My Sister is Knocked Up

            People who have talked to me in the past 2 months would know that my sister is pregnant. Yup. Knocked up. I’ve had lots of fun conversations with her about it. I think this might make for somewhat of an interesting blog topic. Note: All conversations were in the Khmer language, and have been translated into American English and American slang below (while keeping all important Khmer wordings).

            I first found out actually from my neighbor. My neighbor and my sister were talking, and I was upstairs hanging my laundry. The neighbor screamed up at me “heeeey! Guess what! You’re sister has a baby in her belly!” It was one of those moments where I understood quite clearly what she said, but I pretended I didn’t because I had no idea how to respond. So I just kinda made awkward noises and was like… what? So she repeated.

Neighbor: Your sister has a baby in her belly.

Sister: No I don’t.

*Then my sister walked inside in embarrassment for a quick second.*

Neighbor: It’s true, she has a baby. Ask her.

*Sister comes back*

Me: Sister, do you have a baby in your belly?

Sister: ….. I…don’t…. know…..

Me: What do you mean you don’t know?

Sister: My period is 5 days late…

Neighbor: See? What’d I tell yah. Knocked up.

Well, this was gonna change everything! For like a week or two I was in like shock. I asked her every week “so, do ya have your period yet??” I don’t know squat about babies. And my sister already works way too hard. Add a baby to the mix, and I’m just gonna feel too bad. She is not going to let me help her with chores and stuff. The baby is just gonna pee everywhere (in Cambodia, the world is a baby’s diaper). I was super dramatic about it and whined to my mother about it on the phone.

My sister’s reaction was actually quite similar to my own. She told me before she told her husband. Apparently it is Khmer belief that if a pregnant woman eats spicy foods, she will abort the baby. That night, she must have eaten like 15 raw chili peppers. She kept telling her husband how hungry she was for spicy foods, and asking him to buy her some.

Sister: Wow, I am SO hungry for spicy food. I don’t even want to eat rice, I just want to eat spicy. Diana, remember that really spicy thing we ate once?

Me: what? No…
Sister: Remember? We went to the Wat to watch a play, and we ate that spicy thing.

Me: Oh yeah.

Sister: THAT’S what I want to eat. Will you get it for me husband?

Brother: no.

She continued to eat spicy foods for a few days. Finally, the opportune moment came up, and I asked her about it.

Me: Sister, do you want to have a baby?

Sister: ehh… no. Having a baby is really hard. I will be very busy.

Me: I know. I want to tell you that if you do have a baby (we still weren’t sure at this point), I want to help around the house. Don’t be afraid to ask me for help. I could wash dishes and sweep the floors and…

Sister: you don’t know how.

Me: Yes I do! I’ve told you this already! In America, I washed dishes all the time. We didn’t have a machine until I was in College!

Sister: okay. But I won’t ask you.

            Eventually she stopped eating spicy foods, and told her husband that she suspected she was pregnant. One day when I came home for lunch, she told me it was confirmed, she is indeed preggers.

Sister: I’m going to have a baby, and it’s a boy.

Me: Oh yeah? How do you know that?

Sister: The fortune teller told me.

Me: *stifling a laugh* oh good, well at least we know now.

            About a week later, I came home for lunch again, and before I could sit at the table my sister stopped me and shoved a pregnancy test in my face.

Sister: Do you recognize this?

Me: Yes, I know what that is. Did you use it already?

Sister: Already.

Me: *takes a closer looks* Well, you’re pregnant.

Sister: yeah. Is this a good pregnancy test?

Me: I don’t know! But I’m pretty sure it’s right.

(She is always asking me to read the boxes of medicines and make-up and lotion that she buys so I can tell her if it’s good quality or not)

            Now that I knew for sure she was pregnant, I figured I should probably make sure she’s keeping the right nutrition. Especially since she was feeling so nauseous every morning and barely eating anything.

Sister: I want to throw up.

Me: You should try to eat.

Sister. What is good for me to eat?

Me: Fruits and vegetables are always good. And milk.

Sister: I know.

Me: And you should stop drinking coffee and coke.

Sister: okay.

Me: You should eat protein, so try to get some meat in.

Sister: No, the doctor said I should eat fish. Fish is really good for pregnant women.

Me: What? What doctor? You didn’t go to a doctor.
Sister: He said I should eat fish forever.

Me: That’s all you eat anyway!
Sister: That’s right. So it’s good for the baby.

