Go West! Er, South. Well, Go Somewhere, I Guess

Another PCV found an interesting article recently about higher education in Cambodia, something that naturally interests a group of people who teach high schoolers. The article is a pretty stark indictment of the whole situation. Its key points are that educational quality is low in Cambodian universities, and most (as in 9 out of 10) university graduates don't get jobs. That's a striking number. Imagine graduating from a U.S. university with a 1-in-10 chance of getting a job. Here are some important bits:

A growing number of eager young Cambodians are finding themselves duped into a higher education system that suffers from weak management and teaching because it is geared more toward profit than learning.

As a result only one in ten recent graduates are finding work, a worrying figure in a country trying to rebuild after decades of civil war.

A few Cambodian students have asked me, their local American and one of the few teachers at their high school with a 4-year degree, for university advice. It's easy to tell an American high-schooler that going to university or even a community college usually makes financial sense, because of the increased earning power at the end of four(ish) years. But in Cambodia I honestly don't know if that's true. Here, the students who pass the national grade-12 exam and pass a subject exam can train to become public-school teachers at free public institutions for 2 years, at the end of which time they will earn a monthly salary of around $50 with modest yearly raises. That salary isn't quite enough to feed 1 person, much less a family; but it's almost a guaranteed job, since there just aren't enough teachers to go around. (For example, my high school has over 2,000 students and around 40 teachers, which averages out to 50+ students per classroom, a number that any teacher will tell you is ridiculous.) And a job as a public-school teacher is a good entree into the field of teaching private classes, which can bring in somewhere between $150 and $250 a month. That kind of money will definitely feed a family of 4.

The math gets a little more complicated for university. Yearly university fees range from $200 to $600 (cheap!), on top of which students often forget to factor in living expenses and books. Salaries upon leaving university, though, are often $100-250 per month. That's if you can get a job, which apparently 90% of graduates do not do. Goodness only knows where they go, but sometimes it's back to their parents' house to help farm rice or sell bicycles or noodles or cell phones.

I can't, in good conscience, tell students to "do what they love, and the money will follow" because that's just not how it works in Cambodia. What things does money follow here? It follows farming huge plots of land, working in the tourism industry centered around the Angkor Wat temple complex in Siem Reap, retailing goods from a stall in the market, etc.

Here's my favorite part of the article:

Qualified university professors complain that many students rarely do their work and cheating is rampant.

Um, the professors are complaining about cheating and students not doing their homework? Has it ever occurred to them to fail a student? I think low or failing grades might be discouraged by university officials, as they could cause students to enroll at different institutions which will give them a similar degree for less effort.

As we speak, my host sister is studying toward a four-year degree in accounting at a Cambodian university, and her little brother is studying rural development at another one. I haven't had the courage to show them this article. I'm hoping that they will be among the lucky 10% to secure employment when the time comes. And I'm hoping that someday, the Cambodian universities will be able to offer something better to young people hungry for education.

Take a Bite Out of Crime

Now that the Angkor bike race is less than a week away (there's still time to donate!), I can reveal a secret: my bike helmet was stolen recently. Riding a bike without a helmet is a big Peace Corps no-no, so if anybody had known I was riding around without it, something bad could have ensued. Here's the story.

When I first arrived in my town, I locked up helmet and bike in the schoolyard every day during the hours when I taught. Then, people started asking me why I locked them up. "Gom aui kay luich," I replied, which roughly means "So no one will steal it." Well, people laughed at that. No one's going to steal your ridiculous foreign bike, they implied, nor your ridiculous helmet. Seeing as how barangs (and specifically Peace Corps volunteers and Mormons) are pretty much the only people in Cambodia who wear bike helmets, it would be silly for someone to steal such a distinctive helmet. I took this to heart, and pretty quickly stopped locking my bike up in the schoolyard.

Fast forward 18 months. One afternoon early in November, I proctored an admission exam for my computer class. As usual, I left my bike and helmet unlocked in the schoolyard, and didn't lay eyes on them for about 4 hours. When I came out of the exam, I found that my helmet, which had been hanging from the bike by its strap, was gone. I approached the only teacher left at the school, you might call him the disciplinarian/caretaker, and reported the loss. "I bet the little kids took it," I told him. There's a gaggle of small children who play around the high school, since it's such a stimulating environment (people! cows! a pond!). They like to ring the bell on my bike, and I figured they might've gotten curious about the helmet and taken it off to play somewhere else.

The caretaker reported to me the next day that he had asked all the kids about it, and they had said they hadn't seen it. "That's what they would say," I thought, but didn't say anything. I started asking other teachers about it. The strange thing is that their first response, when I said it was gone, was "Is your organization going to buy you a new one?" They have had so much experience with wealthy NGOs with money to spend that they assumed any loss would be quickly remedied by my "wealthy" NGO. I explained to them that no, since I had not locked the helmet, Peace Corps most certainly would not replace it, and further that I was pretty SOL, since you can't buy bike helmets anywhere in this country (as far as I know) and I would henceforth be breaking a big Peace Corps rule.

Once they realized I really did need the helmet back, it came out that some teachers had seen a student wearing the helmet around the schoolyard. At one point, a teacher saw him wearing it as he rode away on a moto. What a ridiculous picture that must have made. At any rate, no one thought to stop the student and ask why he had the helmet, though everyone knew that it belonged to me. And no one knew the student's name. The school's vice principal made an announcement to the whole school that whoever had taken the helmet should return it. This, sadly, produced no results.

By pure chance, shortly after that I went to visit a favorite student of mine who lives about 7 km down the road. I wanted to make sure he hadn't dropped out of school, since I hadn't seen him at all this year. Luckily, it turned out he'd been in school the whole time. I told him my story about the helmet, and he said he knew the student who took it. "But Teacher," he informed me gravely, "he is a gangster." Helpfully, he added, "It's OK, because he is also my friend."

