A Week of Small Successes

          In the Peace Corps, your job is your life, and your life is your job. It's a 24/7 gig. So when you are constantly hitting road-blocks in your job it can really take a toll on your happiness.

          As cliche as it sounds, it is so important to focus on the small successes from day to day. It would be just as easy, actually even EASIER, to make a blog post titled "A Week of Big Failures," but that's not helpful to anyone. Instead, I kept track for a week of all my small successes. There was even a big success thrown in there! It was difficult at times. For example, on Monday I had to change the way I would normally think about the situation. Instead of saying "almost half the class didn't do the homework," I instead said that "more than half the class did their homework."

          We come here to change lives. To make a difference. Do I make a difference every day? NO. very week? nuh uh. Every month? hardly. But add up all these tiny successes over the course of 2 year, and I can say that yes, I am successful in this career.

          I've been having a hard time of it the last few weeks. Teachers don't want to work with me. Students have given up and are disruptive to the rest. I got really frustrated and started feeling really down about my job. After moping for like 2 weeks, I finally took charge. I changed my schedule. I'm now leaving alone the teachers who would rather have nothing to do with me. I've made myself more available to students who do want to learn from me. I wrote this blog post. And, to top it all off, my bible verse of the weeks is "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you" from Luke 8:39. This not only goes for when I return home to America in 8 months, but also as I return home from work or teaching every day. Stop declaring and whining about what didn't happen that was supposed to happen according to your idea of success. Instead think about what God made possible in your situation.

           And here is the list of successes.

Friday

• I noticed a 10th grader who came to the library all alone a few times every week. She would read through the books for about a half hour, choose one to take home, and then bring it back to exchange for a new book just a day or two later. I asked her if she would be interested in volunteering at the library in her freetime. She agreed, and I trained her right then and there.
• I learned Happy Together on guitar

Saturday

• I learned big words in Khmer, like scholarship, and went class to class making the announcement about tomorrow’s workshop, successfully collecting 60 students’ names on the sign-up sheet.
• I feel confident that the 2 Korean kids that I tutor understand questions with “do you have” and “how many.” Also, they now say “why I oughtta” when they get angry with each other. It's highly entertaining.

Sunday

• 40 students came to an AMAZING workshop about university, and most of them learned for the first time the plethora of fields of study to choose from. They made plans and goals for their near and distant futures. They learned about how to become a competitive applicant and where to look for scholarships. They left visibly excited and inspired. This was a BIG success.
• I watched my students- many of whom used to be too shy to even say hello- lead discussions and volunteer to speak publicly during the workshop.

Monday

• More than half of my Grade 10 class completed and submitted the homework assignment I gave them. A huge increase from the previous 0% submission.
• A new counterpart pronounced “are” correctly during his teaching.

Tuesday

• A sweet student went to the beach over the weekend, and brought me back a souvenir- a shell necklace
• I actually got my chorus students to sing in 2 parts! 
• 6 boys auditioned for 3 solos. 3 of them were even capable of singing in tune!

Wednesday

• 2 students were sitting in the library reading a book about the history of chocolate together. One would read a paragraph in English, and the other would translate. Independent studying ftw!
• I had lunch with my school director. Conversation was fun and easy, and he even treated me.
• I finally had a long chat with my coffee ladies, who up to this point I think have been afraid to talk to me. We even happened to touch on the subject of womens’ rights.

Thursday

• Both grants were approved for the Create Cambodia Arts Festival coming up this March. A local organization has donated $2000, and we can officially start fundraising for the rest of it. Please consider donating to the project! https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=13-303-011

Me and my host dad

Me and my older sister

My mom, me, my little sister, and my older sister

Marady, Titi, Diana, and Ma at the Wat

Inside the Wat

Being silly

But she thought it was cute so she copied.

A-dor-able.

The stupa (grave) of a grandparent at the Wat

The extended family at the stupa

Awesome Person Award, Part II

            There are 2 librarians assigned to working in the library. One of them, Rothavy, is the winner of today’s Awesome Person Award.