            On another occasion I was hanging out (sit playing, as they call it) with my sister, and she confided this in me

Sister: I don’t want my baby to be black.

Me: Your baby will be beautiful like you.

Sister: Yes but my husband is black. I don’t want my baby to look like my husband. I want it to be white and look like you.

Me: *awkward laugh*

Sister: The ladies at the market told me the baby will look like you.

Me: Why?

Sister: Because you live here. So the baby will have a long nose and white skin.

Me: I… don’t think that’s how these things work.

Sister: So the baby won’t look like you?

Me: no. The baby will look like you and your husband, and the baby will be smart and beautiful.

            Most recently, I was sitting at the dinner table with my whole family. They were all speaking in rapid Khmer. Usually when I do that, I completely tune it out and eat dinner in what is usually much needed silence. But this time, I heard bits and pieces, and I just had to interject.

Me: Sister, are you saying that you have stopped drinking coke because you are afraid it will make your baby black?

Sister: Yes, and I need to drink a lot of soy bean milk to make it white.

Me: uh..huh.. and who told you this?

Sister: the market ladies.

Me: right… and are they health workers?

Sister: no. Why, is it not right?

Me: HAHA NO! That’s not true at all! don’t listen to them! I mean, you shouldn’t drink coke for the same reason you shouldn’t drink coffee, but coke won’t make your baby black!
Family: LOL

Me: You’re eating a lot of chili peppers over there. Are you going to have a red baby?

Family: LOL

Me: And how about your favorite drink, the green Mirinda? You know, if you drink that you’re baby is going to be green!

Family: LOL

Sister: hey! She knows how to make fun of me!

Family: LOL

            Now it is a running joke in my family. Every time she eats something particularly colorful, I tell her what is going to become of her baby. I’ve also upped the ante a bit to include smells. I told her if she keeps eating stinky food, her baby is going to be really stinky, to which she laughed and replied that it’s okay, she’ll just give her baby a bath.

            Now that she is over 2 months pregnant, the whole family has kind of gotten used to the idea. I would even say we could approach excited as we get closer. Well, excited in a completely different way. Having a baby isn’t like in America. It’s not as big of a deal. But we’ll be excited for Cambodian standards.

            She did eventually go to the Health Center for a check-up. The Health Worker gave her vitamins and told her she is due in October.

            I’m sure there will be tons more awesome conversations with my sister about it. Just wait til she actually has the baby! Did you know that in Cambodia, when a woman gives birth, they cook the mother? Quite literally, they wrap the mother up really tightly, put her on a wooden bed, and then set a fire under her. But maybe at that point I won’t be having witty conversations with my sister about pregnancy superstitions. Maybe I’ll just be there with like 500 liters of water making her drink every two seconds.

Here are some pre-pregnancy pictures from a day trip the three of us took to Kampong Cham a few months back:

Me and my Sister

Brother and Sister, husband and wife. These are the stairs to the top of Phnom Srei

Phnom Srei means girl mountain. There is also a "man mountain" but the girl mountain is taller. The khmer folk tale says that the men and women had a contest to see who could build a taller mountain before the sun came up. The women tricked the men into thinking the sun was coming up, and while the men were resting, the women continued working and won the contest when sun actually did come up.

At the top. After stopping every 5 steps so that my sister (in high heels) and my brother (the smoker) could take a breathing rest.

The view.

Of course, there is a pagoda at the top. This is a list of donators to bulding the wat, I believe.

My brother in front of an ancient temple

Exploring the ancient temple.

We need YOU!! How YOU can help ME help THEM!

This blog is about my two biggest projects at the moment, and how YOU can help!

First, let me tell you about my library.

When I first came to site, my co-teachers gave me the quick layout of the school. They said "here's grade 12, grade 11, etc, the school directors office, and over yonder in that general direction is the library."

Me: Can I see it?

Co-teachers: no.

Me: Why not?

Co-teachers: because it is not ready yet.

About a month later, we were having a 'school clean up day' and I heard that they were moving the location of the library. I offered to help but they wouldn't have it, again saying it wasn't ready.

Finally about a month after that I was given a key to go see the library.

I opened the door to find.... garbage. literally. garbage. Tons of old shredded textbooks in Khmer. They were covered in filth, strewn all over the floor. A closer look showed that they were all useless old editions of textbooks.