I enlisted this student's help in getting the helmet back. Only a couple weeks later (I was on vacation for part of this), my student brought his friend the gangster to my house, where he handed me back the helmet. I silently rejoiced. I could once again conform to Peace Corps rules and simultaneously keep my head from being squashed like a watermelon by trucks carrying sand/pigs/tractors down the highway at reckless speeds.

Do It for the Orphans

Dear Friends and Readers,

Well, it's that time of year: the Angkor International Half-Marathon (and Bike Race!) is upon us. December 6, to be exact. I've signed up for the 30-kilometer bike race (something like 18 miles), and pretty soon I'm going to stash my mountain bike under a 45-passenger bus to get it over the harrowing road to Siem Reap so that I can test my athletic prowess against people from many nations.

The purpose of the race is to fundraise for Village Focus, an NGO that works with vulnerable communities in Cambodia. Village Focus has kindly waived registration fees for Peace Corps Volunteers. The least I can do in return is appeal to you for a donation, in any amount. You can make the donation online. Just go to http://www.villagefocus.org/angkor_marathon/sponsor.htm, look down the registrant list (I'm under "Elizabeth," not "Liz"), and click on my name. This will take you to a site where you can make a credit card donation. This would really help me look like less of a deadbeat on the registrant list.

I know this is awesomely timed, considering the current economic situation and the upcoming holiday demands on everyone's budget. My appeal is that you do it for the children! Don't you see, the children are our future...

Also, I will throw in a bonus blog post (with pictures!) if even 1 person donates. Isn't that special? Surely.

A Scientific Approach to Desire

I love rainy season in Cambodia, really I do. But lately I've been finding myself wondering idly when it will end. I ask Cambodians, and they say "Soon." But that word, here, means, "sometime between now and then" so I've stopped asking about it. When I get this equivocal answer, I start wondering if I'm going to regret wishing for dry season once it arrives. I guess a good, scientific way to find out what I really want is to make a list of likes and dislikes about rainy season, and see what comes out on top.

Like: I can fall asleep at night to the gentle sound of rain on the roof.
Dislike: I am often woken in the middle of the night by a storm that is trying to come in through my window to shake my hand.

Like: all the plants are a beautiful, lush green.
Dislike: every surface in my town with an elevation lower than 100 m is now a pond, including my school and parts of my front yard.

Like: the rain washes away the accumulated afternoon heat.
Dislike: the rain re-washes clothes that I have left out on the line to dry.

Like: rambutans, papayas, oranges, dragonfruit, and pomelos are ripe during rainy season.
Dislike: Durians, longans, jackfruit, mangoes, manogsteens, and milkfruit are not ripe during rainy season.

Like: rice needs lots of rain to grow.
Dislike: rice needs lots of rain to grow.

Like: getting stuck in a random place by a heavy rainstorm, making conversation with an interesting new person.
Dislike: that little fountain of mud that bike tires kick up when driving over particularly muddy ground.

Eh, it comes out about even. I don't really have much say in the matter anyway, so I guess I'll wish for the world to keep on turning and be satisfied with what outcome that produces.

A Question for My Sisters

Do any of you Wellesley grads out there feel a secret modicum of chagrin when reading the Wellesley alumnae magazine?

My parents sent me 2 of these mags in a recent care package. They're full of stories of impressive accomplishments, successful careers, graduate degrees, awards, promotions. As I read through them, the magazines seemed to be eyeballing me back, asking me what I'm doing with my life.

Well, magazine, here's what I'm doing: lying under my mosquito net, quietly sweating, trying to decide what I should open first, the M&Ms or the Nerds Rope my mom sent in that same care package.

Just doing my best to make my alma mater proud.

Water World

There is something great about taking a shower while it's raining.

My family's kitchen and bathroom are both in a small building behind the main house. This building has a corrugated-metal roof. When it drizzles, the raindrops tap soothingly against the metal. And when it rains hard, the roof makes a clattering racket.

Part of the reason for the metal roof is, it is a useful component in a rainwater catchment system. Rain pours off the corrugated metal into gutters, which lead to several different cisterns around the property. One PVC pipe leads from the roof gutter, through a small hole in the side of the building, back to the cistern in the bathroom that is used for bathing. So when it rains hard, a constant trickle of water enters the cistern. When it rains softly, the trickle becomes a slow drip.

And "scooper showers" create a unique sound too: the splashing slap of the water hitting the bathroom tiles.

These sounds, the rain on the roof, the dripping in the cistern, the splashing on the tiles, weave a soothing melody. It quietly taps out all thoughts and worries. There is nothing like showering in the rain.

Nirvana Is a Boiled Coconut

At a recent training for the new Cambodia PCVs, a monk described Buddhist theology.

Nirvana is like a boiled coconut, he said. If you take a regular coconut and stick it in the ground, it grows into a tree. If you leave a regular coconut sitting around, it rots. But if you boil a coconut, it neither grows into a coconut tree nor rots away. It simply stays the same forever. That is like nirvana.

Is that a selling point?

R.I.P. My Friend

This is the last picture ever taken of JoJo, I think sometime in November of 2007.

She died just before the Cambodian election, in July. I had left the house to buy some water and then got sucked into watching part of an election debate at a friend's restaurant. When I got home, I saw the neighborhood kids gathered on one of the bedframes that sits in front of a neighbor's house. They were looking at JoJo, who was lying on her side on the ground. They told me that she had been hit by a moto. She didn't look so bad; there was a little blood on her muzzle. But she was seizing slowly, as if trying to get air. Every few seconds she would draw her chin toward her chest, tensing all her muscles, and then relax again.

After this had gone on for a few minutes, she stopped moving.

