The last couple of weeks were hard, but had some pretty memorable moments. Last weekend I managed to complete an 80km bike ride in a day and I wont soon forget the pain that resided in my ass afterwords.. bike seat cushions aren't all they are cracked up to be! The ride nonetheless was awesome and the views were stunning. We started in Kampong Cham town and biked our way to this abandoned air strip from the 70's located just north of the city. Just getting there was an adventure and under the direction of Stu we made it there in about 30 min. He somehow navigated his way there by himself once and it is beyond me how he accomplished that cause there was a cluster of turns and windy trails I could never have found myself navigating alone. Yet, we made it there and once at the airstrip we explored this old abandoned military bunker on top of a hill overlooking the runway. The view from atop this small hill was breathtaking for the mere fact any elevated position in this country offers views for as long as the eye can see due to the extreme flatness of the landscape. The sun was particularly brutal this day and the haze was definitely present, but regardless I could see palm trees for miles and miles surrounded by rice patty fields and cambodian homes. Cattle dotted the fields here and there and there were motos going from here to there on the jungle paths leading up to the air strip. One of the most striking things I noticed was the lack of noise. Cambodia is a very loud country with speakers blasting, motos constantly buzzing by, and dogs barking at absolutely nothing, but on top of this hill there was simply the landscape spread out in front of us and a gentle breeze blowing hot air onto my already sweaty face. After exploring the building we went on this "loop" that took about 4 hours. This loop I thought was going to be a short 10k around some rice patty fields, but o how I was wrong. We ended up going in and out of very rural villages, up and down jungle paths that had never seen the likes of somebody like me and Stu, and through fields that offered little to no protection from the sun. It was a true adventure and I couldn't have been in a better place at a better time that right there biking my way through the maze of paths and roads. Stu knew where he was going so I simply followed and enjoyed the scenery which was definitely a sight to see. Many of the villagers would come out of there homes and stare as we rode by, just to catch a glimpse of a "berong" and scream "hello" as loud as they can. Children would stop what they were doing and come to there gates just to stare... just as they do all over this country. All it takes is a simple hello from me to ease their fears and reassure them that I'm nobody to be afraid of, as they too readily assume due to my appearance. The sun was even more unforgiven than earlier in the day and lets just say I ended up 10 shades darker than when I started. The fields we went in and out of were impressive from one to the next and never became boring to the eyes. Rice patty fields are gigantic in Cambodia due to the extreme presence of illegal logging throughout the country. There are just hundreds and hundreds of acres per field and they go on for miles at a time. It never ceases to amaze me at how amazing rice patty fields dotted with coconut trees are. We managed to stop at a food stand for lunch and the generosity of the people took me by suprise. We asked to sit on one of their tables that they had perched outside, but instead they lead us to the middle of their living room, laid out bamboo mats, and gave us mugs to drink out of. We had an audience of people watching the "berongs" eat but that no longer bothers me, seeing as every time I do anything its to an audience that watched my every step. The lunch of baguette bread with chunky peanut butter and fresh bananas never fails to satisfy even the hungriest of stomachs and soon enough we were off again for another 3 hours till we made our way back to the city of kg. ch. Once finished we grabbed a coconut shake from this western restaurant and marveled at the adventure of the day, savoring every drop of that cold and delicious milkshake at the same time. Its nice to know I'm going to the base camp of Mount Everest with this guy... he knows what hes doing and is fun to travel with. Thats a whole new adventure that will take place in a year and half so I'll save that story for when the time comes to tell it! afterwords I had to make my way back to my village is another 20km away from the town so all in all it was a pretty tiring and sunny day I would love to experience again!
