Site Visit- CONQUERED

Once a year, Peace Corps staff comes to pay you a site visit. The idea is that they see how you’re integrating, how you’re working, and how happy you are. Then they ask the same questions to your counterparts and your supervisors.

I have only been at site one month, but my province was to first to be visited. Lucky me.

I was actually looking forward to this a bit. Maybe that is sad. But I’ve been cooped up at site for a month without any visitors, and not being allowed to really go anywhere. Peace Corps told us to get ourselves a room in a guest house in Prey Vang City for Tuesday Night, because we would have a meeting Wednesday morning.

On Tuesdays, I finish teaching at 9AM, which is wonderful. So I went home, changed, grabbed my bag, and hopped on my bike to travel the 15K to Prey Vang. I made it there in record time- only 45 minutes. My friend Leah was already there, shopping around the market, so I went to the hotel, checked in, and met her there. Boy, was I happy to see her! I was starting to go a little crazy at site for lack of familiar faces. We ran some errands, and met the other two volunteers in our province for lunch.

Leah and I are officially khmer. We have mastered the art of fitting two people on a bicycle. She is an excellent driver, and I’m just the darn best balancer on the rack on the back of the bikes.

We all went to the Tela to hang out in A/C and get some kinda crappy ice cream. It was magical. Then Leah and I went to go get our nails did. Also magical. Except the lady spend like an hour on Leah and like 10 minutes on me. Weird.

Then we all had lunch together, including Peace Corps staff. It was a pretty good meal. I enjoyed catching up and speaking almost my normal English speaking speed.

After dinner, us volunteers treated ourselves to a debrief and some storytelling time by the river. Then Leah and Brandon went home and Leah and I walked to our hotel- quite briskly. We weren’t sure if we should be more afraid of the dogs at every house, poised for attack, or the silhouette of a man hanging out a little ways away under a tree.

Peace Corps left me a gift at the reception desk of the hotel- my package!!! Excitement! So Leah and I ran upstairs and sliced it open and….

Fluff. Marshmallow fluff. Everywhere. I pulled out the few granola bars and oatmeal packets that were lucky enough to avoid the sticky goo, and then just stared at the damage for a little while, trying to come up with a gameplan. I ended up just taking the whole box into the bathroom, and scraping off the fluff from every individual item, armed only with a sink and 3 baby wipes. I washed fluff off of oreos, post-its, 3 recorders, chocolate syrup, a book, Music by the Masters, and more. Thank god I was able to open  this in a guest house room with running water! Otherwise, not only would all this stuff have been unsalvageable, but my room would have been infested with ants in seconds flat.

Sure enough, the next morning I felt really guilty noticing the small infestation of ants in our bathroom, taking advantage of whatever bits of fluff stuck to the walls, sink, and floor.

Despite being in an air conditioned room, right after my first shower in over a month, I still had a lot of trouble sleeping. Just so much stress about everything. Lots going on right now, with site visit, teaching, and secondary projects.

The next morning I stayed in while Leah went running. She came back with 2 coffees. I love her. Then we went to do our meetings. First we met with the Provincial Office of Education. We met the director and deputy director who are in charge of education throughout the entire province. He was very supportive and appreciative of us being here (which actually is very often not the case). We discussed the things we planned on achieving at site, and the possibility of bringing in more volunteers to Prey Vang next year.

Then things got a little torturous as we visited two different police stations. (Long meetings are especially boring when you can only understand 25% or less of whats going on). We convinced PC to take us to the Post Office before they took us back to our homes (yes I sent a letter- but I’m not saying to who!) PC so kindly threw my bike on top of the car, and drove me back home. Then they continued to Leah’s house to do her site visit.