I ran off to cry, vaguely wondering what is done with animal corpses here. Do they get buried? When I stopped crying, I went out by the garden in our backyard, which, I felt, would be a fine place to bury JoJo. It looked like my host grandpa (really my host mom's aunt's husband, who lives in the house behind ours) was making some preparations, getting ready to light some wood. Was it to be cremation then?

Alas, no. I think I was being willfully stupid while the preparations were going on, but when one of the neighborhood boys started filling an enormous pot with water, I finally had to ask. "What're you doing?" "Preparing JoJo. To eat," he said matter-of-factly.

And that was the fate of my beloved dog. All that evening, the scent of something I didn't want to think about wafted through the house. When dinnertime came, my family was tactful enough not to offer any of it to me: only the people at grandpa's house and some of my host brother's friends ended up eating it.

More recently, I mentioned to my family during Pchum Ben (the Cambodian ancestor holiday) that I missed JoJo. They decided that, since I didn't have any local ancestors to honor during the festival, I could throw my balls of rice to JoJo's spirit the next time we went to the pagoda. The thought of feeding her spirit was some consolation, but I still miss her. All I can say about that is, she was a good dog.

3rd and Six

This week I'm going to make my third trip to the Preah Vihear dipterocarp forest, to finish up the English classes Miyuki and I began last month (Miyuki braved the forest and the classes alone while I was out of commission). The teaching has been a really good experience, and although many of the hours surrounding the teaching were boring, I think I learned a lot and met some interesting people, both Khmer and foreign.

On the way to Preah Vihear the first time, we visited an ancient temple called Koh Ker (pronounced more like Kaw Kai) which I heard somewhere used to be a "rival capital" to Angkor Wat itself. It's in the middle of a large forested area, and the road conditions make the temple difficult to get to. It's a fairly run-down temple, and you have to wonder how many more centuries it can withstand before it becomes just another pile of rocks. Around the edges of the complex, a series of smaller pathways lead to shrines in various states of disrepair.



Some of the ancient Khmer writing on the shrine/temple walls is still fairly clear, despite the temple's degraded condition.



The pathways and small buildings follow each other back to the big temple of Koh Ker itself. Until recently, you could climb this temple, but it's probably not safe to do it anymore. In any event, the stairs are blocked off.



I can't imagine the temple in the dry season: without the greenery it probably seems very lonely.

So I have finally, finally, really seen one of the great Angkorian temples. Entrance cost $10, half of the Angkor Wat park entrance fee. I was certainly reluctant to release that crisp 10-dollar bill, but in the end I guess I don't miss it (too much).

Hooray for Antibiotics

I appear to be the proud owner of a brand-new dermal staphylococcus colony, which is mercifully retreating in the face of some hard-core antibiotics. How great is Science? So great!

And Sometimes, The Unexpected

Well, my most recent trip to the forest lasted just under 48 hours. I was so over Siem Reap (was preparing to kill the next driver who shouted "Lady, tuk-TUK!" at me) and ready to get back into the teaching groove, which had really been the highlight of the forest (students who cared! and paid attention! and looked forward to learning! it was crazy). Miyuki and I had bought a badminton set, and I bought a corny cross-stitch with two small people in a boat (I think--does it get clearer when you stitch it?), and we had replenished our book supply. We were going to kick boredom's ass.

And then I got this weird rash on my leg (pictures coming soon). And it's not like it was a big deal, except that when you're about 5 hours away from the nearest hospital (not to be snobby but a local government hospital doesn't count), medical issues get more important more quickly. If you know what I'm saying.

Truly, it looks like a small octopus had a fight with my inner thighs, and it's not clear who won. So I asked a doctor in Siem Reap about this thigh rash. He was Thai, so our communication wasn't great. At one point, I thought he said something about "Maybe it comes from sex?" And I very emphatically told him "No, definitely not from sex." The other PCV with me, Ms. Michael, burst out laughing. "Insects! Insects!" she said. Oh. Sheepishly, "Yeah, maybe it comes from insects." And then we all couldn't stop laughing. Because that's ridiculous! Or something.

Despite all this feel-good haha stuff, I still don't know what the heck is wrong. I'll post an update once I find out more. If you're not busy, please send some non-hypochondriac vibes my way. I think I'll need them.

The Forest

I am told that most of Southeast Asia used to be covered by a deciduous dipterocarp forest. This kind of forest is hard to imagine if you've never seen it. It's a very open forest, covered at the ground level by small shrubs and grasses (and water, in rainy season). If this were an airline, the trees in this forest would be flying first class because they've got all the room they can handle. It's an unusual (read: Weird!) kind of environment, one that takes a lot of getting used to. It can be beautiful, although capturing the beauty on film usually requires standing in one place long enough for something to bite you. This forest is home to some truly evil biting ants.



Anyhoo, my coteacher Miyuki and I spent a couple of weeks near a village in the forest, teaching English. Hard-core birdwatchers go up to this site to catch a glimpse of the giant ibis and white-shouldered ibis, two endangered bird species. We managed to tag along on a couple of these birding trips but honestly can't tell a parakeet from an ibis, especially as everything we saw was pretty far away. Miyuki later did her "sleeping ibis" impression for me.



Our job was to teach the local committee some basic English to help them interact with the bird-watchers. We had 4 hours of class every day, 2 hours for the committee



and 2 hours for teenagers from the village who are on school break and have more free time than they know what to do with. Everyone's favorite unit was when we had them play Bingo to practice numbers, although the unit that provoked the most hilarity was practicing "th" sounds for "this" and "that." Having students watch each other struggle (and sometimes fail) to get their tongue out between their teeth is not good for classroom decorum but excellent for morale.

Aside from teaching, Miyuki and I didn't have a lot else going on. We read through a whole box of books, played long games of Skip-Bo, and fantasized about food of all kinds. I also spent a good deal of time asking Miyuki stupid questions about Japanese culture, the answers to which I have now forgotten.