I spent hours in the library, often with student helpers, sorting through the old books. We separated the books into subjects. Then I went through I made a "garbage pile" of books that were completely unusable, which was far more than 50% of the books. The rest of the books are readable, but are useless to the school because they are old editions of out-of-date textbooks. I will likely give out many of these old textbooks to students.

That's when I started talking to one of my counterparts (Lina, pictured above) about really developing a library. We found an appropriate room, and discussed our budget. I began filling out the forms, and he began dreaming of what the library would be like once it opened. 

Lina was so excited that he actually began the painting process already! He chose a work day, enlisted a couple student helpers, and set to work. He told me he wanted the library to be yellow. and green. and blue. I was a little nervous... but it turned out great!!

Since then, I have begun painting a giant World Map with the help of my honor society students. Students in Cambodia know very little about geography. Many can’t even point out Cambodia on a map, and when you do show them their country, they are always astounded by how tiny their country is. The map is a great project for my Honors class because it is a volunteer project, and it will coincide with geography research.

Money that I raise through this website will go mostly to books and bookshelves. My counterpart and I hope to have tons of books in both English and Khmer. We want fiction and non-fiction in both languages, as well as some dictionaries and teacher resources. The remainder of the money will go to paint, posters, office supplies, and cleaning supplies. Students and teachers both envision a place where they can go and study or reference books when they have free time during the day. We are all very excited, and we can’t wait to get started pulling it all together!

To donate to this project, please visit https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=303-024

My second big project is called Create Cambodia. It is a collaborative project, organized by myself and 3 other volunteers, and hopefully joined by even more. Create Cambodia is a 2 day arts festival. Peace Corps Volunteers around the country create art based clubs where students are allowed to express themselves through dance, music, visual arts, fashion, comedies, role-play, or pretty much anything.

Then, in the beginning of May will be the 2-day festival at a beautiful venue near Phnom Penh. We imagine there will be about 160-180 students, plus Khmer counterparts, chaperones, and Peace Corps Volunteers. In addition to performances and galleries by students, we are also inviting professionals to come perform, lead workshops, or set up information booths.

Mostly, the festival is an opportunity for students to get a taste of arts education, as it is completely non-existent in this country. And it is an opportunity to meet and greet professionals, as well as other student from around the country, with whom they will have a lot in common.

I have 2 small groups of students who I hope will be participating. First is my chorus of about 10 students. We have been rehearsing for a little over 2 months. They can sing a few English and Khmer songs together. I also held blind auditions, and will allow 3 of my students to be featured and sing solo pieces. The second group is actually the group of students who did the role play on Womens Rights Day (see previous blog).

Check out our super-official website at http://createcambodia.wordpress.com/

Funds raised for the festival will go mostly to pay for food during the festival and the venue. Funds will also help purchase t-shirts and advertising paraphernalia. Groups of students will be contributing by fundraising for transportation costs. 

To donate to this project, please visit https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=303-022

Donations to both projects are tax deductible. All the money goes directly to the projects explained. Without your donations, neither project is possible. So I ask that you please consider donating, and spreading the word to anyone you feel might be interested in doing a little good around the world.

Thank you SO MUCH in advance for your support, from myself, and more importantly from the people who will be benefiting from your donations.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. Email me at diana.broberg@yahoo.com

International Women's Rights Day

Today is International Women’s Day, I am celebrating by reading stories and watching videos of countless women who have done extraordinary things and who really inspire me. I encourage you to check out this website and take a look at a few of these women.

http://www.makers.com/

I’ve always been a feminist, but of course I never gave myself that title until I was much older. Maybe it’s something that comes with having 2 brothers and countless older male cousins constantly roughing me up, but I just always had the opinion that if they could do something, there is no reason why I couldn’t also do it- possibly even better than them. I have been known to be competitive, sometimes to a fault, and that just stems from my innate thirst to prove myself.

When I was a kid, my mom signed me up to play baseball on my older brother’s PAL team. I played for two summers and I loved every second of it. I was the only girl on the team, and I was one of the youngest, if not the youngest player. I’m not going to say I was the best player on the field, but I was good. I never struck out once in those two years. I hit the ball at every at-bat, which was something none of the boys could say. I never hit a home run, but the coach could count on me for some contact.

My first year, I remember being somewhat oblivious to the fact that I was a girl. I wanted to play my best, not because I was a girl, but just because I wanted to be respected on the team. By my second year, I started listening to what parents and other coaches would say. Simple things like “wow, you have a girl on your team? And she’s good!” made me notice that people viewed me differently. Then I looked around and noticed that sure enough, there were maybe only 1 or 2 girls in the whole league. But anyway, I just loved the game. I wanted to be the first female major league baseball player. That was my dream.

