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.

Babies don't grow in the vagina...

On Sunday I taught a lesson on reproductive health focusing primarily on birth control methods and how they work. I don’t think I have ever said “egg and sperm” so many times in the course of an hour. I spent a lot of time explaining things we think of as very basic, like fertilization, and the fact that the vagina and uterus are not the same thing. They only giggled a little bit when I drew a penis on the board. On Monday and Tuesday a friend of mine came from Battambang to do a workshop on female health and hygiene with my girls. Khmer women, especially high school aged, tend to be very shy about these topics so I wasn’t sure how it would be received. I was pleasantly surprised though. I had 20 girls show up for the two day workshop. They not only showed up but participated, answered questions when asked, and asked a lot of their own questions. I was very proud of them. I had two favorite moments. The first was when Meghan and her Khmer counterparts were teaching about good hygiene before sex. They asked the girls if they had any ideas about this and one of my students suggested that “taking off your clothes” is good pre-sex hygiene. Not sure how much it has to do with sanitation, but hey, it’s a good idea anyway! Later they were answering questions that my students wrote at our last health club meeting. One of the questions was about what they could do to be more beautiful. In response to this question Meghan’s main Khmer counterpart suggested things like exercising, eating well, bathing often, etc… but her last bit of advice was “you should have an orgasm every day because when you feel good you look good!” Now in America I would not advocate saying something like that to a bunch of teenage girls. But here, it’s a different story. It is highly unlikely that unmarried girls here will be doing anything sexual, so statements like that wouldn’t be perceived as encouraging promiscuous, unsafe, or even immoral behavior. Even in married women though, sexuality tends to be incredibly repressed. It is rarely looked upon as something that should be pleasurable for a woman, and the concept of fore-play doesn’t really exist, which brings with it a whole truckload of related problems. So to have a married Khmer woman openly talking about enjoying sex is AWESOME. AWESOME and funny.

On another amusing note; I have written about the “crazy lady” at my school before. I will recap though. There is a mentally ill woman in my community who thinks she is a teacher. She shows up at the school every day, in teaching clothes (button down blouse and a floor length skirt called a sampot), carrying a notebook, and wanders into classrooms talking nonsense. She seems to think I am interesting or something because she shows up at least once in just about every class I teach. I didn’t think to warn Meghan about her, and during the workshop she just wandered in and started telling a story about a relative in Battambang who had just gotten engaged. It reminded me that where we are from that would never every happen. In a way I appreciate that it does here. She fits into the fabric of the community so much more easily here than she would where I am from where she would either be viewed as an unacceptable disruption or a danger.

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.

Oh dear it's been a while....

I started a health club at my site a few weeks ago for 11th grade girls. Our first class went so much better than I could have hoped. I had my lesson plans all ready and two 12th grade girls lined up to help me with the Khmer, but not knowing their level of English I was very very nervous about the potential need to teach in Khmer. At this point, almost a year in, I shouldn't worry about looking like a fool anymore, but alas, I still do! Anyhow, I could not have been more pleasantly surprised or pleased with my girls. About 20 minutes before the start of the club my one of my helpers showed up. We went through the lesson plan together, she had maybe 2 clarification questions, then jumped right up at the start of class and co-taught the whole lesson with me. I hardly had to speak Khmer at all, the girls were able to ask questions in KHmer and I was able to answer them without language confusion. We had about 40 girls who all stayed engaged the whole time and asked lots of good questions. We definitely addressed the misconception that water makes you fat and other things like why it is bad to skip meals and why sugar is not the best source of energy, etc... Overall a major success and I am excited to keep going with it for the remainder of the summer.