But that's OK, we'll have a chance to go through them all again, as we're going back to the village to teach for another couple of weeks. Woot?

Small-ish World

So I sit down this morning to check my email at the Sam Veasna Center. (I returned from the forest last week but am planning to go back again soon. Hot damn, is it good to have phone service!) And who sits down at the next computer but an IT guy to update the Center's computers. I field a call from a very persistent student wanting a letter of recommendation (after having ignored his 2 phone calls before 7:00 am this morning), and the IT guy overhears me mention my permanent site by name and when I'll eventually go back there. The IT guy then tells me he's from a village, Boeng Pring, about 10 km from my site. And he says his brother studies at my high school. And in the end, it turns out that his brother not only studies at my high school but is one of the better students from my English essay writing workshop, one I named Nicholas. Crazy!

I'm still trying to figure out if it's a small world or if Cambodia is just a small country.

P.S. Pictures of the forest are coming soon.

Rambling Summary of Where I've Been

My apologies for not writing more often recently! I've had a rare eventful patch and Blogger has also been kind of a brat. Time for some back story:

Cambodia's national election was held July 27 this year and to my surprise was briefly reported on in the Western media, ranging from a BBC "Yay happy democracy, gift of the UN" piece to a thoughtful and probing Australia Network one. In no relation whatsoever to this (nope, no relation) a prominent politician visited my school in June. Conveniently, this happened the week before exams were due to start, thereby abrogating any review time teachers may have thought they had. Students were tasked with beautifying the schoolyard and their classrooms by taping up posters, sweeping the rooms, and clearing out the lilypads choking the school pond.

Meanwhile, I was busy spewing nervous energy in all directions, as my normal outlet of teaching was not available. Instead, I deeply annoyed anyone that crossed my path during this week: "Why are they cutting down that tree? Can't we just have a one-hour review session? What are you going to wear?"

In addition to all the beautification done in advance, on the morning of the visit, someone actually pulled out (and dusted off) a red carpet.



Tents were erected to shade all attendees, although the angle of the sun caused those in the first row to break a sweat just by blinking.



I was one of these unfortunates, but at least I wasn't wearing a silk skirt like all the other female teachers.



My luck changed, though, since just as a speech was beginning, my cell phone rang. Hooray! I snuck off behind the school building and away from the powerful loudspeakers. Turns out it was the Sam Veasna Center, an NGO that does eco-tourism projects involving Cambodian bird life. Peace Corps had hooked some of us Volunteers up with summer projects this year to explore relationships with different NGOs and to prevent a summer cloud of ennui from descending upon us. SVC was calling me to set up a project.

So the long and short of it is, I'm going to a small remote village tomorrow to teach English in connection with this eco-tourism project. I'll be mostly out of cell phone contact until late August. This village is in what is known as a "deciduous dipterocarp forest," which judging by pictures I've seen looks like some fields with scattered trees. I hear that when you actually get there, the forest is stunning and lush so of course I'll be posting pictures when I drag myself back to civilization on an oxcart. Til then, I'm wishing you a happy Olympic season! (Let me know how it goes...no TV in the village.)

Dear The Universe

I have made my decision. I would like the situation at the Cambodia-Thai border, with all the troops and the weaponry, to go *poof* and suddenly become a happy lucky special birthday party with lots of cake and ice cream. I'm sure this is entirely within your powers.

Please do your utmost to remedy this situation as quickly as the cake can be ordered.

Love,

Liz

I Hate Entropy

You know that when the streetlights on one of the main east-west boulevards in Phnom Penh (Sihanouk) are out, you are going to have a more-harrowing-than-usual bike ride to the post office.

Controversy!

Cambodia's Preah Vihear temple has just been inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I keep hearing rumors about worrisome events surrounding the inscription, but it's hard to get accurate news in my town. Apparently, Thailand and Cambodia have been disputing the temple, which is on the border of the two countries, for years. Of course, Cambodians, including the former king, claim the temple belongs to Cambodia. Many Thais say the temple belongs to Thailand. The Thai foreign minister who signed off on Cambodia's application for inscription has resigned due to this disagreement. Rumor is, the border between Thailand and Cambodia in the area near the temple was closed off for a while. I'm not sure if it's open now or even if it was ever closed.

Cambodians don't tend to express strong opinions around me, but if I ask them to explain the Preah Vihear situation, they immediately make nationalistic noises. They tell me that Preah Vihear temple definitely belongs to Cambodia and the Thais have no right to it. I've also seen fervent text messages that declare the temple for Cambodia. (Due to the poor quality of the roads that access the temple, however, I don't know many Cambodians who have actually visited it.) I think I'll get a chance to see it with my own eyes sometime this summer, and I can't decide if I should hope for the situation to have settled down by then or to still be seething...

Dear The U.S. Dollar (#2)

Wow. Thank you for your prompt response to my earlier request. 4,100 Khmer riels is a highly satisfactory exchange rate.

Love,

Liz

Mark Your Calendars

The Angkor Wat International Half Marathon and Bike Race is only 6 months away. Time to start training!

For those of you who like the idea of exercise but dislike its manifestation, there are also 10 and 5k races and, even better, a 50k bike rally! (The last is my chosen event.)

If the name alone doesn't convince you, check out the maps! You get to do athletic crap at Angkor Wat! How cool is that?

Of course, sane people would say, "I could go to Angkor Wat and *not* overexert myself at 13 latitude." To you people I have no coherent response.

Visak Bochea

OK, I'll admit that before, I didn't fully understand the theological underpinnings of Visak Bochea. But recently I was talking to a monk at a nearby pagoda, and he filled me in. First, it's pronounced Visaka Bochea, even though my calendar leaves out the final "a." Apparently, this day is the commemoration of 3 events that all happened on the same day of the lunar calendar, the full moon day of the 6th lunar month: Buddha's birthday, the day of his enlightenment, and the day of his death. Now I'm no scholar, but trying to put it into my own frame of reference, I thought that would make it like rolling up Christmas and Easter into one. A big deal, right? It turns out that the actual celebrations resemble those of a typical holy day at the pagoda: laypeople bring food and incense, and prayers and chants are offered. I guess Buddha, in the spirit of humility, wouldn't have wanted us to go to too much trouble.

