An American Celebrating a Chinese Holiday in Cambodia

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Good luck in this, the year of the DRAGON! Grrrrr!

Yeah this past weekend was Chinese New Year. Cambodia has a pretty big population of people who come from Chinese descent, so although the Khmer Government does not observe Chinese New Year as a national holiday, many people do celebrate in some form or another.

I knew something was up when I came home from Ba Phnom on Saturday night. There was a chicken seller at our house. She was holding the live chickens upside down by their feet, and discussing the price with my oldest sister. She bought two chickens and put them under a little bamboo cage for the night. I said “alright, so what are the chickens for?” My sister said “Chinese New Year!”

The next morning I didn’t leave my room until like 8:30 (pretty darn late). When I did leave my room, I saw that my oldest brother, Borun, was setting up a rice mat on our living room floor, while my oldest sister was decoratively organizing plates of fruit. So I plopped myself down to watch the action.

One by one my family brought different foods and drinks to place on the mat on the floor. My sisters got up super early to do all this cooking. There was a Chinese soup, Chinese noodles, fruits, muffins, rice, cakes, and the 2 chickens bought the night before- roasted whole (head and legs still intact). There was also beer, some soda, a little vodka, and some juice.

Then it was time to pray. My sister (who I believe has some Chinese in her blood) was directing the show. Everyone had to take their turn praying at the rice mat 3 times. The food and drink was being offered to the families’ dead ancestors. There were 6 cans placed on the edge of the mat, each one representing a different relative.  Behind each can were 2 glasses. To pray, you must sit with your legs to the side, and your hands in a prayer position in front of your face. Between your hands are sticks of burning incense- one for each can. You pray out loud for those family members. When you are done, you stick the incense in the cans, and then pour a little vodka and beer in each glass.

My family also spent some time praying and offering food and incense to the “Buddhist house,” or little shrine that is in every Cambodian’s home. That is where I heard my sisters praying for me, which was sweet. They prayed for my luck, health, and happiness, and that I would always have delicious food to eat.

I did not burn incense this time. I was just an observer this time around.

After everyone had prayed three times, we took “paper goods” outside to burn for our ancestors. And I quite literally mean paper goods. For my sister’s grandfather, we burned a paper shirt, a paper box of cigarettes, a paper razor, paper sandals, paper glasses, etc. For her grandmother we burned paper gold and jewelry. For everyone we burned more paper gold and paper 100 dollar bills. I guess the idea is that this stuff goes to the spirits of our ancestors while they are waiting to be reincarnated.

Finally, after the burning party, reminiscent of a teenage girl’s boyfriend gift burning party, we took some of the food out to the porch outside and feasted! We moved all the chairs to the side, sat on the floor, and filled out bellies. The Chinese soup and noodles were particularly delicious. The men finished their meals and left quickly, I don’t why. So it was just the three ladies. My oldest sister pulls out the beer and goes “alright, we’re getting drunk.” I was like- fantastic, it’s not even noon yet. She handed each of us a beer and told us to drink it as fast as we could.

I lost. Third place out of three. Which is actually impressive, because I know for a fact that I have a higher tolerance than both of them. But I just couldn’t “bottom’s up” like they were doing haha. So yeah, we sat around for a few minutes, drunk, and then- my sister declared nap time! What else would you want to do after downing a beer?

I actually napped! I ignored my sweating pores and managed to get a few minutes of real napping! I very rarely can nap during the day in Cambodia.

The rest of the day was spent just sitting around doing nothing. For dinner, leftovers.

Chinese New Year is a 3 day holiday. Chinese-Khmer students and teachers took off from school (without permission). About ¼ of my students were absent in each class. That is actually a lot better than I thought it would be. I thought no one would come. Well, I am not Chinese, so although it was still Chinese New Year, I went to go teach whichever students were dedicated enough to show up.

I came home for lunch. Leftovers. Again. And let me remind you- there are no refrigerators in Cambodia. That is when my sister told me more about the customs of Chinese New Year. Apparently, for three days you’re not allowed to do ANY work. That explains why the chairs were never put back upstairs, and the empty beer and soda cans were still strewn all over the floor. You are not allowed to clean the house, do the laundry, cook, or even wash the dishes. When she said that, I instantly looked down at the plate I was eating off of- that I ate off yesterday- and would have to eat off of the next 2 days.

