The Jungle Bizarre

I take really long bike trips on the roads less traveled here. Angkor Chum district still has undiscovered parts of it, and I never really quite know what it is that I will find there. The other day, I found the long lost back way into the neighboring Kralanh district. It was horribly rutted, with some of the trenches at least a foot or two deep. The best way to get through was to just find the edges of the road and ride on the top part of the dirt bank that was maybe five inches wide. It seemed that the only way to get through was by bicycle, or by remork with big tires and an axle high off the ground. I passed by one on my way back, and even a machine like this was struggling. After getting through this mess and fording two small rivers, I exited the rice fields for the shade of jungle. A small farming settlement was set up in between the leaves of the palm and banana trees, intermixed with bamboo. There was also a cell phone tower.

I stopped at the crossroads where the road leads down to the main Kralanh town. People occupied the two food and drink shops nearby, and as I stopped some of them approached to take a look at the curious white thing that had just come out of the jungle on a shiny bicycle. A man wearing a kromah and having the skin of a Tamil was the first to speak to me. He had an eagle tattooed across his chest to ward off evil spirits, and his teeth were the color of sugarcane. I asked him where I was, and said that it was the first village in Kralanh town when you come across from Angkor Chum. We went through the usual banter of where I had come from and what I was doing in Cambodia.

There was a sudden commotion at one of the drink shops. Inside one of the wooden huts a boy of sixteen or so was slumped over a large plastic jug, cup in hand. He had had too much of the local brew. His friends tried to move him, but he fell over completely into the mud below. His black t-shirt and ripped jeans were suddenly dirty with mud, which stains your clothes and never comes out no matter how hard you soap scrub them. A friend jumped down from the hut and helped the boy. A grandmother in a loose shirt, sampot, and shaved head appeared out of nowhere to give the boys a good talking to. The friend picked the boy up, but he crumpled like paper and fell down again. He was finally forced to take the arms, sling them over his shoulders, and carry him like a little girl carries a rag doll in the playground. By this point, a crowd had gathered. You could hear their squawking all the way down the road. I asked the tattooed man if the boy was going to be alright. He said he would be just fine, he just had too much to drink.

It was four in the afternoon.

Talking To Foreigners

Where I live, it is generally known that foreigners do not come to this little section of the country. If they do, it is probably work related, or they may have just gotten lost. That being said, it is a big deal whenever I see one and have the opportunity to speak to them (I have spoken to other volunteers about this, and even in larger towns the reaction to barang sightings is the same). Unfortunately, I tend to forget who it is that I am talking to. In western societies, it is generally not acceptable for a person to come up to you and suddenly start asking all sorts of questions like, "Who are you?" "What are you doing here?" "Where did you come from," and "How long are you going to be here for?" However, in Cambodia you can pretty much ask those kinds of questions from anyone you want. Sometimes the results from a Barang encounter can be just a little embarrassing.

This happened to me just the other day: I was sitting down at the café where I usually get coffee when I noticed that there was a Barang woman and a Khmer man sitting at the next table. The man was smoking a cigarette and the woman held her face and was looking away. As I unpacked a novel and a few notebooks from my satchel, I managed to casually ask the man where they were coming from that day. He said that they were coming from Siem Reap, and that they were helping to build a well in the district. The conversation took its course, and I learned that both the man and the woman were both living in London. At this point the woman turned around. She had kind of roundish face with brown curly hair. Unable to restrain my curiosity, I asked her where she was from. "London," she said with a frog in her throat. Halfway through that word I noticed that her eyes were red and puffy, and that she was holding a tissue. There was a slight expression of consternation in the man's face, and I suspected something was awry.

And I had stumbled in on their private matter! How embarrassing! I sat down, ordered a coffee, and opened by books, but the man kept talking to me. Not to be rude, I responded and kept the conversation going. The woman finally walked off to smoke a cigarette (I cannot imagine what the Khmer people thought of her; smoking and crying in public has to be a terrible violation of propriety) and the man and I kept talking. They finally left on a motorcycle, and that was the end of that.

The sad part is that I still have the feeling of wanting to run up to every foreigner I see and ask where they come from. I constantly have to remind myself that while I may be ecstatic to see them, the feeling is more than likely less than mutual. A year on, and I still have that urge...

Welcoming The New Recruits

Last week, I helped with the teaching practicum session of PST. For those of you not familiar with Peace Corps lingo and acronyms, two things require explanation in the previous sentence: one is "practicum" and the other is "PST." Teaching practicum is the period during pre-service training (PST) during which the Peace Corps Trainees (PCT's) hone and refine their skills at teaching English. The week lasts from Monday to Saturday, and the time is divided between teaching by themselves and with a Cambodian counterpart. For some, this is a nerve-racking time. Most people who come into this assignment have very little teaching experience, and the idea of standing in front of a classroom of students is rather terrifying. Even those who have teaching experience find that teaching a class of Cambodians is very different from one full of Americans. Nevertheless, everyone gets through practicum in some shape or another.

The training sessions this year were held in Takeo province, which is south of Phnom Penh about a hundred kilometers or so. Much of Cambodia looks very much the same, and the training villages that we saw looked pretty similar to what we had last year in Kampong Chnang.