But, after 2 years, my parents decided not to enroll me in baseball again. I’m still not sure of the reason. Maybe because they were worried their daughter was becoming too much of a tomboy? Or maybe they were afraid the boys’ skill would be too much for me as I got older? Or maybe it was because of that one game where I was assigned to play at first base, and my jealous brother flung a ball so fast at me during drills that it so painfully bent backward my entire big toenail. Regardless, that dream was never realized. In grade 7, I tried out for softball and played a year of that, but I still preferred baseball.

In high school I got really into volunteering locally and internationally. My efforts were noticed by my community. Many organizations, such as NOW recognized my dedication to serving others as a woman. I still was kind of clueless as to why it made a difference that I was a woman doing these things. Still for me, the most frustrating thing about being a woman was that I had to take gym class with GIRLS and they never wanted to actually play sports or do anything besides gossip (why couldn’t we do both at the same time?). Looking back, I now realize how much of an honor it is to be recognized by organizations like NOW.

College is when I really started becoming interested in women’s rights, and women’s empowerment. At the end of my freshmen year, I got out of a 3 year long abusive relationship. It took me months and months to climb out of that emotional rut, but it made me so much smarter and stronger. Once I was comfortable, I shared my story with people who would listen, hoping that if some can learn from my mistakes, they can spare themselves from making the same mistakes. In classes, I saw first-hand how professors and other people in power really do treat men and women differently. And not in a gender sensitive way, but in an unfair and sometimes offensive way. In my education classes, we studied statistics in education pertaining to gender, race, and social status. So, even if I hadn’t seen it in real life, there it was in black and white.

Later in college I started getting this idea that maybe I could do the Peace Corps. I secretly started my application, and I didn’t tell anyone until about 2 months into it. I was afraid that I wouldn’t know how to retaliate to “you shouldn’t do Peace Corps, you’re a girl. It’s unsafe.” And sure enough, when I did tell people my plans, I did get some of that backlash. To me, that is the most pathetic answer to “why not?” –“because you’re a girl.” It makes my blood boil. But I learned to take it quietly, retaliate softly when necessary, and then, most importantly, prove them wrong.

And now, here I am today. I am a Peace Corps volunteer in Cambodia, and by George I’m doin’ it. Actually, the majority of volunteers in my K5 group ARE female!

Even though I’m proving myself to doubters in America, that doesn’t mean I’m without trial here. Actually, there are many instances here where gender discrimination is way worse than in America. I am a foreigner, so I am given a certain amount of respect, but I am still a woman. There have been a few awkward conversations and even arguments with Khmer men because I was holding firm on my opinions which opposed to theirs. I have been warned “teacher, he is a male teacher, and he is older than you. You know that, right?” “yes, I know that, but I’m sorry, I’m not going to change the way I pronounce words, just because he is afraid students will realize he is wrong.” Or “I’m not going to make an exception for his daughter to study in my class when she is too young, just because he is male and older.”

Almost all of the teachers at my school are male. So, the fact that I am a woman does not go unnoticed. I do have to put up with occasional comments about my body. Here in Cambodia, I still need to prove myself to be more than just “a tall foreigner with white skin that came to meet the children and by eye candy for the faculty.” When I tell my faculty about plans I have or ideas, most often the response I get is basically “that’s cute. Good luck.” I have still only been at site for 5 months, so I am still establishing myself and proving myself, but I know for a fact that the first few projects would have been easier if I was a dude.

The hardest thing for me out here is seeing other women suffer from their lack of opportunity. Girls who stop school after 9^th grade so they can go work at the factory. Bright females having to stop school so that their family can pay for the younger male siblings to go to school and private classes. Girls being married off or made to help work in the market before they finish grade 12. Wives being forced to stay home and be housewives when they’re more than capable of having successful careers. Wives being forced to stay home while the men go out to drink and have girlfriends. Wives disallowed to travel, even to visit their own parents. Wives and sisters not being able to speak their minds because they are afraid of being beaten. These are all things I’ve seen with my own eyes, and heard with my own ears. The cool thing about the Peace Corps is that you live with the people and you build close relationships with them. I have women friends here who confide in me on all of these things. I don’t sit in an office and read statistics. I get the real stories from the real people. And I guess that while confronting their husbands is for the most part out of the question for me, the best thing I can do is be there for these women. I wish I had magic words to tell them to make the injustice go away, but there aren’t any. I just listen, care, and tell them that despite their situation, they are so special and so strong.       

