the basics.

On a more serious note: Recently I began reading the Twilight books. I have resisted this for a long time, but finally illness induced boredom got the better of me. Now I could go off on a shpeel about how you should be required to have a college degree to read these books so as to ensure that you don’t take them seriously, I could rage about how they completely normalize and even idolize violence in the context of romantic relationships, I could add to all of the commentary about anti-feminism and what have you, or perhaps the whole issue of forefitting your SOUL for a boy…but I won’t. Instead my mental processes have been entirely consumed with this question: Edward or Jacob? As far as personality and general attractiveness I would have to go with the werewolf. Ultimately though, I think the choice is entirely climate dependent. Living in Cambodia for a year has taught me to value cold things. So I would say Pacific Northwest Meghan is all about cuddling with a personal heater and Cambodia Meghan is all about shacking up with a walking air conditioner. In short, friends and family, this is what my brain has deteriorated to.

This past week I taught my health club about exercise. My friends at home can go ahead and keep laughing. They really did not know much of anything about how much exercise you should do or basic kinds of exercise you could do. They wanted me to demonstrate some things which was fine. We started with really basic things like sits ups and push-ups. I kid you not, these girls are itty bitty but maybe 2 out of 20 of them could actually do a sit-up. Also, I wanted to smack the lot of them because they were asking questions about how to lose weight or make their thighs smaller etc and so forth…because a 000 isn’t small enough already.