TravelStream™ news feed for member ckulenguski on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/ckulenguski en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:31:14 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1257929898/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1257929898/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1257929898/tpod.html Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:31:14 -0500 Cambodia: Two Years in the Peace Corps

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Kampong Cham, Cambodia



Bonn Om Tuk, or Water Festival as we foreigners call it, is the largest, craziest, and longest Khmer holiday that happens every year around the end of October to celebrate the reversal of the flow of water out of the recently flooded Tonle Sap and the end of the rainy season. It takes place every year in Phnom Penh when hoards of people inundate the riverbanks of the Tonle Sap in front of the royal palace creating gridlock in every direction. For the past month every province has been holding small boat races to see who will represent the province in the festival. I was able to see the braa laam (race) here in Prey Veng on the lake, even went down to the South Eastern most province, Svay Rieng, with the other volunteers to see an even bigger braa laam on the Mekong. There were fireworks, monks came to bless the boats, paper lanterns were released into the night sky over the water, food vendors lined every part of the waterfront. Simply fantastic and I probably only watched the actual races for two minutes, kind of like how I go to baseball games, I'm in it for the food and the atmosphere.




So the actual Bonn Om Tuk was last weekend, three days of mayhem in the big city but, as many of my American brethren might recall, it was also the weekend of Halloween. Now nobody here in Prey Veng showed any comprehension when I mentioned it and it was difficult to explain to my new Khmer friends. I likened it to a Khmer holiday that recently passed called Pchum Bun where people give offerings to their ancestors and the recently deceased but I said that Halloween has more to do with “evil spirits” and eating copious amounts of candy than remembering our loved ones. A choice had to be made and given that I am technically on “lock-down” and not allowed to leave the province and especially not allowed to go to Phnom Penh, the decision to stay wasn't a hard one. Thankfully I am lucky enough to be placed in an area with a fun group of people and a Halloween party had been suggested weeks in advance. Since the two poorest provinces border each other, Svay Rieng and Prey Veng, and do not have much in the way of Western amenities, Peace Corps suggested that we combine the two which puts us at 11 volunteers. That's a lot of foreigners for this small provincial town, not to mention Scott (the Canadian volunteer), a friend who broke lock-down and traveled through several provinces to get here (can't use her name since she's still afraid PC will find out), and Michael, Stephanie's brother-in-law who's currently living in Singapore and happened to be in the country.




We tried to recreate an American Halloween as best we could. We bought small flat pumpkins from the market and carved them, roasting the seeds in Scott's tiny toaster oven. We made pasta marinara using sweet basil and green tomatoes from the market, garlic bread using bread from the only wood-fired oven in town, and rice-crispy treats from aam-baak, flattened rice, and a bag of marshmallows one of the volunteers got in a package from home. We got creative with our costumes, two girls wore togas, one made a butterfly mask out of construction paper and glitter, one improvised with her stash of bandanas to make a rag-doll, I was a pirate, and one was, what I thought the most fearsome, a mosquito. We watched horror movies and ate each others private stashes of candy while dogs howled madly and curious passerbys peered in through the open doorway at our ridiculous costumes and grinning jack-o-lanterns illuminated on the front porch. I probably would have been more concerned about my students seeing me if it wasn't for that they had already left for Phnom Penh and their “homelands” for the long forgotten Water Festival.




We all stayed in the newest and nicest hotel in Prey Veng which is clean and a great deal at $5 a night. But early the next morning I heard wailing from the corridor and peered out of the room that I shared with two girls to find one of the female volunteers (I won't use her name) sobbing and clutching her cell-phone. She had just spoken with her ailing grandfather and found out that her father had been shot and killed on Halloween night. She is an only child and doesn't have contact with her mother, only 23-years-old and lost her father so unexpectedly, so horribly as murder. It was a whirlwind during the next 30 minutes of calling the Peace Corps staff, planning flight departures and destinations, packing her bags, negotiating a taxi to take her and two other volunteers back to Svay Rieng to get her passport and then straight to Phnom Penh, and saying goodbye not knowing if it would be her last day in Cambodia. I've talked to her since and she says that she's coming back, that it would make her father proud, and I feel I should have known that someone who is as positive and energetic as she is and who commits to two difficult years in Cambodia would at least try to finish her service.

We were all stunned for several hours. We had an awkward breakfast at the restaurant next door as we tried to talk about the days plans, watched a few hours of CNN and HBO, and Michael tried to sort out his onward travel arrangements that would put him in Siem Reap later that night. There were only six of us left as we picnicked on the lakefront with peanut butter sandwiches. I told Michael the good news about Stephanie's new job with Boy's Hope Girl's Hope (Yay!!!!) and Michael phoned Stephanie and Wes to congratulate her and catch up a bit. We both talked with them for a while and it seemed strange to be on the other side of the world in the 95 degree heat in a remote provincial town sitting with Wes's brother while we both talked to our siblings that were half awake and recounting Denver's first snowstorm of the season, crazy. Afterward we headed to the taxi station in town where twenty or so moto drivers gathered in small clusters, some smoking and others sleeping, eyeing Michael and I as our intentions were made clear as we walked towards them. We were quickly surrounded and I tried as best as I could to say in Khmer that he needed to go to Siem Reap and we needed a moto driver to take him at least to Kampong Cham, a large provincial town 1 ½ hours North, to catch a bus the rest of the way. It was intimidating trying to negotiate with so many Khmer men, our story spread like wildfire to the other groups and when I couldn't get the price down enough and approached another cluster the price was the same as the last and they wouldn't budge. Finally we found one man who knew about the buses in Kampong Cham who was sure he could get Michael there before the last bus left so we agreed on the $7 price, a bit much but they were a trail of dust within seconds and Michael would later tell me that he flew the whole way there (he had his own adventure after that, missed the bus by a few minutes, took another moto to a nearby crossroad between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap where they tried to scam him into spending a night at a hotel, then had no choice but to hire a $60 taxi. In the end he made it to Siem Reap around 10pm, he should have been there by 7) .