Unfortunately, I was at a really desperate point with my laundry. Washing my clothes that day was essential. My sisters were a little upset that I was doing laundry, but I told them it was really unavoidable. Then, when I was bringing my soap and hamper to my room, I accidentally spilled laundry detergent on my floor in my room. Being a poor and crafty Peace Corps volunteer, I decided that meant I had to scrub my floor, so as not to waste the soap. You can wash floors with powdered laundry soap, right? Well, it was something that also needed to be done. But once again my sisters commented on my non-chinese-ness.

Eventually, my sister also broke the Chinese-no-working rule. My brother (her husband) said that he was afraid that if I eat that Chinese soup every day for the full three day, I would die. He didn’t want to kill his foreigner, so he had his wife cook me some new food by the third day.

            A part of me actually wonders if my sisters made up the no-working rule. I feel that’s likely, but that’s totally fine. They deserved the break more than anyone.

Turn Right at the Banyon Tree

Last weekend, I had quite the adventure. I went to the one place in my entire province that the Cambodian Ministry of Tourism says is worth visiting- Ba Phnom. My province, Prey Veng is kind of like the arm pit of Cambodia. I’ve noticed that Peace Corps volunteers like to compete with the places they live. The people who live in awesome places brag about it. “My site is the best because I have ice cream, shakes, a roller skating rink, the beach, cheese, a mountain, etc.” Volunteers who don’t have obvious exciting things like that still compete, but the other way around. “My site is the worst, or the most hard core. I have a dirt road. No one speaks English. Etc” When I am involved in these conversations, I like to listen to why people think their sites are so small and forgotten. Then I remind them that I live in Prey Veng Province.

Prey Veng is the only province that the Lonely Planet just flat out says “There is nothing to see in Prey Veng. Just go straight on through to Phnom Penh.”

The first year or two, Peace Corps put a few volunteers in Prey Veng province. Every single one of them ETed (Early Terminated). So Peace Corps stopped putting volunteers there until this year. No one has ETed, but with only 4 volunteers, we are still the smallest province.

Now don’t get the wrong idea. I LOVE my province and I love my site, and even if I was given the opportunity to change sites, I wouldn’t.

So anyway, I had been wanting to see Ba Phnom for a while now. I knew very little about it, other than there was a mountain, some sort of special pagoda, and some ruins that are 500 years older than Angkor Wat. So when my friend who is stationed in Prey Veng town told me she was venturing out there, I invited myself to come!

Friday night, I stayed at her place in the town, to save me from biking an unnecessary 15k in the same day, in addition to getting to Ba Phnom and back. After we ate, we went to her friend’s house (an adorable old Khmer man with amazing stories and impeccable English). He was the one who gave my friend, Taylor, directions to get to Ba Phnom. She said “Wait a minute, I want to see if I can get more specific directions than ‘turn right at the banyon tree.’” I laughed. Then when we went in, she asked her friend “what does a banyon tree actually look like?” I said “wow, you’re serious? I thought you were kidding about turning right at the banyon tree!” But no, it was our only instruction. There were 2 banyon trees we had to look out for. After all, who needs street signs when you have banyon trees?

The next morning, we bought surgical masks (a fashion statement most Cambodians make to keep the dust out of their lungs) and we were on the road by 7AM. We weren’t even on the road a mile when I realized something was very wrong. Taylor was ZOOMING down the road with very little effort, and I was exhausted and sweating through my shirt already. For every rotation that she did on her bike, I did 2, and I was STILL slower than her. Well, I learned just how big a difference having a MOUNTAIN BIKE makes. My bike and I have gotten along pretty well up until this point. It’s a cute city bike with a bell and a basket. But watching Taylor zoom ahead while I pant about a half a kilo behind, I realized what I was missing. She had to keep stopping to let me catch up. It was kind of embarrassing actually…

We biked the 30k in about 2 hours and 15 minutes. When we arrived, we were filthy and exhausted. I was sweating EVERYWHERE. My butt had a giant sweat stain, which was really cute. We successfully found the banyon trees, and didn’t even get lost once.

Taylor’s old Khmer friend lives in Ba Phnom, so we went to his house, where we downed a water bottle each, some sugar cane juice, and 2 bags of crackers. Then the old man said “alright, back on your bikes. We’re gonna tour around the mountain, about 12k." Taylor and I had a laughing fit. We needed to break for a while.

After my butt finally dried, we first went to the ancient ruins. History says that the first big civilization in Cambodia used to be in Prey Veng. Now all that remains is a very small structure. There used to be more, but the Khmer Rouge destroyed a lot during the 70s.

