Cultural Differences...

Everything is going pretty well at site. Nothing of interest to report. I wake up and make my oatmeal, go running, go to school and teach, meet with my English club, return home for lunch, go to the teacher training center in the afternoon, come home and grade papers, eat dinner, watch a movie or read, then go to bed. Then repeat. So instead of boring you with the monotonous details of my life, I thought I'd share some of the most interesting observations I have made in my 6 months here.

MUSIC

I wish I could say that I liked Cambodian music, but that would be a lie. Ok, I must admit, there are a few catchy Kmai pop songs that I mumble along to, but other than that, it's just annoying. Unfortunately enough, music is on ALL THE TIME and is played everywhere. And not at a normal level, but LOUD. Usually, I am awoken at 4 or 5 in the morning to screeching singing that is being blasted obnoxiously loud. And then there is wedding music, and that is a whole other issue, which I will get to in a moment.

The most amusing thing about Cambodian music is that they take American songs, use the music and replace it with Kmai lyrics (I'm guessing without the permission of the artists). The current favorite here is Pitbull's "Calle Ocho." What once reminded me of my crazy spring break in Cabo '09, will now forever be synonymous with good ol' Kampuchea. The best part is that when Pitbull normally sings, "uno, dos, tres, quatro," it is now "muy, bee, bai, bu-ahn" (1,2,3,4 in Kmai), sung by a Kmai man obviously trying to lower his normally squeeky voice to the lowest octave possible. I can't even tell you how many songs from America have been dubbed over- it is the most hilarious thing ever. That, and the fact that Akon, Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift are huge hits here. Weird.

TAXIS



Taking taxis to go to Phnom Penh is always an interesting experience. I have two options-

(1)I can pay 15,000 riel (about $3.75) and cram into a broken down, dilapidated van with about 22 other Kmai people (there are only seats for 8 people). The van will stop every 5 minutes to pick up as many people as it can possibly cram in, which can make a trip that should take 2.5 hrs turn into 5.

(2) I can pay a steep 20,000 riel (about $5) and get a small taxi with air conditioning that picks me up from my house. Now although a taxi should fit 5 people, they cram in 7-8 people. The best part is that the driver will sit on someone's lap and then drive the car, so there are 2 people sitting in the driver's seat! I kid you not- that cannot be safe, but that's normal here (see above picture). This is my preferred method of transportation since it doesn't take FOREVER to get to Phnom Penh. Cuts the crammed elbow to elbow time in half.



PAJAMAS

Although this has become a normal site nowadays, it still just baffles me why this trend caught on here. Cambodian women of all ages wear the most ridiculous pajamas as everyday-wear. They were full pajama sets, usually with mistranslated English phrases splattered all over, like "fist date" and "pricness." Never fails to amuse me. The great thing is that I can wear pj's out and totally blend in at site- awesome!

AFFECTION

Relations between men and women are quite different here than what they are in the states. At my high school, the boys hang out with the boys and the girls hang out with the girls. For the most part, there is no dating, and if there is, you can safely assume there is no hanky panky going on. Even married couples are rarely affectionate towards each other, and I hardly ever notice men and women touching each other (holding hands, hugging...nothing!). As a result, (this is my theory), it has caused the need for that affection to come from members of the same sex. So boys and men of all ages are very VERY affectionate towards each other- they hold hands, rub each other's backs, sit in each other's laps, as do the girls. It's definitely weird to see coming from a country that unfortunately has quite a bit of homophobia, but I've gotten used to it now. They've got to get their lovin' from somewhere!

WEDDINGS

Ahhh, weddings. Wedding season is fully in swing right now, as it is the dry season. Everywhere you walk or bike, there is a wedding. I actually had the chance to go to my first wedding on Sunday with Kellee. The wedding was right near my house, so it was a quick walk. Weddings here are soooooo different from Western weddings, I don't really even know where to begin.





They put up these big tents and have lots of tables and chairs decorated in traditional Kmai decor. There is BLING everywhere- sparkles, fake diamonds, shiny wedding clothes. And makeup...so much makeup that the guests and the bride look like a completely different person than they do normally. The bride and groom also change like 8 times throughout the day/night, obviously perfectly matching! The guests all pay money, anywhere from $5-20, depending on whether the wedding is in a provincial town, and how well you know the bride/groom. Fortunately for me, I'm in a provincial town so there is plenty of beer and I am not stuck drinking disgusting rice wine (yuck), which is cheaper and more common at rural weddings. People were shoving beer at me every second, which I would drink half, then sneakily toss the rest on the ground. Weddings here are...tacky...for lack of a better word, but SOOOOOOO fun. I danced with little 9-yr old Kmai girls and they taught me how to dance Cambodian, which is pretty much walking around the wedding table and moving your hands in a way that kind of reminds me of an exercise for arthritic hands.

I had a blast...until I tried to go to sleep. Weddings here have 10-20 speakers blasting music until all hours of the night. Even worse is when drunk Cambodians get up and think they can sing great karaoke, which is blasted on 20 speakers into my bedroom. I honestly felt like I never left the wedding since my bed was shaking to the bass and I could hear everything. The bad thing about living so close to the market is that there are weddings EVERYWHERE around my house. I'd say about 4 out of 7 night a week, I can't sleep because there is music blasting at night, or I am awoken to the traditional wedding chanting at 4 am. Needless to say, I won't be sad to see the end of wedding season.