The rest of the evening was spent showing the other volunteers the town, four of us took a nice but very dusty bike ride out to see the sunset over the rice fields along the new highway being built not far from the town. When it's complete it will knock off a third of the time it takes to get to Phnom Penh creating a new stream of tourist buses and money that will surely change the face of the countryside, currently a quiet rice farming community that doesn't have electricity but in a year that will all change. We speculated about this over dinner at a tuk-a-luk (fruit shake) and mee-chah (fried ramen noodles) stand, the standard Peace Corps comfort food, then sat out on the pier and enjoyed the breeze and night sky until the late hour of 9 pm (something that us female volunteers can rarely do since it's too risky to do alone; "gangsters", snakes, scorpions, etc.). We all agreed that it was a good evening but no one could mention the morning's events or how we were all concerned about our friend who was currently on a plane back to the United States. Life changes that quickly.




The next morning we all got up early, had a quick breakfast then said our goodbyes, three volunteers headed back to their villages in the South and my friend from the North and I headed up National Road 11 to Kampong Cham. We had toyed with the idea of going there before Halloween since it is between our two provinces and is the wealthiest province in Cambodia which means regular transport and, more importantly, Western food. We also have friends there, a middle-aged married couple, Lori and Warren, who are great company and Warren and I often message to compare our work at the RTTCs. I had been worried about the transportation having been told to find an unmarked green van on the side of the road by a garage but we lucked out after I asked a woman at a food stall nearby who phoned the driver and then told us that they were turning back around for us and would be there in ten minutes. After cramming into the backseat of the already packed van and driving for about 45 minutes, the landscape changed suddenly, ricefields turned to forests of rubber trees and small hills could be seen in the distance. After about 1 ½ hours we came to a massive bridge spanning the Mekong and a large sprawl of modern and French colonial style buildings on the other side.




My friend and I got our second wind after the hot car ride and we spotted the air-conditioned Tela gas station in the distance, renowned in our circle for having over-priced ice-cream and cookies, but ice-cream and cookies nonetheless. We were soon joined by Lori and Warren, already looking at home in their new town and they walked us down to the scenic riverfront. We sat at a Western restaurant on the water called Lazy Mekong Daze , sipped on chilled white wine and inhaled french bread pizzas while they filled us in on their work so far in the community, their strained housing situation, and their speculative teaching schedules. After a long lunch they walked us a few blocks down to the hotel all of the volunteers stay in when they come into town, The VIP, a hotel that lives up to it's name as being the nicest hotel I've ever seen in Cambodia with overly ornate lacquered dark-wood furniture, AC and hot showers for $15 a night, a bit pricey for us but I'm going to blame the wine. We said goodbye to our friends and made plans to meet in the next morning for breakfast then sat in the hotel for a good hour trying to take in the drastic change of surroundings from small town Prey Veng to modern industrious Kampong Cham. We ended up staying another night along with a few other volunteers that came in the next morning from visiting a rural PCV site. We explored the city and massive market, walked down the waterfront where children flew kites and rode bicycles, and hung out with the other expats and backpackers at the Western restaurants.




The last night we all sat outside of the hotel to look out onto the Mekong and enjoy the last of the strong winds to come through from the Monsoon that had come in from Vietnam, it had just nearly missed us. We could hear the call to prayer coming from the mosque on the opposite shore, it seemed surreal to hear it there but Kampong Cham is named for the Cham (Muslim) community that tends to populate the shores around the Mekong, a small Muslim community living amidst a mostly Buddhist population. It is hard to notice except for the few women that wear headscarves and the domes of the mosques that appear suddenly between the landscape of rubber and coconut trees. The call to prayer was just a reminder of how much I still don't understand about Cambodia and how strange and emotional the week had been. It had been almost a week since I observed a class at the RTTC. School would start again the next day but I felt worlds away from Prey Veng, from the Peace Corps, and from my friend in the states just then arriving to a new world herself, one without her father.