Dear The U.S. Dollar,

I know your ride on the currency coaster has been thrilling and now you want to kind of sit there laughing dazedly for a while, but I was hoping you could, y'know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, just a bit, just to maybe 4,000 Khmer riels. Because 3,993 is a really awkward multiplier.

I'm sure you'll take this into prompt consideration.

Love,

Liz

The Longest Chapter

The Cambodian public schools use a book called English for Cambodia that supposedly integrates culturally relevant content with English grammar points (non-explicit) in a series of 6 books. Theoretically, 11th graders learn out of Book 5.

Chapter 6 of Book 5 is entitled The Importance of Education. The second section is called Life Skills. The grammar points to be focused on in this chapter are "either...or" and "neither...nor." Just to give you a little taste of the, um, really interesting content of the books, I reproduce for you the first third of the selected text.

"Education has various purposes. One purpose is to prepare students to meet the demands of society. Society, however, needs well educated girls as well as boys. Both girls and boys must, therefore, be given the same opportunity to go to school and find a job when looking for employment. They can hardly succeed in this, however, if the content of the materials they are provided with focuses neither on the real needs of society in general nor relates to both boys and girls in particular. Rather, educational materials need to focus on life skills - skills that are needed for work and everyday life in society and at home. Without them, students will neither be able to learn anything useful for themselves, nor want to take their education seriously."

The irony is painful.

Dirty Footprints

I've been playing around on the internet a lot today, and I decided to calculate my carbon footprint. This should be easy, right? Just type "carbon footprint calculator" into Google and have my pick of corporate, NGO, and government-sponsored calculators. Here's the problem. Most of these calculators assume that you live in a developed country, usually the U.S. or Europe. I did find one that had "China" as the only Asian option, so I selected it. But then the questions started: "How do you insulate your house from the cold?" Um, how do I break this to the calculator? It's not what you might call "cold" here. The house I live in is made up of one layer of boards, placed next to each other, with no insulation. Any insulation would just fry us all in our beds come hot season.

The calculator also wanted to know what my primary vehicle is: a motorbike, diesel small car, diesel truck, or regular-fuel car or truck. I looked hard but couldn't find "mountain bike" in the list of options.

Clearly, I am not emitting enough carbon to use these fancy calculators. In fact, my internet search for carbon calculators today has probably resulted in the emission of more carbon than any day full of normal activities back at my site. Still, I'd like to know for sure.

Seriously?

April lies at the epicenter of Cambodian holidays, with many public employees (or at least schoolteachers) taking the entire month off. May is not far behind, with some esoteric holidays of its own. Starting off on the right foot, May 1 is International Labor Day. Just when you're about to despair, having worked for nearly 2 weeks straight, the king's birthday affords you 3 days of relief: May 13, 14, and 15. Coming right on its heels is Visak Bochea, or the day Buddha was born (and walked on 7 lotus flowers). Finally, the Royal Ploughing Ceremony rounds off the month with 2 days of festivities involving oxen. Who could ask for anything more?

Dear Mother Nature

Headwinds suck.

Love,

Liz

How Now Brown Cow?

Khmer New Year is the biggest holiday in Cambodia. Unfortunately, it happens to occur at the hottest time of the year, so a few other Volunteers and I decided to escape to Laos over the Khmer New Year school vacation, which, to be completely honest, started on about March 1. (I taught for roughly 8 hours in the entire month of March, and when I asked why students weren't showing up to school, I was given the logical answer, "It's almost time for vacation." With that reasoning, why do we go to school at all? After all, vacation's never more than 3 months away...)

Anyhow, we came up with a name for our trek, The How Now Brown Cow Lao Pow-Wow (Yow!), bought us some o' them airplane tickets, and made as few plans as we could get away with (apparently, you can get a visa at the airport!).

We found Laos to be a truly awesome place, and repeatedly voiced our longing to be Peace Corps Volunteers placed in Laos (yeah, it's never gonna happen). It was perfect for an outdoorsy type of vacation, since you can do just about any activity there that will cause you to break a sweat (although there's no snow skiing). The people were laid-back but friendly. And Lao New Year is a fantastic hootenanny, with 2 main liquid ingredients: water, which is thrown at hapless passersby, and Beer Lao, which is guzzled with abandon (not by yours truly of course).

We landed at Luang Prabang. The town itself was cute enough, but the biggest draw was the Kuang Si waterfall, about 30 km away.



We went to some caves of spiritual significance where peope had been putting Buddhas for (apparently) hundreds of years.



We also went on an elephant ride. The experience made for some great pictures but it was a lot like riding a big, water-squirting horse. Still, I would do it again.



We also did a 4-hour river kayak trip. By the end, we were all ready to commit hara-kiri with our paddles. It was the longest workout of my life.

After we had exhausted the marvels of Luang Prabang, we headed to Vang Vieng and Vientiane. Unfortunately, I am currently unable to continue the story of my best vacation ever because I have to hop on my bike and go back to my site so I can teach some English tomorrow. Guess I'll hafta leave you hanging....

Take Ur Daughter 2 Work Day

International Women's Day was March 8. I decided in February that I wanted to plan a Take Your Daughter to Work Day for girls in Battambang province. Apparently, planning an event takes a lot of work (who knew?). So I and one of the Volunteers in Battambang town, Kristine, scrambled for several weeks to put this thing together. Our vision was to bring about 12 girls (3 from each of the Volunteers' high schools)to Battambang town to meet with successful women in different career paths in order to get them thinking about what they might want to do in the future.

