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.)