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.