The next morning my friend and I indulged one last time and had nutella-banana pancakes at a restaurant called Smile before she bought a ticket on a large air-conditioned bus and I found my green van parked right where I left it. Three hours, three van changes, and several inquistive fellow passengers later, I made it back home. Happy to be in Prey Veng, happy to go back to school, happy to see my shack-full-o-boys, heck, even happy to eat rice again. As nice as Kampong Cham is there is something about Prey Veng that's starting to feel like home, surprisingly. I start teaching tomorrow which I am excited and nervous about and hopefully it won't be a one-man-show, that is me teaching and my co-teacher simply watching, complicated but that's a whole other story.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1256360928/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1256360928/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1256360928/tpod.html Sat, 24 Oct 2009 01:50:43 -0400 Cambodia: Two Years in the Peace Corps

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Prey Veng, Cambodia



It seems like classes are starting to adhere to the schedule now at the RTTC, I've already observed several classes with my new co-teacher Han Sokum and I've been conducting surveys for the class to collect baseline data and assess their English skills. Sokum only teaches “upgrading” which is basically teaching grammar out of the English For Cambodia books, or EFC. They are the text books that the teacher trainees will use when they eventually start teaching in their own secondary schools after they finish their studies at the RTTC. I could say a lot about these books but the long and short of it is that they are outdated, introduce but don't explain grammar points, and involve subjects that are relevant to life in Cambodia but present them in a way that is sometimes condescending, like suggesting that Cambodian people are not smart enough and lack the necessary skills to start a successful business. So I want to use additional texts, such as Headway or Grammar in Use when I start teaching. The timing is a bit complicated as my new co-teacher is very eager for me start teaching but I'm supposed to have at least a month to observe and the year one students won't start until November. I am eager to have a schedule and get into a routine but it's so difficult when all of the classes haven't started yet and Sokum is so persistent.




I think that having a routine here is important, not just for having a schedule but more for my sanity. For example, I found a scorpion on my bedroom floor just the other day and was more afraid of my reaction than I was of it, put my phone next to it and took a picture before calling one of the boys into the house to kill it for me then raced over to Scott's house to have a victory shot of strong rice wine. It's not to say that things here are overly stressful but amidst the random confrontations, unscheduled teacher meetings, an ever growing household, and now scorpions in my bedroom, it helps to know that I have a few planned moments of peace that are in my control. So far my daily routine starts with crawling out of my mosquito fort at around 5:30 am followed by a quick shower before my host mother brings me a kettle full of hot water for a bowl of oatmeal and aam-baal (crushed uncooked rice that looks like oatmeal, really cheap in the market and makes my oatmeal last longer) and coffee from my Vietnamese coffee filter mixed with canned milk. I usually listen to the BBC on my radio for a while as I eat and organize my books for the day's classes.




I'm out the door by 7 am but it's only less than a minute by bike to my school and class doesn't start until 7:10 or whenever my co-teacher shows up. After observing Sokum for two to four hours I ride over to the market and buy fruit or exchange money at one of the many jewelry counters (many Khmer people have their savings in gold). Then I head over to an unmarked stall beside the market with an elderly woman sitting out front, smirking with her red-stained lips from chewing beetle-nuts who I get my day-old Cambodian Dailys from. I don't know how I would have found her without Scott since she is the only one who sells them in town and I had to set it up days in advance, comes directly via bus every morning along with the mail (there's a post office but no one uses it). Then I'm all set and take my purchases and newspaper to my usual cafe along the waterfront.




There is something about the cafes in Cambodia that I absolutely love, a bit gritty, a tad sleazy, something secretive, like a shot out of an old Kung Fu movie where the hero stumbles into a smokey cafe and the men sit in dark corners looking like they're about to pounce; you can't get this sort of atmosphere in Starbucks. My cafe is almost always packed with middle-aged men, usually middle-class or military men, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and drinking iced-coffee that is more condensed milk than coffee or sipping shot glasses of hot tea. They huddle around small wooden tables in short plastic chairs, talking or playing chess which involves slamming the pieces down loudly against the board and cursing loudly at their opponent, fantastic. The best part about this cafe is that despite my being the only women there the men are more interested in the chess games than they are in me, no one stares or interrupts my reading the paper. The owners, a quiet reserved man and his wife who always smiles broadly at me and invites me to sit and chat with her, seem to understand me pretty well: hot coffee, a pot of tea that comes standard with every order, and a plastic bag full of nome, doughnut-like breads sprinkled with sesame seeds are the perfect accompaniment to a newspaper and the wonderful breeze that comes off of the lake.




Lately I've had the occasional visitor, turns out Sokum goes to the same cafe sometimes after classes so we've had several pots of tea together and talked about teaching and development in Prey Veng. Scott even comes around sometimes before lunch and when it's not raining we buy some food from the market and picnic on the waterfront. Everything seems to shut down between noon and two, mainly because it's too hot (around 97 degrees these days) and most people in town go home to eat lunch and sleep. At 2 o'clock I have my Khmer lesson with Sam Aang, a kind elderly man with strange blue eyes that teaches English at the EU Vocational School. Scott told me about him and it seems that he has given Khmer lessons to every foreigner that has lived in Prey Veng in the past ten years. His English is wonderful and his stories are even better though terribly moving, mostly about his life during the war and how he tried to study English in secrecy during a time when learning was forbidden and often punishable by death.




I try to make sure that I'm back home before it gets dark around 6 which is about the same time that my host-mother pulls up on her moto with the kids from their English lessons. I usually work with Nita on her English while her grandmother makes dinner and her brother watches TV. Dinner is always an awkward exchange as my host-mother hands me a tray with several small dishes on it accompanied by the same “hope bye”, eat rice, then shoos me into my room to eat alone. Honestly, I didn't quite understand it at first and would have preferred to eat with the family but it's a nice change from my training family where eating dinner was a form of entertainment for the neighbors and my current family does not actually eat together anyways but takes shifts in front of the TV and the table in the kitchen. I'm sure that my routine will change within the next few weeks as I start to teach alone at the RTTC and cement my timetable but that's also part of my routine here, never getting too settled and keeping a good sense of humor when life takes an unexpected turn...like finding scorpions on my bedroom floor.