Then we went to the mountain and started climbing. It’s not ‘climbing’ as you might think. There were staircases. But the staircases were so… weird. The higher you got, the steeper the stairs were. Atop the stairs was a very beautiful and elaborate wat. We ran into a Khmer family in the Wat and started talking to them in Khmer. Then the woman says to us in near perfect English “Where are you from, America? Because we live in America now.” Oh- it’s a Kkhmer American family. We should have known, judging by the fact that one son had a laptop, another had an ipad, and the youngest daughter was downloading youtube videos onto her iphone. Well, it actually turns out that this is the family that paid for the Pagoda to be built on the mountain- a whopping 2 million dollars! I’m not going to get too into it right now, but from talking to her we were able to deduce that there are fishy things going on with this is family that is making them so successful.

The most awkward part about meeting this family was this one man who asked the most ridiculous questions, in nearly incomprehensible English. His first question was something to the effect of “Why is it that some countries like America are allowed to make bombs, but other countries aren’t?” His second question was basically “Why does the Arab world hate Americans so much?” We did not respond to either of these questions.

Through the entire dialogue, Taylor and I were eying the plate of sandwiches sitting on the table. They looked like beautiful roast beef sandwiches. I haven’t had a sandwich like that in 6 months. I WANT!

The family invited us to stay and eat… jackfruit with them. Taylor leaned into me and said “her lips are saying jackfruit, but all I keep hearing is sandwich”

We told them we would come back and join them. But we didn’t. No thank you. We also learned that Khmer people in the area are not all that thrilled about having this new pagoda. They miss the thick, cool forrest that used to cover the mountain. I don't blame them! I would too!

We had lunch at a little Khmer restaurant. Then toured around Ba Phnom a bit more. We went to a bunch of Pagodas that are special for different reasons. Not gonna lie, I don’t really remember those reasons.

We also went to the killing fields. I have already been to killing fields in Takeo and Battambang provinces, so I was curious to see what Prey Veng did in their location, and it was exactly what I was afraid of. Takeo and Battambang had memorials built, and a safe place for peoples’ remains to RIP. In Prey Vang, there was literally a tiny bucket filled with mismatched human bones. Taylor's friend said there used to be more bones, but he guessed dogs took them. There was no indication to locations of where things happened 40 years ago. The old man said 40 years ago, this place was filled with huge trees. Now there was only one left for people to see. Khmer Rouge soldiers would kill people by slamming them against the trees, and then throwing them into a pit, so as to not waste bullets or get their weapons dirty.

And that was our day in Ba Phnom. We were back on the road around 2:30. We made it back to Prey Veng town in a record 2 hours (again, with me panting behind Taylor). We stopped for more sugar cane juice, and then I rode the last 15k home.

All together, I rode my bike more than 75k on Saturday, which is about 50 miles. But I now say, it’s not the distance that is impressive, but pathetic bike that I managed to do it on.

I have been enjoying telling Khmer people that I rode my bike to Ba Phnom. They either tell me they think I am a liar, or they look at me like I’m crazy.

I have much more to update you all on, but I’ve been so busy and haven’t had much time to blog. So I’ll try to get in another blog post a little later this week.

I splurged with pictures this time! enjoy!

Yes, I really rode my bike like this.

My sweaty butt.

The tiny ancient temple. The heads on the statues behind me are new. The old heads went missing.

Ancient writings. Their meaning is unknown.

The bottom of the first flight of stairs up the mountain.

The lovely Khmer American family I met. The kids are behind playing on their technology.

The view from the top.

The awesome Khmer man who acted as our personal tour guide.

A bucket of human bones from the Khmer Rouge killings.

The last large tree, used to murder people. The open gazebo is where the bones in a bucket are.

Training Family Love

            I Finally made my way back to visit my training host family, after almost 4 months of not seeing them. I was SO excited, but careful not to let my expectations get too high. There was the chance of it being awkward, since I haven’t seen them in 4 months. Also, there was the chance that my family would be too busy to see me much or spend time with me.

            But I went. And it started off as a disaster. The bus decided not to go to PP (Phnom Penh) that day. So I called a van. The van decided to go to PP a different way that didn’t pass my house. So no good. My last hope was one last van. But the van already passed my house. I had to catch up to the van, and basically jump on while it was still moving haha.

            I got to PP with a 2 hour layover until my bus to Takeo. I treated myself to a $5 meal of pizza and a coke. You know how occasionally you go to a restaurant, and you see the person who is eating alone. And you think, oh that poor person has no one to eat with. That’s sorta embarrassing. Well, that’s me, and I have no problem with that. I eat by myself all the time in Phnom Penh. That probably looks even weirder because what “tourist” goes alone? Haha. Whatever. Nothing can come between me and my pizza.