            Rothavy is a middle-aged married Khmer woman with a young daughter. She is both a teacher and the school librarian. She was the librarian before I even came here. Her responsibilities included organizing and lending out the national textbooks at the beginning of the school year, and then collecting them at the end. Now that we have a real library, she was also given the responsibility of helping to run it. In addition to her teaching hours, she is scheduled to run the library for 5 hours every week.

            Rothavy is an Awesome Person because she does her job, she does it really well, and she even does MORE than what she is supposed to. She is never late, and the only time she is absent is if she is really ill, or if the school director makes her do something else. I can count on her going to the library when she is supposed to every day.

            There are so many responsibilities the librarian has to do- sign students in and out, return books to the bookshelves, sweep, stack chairs, distribute library cards, keep an accurate inventory, log borrowed and returned books, fine students for late and lost books, keep students quiet and following rules, and keep an eye out that students aren’t sticking books up their shirts and trying to get out the door with them. Well, she does it all and never complains once.

            Maybe it doesn’t sound that impressive. After all she’s just doing her job. Well, here in Cambodia, I know very few people who actually do their jobs like they’re supposed to. Practically all of them- except farmers and maybe shopkeepers- would be fired within their first week if they were living in America. Anyway, what’s more impressive is when I catch her adding to her responsibilities.

            Students are often rough with the books, and the light paperbacks can’t really handle that kind of treatment. Rathavy has taken it upon herself to tape the covers of all the weak books so that they last longer in the library. That was all her brilliant idea.

            Rathavy very often does more than her 5 hours in the library. If she has free time, she will come to the library if the other librarian does not show up. Also, she keeps the library open late a lot. She sees that students are engulfed in their books, and at least once a week, she keeps the library open an extra hour to let the students keep reading. She will even open the library extra hours if she notices a class or two where the teacher did not show up.

            When things are slow in the library, she takes that time to pull out the log books and a ruler and label the sections on the upcoming pages. The other librarian never does that.

            Once she convinced the school director to give me almost $40 to buy more books for the library because there wasn’t enough Khmer books. THAT was impressive.

            She is a hard worker, and also very smart. She just learned all these library skills a few months ago, and now she’s a pro. She can even shelf the English Fiction books, even though she doesn’t speak a word of the language.

            In Cambodia, the most commonly given reason for not doing your job is “I’m busy.” Rothavy is no less busy than other people. She has 2 jobs, a young daughter about 5 years old, a husband to care and cook for, and a house to clean. Sometimes she even brings her daughter to school with her. She is a wonderful role model to the students, and I hope they see that.

            I also really like Rothavy because she is my friend. We hang out in the library together a lot. We talk about our problems and our successes, and she is very patient with my Khmer. I can tell we’re really good friends because she sometimes pets me or touches my butt. I dig it.

            This library is very much like my baby here at site. It took me a whole year of hard work and a lot of headaches to put it together. It’s scary for it to be open without me there supervising. What’s even scarier is me leaving this home forever in just a few months. But I’m much relieved knowing that Rothavy is in charge. If anyone can keep this library going after I’m gone, it’s her.

Unrelated photos from Khmer New Year last April with my training host family:

Playing uno with Lyny and Titi

Sisters

<33 Lyny

burning incense

me and mommy

Jimmy (16) pretending to eat a fish head, Bunyavon (22) making a face, Titi, (14) making a better face

goofy

Dad

Marady (25)

Titi and Diana

8 Months, 8 Things

First of all, ignore the new blog that I spent over an hour making. My good friend Matt taught me how to get around the system so I can still upload photos to this blog. Thanks Matt!

So, I go home in about 8 months, give or take a month. Here is this month's list:

8 Things I Can't Wait For:

1. Driving a car
2. Singing at the top of my lungs while driving a car
3. Cushioned seats and couches
4. Ovens
5. Leopold, the best dog in the world
6. Christmas lights and trees
7. Trash cans and garbage trucks
8. Not being famous

8 Things I Don't Want to Leave:

1. Being famous
2. Being called Teacher like it’s my name
3. Monkeys
4. Beer with ice and a straw
5. Students standing in respect when I enter a room
6. Vast green rice fields
7. Pink and orange sunrises and sunsets over the vast green rice fields
8. Nom Pow and Jayk K’tee

Happy New Year!

