Khmer Medical Terms

I am in Kampong Cham once again helping with training. Today one of the volunteers had an English/Khmer dictionary of medical termonology. While waiting for community activities to start a few of us went through the dictionary, as a result I now have a number of new favorites.

the khmer term for sperm literally translatess to "the boss of life"
the khmer term for speculum literally translates to "Tool to open the golden door"
the khmer term for anus literally translates to "big door"
AND last but not least, the khmer term for priapism translates to "angry penis"

Gross

It has been nice taking a break from busy and just hanging out at site. It’s nice to feel that way. I have spent a considerable amount of time recently laying in my hammock, eating pomegranates, and reading the Chronicles of Narnia and various other novels of comparable intellectual magnitude (in addition to mornings at the health center, lesson planning and translating, of course).

I realized the other night that there is a major omission in my khmer language knowledge, an omission which most certainly needs to be remedied given that I live with a 3 year old boy. The word I seem to be missing in my Khmer repetoir is “gross.” I know how to say various things like “not delicious,” “I don’t like,” “…smells bad,” etc… But I do not know how to express disgust at another person. It would be natural at this point to be wondering what brought to light this hole in my education. The incident occurred around 6:30PM on the night of September the 3rd, 2010. I was cooking my dinner and in marched Foo. He climbed up onto a stool next to me as he often does when I am cooking dinner. He began asking me various “Cher, what is this? Where did you buy it? etc…” types of questions as per usual. I looked over to respond to his inquiries and saw that he was buck naked with one leg on the stool and one on my counter/cooking surface in a lunge-like position. I laughed; 3 year olds like to run around naked, whatever. But then he started eating things; things that are not meant to be eaten by themselves. It started with an uncooked penne noodle. No big. Then he had his hand in my oatmeal tin. Then he started tasting my spices (and crinkling his nose after each one and yelling “Doikanea!!” which means ‘the same’). Then he was sticking his finger in my spaghetti sauce. None of this is terribly disgusting but then I turned away to stir my pasta and when I looked back Foo was standing on the counter, still completely naked, shoveling the contents of a can of low-fat milk powder into his mouth with a spoon. GROSS. I mean if it had been frosting or something, sure, but low-fat milk powder…not delicious.

Oh wait, I know stuff...

The last month or so has been rather busy. There isn't a whole lot to report though. I spent a good chunk of time helping out with training of the new volunteers (welcome k4!). The main result of this was a realization of how far I have come in the last year. It's funny how you can fail to see your own progress until you catch a glimpse of where you were before. I realized just how much I have learned about Cambodia, khmer culture, and language as well as issues in the healthcare and education systems. Moreover, it occured to me how much more comfotable I am with our khmer staff after having lived here for a year. So thats a nice confidence boost.

Ryan was also here for 10 days. It was great to have my brother here and get to share my Cambodia life with him a bit. That also opened my eyes a bit to how much I have adapted to my life here.