Update

Sorry that it has taken me so long to respond but these past few weeks have been a total blur. I will attempt to fill you all in on what has happened since I last blogged…..

When it came time for site announcement, the Peace Corps staff took us outside to the parking lot, where they outlined the entire country with chalk and rocks. They put bamboo sticks around the country with a sign that said each site. The staff in the middle called out a name and we were handed an envelope and when we opened it, we read out loud our province and school. We then stood on top of our site until all of the names were called. I probably didn’t do a justice to how cool this process was, but it was really awesome when we finished and the country was filled in with all of us next to our sites.

We had a few days in Phnom Penh, where we met our counterparts- who essentially, are teachers at our schools who will take us under their wing and show us the ropes. Since I will be co-teaching with a Khmer teacher, it is really important that I make as many connections with the teachers at my school as possible. His name is Sopeap and he is around 50 years old. He has two sons and has been teaching for 18 years. He lived and studied in Russia and knows Russian, on top of English and Khmer. He wants to get his doctorate in English soon, but doesn’t know where he is going to do that yet. We had a counterpart conference for 2 days in PP before we all headed out to our sites. It took me about 5 hours to get to Battambang (BB) from PP, which is not bad, but I know I won’t be coming into PP that often because it is expensive. It costs around $10 round trip, but when your salary is $100 per month, it is really expensive. Plus, when we go into PP, we usually get a little careless with money and eat a lot of Western food, which is much more expensive.

There will be five of us in BB province and two of us in BB provincial town, which is basically the capitol of the province. Darlene will be teaching at the teacher training school across the street from me and is the closest volunteer to me, which is awesome because she is such a great person. She is a professor at University of Texas and I am really excited to be so close to her. We took the bus into BB together and our counterparts picked us up from the bus station and took us to Darlene’s house. Her family owns a pharmacy in town and they have a sweet house. Her dad picked us up in his car, which is a big deal, and took us to their house. They gave us coconuts and we got to know each other a little better. We then walked to my host family in the center of town. I don’t really want to get into details, but I soon realized that I will not be living there and I am working on getting another host family. Hopefully that will be solved within the next few days. Peace Corps has a few requirements for host families and the family that I was assigned to is simply not going to work, so I will leave it at that. The PC staff is so understanding and incredible, so it really isn’t a big deal at all.

We went to visit my school with the principle the next day. In short, my school is the Khmer version of OPRF. They have amazing facilities, but don’t really know how to use them. They have a science lab, but they are unsure how to take care of it, so that will be one of my tasks. There are about 4,300 students at my school and my classes will have around 60 students in them. My biggest class at Seton Hall had less than 40. But, I wanted a big school so that I would be able to do secondary projects and I know that I will be able to. They have a soccer field, as well as 3 volleyball courts. The back of the school floods during the rainy season and there are facilities are students to eat in between classes. The school has also just started building a human resources lab, which will have computers. I think that it is safe to say that I have one of the biggest schools with many opportunities to work with. The way that it works when I get to site is that I will observe for at least one month and then I will start teaching but my other projects will most likely have to wait a few months until I can assess what I think the school needs, as well as wants and what I can actually do, because some tasks just won’t be possible to complete in two years.

As for BB, there is definitely a western influence, but not as much as there is in PP. PP has a mall, as well as restaurants that serve pizza, Mexican, etc. and BB doesn’t have that much. Sometimes PP can be a little much when it comes to the international influence, but BB strikes a good balance between being Khmer and being a big city with many foreigners. According to my counterpart, there is a large amount of Australian, French and Swedish volunteers in the city. Also, BB was the only place that I have seen that has two things that are common in every city that I have ever been in- a garbage truck and construction. BB is very different from Takeo in a few ways. One, there aren’t as many rice patties and the people allow the vegetation to grow. Also, it is easy to tell the French and Chinese influence. The architecture seems very European in the city and the people look more Chinese in BB than anywhere else that I have been in the country. I was only there for a few days, but I can already tell that I am going to really like it up there. I will be very far from the group of friends that I have made here, but Siem Riep (which is home to Angkor Wat) is only a few hours away and I know that people will want to come to see the great city of Battambang. Oh, there is a place called City Café that has free Wifi, and I am under the impression that it is not the only place in the city that offers Wifi. That is HUGE because many people have been hounding me to put up pictures, but there are a few reasons for the lack of pictures. One, it takes so long- I tried in Bangkok and because the photos are formatted differently in America than they are in Asia, it takes 5 times longer (at least that is what I think, I am probably wrong though….) Also, the computers are teeming with viruses, if I were to put my flash drive in one of these babies, I will most likely carry some virus to my Seton Hall issued laptop, and since there is no Khmer Geek Squad that can come and save the day, I am most likely going to wait a few more weeks and spend a few hours at the City Café and put them all on facebook.

As for training in general, we just finished week 6 out of 9, so we are almost there. Next week consists of a lot of language, week 8 is testing our language and packing and week 9 is swearing in. We swear in September 24^th and then head out to site and the real work begins. The posts will come more frequently then because as the K2s have told us, we are going to be bored to tears since they keep us so busy during training. Lock down is for the first 3 months, which means that I won’t be able to leave the province, which is ok with my, because my site is pretty awesome, I won’t want to leave. My address will be changing soon, but I will post closer to swear in so there is no confusion.

Overall, I can honestly say that I am as happy right now as I have ever been in my life. There are bad days, but that is life. Sometimes I need to take a deep breath when I feel overwhelmed and remember why I am here. The frustration passes easily when I realize that life is meant to be lived for the moment, and this chance is one that I would never have if I stayed where everything was familiar. I am lucky because I found some really great people here to help me through and all of you back home who push me forward without realizing it. The letters that I receive literally make my day every time, so thanks to those who have sent them. So thanks for all of the continued support, it really means the world to me.

Also, Mom, all of the staff and other trainees were so jealous of that mammoth of a package. It is most likely a PC record…..

This blog does not reflect the thoughts or opinions of the Peace Corps or the U.S. government. It reflects my own thoughts and opinions.