The wonderful Navy

I have not yet elaborated on one of my favorite parts of Cambodia- my host mother, Navy. She is the feistiest, funniest, most awesome Kmai woman I have yet to meet. Every morning while I am out on my morning run, she is already up and doing the laundry, no small feat for a family of 6. She makes sure everything is clean (an especially subjective adjective here) and functioning properly. If she's not repairing some holes in my brother's pants, she's washing our bikes, preparing food, sweeping, gardening or doing some other activity that I'm sure I don't even know about.

My favorite thing about mae ('mom' in Kmai) is her sense of humor. She LOVES talking about anything that has to do with love/romance (another subjective concept here). She is constantly trying to find me a Kmai husband, even though I've repeatedly told her that I am not interested in marrying anyone for a long time. Just when I think I've managed to subdue Navy's interest in my romantic life, she switches to her favorite pastime: fortune telling. She tells me that I will be married with 3 kids by the time I'm 28. I initially tried to explain that her clairvoyance is lacking serious practicality, seeing as how I will probably still be busy with my studies at that age. But now I've realized it's far easier and more fun to play along with her. Not only am I a favorite subject when it comes to matchmaking, but my fellow Svay Rieng volunteers are fair game as well. For the longest time, my host mother could not stop talking about how Jeremy and Kristin were a couple. "They're both short so obviously they must be a couple," she tells me. I tried to explain that they were not a couple, and I've finally managed to drive this point home, a mere year after repeatedly having this discussion.

When the topic isn't one of us volunteers, the attention shifts to my youngest host sis, Dany. My mom jokes that she has 15 boyfriends (she is 15) and I still am not sure if this is a joke or a reality. Different boys are constantly calling the house for her and Navy always makes sure to alert me when it's one of her song sah's (boyfriends) calling. One day, her song sah from Phnom Penh came to our house to eat lunch with us. Talk about awkward. Two 15-year olds sitting across from each other and utter silence while we are eating. I tried to suppress my laughter, but I caught Dany's eyes and started chuckling. She turned bright red and made sure not to look at her boy for the duration of our awkward lunch. Afterwards, my host mom couldn't stop making fun of Dany and saying that her boyfriend was only s'aht dah (kind of cute). One of the many topics Kmai mothers are brutally honest about.

Typically Kmai women are expected to be sopheap; soft-spoken, shy and delicate. This can be really challenging, especially with getting female students to participate in class and come out of their shells. But Navy is anything but sopheap. She stands up to my slimy host dad, makes inappropriate jokes, and sometimes even has a beer or two with the boys. I love that she defies the sterotypical submissive Kmai woman; she is an extremely strong woman and doesn't put up with anyone's crap.

Some of my favorite Navy moments:

I accidentally walked in on her changing and got a full frontal view of her boobs. I immediately averted my eyes and kept apologizing, but she just laughed and jokingly asked me if I wanted to see her boobs again. I politely declined and she continued to ask me if I wanted a peek for the next week.

The words for "lady boy" (transgender person) and "vagina" sound extremely similar in Kmai, and I embarrassingly mixed them up one day when I was trying to ask if one of the characters on a tv show was transgender. The whole family erupted in laughter and I turned beet-red after I realized my blunder. Every now and then, Navy will shout the Kmai word for vagina at me to remind me that I am an idiot. I still turn red and her guffaws grow increasingly powerful every time.

Once in a while, Navy feels like talking politics. Men don't even openly talk about politics here, especially if they are not Hun-Sen supporters (which she is not), so I was extremely taken aback when Navy first confided in me. The other night, she saw Hun Sen on tv and started spewing nasty expletives about Hun Sen and his corrupt administration. She was talking so fast that I could barely follow the conversation. But I did manage to understand one of her funny observations about Hun Sen- he has one real eye, and one glass eye (not exactly sure what happened there) and Navy said that "the only thing his glass eye enables him to see are the Vietnamese and their money." His glass eye is conveniently blind to his own people. Bravo, Navy!

Navy is very curious about Westerners and kissing. She thinks it is very strange that people kiss on the mouth, as Kmai people sniff each other. No, I am not kidding. Mothers sniff their babies, boyfriends sniff their girlfriends. That is the Kmai version of affection. So it is very strange to me when I watch Kmai music videos and the point at which two people would normally kiss in a Western video always turns into a sniffing moment. So one night, Navy asked me how long people kiss for. I told her it varies from person to person, maybe a few mins, maybe an hour. I did tell her that we definitely don't sniff each other. She and my host brother now love to joke that when I get married, I will kiss my husband for 20 hours. She has been trying to teach me the correct Kmai sniffing strategy, but I told her I'll stick to good ol Western kissing.

Thanks, Navy, for always keeping things interesting!