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!