]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1255335610/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1255335610/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1255335610/tpod.html Mon, 12 Oct 2009 05:00:00 -0400 Cambodia: Two Years in the Peace Corps

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Prey Veng, Cambodia

Prey Veng Krong is the capital of the province of Prey Veng, the second poorest province in Cambodia that is primarily dependent on rice harvests. The city is unique in that it is the only provincial capital along national highway 11. That means a few very important things here; little attention and funds are received from the government to fix the schools and roads, it is devoid of tourists and therefore any western restaurants or supermarkets, much of the younger generation is leaving to study and find jobs in nearby Phnom Penh which contributes to the large percentage of human trafficking from the area, and businesses and schools are directly effected by the rain and rice harvests so that many are closed sporadically and without warning as people take to the fields.

And yet despite those reasons, or maybe even for those reasons, there is a small expat community of about ten people in town, not what I was expecting. I was warned by the previous volunteer that lived here to be wary of working with the expats especially as most are working through religious organizations and that is a grey area for us Peace Corps volunteers. The nearest PCV to me is 40 minutes away and tends to keep to himself so I threw caution to the wind when I saw a 6' 2” barang (foreigner) biking down the street that looked more surprised to see me than I did of him. He introduced himself as Scott, a 34-year-old volunteer working with the Mennonite Central Committee here in Prey Veng for the past 2 ½ years. I met him at his small private house later that day and proceeded to bombard him with questions about the town; where could I order a newspaper, how does transportation work here, who are the other foreigners, and where oh where could I go for western style junk food? He was very patient and filled me in on all of the details that only a foreigner would appreciate and saved me the frustration of having to call my counterpart, Sothin, who by the way hasn't contacted me in over a week.

I must admit I was a bit wary of Scott at first. He seemed nice but what was his job exactly working with MCC? Could he be here on the pretense of converting Buddhists to Christianity? What did he think of Buddhists or Atheist Peace Corps volunteers for that matter? As I have gotten to know him over the past week I think I can fairly say that he is one of the most liberal missionaries I've ever met (haven't met many though) and seems to hold no judgment about the Khmer people or myself. As for the others in town though, he described them to me as follows: There's Miles and Ruth, a middle aged conservative married couple with two young boys that work for MCC as well; Sara and Keith, a young Australian couple, Sara works for an orphanage and Keith just recently moved here a month ago to be with her; Catherine, a 26-year-old volunteer that works at the same orphanage as Sara; Rob, a middle aged ex-VSO worker that is a recluse after his English school was closed last year and now “lives” with his young male gardener; two Italians that keep to themselves but their house can be recognized by the giant Catholic church beside it; and lastly a couple of Singaporeans that run the Christian Hope Village Orphanage on the waterfront.

I hadn't met any of them before I met Scott though the next day I ran into Ruth at the youth center by my house where I use the internet which apparently MCC helps fund. Ruth rode up on her bike, quickly introduced herself, invited me over for dinner, then rushed off to give one of he biweekly English lessons to the all-Christian staff. She seemed nice and I'm sure I'll know more about her after tonight's dinner.

I was actually more eager to meet the Aussies, especially after hearing from Scott that they all usually hang out on the weekends and share a bottle of wine. I was definitely not expecting to have anything close to a nightlife here let alone people to talk to in English and compare stories with about adapting to Cambodian culture. So Scott arranged a dinner for me to meet them at a restaurant by Sara's house, a place that had a large cauldron in the middle of the table to cook your own bits of steak and veggies with a large pint of cold beer to go with it, fantastic. The Aussies are a pretty laid back bunch though that should not to be mistaken for laziness. They are very passionate about their work at the orphanage which has just under 50 kids and only 2 boys in a swarm of little girls all under the age of 16. They tried to recruit me to help with English lessons or arts and crafts but I didn't need much convincing since I couldn't think of a better way to involve myself in a secondary project or for a better cause.

It felt strange to be sitting around a table with a bunch of barangs in Prey Veng of all places, drinking beer and staying out after dark, talking about how we ended up here and trying to figure out what happens after Cambodia. It wasn't until 9:30 that we left to go home, Catherine and I riding our bikes while Scott rode his moto behind us to light the way on the deserted roads. It was the first time I had been out after dark and the town had changed completely. It seemed peaceful yet threatening as restaurants by day turned into karaoke bars (otherwise known as brothels) by night and blared Khmer pop music that resembled Britney Spears or The Backstreet Boys accompanied by drunken singing. Dogs howled and became fiercely territorial, streaming out of front gates and chasing us until we no longer seemed a threat. Mosquito nets and hammocks lined the balconies as whole families slept outside, children poking their heads out to watch us pass.