A fantastic local NGO, Aphivat Strey (Women's Development), helped get the logistics in order, and we got funding from several different local sources. A lot more planning had to go into the event than I ever expected: we needed to rent a van to get from one place to another within the city, find transport for the girls from their small towns to Battambang, secure a venue to do short debriefing sessions at the beginning and end of the day, buy snacks, and find small gifts for the hosting organizations. Oh, and also ask 4 professional women to talk to a group of high-school students about their own jobs and experiences. In the end, the students got to visit the Regional Teacher Training Center (where junior-high teachers are trained to teach English, chemistry, Khmer, etc.), whose director is a woman; Digital Divide Data, whose local director is a woman; Emergency Hospital, where there are many female doctors and nurses; and ANZ Royal Bank, whose tellers are mostly women.

Not everything went perfectly according to plan, but the students' eyes were opened about their many different options after high school. At the RTTC, they toured classrooms and learned about how one gets admitted to the RTTC. Here are the girls in a biology classroom.



At Digital Divide Data, the director told them how important it is to make career goals and related this to her own career path. The students also met some of the employees, who do data entry for Western institutions and get computer training.

Emergency hospital, which is run by an Italian NGO and cares mostly for trauma patients, generously provided lunch for us. The students took a complete tour of the hospital (including all the wards) with an Italian doctor. Later, a Cambodian woman told them the story of how she had grown up in poverty but had worked hard to become a nurse.



And here are the students listening to the manager of the local branch of ANZ Royal Bank. This is one of the things that wasn't exactly according to plan: they were supposed to meet with a teller but the manager just ended up telling the girls that women are better employees than men. He also ended up telling them how banking works, since most Cambodians in villages use jewelry as their bank.



We all had a great time. The students had never visited any of these workplaces before, and they seemed to enjoy being in the "big" city. Their enjoyment fueled the Volunteers' enthusiasm, and we got to feel like we were doing something important. Personally, this event is the single thing I have enjoyed most since arriving in Cambodia, and I wish I could do something like it every day.

My Writing Workshop

Back in November, I started teaching an English essay writing class. Another PCV wrote up a syllabus for such a class, and I, needing somewhere to channel my energy, decided to use it to teach a class and see how it went.

First, I had all interested students meet in a classroom and write a letter of introduction about themselves. I told them I'd accept 40 students (out of the 70 who were interested) to be in the class. And I also told them not to cheat off each other (this is a completely futile command in Cambodia but you hafta try). I got home and spent hours agonizing over which students I would accept: a lot of letters were partially but not fully copied. Should I accept students who seemed talented but who had copied a third of their letter from someone else (or allowed someone else to copy a third of their letter)? Finally, Kevin told me to be a hard-ass, so I disqualified any students who showed any sign of cheating. This left me with only 35.

So! I had them all choose English names so I wouldn't go crazy trying to remember their Khmer names. (And even though I gave the boys a list of about 35 choices, Victor, Nicholas, and Philip were picked by more than one student.) And then we started learning how to write an essay in English. We talked about the main idea sentence, about putting details in the body paragraphs, about the introduction and conclusion. We talked about alternative ways to say "and" and "but." We talked about the difference between "give" and "allow" (which have the same Khmer translation). We talked about comparing and contrasting 2 things.

And then, when I had taught them all I could about essay writing, and I had only 24 students left in the class, we had a graduation party. It seemed daunting to plan a graduation party on my own, so I delegated that task to the students. They collected the money, bought the raw ingredients, made the (delicious) food themselves, and brought their VCD karaoke collections over to my house. All I had to do was make certificates.

So here are the students, checking out their scores from the class.



And here are some of the girls, preparing the veggies.



Here's the whole class (minus those who were absent for weddings [not their own weddings]).



I also had 2 students read their essays out loud to the class. This is Sarah.



And this is Victor.



Reflecting on the whole experience, I think the biggest thing the students learned wasn't necessarily about essay writing. Instead, they learned how to listen. I taught the class almost entirely in English, and my funny American-accented English at that, translating only when I had to. So the students were forced to listen to me, and listen hard. Even though they didn't learn exactly what I expected them to, they learned something, and that's all I can hope for.

Panned Entrance

The strangest part about coming back to my village from a long absence is the catalogue of minutiae of physical traits that have changed since people last saw me. Usually my family, friends, and co-workers discuss whether I've gotten fatter (good) or thinner (bad), paler (good) or darker (bad). I take the general disagreement to mean that I am exactly the same as when I left.

At any rate, I've got lots to share, about a couple of great school events and a vacation to Laos. I'll try to get some posts and pictures up within the week.

Net/Bugs = x

One of those questions that must be answered time and again: is it worth it to shoo that bug out of your mosquito net? (Another question that must be asked but will never be answered is: how did it get in there in the first place?)

There seems to be a matrix for solving this equation, with the following factors: whether you yourself are inside or outside the net at the time, exactly how scary the bug is, ranging from fruit fly to mysterious prehistoric jetliner with ominous stinger, and how much sleep time, if any, you are likely to lose if the bug is removed (or if it's not).

Usually it's mosquitoes that somehow drift into my net, and I rarely discover them until they've sucked my blood in the wee hours of the morning. I think they sneak in through a flap that is supposed to be "convenient" for my entry and egress. With mosquitoes, one can fairly confidently wait them out. The insecticide with which the net is impregnated will eventually work its magic, and the mosquito will fall into a permanent slumber, though it will certainly have sated itself before doing so. The other option is to wait patiently for the mosquito to float into view and then try to kill it. The only problem with this is, it tends to get your adrenaline up, as you must usually try several times before the target is defeated. This may render later slumber impossible.

Grasshoppers can be allowed to stay. Ants must be squished as you find them, as they tend not to spend enough time on the net to get a lethal dose of permethrin.

