Diana At the Crossroad: Awesome Person Award, Part I

Needless to say, there are some really incredible people here that I’ve met, and I’ve been inspired by their acts of kindness, whether it’s directed toward me or not. I’m going to write about 2 of them here, and look for more another time. Kinda like a series!

My brother-in-law, Pollo.

His real name is Pollo, but everyone calls him Trea or Tea, which is Chinese for Uncle. I guess he has some Chinese blood in him. I’m related to him through my host brother. My host brother’s sister is married to him, making him my brother-in-law. He is named Pollo, after the first spaceship to land on the moon, because that’s the year he was born.

Pollo is an exemplary man by any culture’s standards. Sometimes it’s so easy to lose faith in men here, but there really are some good, hardworking men. As I said, he is married and with 2 children, but his wife and children live in Phnom Penh. Pollo lives here on our compound during the week, and visits his family on the weekends. He is a doctor (though not licensed?) and works at the local Health Center. He is highly respected by the entire village because he is good at what he does and he is reliable.

His two children are 10 and 7. His 10 year old son is brilliant and adorable and I have high hopes he’ll grow up to be just like his father. His 7 year old daughter is mentally handicapped, but is well loved and well taken care of by the whole family, especially by her father. Many men in Cambodia are very hands-off in raising the children, especially when the going gets tough, but Pollo is not. He is there to literally feed his daughter, and to answer every question she repeats over and over.

Pollo does not drink, which is close to a miracle in Cambodia. He doesn’t smoke. He does not visit brothels. He works. And he works hard. He goes to the Health Center early in the morning. Around lunchtime he comes home for an hour. He sets up his hammock, grabs a book, and reads until he falls asleep for a few minutes. Then he goes back to the Health Center and is there until it is nearly dark, when he comes back and has dinner with us. He does his laundry either at night, or on the occasional weekends that he is here. He does not live in our house, but rather in this tiny shack that barely has 4 walls behind the house. I gather that almost all of his money goes to Phnom Penh to support his family. On the rare occasion that he gets home before dark, he does other strenuous house work such as pumping water, watering the plants, drying the rice, gardening, and irrigating the front lawn.

I personally really enjoy time with Pollo as well. He is really intelligent, and we’ve had conversations about intricate topics like politics, religion, culture, geography, history, health etc. Though he says otherwise, he can speak English a pretty good amount, especially considering he is self-taught. Pollo is CONSTANTLY testing my Khmer proficiency. If there is a particularly lengthy and fast Khmer conversation happening, he’ll stop a ways into it and ask me if I understand what is being said. He gets a kick out of it every time I say “I stopped listening a while ago already.” If I claim to understand the conversation, he’ll ask me to translate, or summarize in Khmer, and he laughs as I try to blunder through a translation. Sometimes I give him a taste of his own medicine (hah, Doctor joke), and I’ll make him think in English.

Of course there was also that time that I was really sick, and he went out at 10PM to the Health Center to get and IV for me. Then he came back and put the IV in. He called Peace Corps and settled things with the Peace Corps doctor. He watched over me for a while.

Other things I know about Pollo is that he lost a lot of his family during the Khmer Rouge Genocide, though I don’t remember who. His marriage was arranged, but he has grown to love his wife very much. He is extremely health conscious, and won’t even eat meat other than locally caught fish or frogs because he doesn’t want to ingest whatever chemicals might go into the meat at the slaughterhouse or the market. He has a car for going back and forth to see his family, but he also has a sweet mountain bike (100x better than my city bike). If he’s not running late and it’s not raining, he prefers to take his bike to get in a little exercise. He’s a handsome guy, with a lighter complexion and jet black hair. I would say he does look more Chinese than Khmer. He has a polite, kind face, and the best high-pitched laugh in the village.

The other “ awesome person award” goes to a fairly new friend of mine here in the village. Her name is Seng Heak (I think. I’ve never used her name, as it is very rude for a younger person to call an older person by their name).

I met her because I go through phone cards really quickly for my internet. So, for a few reasons, I was on the lookout for another phone shop to get my phone/internet credit. First, because I literally used to cause my phone shop to run out of phone cards because I bought all of them, and second, because if I keep buying from the same person every time, they’re eventually going to think I’m loaded. Obviously, I’m not loaded, I just try to make sure I budget for internet, because it’s really important for me. Anyways, I digress... but that is how I happened on Seng Heak’s shop. It’s on the far side of the market, but it’s not too deep into the market where I have to brave mud ponds and crowds.