Enjoy these pictures from the Khmer New Year party I went to last April.

My little host brother stole my camer

Me and my dad

Hardcore PCVs

Even more hardcore with our old language teacher

A neighbor from training

goofy brother

Me and dad again

Khmer dancing with Dad

The hired band and dancers

Dad sabai sabai

me sabai sabai

is that what you had said??

A Day in the (Not So Busy) Life

Previously, I did a post running through one of my busiest days of the week.

Now, here is a run through of a day when I'm not really busy.

6:03	I naturally woke up, but refused to acknowledge that, because it’s Wednesday and I don’t teach Wednesdays.
7:31	I finally got out of bed. My room was heating up like the oven it is. And my mosquito net was like an oven within an oven. I sat down at my computer and checked emails and facebook.
7:53	Morning bathroom run. Then I changed in some yoga pants and a loose T-shirt. I brushed my hair and pulled it back into a ponytail.
7:59	I grabbed a tea bag and an oatmeal packet and went downstairs. I took out my small gas stove and boiled water. I took sugar from my host family’s stores. I carefully sifted through the sugar trying to avoid the ants. I knew I probably scooped up some ants anyway. But the good thing about ants is that they float, so even if I do put ants in my tea, I can pick them out when I add water. I ate my oatmeal- raisin and spice- at the table, and then took my tea to the hammock. I sipped the tea and watched the birds, and listening to the fish jumping in the pond behind our house. Then I did my breakfast dishes, and brushed my teeth.
8:36	I left for the library.
8:43	I arrived at the library and found it full of WAY too many students. Children were crammed into the room poring over books. All the shelves were in disarray because the student librarian helper couldn’t come today. So I jumped right in picking up after the students, putting books back, picking up fallen stacks of books, and moving books back into their right places.
9:20	The bell rang, and the students emptied out, thank goodness. I used this time to take pictures of the library for a fellow PCV, who is also doing a library project and wants to see examples. My librarian helped me out, pulling every book out of the desk and pointing out things I’ve missed. I chatted it up with her while we did this. I told her about the monitor lizard I saw at my house yesterday. She had never seen anything like that before. I showed her a picture, and she couldn’t believe it. I also whined about how nobody ever tells me when there is a school holiday. Like yesterday, when I arrived at school and 7AM to find the entire 12th grade building completely empty. We laughed about how Cambodia has so many ridiculous holidays- the most in Asia! No new students came to the library. For the last 10 minutes or so, I read my book Music and Silence by Rose Tremain. And then I closed all the bookshelves and stacked the chairs.
10:00	I left the library. On the way off school property I bumped into my most reliable co-teacher, Rithy on his moto. He stopped to say hi. I told him that tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I am riding my bike to Pea Reing to celebrate with another PCV. He asked about the holiday, and I tried to explain its importance to my culture. I tried to make it sound exciting, with the whole family coming together and eating the most delicious meal of the whole year, but I’m afraid I didn’t do it justice. It’s hard to describe   Thanksgiving. I told him I should definitely be back in time on Friday to teach the afternoon class with him. We parted ways.
10:17	I arrived home and sat down with my host sister for a few minutes. I told her about my Thanksgiving plans. Keke came over to sniff the baby. I said “KEKE come here,” which he did and my sister was amazed, exclaiming that the dog knows English. Well, of course he will come because he knows that I’ll actually show him a little love and rub his ears.
10:20	I went upstairs and sat under my fan. I caught up on some emails involving plans for the Create Cambodia Arts Festival project. I emailed committee members, and one of our partnering organizations.
11:03	I sat and thought about what I should eat for lunch… I decided on a bag of Korean noodles, given to me from a Korean volunteer who live in Prey Veng town. The Korean volunteers pity me because they make twice as much as I do. I accept their pity because I often get free food out of it J. I also decided to make one of my boxes of chocolate pudding.
11:06	I made the noodles and the pudding at the same time. I quickly ate my noodles because I was excited for the pudding. It was good. I also shared with my 2 house sisters and my niece. My niece particularly liked it. My host sister said she prefers jello. I put the rest in the fridge.
11:49	I washed my dishes.
12:00	I grabbed my book and went out back to the hammock. Now that I’m about 80% finished with the book, it’s starting to almost get interesting lol.
12:47	I went upstairs and realized I forgot to check my bible verse this morning. I read through it (But now thus says the Lord, he who created you. He who formed you. Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name. You are mine). Then I wrote “redeemed” on my inner wrist. I contemplated that word. What does it mean? You can redeem a prize. Or you can redeem yourself after doing something foolish. So it’s like God brings us back up after past foolishness. I dig it.
12:55	Now, for the thing I quite literally can’t wait any longer to do… laundry. All 6 pairs of pants/shorts I own are dirty. My hamper is overflowing. I take about 2/3 of it downstairs to wash today. I also take my ipod and put on Relient K’s album Five Score and Seven Years Ago. I fill the family’s big bucket with rain water and powder laundry soap. Then I add the clothes. I scrub each article of clothing individually with a wooden scrub brush, as well as in between my fists. Then I wring out the soapy water and place it back in the hamper. After I’ve scrubbed all the clothes, I empty out the dirty water, and fill it back up again, and throw the clothes back in. Then I repeat the scrubbing and wringing out again.