Yesterday I was greeted to the wonderful occasion of a khmer wedding and I the whole thing was definitely a new experience I will treasure. One of my health center staff invited me to this party and told me it started at 7 in the morning. I had my doubts on actually getting up to go to a party that early in the morning but regardless I pushed myself out of bed and luckily dressed up nice for the occasion. Once there I noticed the large canopy that is present at any party in Cambodia with its pink roof and colorful drapes. As usual I entered like a king and was greeted by everybody at the party. Parents brought their kids up to see the white guy and many scream and cry in terror as they are not used to somebody who looks like me. Then, after sitting me down in the middle of the yard with everyone else standing around me, they presented me with nom which is cooked rice paste with a coconut and sugar mixture inside... pretty delicious. After sitting and chatting for some time they lead me inside and to my surprise there was a bride and groom getting dressed in traditional khmer wedding attire. I cant even begin to describe what they dress in so google "khmer wedding" if you want a description of clothes worn at these events. Two words that I would use to describe their clothes would be gaudy and sequins haha. They were indeed beautiful once dressed and once complete we went upstairs for the actual ceremony. I found out eventually that the bride was the sister of the health staff who invited me so I guess it wasn't that awkward I was taking part in this right? After chanting and rituals the ceremony was done and I was brought to the front to get my picture with the bride and groom.. the funny thing is that I was the only person who got my picture with them, not even the parents has their pictures taken with them haha. Anyways we were then lead outside to the party and a huge vat of rice pouridge was served to everyone. rice pouridge is a huge dish in Cambodia and can be served with many things. This dish had everything within a chicken inside this pouridge, mixed with bean sprouts, herbs and spices, and lime juice. The whole experience was memorable and just one more that is making this experience that much more enjoyable.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Settling Into the Routine
I managed to purchase an internet phone so for the next two years I will have internet several times a week right here in my room! I've been at my site for a month already and time has flown by faster than I could have ever imagined. My day starts off bright and early with the barking of crazy dogs and the wailing of my neighbor's infant. After a quickly getting ready I head off to the market where I either partake in a variety of foods ranging from a simple dragon fruit, to a delicious beef/bean sprout filled crepe, to a bowl of steaming fried noodles served with a side of egg. The market is bustling anywhere from 6am to noon and is THE place to buy fish freshly gutted and swimming around in a pot not 2 minutes before they get the butcher knife, meat of all sorts hanging on hooks surrounded by a cloud of flies, pickled and fresh vegetable sitting in buckets of brine, fresh fruits that American grocery stores only dream of, and of course food stands that serve pretty awesome breakfast with coffee (on ice). After sitting with my mom on her food stand where sells this sweet rice desert, I head to the health center where my day really starts.
As of now, my job at the health center has been slow and somewhat dull. Since starting 4 weeks ago I have only managed to sit at every service offered by the health center which are vaccinations, pre/post natal care, pharmacy, and consultation. I saw a couple infections popped and drained which is actually very painful because they use no anesthesia here, and I also managed to see a mother give birth from the hallway! Sitting in vaccination consists of watching mothers breast feed, infants recieving injections, and infants screaming afterwards. The pharmacy has shelving on which several kinds of medicines sit before being dispensed like candy on Halloween. After obtaining a prescription from consultation they will hover over to the pharmacy and push and shove until they are given a bag containing 3-5 different kinds of pills... with no markings or directions on how to take them. Consultation is actually quite interesting because all the sick have to travel through this station to receive services. They will describe either having a headache, cold, or fever and are quickly given a sheet of paper with a list of drugs to take. This is what I have been occupying my time with over the last month and on the times where patients are filtering out I tend to break out the Khmer notes and study language because I definitely have a ways to go before I can speak fluently with the locals.
It's not that this stuff does not interest me, but I feel as though I should be doing so much while out here and since arriving I have only managed to observe and study khmer. I went one week on an outreach service my health center conducts for half the month where they travel to a surrounding village and administer injections to those who can either not get to the health center or are too poor to afford services. That was very interesting to say the least and I wish I did more of that, but I have not been doing anything substantial in the health education field. Many of my fellow health volunteers are feeling the same way, but I am guessing thats the way it is going to have to be for the next couple months. We don't know nearly enough language to go out and create a health club of some sort, we don't know the true needs of the community because we are confined to the health center due to our lack of language, and this program has never been attempted before in this country so how are we supposed to know what to do, when to do it, and where it is to be done at. As for now, I will go to the health center in the mornings and try to start SOMETHING... I guess I will have to try and convince myself that that is all I can do at the moment and projects will come as time passes.
After work at the health center I bike on home for a lunch of rice and some sort of meet and vegetable pulled from the ground. The food is becoming second nature to me and the large amounts of rice are something I kind of look forward to when pondering about the upcoming meal. My mom has been making large amounts of food for lunch so she just has to heat up the left overs for dinner... so variety is not a gift I granted in food selection. Then, if its rainy or a workout day I will turn on some itunes and lift with my one dumbbell I bought in the capital. Its amazing how many exercises one can do with a simple dumbbell and nothing else to accompany it with. Then I either fill my time with movies/tv shows/music or I take bike rides through the many trails offered by my village and the surrounding area (weather permitting). There are some amazing trails through the rubber trees and whenever I am feeling upset or frustrated I take a long ride through the rubber plantation and any reserves I may have previously had are gone! Today for instance I rode through the miles upon miles of rubber trees, crisscrossing in and out of rows and rows of trees which differ in height from batch to batch. While riding through them it eerily reminds me of a forest found in America... the air is cool and the harsh sun rays only penetrate where there is an opening in the canopy. I rode and rode until I reached the top of this incline and fyi any incline gives breathtaking views of Cambodia due to the flatness of the landscape. Once up there I could see for miles the rolling plains of the rubber tree tops, palm trees sprinkled throughout the land, and farms which stretched on forever. The mist was reflecting the golden sun and I could only describe it purely as Cambodia. There was a slight breeze and the noise from everyday life was absent. All I could think to myself is that I definitely could uproot my shack of a home and plop it right there without hesitation. Rides like these make living here that much more awesome!
