HOST FAM

I am officially with my host family! I am in the town of Tramkok in the province of Takeo, about 10 km from the hub site where we were all week. We had a day of training which consisted of getting more shots, getting supplies from the market (including teaching skirts and shirts), a language lesson and a bike lesson. We were taught the day before about things that weren’t too appealing- doing laundry (which is all done by hand) and going to the bathroom in a whole in the ground without toilet paper. I will leave it at that. But yesterday, as we were walking up to training, one of the other volunteers, who is one of the first people that I became friends with, needed to go home because his father passed away. It was incredibly sad and we were trying to be as supportive as we could have been, but he handled himself very well. We headed back to Phnom Penh and in in transition back to Georgia right now. He will be back in about 2 weeks, but please keep him and his family in your prayers. That was his only request. I know this is a sad topic, but it is something that we all fear and my heart goes out to him that it happened.
After training, we packed a backpack full of things to get us through the week, locked up our other belongings and set off for our towns. I lucked out and got placed with the best language teacher, Kim Kong, and I am close to a few friends. There are three other people in my language cluster, one boy and two other girls. The entire Tramkok group (the others went to Traing, which is more rural) went to a wat in town. When we walked into the wat, the monks performed a blessing ceremony for us. We had no idea what they were saying, but they the point of the ceremony was to offer protection for our time in Tramkok. It was my first experience in a wat and it was beautiful. There was a group of older men who began a chant and then the monks took over the chant and blessed us with water (much like what the prients does during lent) and threw flower petals and candy at us. It really sounds strange, but it was a great welcome, although we had no idea what they were saying. We were on our knees and offered incense to them when they were done.
After the ceremony, the police chief welcomed us as honored guests to the town. Then came the fun: the host family announcement. One by one, they called our names and then called our host family name and we looked around to see who it was. I was towards the end and was soooo relieved when a woman stood up who was around 35 years old. She brought her 4 year old daughter with her and her husband. I said that it was going to be super awkward, but it was not nearly as weird as I thought it was going to be. From the little Khmer that I have learned, I found out that they have 3 daughters- 3 years old, 7 years old and 12 years old. Those numbers a little deceiving because in Khmer culture, the children all turn one year older on New Years, not their birthdays. After the ceremony, we were all dropped off at our houses. I met the other girls and they set me up in my room. We chit chatted (if you can call my very broken Khmer and a lot of motioning chit chatting) and then ate dinner. The 12 year old is learning English in school and is actually very good, so between the two of us, we are able to get the point across. My host mother’s sister lives right next door and she has 3 children- a boy around 11, a girl around 4 and a boy around 3. Their grandpa lives on the same plot of land- he stopped by last night and today to check up on the American. A few people that I do not know have come by to get a look at me. Where ever we go, there are always a bunch of people who gather round to see us. They observe everything and if they know how to say anything in English, they do. We ate dinner, watched a little tv, I showered and then went to my room. I talked to my friend Jacqueline, who is in Traing, last night. She has the exact opposite situation as me and referred to her situation as “real Peace Corps in the 60s.” She has no electricity- I was talking to her while a fane was blowing on me. She has no bed- clearly I have one. There were chickens running around her “room”, while she was sitting on a mat on the floor that doubled as a bed. Her host family does not know any English and it seemed very awkward. When I told her that I am fairly confident that I have the best host situation of the entire group, she said that she is fairly confident that she has the worst. Needless to say, I am super happy with my set-up.
Today started with a rude awakening at 5:30 by roosters. I never realized that roosters don’t actually sound like they do in the cartoons. Instead of saying “cock-a-doodle-do” it sounds more like “cock-a-doodle-crook””, and it really is not pleasant. I showered (showering is more like pouring water from a big basin over yourself in the bathroom outside”) and walked into town to meet up with Kim Kong and my group. By the way, the shower is really not as bad as it sounds. The thing that cracks me up is there is a gecko that lives in the bathroom, which I am thankful for because he eats all of the bugs. The firs time I showered, he sorta scared me because he was staring at me showering. I felt like I was in one of those Geiko commercials.
I will update later because I need to run to dinner and if I am not home by a certain time, it really does not reflect well on myself.
The thoughts and opinions in this post are mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of the Peace Corps or the U.S. goverrnment.