Last night I had a particularly tough conversation with my sister. She really opened up. I mostly just listened and sat with her for a few hours. I helped her go through possible plans of action, and then left it all up to her. I didn’t get much sleep last night. I was upset and things felt hopeless.

And then, ironically, I woke up to International Women’s Rights Day. Here in Cambodia it is a real holiday and students even get off from school. One of my students invited me to her village, where she told me she was giving a speech. I had nothing better to do and I really wanted to be supportive, so I went.

I was surprised to see a number of my students- male and female- congregated at a house. My student showed me a small wall-less library that she had actually fundraised for and had built so that young children in her village could come read books after school. She was so excited to show it to me, and I was so excited to see it! There was only one small bookshelf, and as I said, there weren’t any walls, but she did that! 11^th grade female Laitheam did that!

All the students were incredibly excited to have me there. Laitheam told me she wanted me to be an honored guest, but I refused that haha. She wanted me to sit with the village chief, but I was much more comfortable sitting with my students.

Then 10 of my students put on about a 15 minute play talking about the role of mothers in Cambodian families. The play was in Khmer, so I did not catch all of it. But basically, the play began with a few mothers working hard and being treated poorly, and then by the end, the participating men had a change of heart and thanked the women for all their hard work.

I sat there with a huge grin on my face and my camera pointed at them the whole time. I was an incredibly proud teacher today. While things are certainly far from perfect now, there is hope for women here in Cambodia. If this is what the new generation is already putting forth, I believe in a few years, women in Cambodia can see big improvements. I now see that my role here is to work for a better future, even though I won’t see the benefits myself in my time here. Educate the youth and encourage them, and soon they will become leaders of this country.

Once again, the students have done the teaching, and I have done the learning.

From left to right: Borun- my oldest brother and also the sub-school director, Dad- my brother's father, me, mom- brothers mother, Svannah- oldest sister- married to Borun, Sokhen- my sister.

From Left to Right: Dad, some random lady, me, mom, sister Savannah, Sokhen, and Pisal- my brother married to Sokhen.

My grade 7 class

Sorry its blurry. The same class, and thats my co-teacher Daly, the only female English teacher in the school. besides me.

Ants made an anthill IN MY ROOM! On the second floor, nonetheless!

Mah sistah.

Ritz Crackers and Fluff

A lot has been going on, but it’s tough to pick one things to write about that will actually hold the interest of my readers. So I guess I’ll just give you a brief overview.

            I’ll start with a project I’m working on. 3 other volunteers and I are working to plan Cambodia’s first National Fine Arts Festival. It’s a big project that we hope can become an annual thing for PCV’s to facilitate. We are calling it Create Cambodia. The idea is that PCVs all over the country facilitate arts clubs in their schools. They can do basically anything, based on the interests of their students. We don’t know what exactly we will have yet, but some examples we gave were drama, comedy, music, dance, creative writing, visual art, fashion, architecture, etc. Then in May we are going to have a 2 day festival where all the clubs come showcase their work. We also will have performances and booths run by professionals, and some universities will be represented as well. So, as you can imagine, this is a pretty huge project with a considerable financial undertaking. We took the route of a PCPP grant (Peace Corps Partnership Project). This means that YOU can donate to this project! We are trying to raise 75% of the budget, and our groups will be responsible for fundraising the final 25%.

Here is our website: http://createcambodia.wordpress.com/

Here is a promotional video I made for the project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Evp8WIa_jq0

Here is the PCPP donation page: https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=303-022

            I have one other big project happening. I will be developing a library at my high school with one of my co-teachers, Lina. I have made a PCPP grant proposal for that as well, but due to a lot of frustrating obstacles, it is not yet up on the website. I will let you know when it is. However, do keep this project in mind as you donate to Create Cambodia. I will really need the support of my friends and family to fund this project.

            I was in Phnom Penh for almost a whole week for IST (in-service-training). The training was pretty typical for Peace Corps. Really long days. Long sessions. Some useful information. Some not useful. Typical. Sessions were from 8AM-5PM, and lasted 2 days.