My site visit was Thursday- yesterday. They ended up coming an hour early, which is really out of character. So I told them they had to wait. I was busy lesson planning with my co-teacher. Then I caught up with them and we went to my house. I met with the program manager and explained in further detail how I thought things were going. I told her what I was in the process of accomplishing and what I hoped to accomplish in the future. Then she had a quick conversation with my sister. I was so happy that I could understand a lot of it. My sister told a bit about her past- some things I didn’t know yet. She talked a lot about me. She said she loves me like her very own sister, and so does her husband. She talked about how happy she is with me here, and how much better this whole family seems to be functioning. She talked about how she thinks I am so smart because I can speak Khmer. Then I understood my Program Manager say that indeed, my language skills are quite advanced compared to many others. All good things.

Then we went back to the school so she could observe me teach and have a meeting with my co-teachers. She observed my 7^th grade class. I felt really good about it. The kids were kinda rowdy and excited, but they were clearly showing success, and having a good time. The last thing we did was an activity where I gave each table a blank piece of paper, and gave directions. I said five statements like “There are two blackboards” and “There are six students”. The students had to draw what they heard. Sounds like a typical activity, but it is totally out of the ordinary for Cambodia. You should have seen the jaws drop and the looks of confusion when I had my co-teacher explain the directions. But that’s one of the fun things about being a Peace Corps volunteer. It went well. I was feeling confident. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the best comments about it though. She said that I should be teaching harder things. I totally disagree- they’ve barely been learning English for a month, but whatever.

Oh, and one of the funniest moments of site visit was when my program manager and I were waiting outside of the classroom. As usual, the swarm of 7^th and 8^th graders formed a tight circle around me and just stared. My program manager was clearly uncomfortable. There were at least 50 students surrounding us, watching us (well, me), and snickering with excitement. I just looked at her and said, this is what it feels like to be a Peace Corps volunteer. Crazy, huh? Even though I am kind of uncomfortable experiencing this every day, I thoroughly enjoyed watching her squirm.

The final thing was a meeting with my co-teachers and my supervisor. My school director was away for the day, so instead the deputy school director filled in. He’s the one who lives at my house, and he is very supportive of me. I think he just really gets a kick out of me being here.

I understood some of the meeting. My 3 co-teachers explain how we share teaching responsibilities. They said that they liked my fresh ideas for activities. They said that the students really like me. They said that the students who are not lucky enough to have me teach their classes are always whining about it. Then, the deputy school director told my Program Manager how happy he was to have me, and how he wishes he had more of me. He asked if we could have one or two more volunteers, so that the other 7 English teachers could work with a volunteer. That’s not gonna happen, as there are tons of other schools in Cambodia that don’t have anyvolunteers, but it was nice of him to ask.

I know I promised to enlighten you all on the process of laundry, but I got a special request to discuss squat toilets instead.

I’m not going to claim to be an expert at this. As a matter of fact, I’m still not entirely sure I do it right. After all, it’s not like I can follow by example- I’ve been fortunate enough to never see another person using the squat toilets before.

Also, my experiences with squat toilets are purely female- obviously. Although I do believe the male experience would be considerably easier.

Now, something I wish I knew about squat toilets before I made the mistake a few times- females, you have to face the wall when you’re peeing. Yeah, otherwise the trajectory is all off.

Squatting is not too difficult. Once you’re down there it’s actually quite comfortable. I guess if you’re old it might be a little difficult getting up… but manageable? I don’t know I’ve never been old.

Ehhh.. but if you’re going numba 2, you’re gonna wanna turn around and face the other way. Or you’re gonna have a mess to clean up.

There probably wont be any toilet paper, so you’re either gonna splash water on yourself from a nearby bucket, or use your hand. Or both. Either way, wash your hands when you’re done.

Your pants are gonna get wet in awkward places. So just accept it and move on.

Well, there you have it kids. Your introductory lesson to squat toilets. Hope you enjoyed.

1. Leeny. If you've read any of my previous blogs, you'll know all about him

2. Me and my lil sis Titi

3. Me and my beautiful sister, Marady

4. Me and Marady again... and Leeny hahaha

5. Gross, Leeny

6. Me helping my sis set up her newly purchased computer