            Then once in Takeo, I got on a tuk-tuk, and arranged a $2.50 price to take me to my house. But then the tuk tuk driver pawned me off on another tuk-tuk, with other people. So I very clearly said that I will not be paying the same price, because I am now sharing the tuk-tuk. Well, when I got to my house, I gave the driver $1.25, and he flipped out. We argued about it for a while. Eventually I just gave him $2.00 and walked away. He was not happy. Neither was I. I hate being ripped off. I know for a fact that the Khmer people on the tuk-tuk paid on $.75 each.

            But then things turned around, and I had an amazing weekend! My mom saw me walking up to her house, and she came out to meet me. She gave me one of her famous awkward hugs. We went inside and sat down to do some catching-up. Lyny was home sleeping, so she woke him up to come say hi. He decided to be shy any not speak to me right away, so instead I just made fun of him. While I was sitting there with them, my Dad came home from work. He got out of the car to open the gate to his property, and then he saw me. He struck a sketchy pose and gave me a long Hellooooooooo! So he came in, and I dazzled them all with my much-improved Khmer language.

            I took a bath, and then sat with my mom while she cooked. FINALLY, I could adequately tell my mother things I could not express before, such as what foods I like and why. Titi and Jimi came home from school and said their hellos. Then Marady came home too. She had a rough day at work, so I didn’t see much of her the first night. She went to bed. But I had dinner with the family. I almost forgot about how my training family would just put food on my plate. My dad will take a scoop of fish for himself, then another scoop for me. I get it, they’re making sure I feel comfortable to eat a lot, and they want me to have the best parts of the food. But what they don’t know is… I don’t want ANY fish! Lol.

            My mother brought me an apple and cut it up for me to eat, just like old times. Then we watched a bit of TV and went off to bed. My old bedroom is SO nice. I had a HUGE comfy bed and a fan right above me. Not to mention a tiled floor and concrete walls. No mice. No nearby busy road. Not even any need for a mosquito net.

            The following morning, I was awakened by my father hocking loogies, just like old times. I went out of the bedroom, and my mother made me some fish soup. I used to DREAD this fish soup. Who wants to have fish soup when they first wake up? But it was actually.. good!  Not because it was different, just because I guess my taste buds have changed. She bought me some bread to dip into the soup. I enjoyed it.

            An hour or two later, Princess Marady woke up. We went to the market together. I saw some old friends, and we met up with her friends. We had coffee at the market, bought some groceries, and came back home for lunch.

            After lunch I went to go visit my language teacher, Siphen! I was SO excited to see her! I spent about 3 hours there, just talking with her about everything. I can relate to her so well because she is a strong woman, and her values are so close to mine. I wowed her with my language skills. I admit, I was showing off a bit, particularly because there was a group of Australian people there. Siphen has a Home Stay Guest House type thing. I got to watch her teach the Australian dudes how to do laundry by hand. It was SO amusing. But mostly we just sat and shared fruit and shared stories. I am honestly honored she took 3 whole hours out of her incredibly busy life to sit with me.

            Then I went home and sat with my mom, Titi, and Lyny for another couple of hours. We laughed SO HARD. I haven’t laughed that hard at who knows how long. I was the butt of some jokes, mostly for my pronunciation. I have trouble with the word for “older” and the word for “egg”. So to make them laugh, I took the sentence “older sister likes duck eggs” and flipped it up to say “older duck likes sister eggs.” My mom and I came up with animals for Lyny and Titi to imitate the sounds of. You can imagine how that would be entertaining. Then my dad took out his camera phone, and took videos of Lyny acting like a crazy person (often zooming in on me, probably to show off to his friends at work). It was just so good to have no work to do, and to “sit-play”, as they call it in Khmer.

            I bathed, and then played some UNO with Titi and Lyny. I miss having younger siblings to play games with me.

            Dinner was one of my favorite meals! The baby clams with basil. And of course she topped it off with my favorite fruits.

            After dinner, I went to my bedroom. Shortly after that, my sister Marady came in. It was a picture-perfect sister moment. I’ve never had a sister, but I imagine it would be like this. We sat in the bad together for hours talking about everything from culture to boys to our health. We were up til past 11PM, which is ABSURD here.