1:53	I deem my clothes clean enough. I go upstairs to hang them on the line.
2:03	Sweating from doing laundry, I go to my room to sit under my fan to find.. the electricity is out again! NOOOOOO!!!!! Instead, I go downstairs to eat more pudding.
2:13	I wanted to get my computer and go bring it to the hammock, so I went upstairs to get my computer. By the time I got it, it started raining. So the hammock was out of the question because I’d get wet. Instead, I just sat down on the upstairs porch. I just sat and watched the rain. I watched my sister and my niece pull in the freshly harvested rice, that was laid out on tarps in our front yard drying in the sunlight. I watched the road, with the motos and trucks and tractors and ox carts go by, many trying unsuccessfully to protect themselves or whatever they were travelling with dry. It ends up just being a short, light rain.
2:37	I got my computer and brought it out to the porch. I watched 2 episodes of Glee. I hate the show, but in the Peace Corps you have time to watch entire seasons of TV shows you don’t even like. I have so many issues with the show, which I’d love to whine about if you’re interested. But I’m in love with the actor who plays Mike Chang. He’s like a manlier version of K Pop stars who can actually dance.
4:06	I convinced myself I have no excuse to not go running today. So I dragged myself into my room and changed in basketball shorts and sneakers.
4:12	I set my ipod timer for 46 minutes and went off on my run. I am grateful that it is cloudy but it is still so HUMID. I feel super slow today. But I’m listening to my carefully selected half marathon playlist, so it helps. I mouth all the words, and occasionally play air drums as I’m running. It helps keep my mind off the fact that I can’t breathe. I run a ways on a   dirt path through the rice fields. Some of the square fields are already harvested, but plenty aren’t yet. I try to take in the dark green color of the tall stems. After all, I will very likely never see rice fields at this stage again. On my way, I pass a duck farm and the stench makes me want to die. I also pass a few farmers. At this point, they know me and see me out here almost every day. At first they were bewildered by what I was doing, and would stare at me or make slightly rude comments as I passed. But after some   time, and after explaining what I’m doing and why I do it here in their rice fields, they are used to me. They smile big at me and wave when I run past them, and ask me if I’m exhausted yet. It’s cool. There’s a river at the end of the dirt road, so I have to turn around and run back to the highway. I still have 12 minutes left, so I run for a ways on the highway, which is less pleasant because of the trucks beeping at me, and the people on motos pointing and laughing as they drive by. Rithy passes me on his moto. As he’s passing, he waves and I hear him say “oh” so surprised. I look down and realize that I have a really really impressive sweat stain covering 90% of my shirt. Plus, I know my face is beet red. From here I run all the way home, and run into the driveway just as my alarm goes off. I figure I ran almost 5 miles? But maybe that’s a generous number, I don’t really know. I chug a whole bottle of water downstairs while my host family gapes at me. They ask me “how far today??” I tell them “8 kilometers.” They laugh and shake their heads, basically saying “gurl u crazy.”
5:05	I take a bath and love every second of it. Bucket baths with rain water are not bad when you’re this sweaty.
5:17	I got dressed- back into the same pants I was wearing today. My freshly washed clothes aren’t even close to dry yet. I lament over the fact that I cant turn on my fan to dry my sweaty clothes.
5:27	I opened my door to go downstairs and eat dinner, and the color of the sky literally takes my breath away. I don’t know why, but everything was gold. There was a golden yellow light that went beyond the sky. It turned the trees gold and the houses gold and the ground gold. It was beautiful. I sat down at the table with my chair facing out so I could watch the rest of the sunset. I watched the colors change from gold to dark blue to black. By the time it got to dark blue, the mosquitoes were out so I tried to quickly eat my dinner of stir fried chicken and ginger. The past few weeks, there has been a RIDICULOUS amount of mosquitoes. Literally, there are clouds of them that form around you in the evenings. I finished just as it got dark.
5:47	I turned on my headlamp and sat down at my desk. I began work on some grant applications for the Create Cambodia festival.
5:53	YES!!!! Electricity came back! I continued with my work, but this time without my headlamp.
6:39	I put the grants away and started this blog. The mouse that lived in my room keeps coming next to me to check out my garbage. I scare him away by moving my foot every time he comes back. He’s so tiny, unlike the rats I used to have. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I am thankful my vast rat problem has turned into a tiny mouse problem.
7:31	I got sick and ran to the bathroom. Then came back and blogged more.
7:57	I changed into my PJs- basketball shorts and a t-shirt- and brushed my teeth for the night.
8:04	I stopped to talk to my host brother. He asked me why I wasn’t sleeping yet. I said… because it’s 8:00. He laughs and says oh, I thought it was 10 already. Then I told him I’m leaving in the morning for Pea Reing. He tells me that might be a problem because they are supposedly closing the road because Prime Minister Hun Sen is passing through. We decided I can probably get by anyway if I pretend I don’t speak Khmer. I told him I do that all the time anyway if I’m passing by police in town or in Phnom Penh. They are never confident enough in their English to stop me or to ask me anything.
8:19	I discover the mouse is now travelling UNDER my paper flooring. I’m not even mad. I’m impressed. I didn’t know that was possible.
8:21	Another episode of Glee. Nothing else to do in Cambodia at 8:30 at night. Then I turned out the light and crawled into my mosquito net and watched an episode of Modern Family.
9:32	Finally, I read until I fell asleep.