So strolling throughout the village on my bike also gives me an opportunity to make myself known. Part of my job is to get these people to trust me and the only way that is going to happen at first is to get my face out there so when it eventually comes time for me to educate they will be receptive to learning from a friendly face instead of hesitant to learn from a stranger. Whenever I pass ANYBODY i'm always greeted by a hello! or susadi! They are all too eager to drop whatever they are doing to run to the edge of the road and scream a greetings my way. At first the constant barrage of hellos gets annoying, but these people are never going to be able to say hello to another american again so why not let them get it out of their system! After that I make it over to my food stall where I get this lime tea... freshly prepared with awesome limes and loads of sugar. The owner knows a very minute amount of English so I can sit there and speak English with atleast somebody throughout my day. After finishing my tea I sometimes will head over to my counterpart's house where her husband teaches english to a group of teenagers. They have gotten to know me and I have taken a liking to them all so visiting the class and helping teach english always puts a smile on my face. By now its dinner time and I navigate the jungle trails with barely enough light to make it home for my meal of leftovers. Sometimes my mom likes to eat at my aunt's house so in that circumstance I am faced with navigating jungle paths filled with large puddles and potholes in the pitch black with the helpful aid of a flashlight. Nights consist of either reading, watching tv shows, or finding something to occupy my time with... studying fits in there somewhere. If I can fall asleep on time then its lights out by 10 and lately I have been making it through the whole night without being woken by rats or dogs fighting so thats a good sign!
As for me, I am doing much better than I originally was. The first couple of weeks were very rough, as I thought they were and I wasn't sure if I could do this for 2 years. Cambodian culture is very different from American culture and being thrown into another family with no one else around completely immerses one into a culture that can sometimes prove frustrating and hard to deal with. My family is great and they will do what they can do please me, but some things are getting old and I found it very hard to cope with in the beginning. Invasive would be a word fitting for a description of what Cambodian culture is like. There is no privacy in this society and everything is thought of as communal. When i'm doing something, my family has to hover over me and the second I do something they don't approve of or think is wrong they try and fix it their way and do things the way they see right. They treat me like a son of theirs that is 10 years old, but first of all I am an adult that volunteered to come from America to live in a third world country, and secondly I pay them money each month that could be considered rent. They are under the impression that I have to do follow every command of theirs, but that is not the way things are going to work over the next two years. We have been arriving at some understandings between us lately and they are starting to realize that I have my own schedule to maintain and our cultures are simply different, which is not necessarily a bad thing. There culture has taught them how to behave towards someone like me living in their household so I have to understand that and not hold it against them when annoying occurrences happen. I have been having other thoughts and feelings about the society I am living in, but it is constantly changing and I don't feel ready to draw upon any conclusions as of now... that will come in future posts!
As of now, my job at the health center has been slow and somewhat dull. Since starting 4 weeks ago I have only managed to sit at every service offered by the health center which are vaccinations, pre/post natal care, pharmacy, and consultation. I saw a couple infections popped and drained which is actually very painful because they use no anesthesia here, and I also managed to see a mother give birth from the hallway! Sitting in vaccination consists of watching mothers breast feed, infants recieving injections, and infants screaming afterwards. The pharmacy has shelving on which several kinds of medicines sit before being dispensed like candy on Halloween. After obtaining a prescription from consultation they will hover over to the pharmacy and push and shove until they are given a bag containing 3-5 different kinds of pills... with no markings or directions on how to take them. Consultation is actually quite interesting because all the sick have to travel through this station to receive services. They will describe either having a headache, cold, or fever and are quickly given a sheet of paper with a list of drugs to take. This is what I have been occupying my time with over the last month and on the times where patients are filtering out I tend to break out the Khmer notes and study language because I definitely have a ways to go before I can speak fluently with the locals.
It's not that this stuff does not interest me, but I feel as though I should be doing so much while out here and since arriving I have only managed to observe and study khmer. I went one week on an outreach service my health center conducts for half the month where they travel to a surrounding village and administer injections to those who can either not get to the health center or are too poor to afford services. That was very interesting to say the least and I wish I did more of that, but I have not been doing anything substantial in the health education field. Many of my fellow health volunteers are feeling the same way, but I am guessing thats the way it is going to have to be for the next couple months. We don't know nearly enough language to go out and create a health club of some sort, we don't know the true needs of the community because we are confined to the health center due to our lack of language, and this program has never been attempted before in this country so how are we supposed to know what to do, when to do it, and where it is to be done at. As for now, I will go to the health center in the mornings and try to start SOMETHING... I guess I will have to try and convince myself that that is all I can do at the moment and projects will come as time passes.