            The following morning, I ate more rice porridge than I ever thought possible. My mother put a bowl in front of me. I waited for others to come because I assumed it was the family’s bowl. But no, that was my personal bowl. I ate until I felt sick. Then I said my goodbyes and took some pictures. Once again, my mother’s was so memorable. She just holds on around the waste. She’s strong too. She grips on and doesn’t let go. Then she gave me 8 or 9 swift spanks on the butt. We laughed so hard. Then Marady took me to the bus stations. We drank coffee and waited for the bus.

            I was really really sad to leave. I miss them very much. Don’t get me wrong, I love Prey Vang and I love my new host family, but it’s just very different. At my old site, I was very much just a part of the family. I was one of the brothers and sisters. And it was such a loving family. They had their quarrels. Sometimes Marady didn’t get along with her parents, but mostly it was just so loving. And as I said before, I really miss having brothers and sisters my age and younger.

            Speaking of having siblings my age, turns out Marady is actually 24. She’s only a year and a half older than me. She told me she was 25 because they go by the Chinese calendar year.

            Back to the love. I loved watching the family love! Seeing Titi sit snuggled into her mothers’ side. Having every older sibling and parent (including me) make sure that Lyny takes his bath before he eats dinner. Lyny playing a joke on his dad by putting his big round belly in his dad’s face. Then seeing Dad kiss his belly, before smacking him away haha.

            One of the things I talked about with Marady was how men have so much power over women in Cambodia. A father will tell her daughter what she is allowed to study in college. A husband will tell his wife whether or not she is allowed to work. In both of my host families, the husband disallowed work for the wife. My mother in Takeo told me she wished she could work. She is actually a trained pharmacist! But my Dad told her to stay home. We discussed the reasons for this. Dads want the moms to looks after the kids and clean the house and cook. My feminist self was highly offended by this. But Marady told me, it’s also because my Dad loves my Mom so much and doesn’t want her to have to work too hard. Oh. That’s.. really sweet.

            I smiled almost the whole way home to Prey Vang. And the cherry on the top of the love cake was the old Khmer couple sitting next to me on the bus. They barely ever said a word to each other, but they held hands the whole way. That is rare in Cambodia, but it was so adorable.

            Some days/groups of days just really make you regain faith in people and their ability to love one another.

1. Good ol' Lyny.

2. Me and Marady

3. Marady, Titi, and me. Easily the most beautiful girl in this picture is Titi, but they disagreed because her skins looks dark in the picture.

4. My mom with her death grip on me.

5. Me and my mom again.

6. Remember my puppy?? Not so little anymore! And... white! She used to be black! By the way, her name changed to "duit", which means small. I agree, Diana is a terrible name for a dog. Besides, I wouldnt want to hear my mother say my name with the tone of voice she uses to talk to the dogs.

An Analysis of January's Monthly Tests

            Students have a test in every subject once a month. For one of my co-teachers, I am always the one to make the test, and proctor the test. I am one of those sick teachers who everyone hated because I find pleasure in giving tests. I just like seeing who actually learned what. And I think their whining during the test is kind of entertaining too. I know I’m sick.

            I created and gave tests in grades 7, 10, and 12 this past month. Before I gave the tests back, I recorded some data, that I thought may be of interest to you. My grade 7 and grade 10 class did pretty well. My 12^th graders completely bombed.

GRADE 7

            On the test there was numbers from 1-30. They had to translate table, red, skirt, breakfast, and ruler. They answered 3 questions about colors around the classroom. They had fill in the gap sentences with the words in, her, but, trousers, and evening. And finally they had dictation. The two sentences were “What is the time?” and “The cat is on the chair.”

32 Students took the exam (which means that over 20 were absent!)

Grades ranged from 26% to 100%

The average score was 74%

By Cambodian standards, 3 students failed (failing is under 50%)

By American standards, 11 students failed.

9 Students achieved “honors” scores (above 90%)

Student answers that made me laugh, and common mistakes:

What color is your shirt? Is your shirt

What color is your pen? Is your pen

What color is your English book? Is your English book

What color is your shirt? It’s a buler

What color is your pen? Color, black red buler

What color is your English book? It’s a green and buler (anyone? Anyone? Buler?)

One dictation answer: “bod in kad ktodkom”

What color is your shirt? There is 10

Another dictation answer: “An cat is on ruler chili”

GRADE 10

            On the test there were 3 sentences with grammatical errors they had to correct. Fill in the gaps sentences with the words decided, choices, future, explain, and project. A reading passage and 5 easy questions. And fill in the gaps listening.