This year, my role shifted from being at the front of the classroom to the back. As a "resource volunteer of technical training" (I do love the snappy title) my job was to observe the trainees while they taught and give them feedback on how they did. Most of them did okay. A couple really had to work on their lesson plans, and some still had to find their teaching voice. One group I worked with had a very frustrating experience with their Cambodian teacher, and I felt really bad for them. After the session ended, I explained that at site you have more freedom to work with whoever you want. It seemed like they all got through it okay, although they seemed pretty tired.

The most enjoyable parts of the whole week were mostly when I had the chance to talk about life in Cambodia with the trainees. I felt kind of like a sergeant major telling them about the hardships of a rural site, living in a host family, and surviving two hospitalizations. However, I tried to give them the best advice I could. One thing I kept saying to different people is that you can get a rural site like mine and make it work if you are patient. This did not seem to be much a consolation for them, but I hope they do okay.

Otherwise, it was nice to finally meet some new people in the program. I managed to recruit a few to the writing staff of our newsletter, and wished the rest of them good luck in a successful service. We also got to stay in a guesthouse with hot showers and air conditioning for a week. There was also a contingent of US Marines who were stationed nearby. I think they were building a health clinic or two in Kampong Speu province. I got to talking to some of them one night, and they seemed like pretty friendly people. It was a little funny having that conversation of who you work for though.

"So who are you with?"
"The Peace Corps. You?
"Marine Corps."

They did seem impressed that we could stick it out in this country for two years. They were based out of Okinawa, and we traded some stories about life in the tropics. They told me that the only way to cool off on that little island is to go fishing or snorkeling. It did not seem like too bad of a life.

All in all it was a good week.

World Map

I recently finished painting a map of the world with the help of some students and teachers at the high school. It took about six days of work to do, but it was a very productive six days. The process involved cleaning the wall, painting the whole thing blue, drawing a grid with chalk, drawing the map with chalk, and then coloring the different countries and territories. It is not a perfect map, but I think it is decently done. Everyone made sure that Cambodia was well represented, but the country looks like it is swallowing up pieces of Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. And I do not quite think that that was accidental...

Waffles

Recently, the family that owns the restaurant in front of my house decided to invest in a cast-iron waffle maker. As a result, I could not be happier. As you can see, the batter is cooked over a charcoal fire. They sell for 250 riel ($0.06) a piece. The texture is a little soggy, but they tend to be crispy just around the edges. Every time I go to Siem Reap now I bring back a supply of blueberry jam, which I use as a spread with the waffles. They make for a tasty breakfast, although they are usually not available after 08:00.

Witchika

Witchika does not like rice. “Eat rice,” his father tells him when the bowl and cutlery are placed before him. He pokes at it, and looks around him while the others are eating their luncheon. He is distracted by the television, for it is far more interesting. His body is facing his bowl, but his head is now turned to his right. The soft eyes are watching the flickering images of a dancing troupe from Phnom Penh. His mother notices that he is not eating and repeats the same command, only much louder. Still he will not eat. Mother grows angry. She stands up and tears off a piece of straw from the thatched roof above her. She walks over to her son. Witichika does not see the threat coming in time for him to retreat. A soft blow comes down on his hands, and Witchika cries in pain. Quickly, he dislodges himself from the table and runs for safety around the table. Mother emits a guttural rising pitch of indignation and follows chase. The two are locked into circumnavigating the table. The boy’s small yellow pajamas make for an easy target, and his little legs cannot outrun mother for very long. Witchika is upset and tired. He finally sits down with his back resting against a wooden pole and begins to cry. His tears are hot and his wails can be heard from far away. Witchika’s brothers are laughing at the scene, but his parents are stony faced. Their eyes are focused on their bowls of rice and soup. Soon, Witchika’s own efforts to seek attention enervate him to the point where he stops crying. He rejoins the group and sits down at the table. “Eat rice,” his father calmly tells him. Witchika picks up his fork and spoon and begins to carve up an egg resting on the edge of the bowl. A saucer of fried meat is brought over for him, but he takes no notice. His concentration is fixed. Witchika’s egg is now divided into three equal pieces. He picks up one piece, covered in sticky rice, and puts it into his mouth with his fingers. He washes it down with a couple of pieces of fried meat. Witchika does not know that his cheeks now have many grains of rice on them. I ask him what kind of meat he is eating. He tells me it is pork. The dogs will eat it later after the meal.

Witchika is not afraid of anything, except mother. He practices his fighting skills in the front yard of our house. His legs are spread apart and bent at the knees, and his hands are ready and cocked in fighting position. One fist is held ready at his ear, and the other is at the other end of his extended arm. In an instant, his legs will jut forward and his fist will punch the air in front of him. Watch carefully. There he goes! A few more punches and he finishes the combination with a kick in the air and a yell. I take a break from my Khmer studies and watch. The television starts to broadcast a program about ghosts and the supernatural. I ask Witchika if he is afraid of ghosts. “No, he tells me, ghosts are afraid of me.” Don’t you wish you had that kind of pluck at his age?

Sometimes his bravado can get the best of him. Here he is now playing with the little girl from the house across the street. They are both lying in the dirt, and the little girl is looking idly at the trees above her. Witchika is playing with a big red blow-up airplane, but he is suddenly looking at the little girl. Without her noticing, he reaches up and hits his companion with the airplane. She is too shocked for words. Witchika hits her again, and the little girl’s hair is messed up. Her cheeks start to swell up, and she cries as he runs for the safety of her mother. She is picked up, caressed, and brought out of harm’s way. Witchika suffers no rebuke from her. Witchika smiles with delight at this act, his brown head held high.

But here comes mother.