One day when I was there, I saw at her shop one of my 7th grade students from the previous year, and found out he was her son. Actually, it was one of my problem kids! The kind of kid who literally just talked over the teacher’s lesson, and came late almost every day. Seng Heak asked me if I ever taught her son, and I told her yes. The poor kid had this face on like.. ‘this conversation can’t possibly benefit me.’ And she told me, ‘he’s a naughty kid! Right? Is he naughty?’ Not really sure how to respond I said ‘yeah, a little.’ She laughed and said “well, you have my permission to hit him. I don’t know how to hit him, so somebody’s gotta!’ I laughed... not really sure if she was kidding, and went on with my business.

The next time I went to buy a card, she asked me if I was teaching any beginner classes. I figured she was talking about for her son, so I began to tell her about my summer classes at the school, but then she said for HER. Instead, I told her about my class for adults that I do 2 or 3 times a week. I told her the time and place. She said that it sounded great, because she’d be embarrassed to study with children. I paid for my card and walked away, honestly not expecting her to come. People have asked me about my adult class before, and I’ve invited them, but they usually don’t actually come.

However, the next class she was there, with a pen and a new book, ready to study. I admit that at first I was a little frustrated because the adult class had been studying with me for 8 or 9 months already and know quite a bit. I knew I would have to do a TON of review, I’d have to slow down the rest of the students, and deal with the fact that a lot of the content was going to go right over her head. The first few classes didn’t go so well. The English sounds were so foreign to her, and she was really struggling to memorize the words. After a few classes, she asked me “Teacher, what can I do to learn English quickly?” (This is actually a very common question that I get so much it almost makes me crazy. People literally believe that I have some sort of magical solution to learning English other than just studying hard. They think because I am a foreigner, I can put English into their brain through osmosis with little time and even less effort.) I just told her what I tell everyone. Study. Before you come to class, look over your notebook and review what we did last time so it’s fresh in your mind. I also invited her to come 15 minutes before the other students so I can try to do a little bit of catch-up in that time.

Now here we are, nearly 2 months later. She is doing just fine. Obviously, there are things that go over head, but the stuff that she was here to learn, she remembers. She is always the first one to come to class, and I’m slowly teaching her the stuff she missed, like how are you, what is your name, where are you from, etc. Then she participates and does her best in the more advanced lesson. I recently found out that she wasn’t even able to finish the 6th grade. It has been YEARS since she has studied something, and that’s not something that comes back easily. I really admire her persistence, and just her interest in studying in the first place. It’s not like she’s bored with nothing to do. She works at 2 adjacent stores in the market that are open all day every day.

Last week, Seng Heak really shone as an Awesome Person. I had come home late from exercising, and she had come super early. So I told Seng Heak to wait for me downstairs while I quick go take a bath. On the way to the bathroom, my super-pregnant host sister told me that she wasn’t going to study that night because she was having belly pains. I said that’s just fine, and told her to relax. Then I took my shower. When I got out, there was quite a scene. My sister’s bedroom door was wide open, and Seng Heak was upstairs, quickly and neatly throwing things in a travel bag and ordering my host sister to get dressed. Apparently in the time I was in the bathroom, it was decided that my sister needed to get to Phnom Penh THAT night, in case the baby was coming earlier than her husband’s planned trip to get her 2 days later. Well, Seng Heak completely took control of the whole operation. She packed the bags. She thought of all the things my sister might need to bring with her. She made 5 or 6 trips up and down the stairs carrying all of her things to Pollo’s car and packed it in the trunk (another example of Pollo being an awesome person). She helped my sister get dressed, and walked her down to the car. She calmed down my sister and spoke words of comfort. I was SO grateful for all that she did, because I admit I was freaking out a little bit. My sister did not look well and I was afraid the baby was gonna fall out right then and there. I was just looking on, completely helpless, unable to help in any way other than convincing her to sit in the front seat of the car because I know she get’s car sick super easy. Seng Heak was exactly the person who needed to be there in that moment, and she really stepped up. After all, it’s not like her and my sister were long-time friends. They only met through my class. But that’s something I love about my adult class- it gives me AND my sister friends in this village that we are technically both kind of new to.

Seng Heak is tall for a Khmer woman, with a flat and kind of stern face that completely lights up when she smiles. I noticed that when she is thinking really hard about the lesson, she makes the same expression as I noticed her son making, which cracked me up. They both have a sort of vacant expression when they are thinking with their faces point slightly downward, their eyes wide and pointing slightly upward, and their jaw hanging gently with their lips parted. She is notably kind to EVERYONE, whether or not she knows who they are. She is easy to talk to, and not too shy to start up conversations with anyone. She’s funny, patient, and caring. And I am so glad I happened to find her phone shop.