Some of my wierder moments of the last month: A lady in my market asked me if my mom was dead yet the other day. Not the usual "where do your parents live" or anything like that, but literally "is your mother dead yet?" Wierd. I went to my usual lunch place and this rando guy was sitting there and as soon as I walked up he said, in English, "You drink beer now," I was like...ummmm No. Then he proceded to ask me where I live, my phone number, and if I would come over to his house. I tried to ignore him then he started talking about people trying to kill him. All in English, bad English, but still. When I finally finished my food and walked home (across the street) I was oh so thankful that I don't live alone. AND the ultimate weird: I was in a car on my way into town, some random people passing through gave me a ride (sometimes that happens when I go to the taxi stand), very nice people. Anyway I was sitting in the back with some guy who knew a little English, so we were chatting in English and KHmer. It was the usual questions, "where are you from, why are you here, how long, do y ou have a husband, do you want a khmer husband..." I answered as I usually do and stated that I want an American husband to which he responded, in English, "that's good, hybrids aren't smart." He then went off on a shpeel about how Khmer people who have children with Chinese, Thai, or Vietnamese people produce inferior offspring. I could hardly believe that level of ignorance. I didnt know what to say so I just said "Wow, America is full of idiots, most of us are like 8 way hybrids." He didn't seem to know how to respond. Very few people here understand how diverse America is and that most people from America have ehtnic heritage from another place, many other places generally (most people here don't know about native Americans at all).

THis past weekend was 4th of July which I had the pleasure of spending in Phnom Penh with a majority of the PCVs currently in country. We went to a party at the embassy and it was fun to see all the decorations and hear the national anthem for the first time since our swear in. In honor of the fourth of July I would just like to say how thankful I am to have been born in America.

School's out for the summer!

There's not a whole of new going on over here just yet, but there should be soon. Next weekend I am kicking off a health club with 11th grade girls from my high school English classes. I am a little bit nervous about starting to teach in Khmer but fortunately I found two lovely, eager, 12th grade girls with good English to help me fascilitate the club. My hope is that they will gain some useful leadership experience and the other girls will benefit from a lessening in the language barrier. I continue to be amazed by many of the common misconceptions about health held by people here. Educated people even. While it baffles me it also reassures me that the project I am about to begin will be useful. For example, while I was talking with one of the girls who will be helping me teach she asked what kinds of things I would be talking about. I told her we would begin talking about good nutrition and drinking enough water. She said "oh in Cambodia we believe that drinking a lot of water will make you fat, is that wrong?"...Ummmm, YES. That is wrong! That is just one of many widely held misconceptions. Many people think that eating a lot of certain fruits will give you a fever, that you should excercise while you are sick instead of resting, and that it is good for pregnant women to skip meals so that their babies will be born small. My hope is that the club this summer will give a large number of girls really basic information on how to keep from getting sick, how to recognize common illnesses, and how to take care of themselves and others when sick or hurt.

This past week I moved into more conversation based English lessons with the nurses at the health center which has been really fun. I have reached a point where I can joke around with them in Khmer and English and usually leave at the end of the hour or so laughing. Also, my mom sent me a crockpot and it is revolutionizing my cullinary world. AND, my market got sliced bread!!

On another note, I am currently in Siem Reap taking a short weekend break to celebrate the end of the school year. We have big plans tonight to go out and watch the US vs. England World Cup game. There is something strangely comforting about watching an event that is viewed all over the world; knowing that while I am sitting in Cambodia watching the game my family in america and my brother in Korea are all sitting watching the same game. We have so few points of commonality.

Another aside: as I was sitting in my hotel room a bit ago with a fellow volunteer, spreading peanut butter and jelly on bread with a nail file, we began discussing how much more creative we have become since arriving here. After nearly a year in Cambodia I am an expert at improvising. For example, when my metal clothes rack broke apart at the hinges last week did I go buy a new one? No. I wrapped small metal wire around the broken areas to hold the bars together and then wrapped it all with medical tape. Maybe not quite like new, but it gets the job done and saved me a good $6!

WHERE'S THE NOVOCAINE?

One of the side effects of my trip to America has been a refreshed eye for the strange. Strange (by American standards) things happen all the time in Cambodia but you forget that they are strange, and forget to see the humor, after a while. For example: last weekend I went to buy a bus ticket to Siem Reap and instead ended up on a motor oil selling expedition. Before I went to visit America I would have thought nothing of it. Now I recognize that that is in fact strange.

Other things to appreciate include violent food poisoning on my birthday. Thanks Cambodia. Now in America this would be oh so depressing. In Cambodia it means an extra night in an air conditioned hotel room with wifi guilt free. Score!

On another note; this week I was in Phnom Penh for mid service medical exams. I got a clean bill of health except that the dentist told me I had SIX, cavities. I didn't believe him so I went back the next day with our Peace Corps Medical Officer and they did x-rays. I only had two cavities (much better than six) which I had to have filled. So, yesterday morning I got two fillings from a khmer dentist, without novocaine. Ouch.