So yea, that sums up some of the more entertaining things I've noticed. All in all, things are going really well. I'm very happy at site and am enjoying teaching and forming closer relationships with my students. This coming week, my 12th grade students will be learning about Life in New Zealand, as that is the next chapter in the book. My co-teacher had a great idea to ask my two New Zealand friends, Bill and Nicky, to come to school and share some info about life in Kiwi world. I asked them, and am very excited that both will be coming this week to talk to the students. I think it'll be a great opportunity for them to hear a different English accent, and actually make the often boring book a bit more exciting. So that's all on my end of the world- hope all is well!

Happy 2010!

Happy New Year! I can't believe it's a new decade! Everyone always tells you, "the older you get, the faster time flies," and they certainly weren't kidding. I can totally remember the Y2K meltdown, when everyone was freaking out and loading up on toilet paper and water. That certainly does not seem like 10 years ago. Time flies when you're having fun I guess.

So before I talk about my amazing New Year's weekend, I must fill everyone in on Christmas in Phnom Penh. I stayed at a cheap guesthouse, totally infested with backpackers, with Jessica and Keiko. It was soooooo nice to see them again and catch up about life at site and exchange other funny/weird Cambodian stories. On Christmas, we met up with a bunch of the other volunteers who were also in Phnom Penh and got some drinks. It was kind of weird to see people I haven't seen in 3 months, but definitely nice! After getting drinks at Equinox, we headed to this random dance place that was on top of a gym. It was totally strange but fun- kind of posh, kind of not. It was pretty empty when we got there, but we took the place over and hit the dance floor, bought some drinks, and had a really good time! The rest of the weekend was spent eating lots of Western food, going to the pool and relaxing. Keiko's friend from Seattle, Leroy, was visiting with some of her buddies from Vietnam. They are teaching English in Ho Chi Minh and absolutely loved Cambodia. They said that Phnom Penh was tranquil compared to Ho Chi Minh, which is so hard for me to imagine since PP is the "big city" compared to my site! So it will definitely be interesting to see the difference when I visit Vietnam.

New Years was absolutely amaaaaaazing. We spent New Years in Kampot town for 1 day/night, which was really fun! Kampot is an amazing province that is in the southern part of Cambodia. The landscape is totally different from flat Svay Rieng- it has a lot of mountains and kind of jungley terrain. It also has delicious Western food, a bit of French architecture remaining from colonization, and lots of tourists. A lot of the volunteers came to Kampot for New Years, so we had a little Peace Corps party in Kampot. The next day, we headed out to Kep to go to Rabbit Island (or Koh Tonsei in Khmai). Rabbit Island is a 25-minute boat ride off the coast of Kep province (which is another really beautiful province with awesome abandoned villas from the Khmai Rouge era). I went with Kristin, Kealan, Keiko, Tyler (a K2), Jessica and her boyfriend Ryan, who was visiting from the States. The island was absolutely beautiful! It had a very rustic feel- we literally stayed in huts that only had electricity from 6-9 pm and had squat toilets. It was very simple, but extremely beautiful. There weren't very many tourists there- probably about 50-75 people during the day, and maybe about 30 that actually stayed overnight. We relaxed on the beach, ate delicious seafood, read, and just chilled. It was a really great way to start off the New Year!

And that brings me up to now, as I'm back at site. Life at site is going pretty well. I'm super busy with teaching- between both of my schools, I teach about 24 hours a week (including my private class 3 days a week). Then factor in lesson planning and grading papers, and my weeks go by pretty quickly! I really love teaching at the PTTC, and am really happy with my co-teacher there. He is really flexible and lets me totally go off on fun tangents with the students. For example, the other day we were teaching a chapter about ghost stories, so I decided to teach them about Halloween. I never thought twice about how weird Halloween is, but when you try to explain all of the traditions to a class full of Khmai students who have NO idea what you're talking about, it seems pretty crazy. I mean, it is weird- kids and adults dress up in costumes, decorate their houses with weird looking things, carve pumpkins and go to complete strangers' houses to get free candy. Yea, definitely weird. But they got a kick out of it. They especially loved the "Trick o Treat" song-

Trick o Treat
smell my feet
give me something good to eat
if you don't, I don't care
I'll pull down your underwear!

Here is a video of my 2nd year students singing it- so cute!



Life with my host family is going pretty well also. When I got back from Phnom Penh, the best surprise ever was waiting for me- a 3-month old puppy! His name is Lucky (my host dad named him) and he is SO adorable. Dogs in this country are absolutely disgusting- they are malnourished, mangey, disease-ridden, and unfriendly. But Lucky is a totally different story! He is so loveable and clean! I told my host fam that I would help clean and take care of him- there is no way I will let him turn into the other gross dogs that roam the streets and try to attack me on my daily run. I think my fam is totally confused because I play with him everyday and give him so much attention, which is NOT what Cambodians do. They don't really have animals as pets- dogs are usually kicked around and are used more for protection. But Lucky is just too precious not to love! We're getting another puppy in a month, so I am really excited about that! Here is a pic of Lucky:



Other than that, I am approaching my 6-month of service! That is 1/4 of the way through! It's so strange that I've already been here this long. I feel like after the 1-yr mark, things are really going to fly by. In July, the next group of volunteers will arrive (word on the street is that 55 new PCV's are expected) and we will all be busy welcoming them. I will also probably be busy with secondary projects. I am thinking about starting a community theatre project during the summer, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that it all comes together.

Life is a day to day process, and I definitely miss my family and friends. But I am really enjoying my time here and am looking forward to what lies ahead. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and I appreciate all the letters and packages :)

Paz y amor!

Photos!

So here are some photos that I put on facebook, and it's much easier to just post them through my blog than reloading them on here and waiting forever!!! I will try to write a detailed blog entry in the next few days, but here are some pics from October-New Years in Cambodia in the meantime. Enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2453015&id=3421110&l=943e753d1a