My Normal Cambodian Life

It has been quite some time since my last post, but in all honestly I have not had the urge to write. It's not that I didn't ever want to write, I think it's more that not much has happened since the last post...actually things have happened. It's just these things are so normal to me now, so it's slipped my mind to share these things with you. My sincerest apologies...now let the updating begin!

March was a month of planning, preparation, and well, more planning. The volunteers in my province and I collaborate on several projects together, which I like because it takes a lot of man power, effort, and trust for any foreigners to get things done over here. We planned for our May/June projects, two of which have already taken place. We had a provincial wide spelling competition as well as a diversity forum (which I will get to later in the post since they each just happened in recent weeks).

And now moving on to April...the month every Khmer person has been telling me about since I got here. Not because of the oven-like heat, but because of the much anticipated 3 day celebration otherwise known as Khmer New Year. Although this is officially only celebrated every year on April 14, 15, and 16, schools are usually closed for 2 or 3 weeks, and even a month in some cases. For most of us volunteers, this meant only one thing: VACATION TIME!!!! And that it was. There were a few volunteers who went home to America, yet most others went to neighboring Asian countries or even stayed in country. I went one of my new most favorite places on this earth. This rich, multicultural country filled with fascinating sites, safaris, ans shopping is known to it's people as Lion City. But for the rest of us, it's known as Singapore. My heart melts every time I think of the treasured time I spent there with my parents. Being there, for me, was being in a state of culture shock and cloud nine euphoria. While Singapore is a member of the ASEAN, and only an hour flight away from Phnom Penh it was truly a whole new world. Stepping off the plane was me stepping in to a very Western world of civilization, mixed and mingling cultures, and happiness. Being reunited with my parents was the icing and pecans on my caramel nut cake. I had not been with them in 8 months, which for us has never happened before, and was long overdue. Upon arrival, the first thing I wanted to do with my parents was EAT! And eat, I did. Hey, after the hardest Lent ever of giving up rice (the Cambodian staple) I think I deserved to eat a little. At first, I felt so awkward being in such a nice hotel and gorging everything I saw in the sprawling lunch buffet. I couldn't help eating rice and everything else on my plate with a spoon and fork, at that. I also couldn't help but gravitate to some familiar fruits...familiar, to me being ones I eat here in Cambodia. I also couldn't help but blurt out their names when I saw them "Awww, scrokahneeah!" As badly as I wanted to get to Singapore for vacation, my mind and mannerisms were very much still in Cambodia. Although English was spoken by most people there, I could not help regurgitating my responses in Khmer, at first. Then being around others speaking Malay, Hindu, Mandarin, and other languages spoken there started to confuse me even more. After the first day or two I snapped out of it and back into the JaNise my parents know, love, and remember from the States. You know what that means, don't you? Hello, shopping! I can say with confidence that Singapore is one big designer shopping mall; a Disneyland for adults. Besides eating and shopping, we also went exploring to various museums, the night safari, got a taste of American expat life, and got our feet eaten by tiny fish. I know, that sounds pretty creepy, but they just ate off the dead skin and it felt like little vibrations. Pretty cool, actually! I really could go on forever about my time there, but there's too much else to talk about. I will end it by saying that I still have sweet Singaporean dreams from this wonderful trip!

After getting back into the swing of things, I was back to my normal life. Teaching and planning at the end of April and most of May became teaching and executing. Like I mentioned before, my the volunteers in my province and I do quite a few things together. This month we very successfully had our spelling competition and diversity forum. The spelling competition consisted of seven schools in our province with the grade 10 and 11 winners from each of our respective schools. It went so smoothly, that we actually finished way ahead of schedule. The K2s who came a year before my group had this competition a year ago, and were happy to see the improvements. My students each placed third in the competition. This makes me more than ecstatic, since this was the first time I introduced my school to the idea of a spelling competition. Also because their competitors had experience before, have resources at their school (libraries or computer rooms; some with internet), and because of the luck of the draw they each had some pretty tough words! I became so nervous for them each time they went up to spell- at those very moments I felt like a parent watching their child compete. I was so happy of their courage and accomplishments to come from a rural site with no experience. They are just as enthusiastic as I am to come back next year and compete. The next day was our diversity forum held at the American Corner our province, which is sponsored by the U.S. Embassy here. It was an amazing experience to share with Khmer high school students about American diversity, and them actually engage us and conceptualize it. What better way to display this with an African American female, Korean American female, Honduran American male, Vietnamese American male, a Jewish female, and a middle-aged Caucasian American married couple?
We were able to effectively dispel stereotypes, both positive and negative, of their original thoughts of Americans and what they assumed life is like for every American. It was also a nice bonding experience, too!

As those events came to a close, we are concurrently still working on our biggest project yet. I do not want to give away too many details now since it has not happened yet, but we are ever working and excited to see this fair come into fruition. Until then, I hope this post was enough to tie you over. As for me, I will go back to my very normal Cambodian life :)