Khmer New Year at my extended family's house in Phnom Penh

Orphan kids went door to door..

...putting on a traditional theater and dance performance

And then we donate money

Khmer New Year at my training host family's house. We put lights on the tree and spirit house outside. Just like Christmas in April.

The sacrifice table

My Khmer teacher and friend Siphen had a party. We cooked and ate an entire pig. It was delicious.

Loveable Lyny

Siphen

9 Months, 9 Things

I'll be home in about 9 months. In honor of that, I've listed 9 things I can't wait for in America, and 9 things that will make leaving Cambodia hard.

in no particular order.

Expect 8 more in a month.

9 Things I can't wait for

1. Grass
2. Toilet Paper
3. Snow
4. Wearing my hair down
5. Clean feet
6. My bedroom Walls
7. My mom
8. WIFI
9. Chicken Parm and burritos and all other SMOTHERED food items.

9 Things I don't want to leave

1. Palm trees
2. Afternoon naps
3. Making my own work schedule
4. Sting and Samurai sodas
5. Korean Pop
6. Getting clothes made by tailors
7. My honor society students
8. Speaking Khmer
9. Hammocks

Cheng Meng

Rong Roung

Burning incense at our Chinese ancestor's grave

Me getting in on the action

My good friend and personal nail stylist, Dary

Being blessed by monks

Finishing touches- blocks of ice to keep the ancestors cool in the next life

Baby Prinda

Prinda with her great great grandma

I'm Moving

...blogger locations, that is.

Apparently there is a limit to the number of photos you can upload onto a blogger account, and I've reached that limit.
So, rather than deleting posts and pictures, I've started a new one. All future posts will be on that blog.

Here's the link: dianacrossingtheroad.blogspot.com

So, to see my new blog post, plus 10 newly released photos, go visit my new blog.