            After those sessions, I then went to 2 hour meetings for the curriculum development project. Really quickly I’ll explain that Peace Corps is very much involved in writing a new curriculum and developing new textbooks for all students to learn English in Cambodia. This will be a long drawn-out project and will take place over a couple generations of volunteers before the new books are finally used in classrooms across Cambodia. The curriculum for grades 7-9 has been approved, and PCVs are now writing the textbooks. We also got the go-ahead to start writing the curriculum for grades 10-12. I was assigned to grade 10, which is awesome.

            IST was over Friday, and I wanted to go back to site on Saturday, but I stayed to work on the curriculum with my team. I figured no problem, I can go home on Sunday.

            I went to the bus station on Sunday and went to buy my ticket to Prey Veng. The seller said “Sorry, there is no bus to Prey Veng today.” Uhmm… what?? Prey Veng is the only province with only one daily bus to and fro. YOU CAN’T CANCEL IT’S ONLY BUS. So I was stuck in Phnom Penh another night. I know this doesn’t sound so bad (air conditioning, American food, etc…) but I had NO money for this, and I was really hoping to go back to teaching on Monday. Alas, no good.

            I got over it. Eventually.

            Then on Thursday, I was on the road again. I was invited to the wedding of one of my Khmer teachers from training. He lives in Svay Reing, which is the province right next door. So it should have been easy to get to, right? WRONG.

            I got up at 5AM.

            I rode my bike 15k to the provincial town.

            I left my bike at a fellow PCV’s house.

            I walked to the bus/van station.

            I argued with motorcycle taxi drivers, who lied to me and told me that there were no vans going to Nyek Loung today.

            Then I was hounded by 3 different van drivers, all going to Nyek Loung.

            I screamed at one of the drivers to stop touching me.

            Luckily I knew one of the drivers, and got on his van.

            We drove the 30k to Nyek Loung, which is a town in Prey Veng. Nyek Loung is one route that you can take to go to Phnom Penh, but it involves a ferry. People going to Prey Veng usually don’t take this route, but people going to Svay Reing do.

            I got out of the van at Nyek Loung and a nice man helped me find a different van going to Svay Reing.

            I squished into the over-flowing van. I listened to the people talk about me for a while before I let them know that I can speak Khmer and I know what they’re saying.

            The driver stopped to buy me a nom pow (a sticky bun with egg and other stuff inside-actually delicious).

            Finally, I was dropped off in the town of the wedding, at the local high school, where another volunteer was working. I got there 6 hours early for the wedding (because I had no choice), so I hung out with said volunteer.

            Then, as other volunteers attending the wedding arrived, they picked me up in their van and we drove the 6k to the village the wedding was in.

            The wedding itself was pretty fun. I’ve been to a lot of non-fun weddings. This one was alright. I danced with Samon (my teacher and the groom). I met his wife, who was GORGEOUS. I danced with other volunteers. I danced with random Khmer people. I yelled at Khmer men who hounded me. Then after the wedding, all the ladies went back to the house we were keeping our belongings to sleep. There, we slept on rice mats on the floor- true khmer style. We played truth-or-truth, and drifted off to sleep. In the morning we woke up to a giant tarantula on the wall, and rat poop all around us. Love Cambodian creatures. I'm really glad I went because Samon was so happy to have us, and it was so good to see all of my favorite teacher from Training again.

            Going back to site was just as exciting as getting there. Just backwards.

            I came back to the hottest day I’ve had in Cambodia yet- and no electricity. I was told our electricity was going to be out for 3 days because of a storm in Vietnam. There was no escaping the heat. At night, my host family slept outside on the porch, trying to entice a few breezes that wouldn’t reach them in their humid room. They invited me to join them, but I just put up with it and slept with my windows open.

            The next day (yesterday, aka Saturday) I rode my bike back to Prey Veng to charge my computer and my phone at my friend’s house. We hung out, went to the market, and watched a bit of a soccer game. He bought oreos. I bought another Engrish shirt. This one says “Youtube myspace, and I’ll Google your Yahoo. Hahaha.

            And that’s my last 2 weeks in a large nutshell.

            Now enjoy some pictures.

P.S. Ritz crackers and marshmallow fluff are DELICIOUS together!

Sitting in front of Buddha. This was before I was encircled by about 10 grandmas petting me and spitting on me as they told me they love me and I'm just like what they see on TV.

Parade around the building 3 times.

The woman in the center with the gold on her head is my mother. She is the mother of my host brother. She lives in Phnom Penh but loves to come visit me.

My "father" snuck this shot of me.

They wanted to take a picture of me with the kids, because I'm their first foreigner.

monks.