When we arrived at my house the lights were off and a padlock was on the front gate. I was momentarily baffled as to what to do, I didn't want to call my host mother and wake her up and I definitely didn't want to bang on the gate to wake up the shack-full-of-boys. Scott gave me a leg up over the ten foot gate and I stumbled my way through the dark to the front door. My key wouldn't turn but I could hear my host mother stirring under her mosquito net by the door. She turned on a light, eyes squinting and suddenly I felt like a 16-year-old trying to hide the beer on her breath and explain the boy with the moto, the word mortified doesn't come close. Scott made a few bows and apologies then quickly sped off as she wheeled my bike into the kitchen and I mumbled about another hundred apologies then sheeped off to bed. Not until the next morning did she explain that the electricity had gone out, hence no lights, and the boys must have thought that meant that we were already in bed so they locked the gate. We had a good laugh, some nods and smiles, I'm sure it will happen again.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1255080242/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1255080242/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1255080242/tpod.html Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:28:04 -0400 Cambodia: Two Years in the Peace Corps

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Prey Veng, Cambodia



It has been 11 days since I arrived in Prey Veng and I'm surprised how much can happen in such a short time, especially given the fact that classes still haven't started at the RTTC. So here's the deal. As a Peace Corps volunteer my job here is to be a co-teacher as well as find secondary projects to start or involve myself. I am supposed to have a full month to observe the English classes as well as several months to explore the town and get to know my new community. My co-teacher, Sothin, also happens to be the newly promoted deputy director and told me within the first few days of being here that he does not have enough time to be my co-teacher and seeing as he does not even really teach classes anymore, I can understand why. He really is a nice guy and seems to be doing a lot at the school as far as administration goes, not to mention his English is fantastic after spending several months in England and Singapore on a few education conferences. Shame really but Sothin told me that there are two other English teachers I can work with except that one is in the hospital in Vietnam and one has yet to decide if he wants to work with me.

So needless to say I haven't received the warmest of welcomes from the staff. Then there's my host family, a 55-year-old widow named Maan and her two adorable grandchildren, Nita who is 9 and Sopea who is 5, a handful with his energy but is always smiling. Maan doesn't speak any English so it has been a challenge to say the least to understand her. Every time I have asked her to repeat herself she will smile at me as if she understands but then walk away. I learned she will repeat what she says if I ask her to speak slowly- though it always came out at the same speed as before and with little understanding on my part. That is partly why I have taken to giving English lessons to Nita, that and her eagerness to talk with me and addressing me as 'teacher'.

But they are not the only ones in the house. Another young girl around 20 lives upstairs. The first day I met her, I was opening the front door and she simply slipped by me with a suitcase and headed for the stairs. I asked her in Khmer if she lived here though maybe not too well as she simply replied a few words I didn't understand and gave me a cold scowl. I later found out that she is a student at the RTTC that will be living here for a year but her coldness towards me has not waned and even my cheerful hellos won't break her scowl.

The same day she arrived six teenage boys showed up in the wooden shack that almost leans against the small cement room that I sleep in. I asked Maan about the boys and she said that they are studying at the high school across from the house and will be living here for a year as well. I must be honest, it made me a bit nervous, especially as I keep a computer and other expensive electronic gadgets in my room and I can definitely not open the shades anymore as my window looks directly into their room.

So it was really unfortunate that that evening when I went to take my bike out from under my window for an evening ride it wasn't there. It had only been twenty minutes before when I went outside to collect some of my laundry from the line that I saw it and there wasn't a person in sight. I walked all around the house trying to remain calm and try not to rush to conclusions so I walked to the RTTC only a few minutes from the house and found Sothin in his office. I explained what happened and that I thought it might have been taken but asked if he could call Maan and come to the house with me. He couldn't reach Maan after several tries and asked the large group of teenagers next door if they had seen anything. After several phone calls with the Peace Corps security officer a small group had gathered at the gate including the director of the Provincial Office of Education. My mysterious scowling roommate appeared from seemingly out of nowhere and announced that it was locked in the shed. Sothin and the POE director started laughing. Still laughing, they got on their motos, said goodbye and drove off, laughing all the way. Needless to say I was feeling pretty embarrassed especially when I had to call the PC and explain what had happened.

Maan came home shortly after and didn't seem to pick up on my frustration over the whole ordeal. But soon we were laughing about it in the way that two people who hardly understand each other do, all smiles and many understanding nods of the head. She kindly rubbed my back saying com pye, don't be nervous, referring to the teenage boys around the house, a kind thing to say yet perhaps she didn't understand that it wasn't nervousness but frustration and confusion that had pushed me close to tears. So if anything it cleared the air about the new kids and my apprehension as well as giving Maan and I a chance to sit and talk about something other than the weather. I feel a whole lot better about my new extended host family, it's definitely an unusual setup and I can only hope that the mysterious girl will smile at me once, just once; or at least tell me her name.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1254814974/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1254814974/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1254814974/tpod.html Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:46:06 -0400 Cambodia: Two Years in the Peace Corps

