GO RED SOX!!

Yana and Srey Um & Val and me at the orphanage last week

This Week At A Glance (plus a couple more little things I left out from the past few weeks):

Flooding has been bad lately..Val and I had to push our tuk tuk out of a bit rut in the road when it got stuck on our way to lunch. girl power!

We gave our first quiz/test on body parts! Some of the students are pros, and others...

...had some problems. lol This is Tida, god bless her she tries so hard but just can't get the hang of it. She'll be sitting in the front row from now on.

CLFCA (school 1) is totally loving the batmitten set and soccer ball that Dave left here!! Thank you, Dave!!

At KHK (school 2), I've decided that Monday is gonna be my last day teaching with my translator/helper guy, Sophannara.

To get his attention for one of the students a couple weeks ago, I tapped him..no response, and so I nudged his leg with my foot. Apparently a woman's touching a man with her foot is one of the most offensive gestures she can make. Since then , things have been difficult between us. We used to teach together so well! Since "the incident" though, he's been unfriendly and rude..and he likes to make comments to the class (which is just awkward cause they like me) in Khmer..and I think he's under the impression that I can never understand him. Sorry, dude, sometimes I can. And I can always understand rolling eyes and body language. So, I've already apologized to you, Sophannara, but again I'm sorry for touching you with my foot. I hope you get over it eventually. Until then, have fun teaching english without me.

Sucks though because I do love that class, that was my music class..but, I'll get a new one!! Plus I get to teach more of the kids if I change classes a few times. So, it's all for the better.

So, we got through the rest of the week in one piece...and now that I have some fun company, this is the first time I've really gotten to enjoy a WEEKEND!

Friday night Val and I hit up downtown for some Mexican (in Cambodia!!), American hip hop, some really funny hats, and a huge serving of tourism. I've decided that being a tourist really isn't all that bad! Most of my time here I've been trying to convince all the locals that I'm this new breed of white Cambodian roaming around the streets of Siem Reap, spending less than a dollar a day on food and speaking Khmer to everyone (even westerners) ..but really, local or not, everyone's just happy to have you! Got back to the hotel around 10:30 and slept in till 8..it felt great!

Saturday was completely dedicated to nothingness. I had nothing to do besides.. to do nothing! Lounged around, did some yoga!, helped Soda (guy working downstairs) start a blog for a tour guide business he's trying to get started **we had a photoshoot, too lol**

---because I have a facebook, skype, and blog I'm like the queen of technology..I uploaded skype onto the hotel computer and made Ratana a skype account (she leaves me messages almost every day lol)---and bicycled to market in the evening to buy some fruit.

It's always so fun going to market!! They never expect you to know a word of Khmer, and then when you walk up not only saying "Suo Sudei!", but also explaining that you'd like to buy a half kilo of bananas and some bottled water they're COMPLETELY blown away!

The ladies working in the fruit section insisted that I try this little green fruit, too. I broke it open, took a bite of the inside, and it was SO SOUR that I thought I would be sick lol it was just...so, so sour. Then they offered me a dip in this bowl of red sugary looking stuff, and I had eaten ice a couple days earlier so I was feeling invincible--dipped my little sour fruit in, took another bite, and it was the SALTIEST, HOTTEST taste I had ever experienced haha.

I asked Ta what it was when I got back to the hotel; apparently they smash up a few blazing hot peppers in a bowl of salt. And it tasted just like you'd expect salt and peppers to taste: salty and peppery. The ladies gave me four free green fruits and put some peppery salt in a little to go bag. Also bought two white pomegranites before I left. They're one of my new favorite fruit!

Also went to another section and bought the juciest, most delicious apples I've ever had--everything is better home grown! There were a few boys there who couldn't have been older than I am (then again, everyone here looks so young you really cant tell!) who I spoke English with for about a half hour. It's always fun seeing how excited people get when they realize you're an English speaker.

Val's been touring Angkor Wat this weekend. It would have been great to go with her, but I was happy to have gone with Elderhostle, too. They were awesome company. That night after she got home from temple-ing all day, she walked over and said, "hey jen, wanna order a pizza?" lol! So we had delivered to the hotel what was supposed to be a vegi pizza with mushrooms on half...but when it came it had magically become half pineapple and half ham. lol oh well, hawaiian's good, too!