Larger bugs, like bees, stick bugs, and mysterious titans from a forgotten geological age, are another issue entirely. The net may eventually knock them out but will probably never kill them. And the longer they stay trapped in the net, the more agitated they are likely to be. However scary it is to get close enough to shoo them away from the net, it is much scarier to sleep in it with them. For this kind of operation, I highly recommend enlisting a Cambodian host sister, who will laugh good-naturedly at your silly fear of bugs but will also take pity on you and bravely remove the offender.

Daydreams

Lately I've taken to having very graphic daydreams of an unexpected nature: a mundane day in Boise, Idaho. I'll just be sitting on my bed here in Cambodia, under my mosquito net, trying to write a lesson plan or listen to the VOA broadcast on my shortwave radio, and suddenly, I'll be waking up in a cold house under a thick comforter. My parents' house. I'll take a trip to the bathroom and not think twice about the tall, familiar flushable toilet, the potable water pouring easily from the sink faucet. Then I'll go downstairs and pour a bowl of cereal, with real, cold milk. The door of the fridge will resist as I open it up to put the milk in. The cold fridge air will pour over my already-cold feet.

Perhaps the most satisfying part of my daydream is the part where I start my mom's Toyota. I put the key in the ignition. I turn it. As the engine rumbles I feel the slight vibration through the seat. The car has rear-view mirrors, which I check as I back it out of the driveway. The cool steering wheel resists as I turn it to enter the street.

For some reason my daydreams are always this simple, as small, familiar things from my life come back to tell me that they will still be there when I return home. But from here they are luminous, unreal. I know when I get home, I'll just be dragging myself out of bed to start the daily grind, and neither the sink nor the milk nor the car will retain the magic that now buoys them to the forefront of my drifting thoughts.

Another Day, Another Book Review

Recently I finished reading The Beach by Alex Garland. (What? I have a lot of time on my hands...) It was a perplexing experience. Garland re-creates the world of pretentious backpackers with careful precision: what drives them to seek out secret adventures and the understandable contempt they feel for other travelers like themselves. His creation of an idyllic community located on an inaccessible Thai island is tantalizing: why couldn't it really happen? Therefore, the first 80% of the book affords an enjoyable reading experience (except for the occasional disjointed Vietnam War reference). And then everything takes a bizarre and sinister turn, and the plot reaches its climax suddenly with a drug-fueled orgy of violence. (Shoot, did I just give away the ending?)

This felt familiar: a novel featuring an amazing world, created with care, and an author, unsatisfied with such an accomplishment, trying to bully his characters into acting out a convoluted plot. And I realized that the parallels are Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, though Stephenson's worlds are the more far-fetched and therefore, perhaps, more impressive creations.

No need to read for yourself unless you want to relive that special bafflement felt at the end of a Neal Stephenson novel. Or fantasize about a beautiful island paradise somewhere out to the south of Thailand. But if you do read it, ask yourself this: how do they get all that rice over those cliffs? I still can't figure that part out.

On Small Mountain

One other thing I did in February was a bicycle trip to Phnom Touch, or Small Mountain. (It's pronounced more like "toit" than the English "touch.") I went with a couple of teachers and a lot of students. The landscape around my province is very flat, but there's one hill that you can see from miles away. This is Phnom Touch. There is a pagoda which encircles and covers the mountain. It's a really beautiful place, and the 20-km bike ride to get there is fantastic.

I first saw the pagoda through the palm trees in an elementary school yard. It seemed very impressive.



The view from the top of the hill is amazing. The strip of green you can see is the area around the road, and then the yellow fields roll out to the horizon.



There's a temple with a huge Buddha statue about halfway up the hill. For some reason, I am a sucker for huge Buddha statues. It's amazing!



Finally, on the way home, one of the girls blew her tire, so she hopped on the back of another bike and steered her own next to her. Nervy girl.

February

Ahhh, and now February.

February was by no means a meaty teaching month. Chinese New Year, although not an official Cambodian holiday, is in practice celebrated by many Cambodians whether they are of Chinese heritage or not. Then the exam period began, so few classes were happening. As I said, exam period doesn't end until March. So I've been doing a lot of non-teaching stuff.

I went to another wedding of a Cambodian and Cambodian-American



JoJo got bigger and, as a total coward, learned how to bark at young girls



I went to Siem Reap with a college friend, where we visited the War Museum



and saw lots of old stuff



and I learned how to pump gas, Khmer-style



I also went to Phnom Penh for the CamTESOL conference. I'm pretty excited to go back to my site and try out some new methods that I've learned about at the conference, specifically something called Team English. Wish me luck!

January

January was a month I have only vague memories of, mostly for self-preservation and also because this is when I was struggling with my camera and didn't take any pictures.

The students at my school were given an official vacation during the first week of the month to help their parents with the rice harvest. I took this opportunity to visit a small town near the Thai border with my host sister. I have a lot to say about this trip, but basically it was amazing! It was interesting to get a glimpse of a life more rural than my own. Also, it was a relaxing vacation, as I didn't feel the need to see the sights or check my email. The town reminded me of the Old West (or what the Old West looks like in movies): everything from houses to fields to trees was dust-colored, and the area has clearly seen better days. Except, strangely, they have ridiculously cheap electricity there (much cheaper than in my town) because of the proximity to Thailand. My host sister and I visited a potato farm and helped chop potatoes for drying. We also checked out a pagoda on top of a quiet mountain. I feel relaxed just remembering it all....

The road out to the border was an experience in and of itself. The feeling was kind of similar to being shoved into a dryer that's on, what with the large number of people in the pickup truck and the size and frequency of the holes/bumps/divots/craters in the road. At one point on the way back our taxi stopped in front of a sign that said "Danger! Mines" and all the men in the car got out to answer the call of nature in the bushes. Despite the awful stories I've heard about "straying from the path," nobody was injured.