After work at the health center I bike on home for a lunch of rice and some sort of meet and vegetable pulled from the ground. The food is becoming second nature to me and the large amounts of rice are something I kind of look forward to when pondering about the upcoming meal. My mom has been making large amounts of food for lunch so she just has to heat up the left overs for dinner... so variety is not a gift I granted in food selection. Then, if its rainy or a workout day I will turn on some itunes and lift with my one dumbbell I bought in the capital. Its amazing how many exercises one can do with a simple dumbbell and nothing else to accompany it with. Then I either fill my time with movies/tv shows/music or I take bike rides through the many trails offered by my village and the surrounding area (weather permitting). There are some amazing trails through the rubber trees and whenever I am feeling upset or frustrated I take a long ride through the rubber plantation and any reserves I may have previously had are gone! Today for instance I rode through the miles upon miles of rubber trees, crisscrossing in and out of rows and rows of trees which differ in height from batch to batch. While riding through them it eerily reminds me of a forest found in America... the air is cool and the harsh sun rays only penetrate where there is an opening in the canopy. I rode and rode until I reached the top of this incline and fyi any incline gives breathtaking views of Cambodia due to the flatness of the landscape. Once up there I could see for miles the rolling plains of the rubber tree tops, palm trees sprinkled throughout the land, and farms which stretched on forever. The mist was reflecting the golden sun and I could only describe it purely as Cambodia. There was a slight breeze and the noise from everyday life was absent. All I could think to myself is that I definitely could uproot my shack of a home and plop it right there without hesitation. Rides like these make living here that much more awesome!
So strolling throughout the village on my bike also gives me an opportunity to make myself known. Part of my job is to get these people to trust me and the only way that is going to happen at first is to get my face out there so when it eventually comes time for me to educate they will be receptive to learning from a friendly face instead of hesitant to learn from a stranger. Whenever I pass ANYBODY i'm always greeted by a hello! or susadi! They are all too eager to drop whatever they are doing to run to the edge of the road and scream a greetings my way. At first the constant barrage of hellos gets annoying, but these people are never going to be able to say hello to another american again so why not let them get it out of their system! After that I make it over to my food stall where I get this lime tea... freshly prepared with awesome limes and loads of sugar. The owner knows a very minute amount of English so I can sit there and speak English with atleast somebody throughout my day. After finishing my tea I sometimes will head over to my counterpart's house where her husband teaches english to a group of teenagers. They have gotten to know me and I have taken a liking to them all so visiting the class and helping teach english always puts a smile on my face. By now its dinner time and I navigate the jungle trails with barely enough light to make it home for my meal of leftovers. Sometimes my mom likes to eat at my aunt's house so in that circumstance I am faced with navigating jungle paths filled with large puddles and potholes in the pitch black with the helpful aid of a flashlight. Nights consist of either reading, watching tv shows, or finding something to occupy my time with... studying fits in there somewhere. If I can fall asleep on time then its lights out by 10 and lately I have been making it through the whole night without being woken by rats or dogs fighting so thats a good sign!
As for me, I am doing much better than I originally was. The first couple of weeks were very rough, as I thought they were and I wasn't sure if I could do this for 2 years. Cambodian culture is very different from American culture and being thrown into another family with no one else around completely immerses one into a culture that can sometimes prove frustrating and hard to deal with. My family is great and they will do what they can do please me, but some things are getting old and I found it very hard to cope with in the beginning. Invasive would be a word fitting for a description of what Cambodian culture is like. There is no privacy in this society and everything is thought of as communal. When i'm doing something, my family has to hover over me and the second I do something they don't approve of or think is wrong they try and fix it their way and do things the way they see right. They treat me like a son of theirs that is 10 years old, but first of all I am an adult that volunteered to come from America to live in a third world country, and secondly I pay them money each month that could be considered rent. They are under the impression that I have to do follow every command of theirs, but that is not the way things are going to work over the next two years. We have been arriving at some understandings between us lately and they are starting to realize that I have my own schedule to maintain and our cultures are simply different, which is not necessarily a bad thing. There culture has taught them how to behave towards someone like me living in their household so I have to understand that and not hold it against them when annoying occurrences happen. I have been having other thoughts and feelings about the society I am living in, but it is constantly changing and I don't feel ready to draw upon any conclusions as of now... that will come in future posts!
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