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Phnom Penh, Cambodia

The swearing-in ceremony in Phnom Penh was pretty standard, kind of like a college graduation which I realized was all too recent for most of the people on stage, most recruits are around 22-years-old. I was sitting next to a 49-year-old recruit named Darlene, a social work professor at the University of Texas with a great sense of humour and penchant for telling stories about her daily encounters in Kampuchea (funniest one had to be her falling in a sewer hole, I think she's one of the rare people that can find humour in such a stressful situation, or at least after a long bucket shower with a lot of soap). We wore our traditional Khmer outfits that made me feel like a Khmer Barbie-doll, a blouse made of lace and silk complete with sewed-in cups that looked a bit too pointy, and an ankle-length silk skirt called a sampot hole, literally a skirt that flows. Now these can be pretty expensive for Kampuchea standards. For example, the skirt I wore was about 60 dollars and a typical Khmer English teacher here makes between 30-60 dollars a month. So you can imagine how overwhelmed I was when my host family in Tramkak gave me the skirt and two white blouses to go with it before I left, hand-me-downs but incredibly generous of them. So feeling kind of pretty though a tad ridiculous, I raised my right hand along with the other 42 recruits on stage and promised the next two years in service to my country (sounds pretty cheesy and trust me, it looked even cheesier). Afterward, all of our new school directors rushed on stage to have their pictures taken with us but more importantly the US ambassador and Minister of Education. I looked for Darlene among the crowd of people below the stage. Expats, current PCVs, and returned PCVs had shown up for the event and a small group had formed a line opposite of the ambassador to have their picture taken with Darlene, a sort of mentor/icon for many of the people involved with Peace Corps. I mingled, said my goodbyes to the training staff and LCFs, PCVs on the opposite side of the country that I will most likely not see again for 6 months when we have our in-service training, and rushed off to ta bar with a small group; an older married couple, Warren and Lori that are on their second Peace Corp assignment, along with Darlene.


After a few pitchers of celebratory beers reality slowly sunk in, training was over. No more 4 hour blocks of language, no more culture seminars, no more splitting into groups to discuss numerous security scenarios, and no more disturbing but entertaining slide-shows of the plethora of possible viruses and stomach bugs that seem unavoidable from our quirky medical officer. We all agreed that we finally felt like volunteers. That is, volunteers that have only just volunteered and not yet accomplished anything, finally rid of the hand-holding which is pretty daunting in itself. Darlene and I spent an extra day in Phnom Penh taking advantage of the many western options. Breakfast of hot coffee and croissants complete with newspapers in English, lunch at an expat hangout called The Shop for my first salad in Kampuchea, shopping at the enormous Russian market for clothes and nick-knacks, bought a guitar outside of the central market, loaded up on DVDs and books from the Peace Corps office, and joined our friend Jess recently released from the hospital from an allergic reaction and a few other PCVs for dinner at an expensive Italian restaurant. Three months of lock-down with no trips to Phnom Penh or access to western food, I didn't regret one bit of that day besides the incredible exhaustion that I felt when we finally got back to our hotel and I realized that not everything would fit in my backpack.

Next morning I hung out around the lobby with the rest of the new PCVs, some heading out to their sites by bus and some by private taxi since their towns are so remote, others opting for another night in Phnom Penh to work off hangovers from the night before. Darlene and I said our goodbyes and parted ways. It will probably be a while until I see her again since she will be working at another RTTC up in Battambang, the second largest city in Kampuchea 7 hours to the north by comfortable air-conditioned bus. Me, I was on my way to Prey Veng via a small 10-seater-bus that, with 2 people to a seat and stools in the aisles, really held about 30; that's including the man riding on top not to mention another in the door frame holding the door shut. Thankfully all of the people were, as usual, chet la-aa, good hearted. Not to mention helpful, sharing their food and stories for the scenic two-hour-bus ride to my new home.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1253254069/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1253254069/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1253254069/tpod.html Fri, 18 Sep 2009 03:12:59 -0400 Cambodia: Two Years in the Peace Corps

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Ângk Tasaôm, Takêv, Cambodia

I only have less than a week left until I leave my host family to go to Prey Veng and I have mixed emotions about the whole thing. The past few days have been a bit crazy because of one of the most important Khmai holidays, Pchum Ben, which means that the whole family is staying at the house at the moment, my 22-year old and 24-year-old sisters, Sopheak and Sopea (the family never knows which one I'm talking about) and my 20-year old-brother who has been in PP for the past week. That's not including Sopeak's husband and all the rest of the extended family that come to visit at this time. Pchum Ben means (Ancestor's Day, 15 days) is when Khmai people go back to their "homeland", spend time with their family, cook lots of nom onsom (long rice roll filled with pork fat and beans) and nom com (sweet sweet little gewy rice balls filled with sugar, coconut and peanuts, my fav), and make several trips to their family's local wat (pagoda). Now, as I understand it, there are several times during the day that the family can go to the wat and for different reasons. My 15-year-old sister Samphors has joked several times about taking me with her to the 4 AM visit which she tells me is when people walk around the large open room of the wat and throw sweet sticky rice balls around. As much as this sounds fascinating, tastey, and a great excuse to throw food, I am a bit too put off by the 4 AM factor. But throwing rice is a part of the ceremony, it is believed that there are spirits of the dead (evil "ghosts" as my sister translates) at the wat that have no one to bring them food so the rice is thrown to satisfy them. I opted for the second invitation from my sister Sopea to go to the wat at 10 am this morning.

The family told me last night at dinner that they would show me how to make nom onsom in the morning at 6 AM. I was actually up a bit before that because of a mouse in my bed last night, not a big deal since I have my fortress (mosquito net) tucked under the mattress but it's unsettling nonetheless. Mother had spread a mat on the ground and laid out the ingredients for the nom onsom: Rice mixed with coconut and salt, a large bowl of thinly sliced pig fat, pre-soaked yellow beans, and a large stack of banana leaves. Kind of reminded me of rolling sushi though it was mashed down into the funnel of the banana leaves with a stick then wrapped tightly with several bands of plastic. Was pretty nice sitting around with the family and being included in their tradition, also nice to make small talk with the family members that I haven't seen for a while. The first night at the house was probably the most awkward meal I've ever experienced and all I could say was "My name is Chrissy", "I'm from America" and "Please, no more rice!". And today I could sit with them and tell them about my new assignment in Prey Veng, discuss the differences between American and Khmai cultures, and why we don't have nom onsom which I find it rather sad since it's so delicious!