After that I went down to Phnom Penh to get some "work" done. You can guess how that turned out. Back at my site on a Tuesday morning, I put on my teacher clothes and made to leave the house. My host brother, who's a 12th grader, just laughed. "Bong Maly, there are no students or teachers at school. You don't need to go today." Usually, he knows more about what's going on at school than I do. So I believed him, but I also thought that if everyone else magically showed up and I wasn't there, I might look lazy. So I went to check it out. Sure enough, the gate to the school was padlocked, and the yard was deserted. So there was no school the second week either.

Peace Corps staff then invited me to a meeting in the next province over, to check out a new university that I've been hearing about. This is where the memory starts to fade. I ate something unfortunate on this trip, got a vicious stomach bug, and spent a lot of the rest of January feeling lethargic. My host sister took a sample (if you know what I mean) to our provincial town for analysis. That's when you know someone loves you.

Somehow I also managed to fall off my bike for the first time since I was 16. I was riding the evil road outta town. At a certain part, the road slopes down steeply to a ditch. I was absent-mindedly riding along the edge of the road when my wheel began to slip down the slope. I overcorrected and found myself flat on my face underneath my bike. I'm pretty sure I didn't hear the other people along the road laughing at me, but I know they saw me, so I was still embarrassed.

January was awesome and cold. I dreaded taking showers. I wore long sleeves. Good times. P.S. I'm over the stomach bug.

December

December was also a pretty meaty teaching month. I lesson planned with my new coteacher for 11th grade



watched my essay students chase a very small snake out of our classroom and kill it with a rock



went to the wedding of a teacher at my school with a Cambodian American



and took my Christmas trip to Siem Reap. I also got word that the rice harvest begins in earnest in late December, so students would start disappearing from class to help their parents cut the rice, thresh the rice, dry the rice, and take it to the rice mill.

November

November was a very meaty teaching month. I began to teach an essay-writing workshop using a fellow Volunteer's syllabus and to teach occasional English classes at a local reproductive health organization. Also, I had a visitor (good to see ya, George!), biked to Ek Phnom with the boys



got a puppy with a diva name



caught a bit of the Bon Om Touk (water festival) after a small meeting in Phnom Penh



and got a computer room installed in my school (not that the computers began working in November).

First Semester Review (October)

The First Semester is officially over in Cambodia. Or it will be in a few days, when the 12th-grade students finish taking their semester exams. But since I don't have to do any more work until March, I say it's over.

The end of a semester is a good time to take stock. So here's a quick review of my school year. I think I'll do a different post for every month so if I get lazy I can stop in the middle.

OCTOBER

School theoretically begins on October 1, but because of Pchum Ben, an important religious Cambodian holiday around the 11th, school really begins around October 15th. I spend a lot of time making Cambodian rice snacks filled with bananas (called ansom jayk) and pork (called ansom chrook). Here's the fam wrapping the snacks up outside my host aunt's house on the ubiquitous bed frame.



Here are the starting ingredients: cut banana leaves for the wrapping, partially cooked rice, yellow beans, and pork fat (bananas not shown).



Here's my mom wrapping her ansom jayk.



Here's a bucket that will eventually be full of our dessert.



Also, the national highway in my town got yellow dashes. Woot!

A Note on Trash

Last month I stumbled on an old issue of Harper's magazine in Phnom Penh, and by a lucky chance it had a great article about a huge dump in Manila, Philippines, which reminded me of my trip to the Phnom Penh dump. If you get a chance, check it out.

A Very Happy Un-Birthday To Me

Today is the 1-year anniversary of my arrival in Cambodia. A year ago today, I couldn't speak a word of Khmer, had never drunk juice straight from a coconut, had never taught the concept of "would rather...than..." to a Cambodian high school student, had never ridden a bike in an ankle-length skirt. It's amazing how much can change in a year.

This means that my scheduled date of return to the United States is 14 months away. I'm hoping to stay to finish the next school year, though, so I might be closer to 17 months away from daily access to French fries.

I suppose an anniversary calls for some reflection on where one has been and where one is going, but I'm feeling kinda sweaty and rather unreflective. We had a small out-of-season rain today, and it made me fall back in love with this country. That is all the reflection I can muster. I promise, I'll try to do more soon.

Picture Problems

Soooo, I've been having some problems with my camera's XD cards. Which is why I haven't been putting up a lot of pictures lately. And it's a shame, because I've had some good photo ops in the last few weeks. But I think everything is ship-shape again, so I'm going to start taking more photos. Now just to get more time on the internet to post them....

The Oil Conundrum

I love my bicycle. It's a blue Trek 3900 16-inch-frame mountain bike with shocks and other assorted features. It's the nicest bike I've ever owned. (Cambodians love my bicycle too. It's got this irresistible beat-up old bell that no one, young or old, can refrain from ringing. Repeatedly. But I maintain that I love my bicycle more than anyone.)

So I try to take good care of it, which brings me to my point. I remember, back in the U.S., when I was just a little novice cyclist trying to learn how to take care of my bike, asking my friends what brand of bike-chain oil is the best to use. I wanted only the highest quality product to guide and caress my bike chain, to ensure its unhindered path through all the, um, stuff that it has to touch on its elliptical journey (derailleur? sprocket? gear? I have no clue). Oh, those days of abundance!

I currently have two choices of lubricants for my bike chain: motor oil or cooking oil. To date, I have opted for the motor oil, as advised by numerous Cambodians. It seems to serve just fine as a lubricant, as far as I can tell, with the only negative consequence being that I have a semi-permanent black oil patch on my lower right leg. (Perhaps I applied it a little too enthusiastically.)

But I've learned an important lesson from all the agonizing I did about how I was going to lubricate my chain, and from all my trepidation about following the advice to use the suspicious motor oil: don't be such a damn snob. I may never go back to fancy bike-chain oil again.