38 Students took the test.

Grades ranged from 12% to 98%

The average score was 70%

By Cambodian standards, 4 students failed

By American standards, 12 students failed.

7 students had “honors” scores.

Student answers that make me laugh, and common mistakes:

Listening: “I yelled for have (should be help) but no one came.

What will they do in Kampong Som? They will do in Kampong Som.

GRADE 12

            On this test was fill in the gap sentences with Hindu, secret, shoplifter, silent, and dizzy. 2 writing questions, What is your favorite Buddhist holiday, and By the time you graduate, how old with you be. They had 5 scenarios where they had to give advice using “ought to”. They had matching for sentences beginning with “by the time” and “You’d better”. Finally their two dictation sentences were “the spy stole the rare liquid” and “Give the baby breast milk.”

58 students took the test (2 different classes)

Grades ranged from 6% to 100%

The average score was 56%

By Cambodian standards 25 students failed

By American standards 38 students failed

9 students had “honors” scores

Student answers that made me laugh, and common mistakes:

Fill in the blank terribleness:

“I need to sit down because I am feeling Hindu.”

“No talking. I want the students to be Hindu.”

“The police caught the Hindu before he left the store”

Dictation answer from nowhere “The police officer knew thal was”

She has a spider in her food. She ought to eat it (every other student who answered correctly said that she ought to take it out)

Matching: “By the time Diana goes home – feed her baby breast milk” (I DEFINITELY don’t have any babies to be breast feeding)

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Diana! These are terrible grades! Why would you share?” And I will agree with you that Grade 12 in particular did quite poorly. I was disappointed. My co-teacher was downright angry.

But look at that range! How can some students get 100%, and some students get as low as 6%??

Well, the results of the tests kind of show you a main problem with English Education here. Students start learning English in grade 7, and in the first lesson, the book jumps right into reading English. Students who did not take alphabet lessons before 7^th grade are already behind. Then, the English books move so fast, and they never review content from previous chapter. What’s more is that in a school year, teachers sometimes don’t even get through half of the chapters in the text book. But when they study next year, students will pick up the next textbook in the series without catching up on what they’ve missed. So in grade 7, already some students are behind, and a few eventually lose hope in catching up and basically give up. In my class of 56 students, I have about 3 or 4 kids who never participate. Then by grade 10, more students fall behind. By grade 12, the average student in my class can barely scrape a 75%.

            Students in Cambodia do just as much learning in private classes as they do in the public school. Students who can afford it study 5 or 6 hours in the public school, and then maybe 3 additional private hours. Private English classes are much more effective in teaching students because classes are smaller and more focused, and the teacher can choose a more suitable curriculum. So most of the time, the students who score “honors level” on the tests, are the ones who take private classes.

            I know, that’s not fair to the students who cannot afford private classes. And I’ve been struggling with that for a while. But there is very little I can do to catch them up at this point. I do everything that I can. One of the reasons I like making tests is that I can make sure it is fair. I only test students on what we have studied thoroughly and RECENTLY. Khmer tests can sometimes go off-topic. I also give partial credit on tests for nearly right answers. I don’t think my teachers do that. In my grade 7 class I can do a little more to help the kids in the back. I always skim the lesson before I teach to make sure that the book didn’t throw in any new words without introducing them first. Oh, and of course I cannot forget to mention that Peace Corps is writing a new curriculum and series of textbooks for Cambodia. I am on the Grade 10 Curriculum committee.

            Otherwise, where I have a choice, I always try to teach to the middle of the class. I don’t teach t the smartest kids. I challenge them in other ways. For example, when teaching vocabulary, I have one smart student act as my co-teacher and translate words on the board for me, or pronounce the words for the class. I try to simplify some activities for students who are completely lost. And of course, when a lower-level student does something right, I give huge praise, which is another concept so foreign to students.

            Realistically, many of these kids are going to be farmers when they graduate, or when they stop coming to school. The students know that, and those particular students know that you do not need to speak English to be a farmer. So now my philosophy is that if a student wants to learn English and is willing to try and put in some effort, I will go out of my way to push that student up and help them realize their dreams. If a student wants to focus on other subjects like agriculture because English is not essential for them, I will not fight them for doing so. But just like my clever students, I will cheer for their success and try to be a role model of passion for ones work and dedication.

            So I’ve blogged about the results of testing. I will definitely have to make a future blog about the process of testing. So coming soon, “Cheater Cheater Prahok Eater”

1 and 2: More pictures of my neighbor Mikey!