Then at 10, Sophea and I hopped into the neighbor's car (7 people in a 4 door car, very typical here) and drove to the wat. Sopea brought a container of rice with her and handed me a small bowl. In the middle of the large room was a wide raised step covered in various small bowls of meat, veggies, fruit, and sweet cakes. We walked down the long line of food and put two scoops of rice in each bowl. At the end of the line I was surrounded by a bunch of yays (basically older women in their 60's and 70's that shave their heads and help the monks, some cook food, some even live at the wat), all of them rubbing my arms and asking me various questions in Khmai which I tried to answer if I understood. My sister pulled me away, up to the front of the wat where there are several golden statues of Buddha, we lit 3 sticks of insence and prayed (or at least she prayed, I interpretted it as lighting candles on a birthday cake, sure I won't get my wish but I still do it anyways! (I wished for no more mice in my bed)). Then we kneeled in front of a man with a microphone and handed him money. I wasn't sure how much money to give so I gave 2,000, apparently too little since my family laughed about it for a good long while. We sat on some mats by the back of the wat and waited about 5 minutes before a large gong was rung and about 20 monks filed in and sat down at the feast...which is when we got up and left to go back home.

Tomorrow is the last day of Pchum Ben and a holiday for all of the PC Trainees but I don't think I will be going back to the wat, too much preperation to do before all of my stuff is picked up on Monday to go out to site and I have my language proficiency interview on Monday. A lot to think about before then.


]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1253001042/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1253001042/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/2/1253001042/tpod.html Tue, 15 Sep 2009 05:40:15 -0400 Cambodia: Two Years in the Peace Corps

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Ângk Tasaôm, Takêv, Cambodia

So thought I'd give this a go like I did when I was backpacking though it will really depend on internet availability in my permanent town, Prey Veng. I HOPE that I can keep up with this plus it's pretty nifty, can post pics, yall can see where I am exactly on a map, and I can keep yall up to date with what I'm doing here (if yall are interested, find the whole blogging thing a bit self-involved but seems like all of the PC volunteers are doing this and I hope to be able to share it with some students state-side in the future). Unfortunately all I can really tell yall about so far are my experiences so far with culture shock but they're pretty humorous (in retrospect of course).

Guess I could start off with my daily activities which I say on a daily basis in Khmai since that's a very common subject with my host family (I must say it at least 3 times a day). I get up every morning around 6 am which isn't for lack of tiredness, the roosters and gaggle of geese tend to start making noise around that time and it can be pretty loud at times. I have to crawl out of my little fort, a large bamboo bed with a mat covering the slats and a small thin matress over that (Khmai people don't usually use matresses, they normally just sleep on the mat or a hammock, mainly because of the heat) all of which are under a big mosquito net which I am thankful to have since it keeps out not only mosquitos but giant spiders, geckos, and mice all of which can be found in my room at some point in the night. Then I wrap myself in my sarong like a giant towel and cautiously head downstairs (it is rare to see a woman's shoulders and knees here so I try not to let the neighbors see). The bathroom is split into two rooms, one with the squat toilet and a bucket of water and one with a large trough of water. Both rooms can have their share of creepy crawlies (giant spiders, scorpians, toads, mice, etc.) but they actually don't bother me that much anymore, spiders are actually a good thing here since they eat the mosquitos...at least that's what I tell myself. I have a bucket shower every morning and then eat breakfast which either my mother cooks for me or I buy at the market. It usually consists of fried duck egg with chili sauce or banchaioo (ginger pancakes filled with fried pork, my favorite). I then walk across the street to one of the many roadside vendors and grab a coffee. Not your normal starbucks variety since this one comes in a small plastic bag, layers of sugar, ice, condensed milk, and a little bit of coffee but it's tastey and costs about 30 cents.

It's only a short walk to my LCF's (Language Cross-Cultural Facilitator) house but it's a pretty one, thin path between the open rice fields that are a rich bright green at the moment because of the rain this past week. My LCF is a sweet Khmai woman named Vanny, only 30-years-old and speaks very good English. There are 5 people in my class out of the 20 that are in my training village (two training villages). We study Khmai for a good 4 hours and I think my Khmai is pretty good at this point, at least for only having studied it for two months. Afterwards, I rush home, take another bucket shower since it is usually around 90 degrees at noon (Khmai people usually take around 3 showers a day!) and I eat the lunch that my host mother has prepared. Oh, and I do not eat with my mother, I have only seen her eat on a few occasions and I think this has something to do with my being a guest though I'd rather them think of me as one of the family. However I do eat with my younger sister Sampohrs, a 15-year-old girl with pretty good English who is very similiar to other 15-year-olds in the states; interested in clothes, motos, boys, Britney Spears and Korean pop. Usually I'll ask her questions in Khmai and she'll respond in English so we both get to practice our language skills. I also have a 21-year-old brother who is very shy, a 22-year-old sister who in studying in Phnom Penh and working at a Western cafe, and a sister who is my age and married but rarely at home since her job requires her to travel around Kampuchea.

