The Mystery Illness and 2 gallons of rice porridge

So I have been sick. It's super lame. With what? Who knows. This is Cambodia. Could be all sorts of fun things. I am better now so it is inconsequential, though my mother is convinced it was swine flu. I guess we will never know. As lame as it has been to have zero energy and feel like crap-it has also had its upsides. For example, I have learned about lots of things that Cambodian people do when they are sick. One of these is coining, which is where they take tiger balm and a coin and rub it super hard along your back and neck, and sometimes chest (depending on the ailment) until you have nice linnear bruises. There is actually supposed to be some truth to the symtom releif that accompanies it, perhaps it activates your immune system...who knows. It was suggested that I undergo this process but I chickened out. Maybe next time. My two personal LEAST favorite things people do here when they are sick are as follows:

1) staying active, for some reason the concept of resting to let your body repair itself so non-existent.
2) Rice porridge. My host mom made me a HUGE amount of rice porrige (huge for someone with no appetite unaccostomed to eating such things), which is pretty much just smashed up rice in hot water. This was a kind gesture but I still couldn't eat it and when Peace Corps staff came through that evening to take me to a hotel in town to rest/recover my host mom looked at them and said "well, I gave her rice porridge but SHE didn't eat it." As if to say that I would be fine and not need to go into town if I had just eaten the gallon of rice porridge.

On the upside. I have been in an airconditioned hotel room for 3 nights and am feeling much more alive.

Yesterday was the first day I felt up to doing anything more than laying in my hotel room watching CNN. I ventured out on the town a bit more and discovered two interesting things:

1) Massages are never a sure thing here. I tried the "oil massage" option thinking there was no way it could be anything but what I was looking for - that being a back and neck massage to help with the headache and the stiffness from being in bed for a few days - turns out it was a massage of just about everything but your neck and back. Mostly legs actually. It was pleasant enough but the best part was at the end when the massage lady absolutely refused to let me put my bra back on by myself. I was confused...but have learned not to ask questions. I didn't really get what I was looking for out of the massage, my neck is still in pain and I am out some cash, but hey...I made a new friend.

2) I am no longer good at telling when western men are hitting on me. I found myself in a situation yesterday where I was confused as to whether or not I had just had a legitimate conversation or been fed a very bad line. This would not have occured in America. I was pretty good at spotting these things at home. Here I have grown used to the obvious; "you look beautiful today, do you want a khmer husband?...do you enjoy looking after children...?"

That's the latest.