3. My sister Sokhen cooking my favorite dessert

4. My favorite dessert Jayk k'tee! Its bananas, coconut juice, tapioca, and sweetened condensed milk.

5. Pasta that I made with garlic, broccoli, ad baby shrimp

6. That's the house across the street. Check out the colors of that sunrise!

A Singing Band

            So I started this music class. Which is really cool when I think about it. A year ago, while I was still applying for the Peace Corps, I dreamed of going to live in another country where they’ve had little access to music classes. And there, I would teach a music class. It was my dream secondary project. And that’s exactly what I’m doing!

            I have over 50 kids signed up, but on a given day I never have more than 40. It is open to students in grade 9-12, so I would say ages range between 14 and 19. We meet twice a week, for an hour each time. I teach the entire class in Khmer, which is really cool to me. I didn’t know I had it in me.

            When I explained to my school director, my co-teachers, and my students that I wanted to start a music class, I used the word “plaing.” I said I will teach a plaing class and we will sing. Next thing I know, my school director purchased 2 cheap guitars for the school. I was so confused for a while. I told everyone that we will be SINGING. Well, turns out there are different words for music. Plaing is like instrumental music. I should have said “duntrie,” which is somehow different. Basically, I told my community that I was gonna teach a band class where we would sing. After all, I love band…

            Well, now at least the students understand. I make them sing- and they come back week after week! This is a good thing!

            I spend about a half hour on reading rhythms. They can count out loud and clap rhythms in 4/4 time with quarter notes and eighth notes. I just recently introduced half notes. They are usually very successful when I give them measures with combinations of quarter notes and eighth notes to read. But they have a lot of trouble with LISTENING. Trying to get two different sides of the room to clap different rhythms is proving to be very difficult, even if its just clapping straight quarter and eighth notes. They don’t listen, and it’s very hard for me to show them how it all fits together. But then again, it’s only the third week. Practice, practice, practice. These kids never ever had any instruction whatsoever in music. So I gotta take my time.

            The second half hour I spend teaching a song. I started with The Lion Sleeps Tonight. They love the melody with the words. They’re a little wary of the eeeeeeeee um um oway. And they don’t really like the aweengo-weps. It’s a hard song and there’s a lot to it. And to be perfectly honest, at least half of the students cannot even correctly sing a note back to me. What helps is keeping ourselves in the same key the entire class time. Eventually, a couple of students fall into place in the key. I also have it in a key where I can sing it with the girls, but I can also drop down to the boys octave (although it is not very beautiful haha). I do establish the key before we get into the song. We sing some scale patterns and stuff (not really Gordon style- more Mark style). Once again, singing a section by itself goes pretty well, but if I try to put the chorus on top of the aweengo-weps, it all falls apart.

            I’m gonna keep at it for a few more classes, see if I can get them to pull it together. If not, I’ll start them on an easier something. Regardless, they are learning in the process.

            One problem I have here, that is definitely never a problem in America, is that I am seriously lacking females. Yesterday I had thirty something boys and only 4 girls. The girls are SO SHY. I need to recruit myself some more girls ASAP. Once I do that, maybe I can have sectionals, just so I can give more individual attention, and really see for sure where the skill level of my students is.

            I am enjoying my music class very much. We laugh a lot. Sometimes I tease them about confusing quarter notes and eighth notes, or about not understanding my instructions even though I’m speaking Khmer. Often, I let them tease me about losing my marker ever 5 seconds, or about my cracking manly voice when I sing with the boys. We have a good time.

            I’m just trying to revel in the fact that I’ll probably never again have students who are so keen to learn music from me. For example, I will be teaching, and I’ll look out into the room and see 1 or 2 kids “sneakily” taking pictures or videos on their phones. Actually, just today someone came up to me and told me that I sing beautifully. I asked where she heard me sing. She said she heard it on one of my students’ phones.

            I’ll end this not-so-interesting post with a quote from a blog post exactly one year ago:

“ And so, it is now 2011. The year I student teach. The year I graduate college. The year my performing ensembles in school go on tour to Italy. The year I turn 22. And, more than anything, I hope its the year that I start my Peace Corps service.”

All that happened, and more! 2011 may have been the best year so far. So many wonderful memorable things happened. Sure there was craziness and I had my moments, but everything that I reached for came to be. This year I learned more than anything that making things happen for yourself is possible, but sometimes it’s an uphill battle the whole way. You just gotta be strong enough to keep pushing, and not view trials as failures.