After lunch, I hop on my bike and ride about 2 k to either the Wat (temple) or one of the high schools where Peace Corps holds 4 hour seminars on numerous topics; culture, health, teaching, volunteerism, etc. It's also a nice time to gather with all of the volunteers from the training village to compare experiences and receive support, sometimes we follow it up with a stop at the new (and only) burger place in town with internet (where I am now) or the local Tela Mart which is a small gas station with AC and the occasional beer. I need to be back home around 5 pm or before it gets dark for numerous reasons; not to worry my mother, territorial dogs, "gangsters"as people like to call them which are more like teen-punks, drunk driving, karaoke bars (brothels), etc. I take another bucket shower when I get home (of course) and then eat dinner with my sister around 6:30 or whenever I hear "Chrissy, nýam bye!", or as my sister translates it to me "Eat rice!", yelled up through the floor boards at me. Dinner always consists of rice (seeing as the word eat in Khmai literally translates to eat rice, food is never served without it) and several small dishes. It can range from fried veggies, fried beef or pork, fried fish (noticing a pattern yet?), fried frogs, always a soup, and usually followed up by a sweet, either stickey rice balls filled with coconut or sugar wrapped in banana leaves or fruit (dragon fruit is my favorite). The strangest foods I've eaten so far are snake, ants, frogs, and even dog (which just happened to be served in a curry with ants, as if the dog wasn't strange enough to my western tastes). My sister and I will talk for about an hour or so before I head up to my bedroom and study, read, or watch a movie on my notebook before I fall asleep around 8 or 9. And that's my typical day during training, I'm sure it will change a lot once I get to my permanent site, only hope that I have a host family that's just as nice....and maybe a western style toilet!

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/1/1225444740/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/1/1225444740/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/1/1225444740/tpod.html Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:17:12 -0500 Starting in addis ababa, Ethiopia

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Beja, Alentejo, Portugal

So Beja is not a tourist town really but I guess that´s the appeal of it. The original plan was to go from Lisboa to Evora but there are no hostels there so Anna, Alex, Jason and I took the bus to Beja where there is a hostel, an hour south of Evora. We were traveling for most of the day so we spent the night carving Oranges to look like pumpkins and having a feast of salmon and veggies. The hostel is completely empty and the town as well. Turns out that there´s a festival going on in a small town called Alvito, not too har but impossible to get to since all the taxis want 50 euros one way and no buses run on the weekends so it´s off to Evora.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/1/1225130880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/1/1225130880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/1/1225130880/tpod.html Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:16:30 -0500 Starting in addis ababa, Ethiopia

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Lisbon, Estremadura, Portugal

So finally arrived in Lisboa after a week in Coimbra. Definitely did not think that I would be in Portugal this long but I´m happy I am, this is probably my favorite country so far. Lisboa is a lot smaller than what I imagined for the capital of Portugal, 1.5 million people I think. The city is built on several hills so there´s a lot of walking to be done in the major districts: Alfama, old district with a castle and winding streets, Bairo Alto, funky district with tiny cafes, lots of street art and huge night scene, Baixa, modern shopping district with a long streets that leads down to the waterfont, and Belem, a suburb farther away that has the famous Torre de Belem (most famous tower in Portugal) and is home to the first pasteis de nata (custard tarts that are served EVERYWHERE in Portugal, Belem has the best!). Met some a couple of really nice Aussie girls at the hostel and went with them and a couple others to Sintra, a Disney-like town 30 min. outside of the city, lots of palaces and gardens. Cooked a bunch of dinners together at the hostel and joined up with another group for a night of amazing Fado (solo singer with a guitarist, very emotional music) and Bairo Alto for the crazy night scene, lots of fun, dancing, and 80´s music! Turns out that the Aussie girls, Alex and Anna, are going to Morocco as well so we´re all going to travel together plus another Aussie guy, Jason. Plan is Seville, Cordoba, Granada, Malaga, Tarifa, and then Tangier, Morocco!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/1/1225566240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/1/1225566240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/ckulenguski/1/1225566240/tpod.html Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:15:00 -0500 Starting in addis ababa, Ethiopia

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Évora, Alentejo, Portugal

So with nothing to do in Beja, we all caught the bus to Evora, famous for a chapel that is made completely of human bones. The whole town only took a few hours to see and the chapel was CREE-PY, yes, made of the bones of 5,000 people! After seeing the chapel, Anna and I wandered around town and found a small cafe to sit, read, and sip port in. We were watching the time and checking the bus schedule to make sure we left the cafe with enough time to get to the bus station. Once we got there though, we found out it was a holiday, All Saints Day, and we just missed the last bus! The guy at the ticket desk said we could catch a bus to Portel, 30 min. south and then hitch from there, only option since we already paid for a ccomodations and a taxi back would be 80 euros! So we catch the bus and arrive in Portel where a couple of guys working the counter tried to call us a taxi with no luck, kept saying nata, nata which was a bit frustrating. Finally after 30 min. of trying to communicate with them we walk into town and knock on one of the taxi driver´s doors, said he would drive us back to Beja! So crisis avoided, we made it back 4 hours after we intended and had a cook-up with Alex and Jason...who were smart enough to take the early bus!!!
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