And here’s to 2012. The year that… I’m still in Cambodia haha J

Pictures:

1.      Here’s a shot a couple months ago of some flooding in my area. This was a rice field…

2.      A non-flooded rice field. We were approaching harvest time, because it was starting to yellow. I took both these pictures on a bike ride to and from the provincial town (18 miles).

3.      The sunburn on my legs after the bike ride. And that’s what happens when your knees see sunlight for the first time in 4 months.

4.      4. My neighbor chopping open a coconut. That is my host sister in the background.

5.      And 6. MIKEY! His name sounds like mikey, except you don’t pronounce the K. It’s weird. He’s really really cute, but quite the spoiled little monster. These shots were taken before he really warmed up to me. I took this opportunity to take pictures of him because he was actually wearing pants. 

The Third Wheel

            Two things that Khmer people really love are boat races and dart tosses. Although Water Festival in Phnom Penh was cancelled this year in order to save money for flood victims, pre-water festival boat races happened on the lake in my provincial town. So I went with my brother and sister to check out the action. They put a large lacy hat on my head, because at that point they hadn’t yet figured out that I wasn’t afraid of the sun. It’s cool. I looked good.

            The boat races were pretty cool. In some of the boats there were well over 50 people. And these aren’t like.. yacht races. It’s rowing races. It was fun. And then all over the shoreline were streetcarts to buy Khmer snacks like sugarcane juice, khmer sandwhiches, fried snake, and rice cakes. Also there was a row of carnival games, except every carnival game was the same. It was all a dart toss. You throw your dart at a wall of balloons. The more balloons you pop, the better your choices are for prizes. Prizes ranged from dish soap to beer to cooking pots, to toys to giant stuffed animals. I’ve now been to a couple of events where this game was available. My sister LOVES it. We’re pretty terrible at it though. If we do manage to pop a couple of balloons, she always goes home with new cooking pots and pans.

            So as I’ve said before, my host family is a young couple. My sister is 31 and my brother is 40. Initially I was upset that I didn’t have a “mom and dad” like most of the other volunteers, and that I wouldn’t have younger children at the house. But it has been a blast.

            We occasionally go out to little events, just the three of us. Once there was a big concert down the road a bit. Another time there was a play being performed at the Pagoda. Another time we took a day trip to Kampong Cham. And another time there was a big exhibition with sellers from Vietnam, who set up tents and sold infomercial-worthy stuff.

            When we do go out the three of us, my role as the third wheel is so very interesting. They include me in all their fights.

Example:

Sister: If you keep drinking beer, I’m going to move back home.

Brother: And what about Diana?

Sister: She would come with me. She likes me better anyway, don’t you Diana?

Brother: No she wouldn’t. Your house doesn’t even have electricity!

            Sometimes they include me in their flirting, and that’s even weirder. When they're happy they're always teasing each other and hitting at each other, and then they look to get a reaction from me. Honestly, sometimes it’s like middle school.

            What really amuses me is how sometimes it’s like my brother has a second wife in me, and sometimes it’s like my sister has a second husband in me. That’s a weird sentence to write. Allow me to explain.

            When my sister begs my brother for money to play the dart toss, or to buy ice cream or something like that, it’s never for just her. It’s for both of us. So he eventually gives in and gives her money so that us wives can go play a game and get something sweet. Occasionally, my brother will come home with treats like iced coffee or something, and when that happens he always has one for both of us. And with my sister, I can’t help but get girly sometimes and revel in the gift giving and the ability to go “shopping”. At weddings and stuff, he never dances, but I always see him keeping a watchful eye over both of us.

            Even funnier is when I become like a second husband to my sister. She LOVES shopping. She could spend all day at the market picking out secondhand blouses and shoes. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t really enjoy shopping. So many times I’m off out of the way, standing with my brother and whining about how she feels the need to try on EVERY bottle of perfume more than once in order to pick the one she likes. My sister has also taken to using me to carry her things. While she is in the thick of things doing her shopping, me and my brother are holding her wallet, her hat, and her previous purchases. Even when we go to weddings, I carry her stuff. She bought me a wallet big enough to carry my phone and my camera. I think she bought it for me more out of embarrassment of going to weddings with me carrying a big black purse, but that’s ok. She has her own wallet just like it, but she’ll still give me the house key and her phone and whatever else. The wallet is big, but it’s not THAT big! So I end up just carrying her stuff.

            Time for me to get some breakfast. A happy new year to you all! Don’t worry, I brought in the new year just right, with a boat ride on the Mekong, pizza, a countdown, and fireworks. And now starts 2012, an entire year that I will spend in Cambodia. Bring it on.