TODAY is where the title of this post comes into play--literally! Val's a HUGE Red Sox fan..Popo, she's worse than you are about the Cubs!! So, she brought with her to Cambodia a whole bag of Red Sox Tshirts, some plastic balls, and a plastic bat. what a freakin great idea! When she came back from temples around noon, we bicycled to grab some lunch and some delicious smoothies, and headed to the orphanage for the afternoon--I love teaching so much, I love the classes, and I LOVE the students, but the orphanage is really where all the "fun" is!! Wrestling, playing airplane, stickers, drawing, sports--and we've only been there twice!!

So, because the Red Sox have a huge game tonight, today was baseball day!! We all put on our new Red Sox Tshirts, each got some baseball cards, and headed into the yard to play! 4 medium size rocks were the bases and if your bat touched the ball, you ran! the kids LOVED it!

I can't wait to go back. We go every Sunday, but I hope to stop by during the weeks a few times before school. As far as orphanages go, this one is fantastic! The kids seem happy (although some require a little more nudging to participate), they know English fairly well, and the two men and one woman who run it seem to really care about them. Although though the place itself is absolutely tiny and dirty, they make the most of it. It really makes me appreciate everything I have..most of the things that I take for granted, even like driving a car, these kids may never know. I also wonder a lot what happened to their parents. An older girl there, 15, has only been at the orphanage for a year..so what happened? It just makes me feel incredibly, incredibly lucky to have been born in the US.

AND that brings you to right at this moment. I was going to bicycle down the road about a mile to get a delicious to-go noodle dinner, but it was pouring out (go figure..it never rains in cambodia...) so I made some ramen-like noodles (except that in cambodia, ramen noodles come with 3 packets inside: one of spicey sauce, one of diced herbs, and one of powder flavoring), had some hot chocolate, and more Shark Week. Tomorrow morning at 9 I'm going with Val and Ratana to watch a traditional Khmer dance recital for little kids. I'm pretty sure it's gonna be adorable. I hope all's well in the 706 and about 30 other area codes!

"Kgnom nuck neak! Chou-up kuhneea chap chap! hi nung Douv Red Sox!!!"

2 is DEFINITELY better than 1!!!!!

This is gonna be a short post--I just HAD to tell about the great day I had!!!

woke up around 8:15 (which is laaattee for Cambodia!)
ate some breakfast with Ta
chatted with Val about her day yesterday and bought fruit at market
then planned our lessons for school went to a delicious Thai lunch together that cost 1.50 and had awesome conversation =)
we also found a new, shorter way to get to CLFCA!
gave our first quiz at CLFCA that was about body parts--everyone did exceptionally well!
played a new game we call Word Grow that they all seemed to like, too
(((example of Word Grow: cowindaughtereadyeshore--can ya figure it out??)))
biked to KHK, tought two classes there (my usual music class and another one) until about 6:30...

...and THEN:

the sky had been pretty dark all day, so we were expecting rain at some point---and it definitely arrived at about 6. it freakin poured while we were teaching!! it was so loud that we had to pause class cause wecouldn't hear over the noise on the tin roof! but as val and I got our bicycles to go, it seemed to let up! so we're thinking "hey! we lucked out!"
We biked to a "Fast Khmer Food" place on the way home to get some groceries and whatever, and while we're in there we hear just like GOOOOOSH!! RAIN!! feeling rebelious (lol), we decided to go for it--so we both ordered smoothes (that have ICE in them!! haha so we'll see how that goes! val didn't get sick last time she had one! haha we're dangerous like that) and headed out into literally rain so hard you couldn't see in front of you! She was in her thin raincoat and I, of course, had thought "oh, it won't rain today!" so I had nothing!!

We rode on our bicycles 2km home--me and val, the only two western women living in siem reap, completely drenched, slushies in hand, baskets full of groceries, screaming and laughing and yelling "SUO SUDEI!!" to everyone we saw!!!-----It was really just great, great, great fun!!

Haven't had fun like that in about a month and a half~!

So, we got home looking as if we'd gone swimming in our clothes (i wish i had thought to take a picture!), made our way upstairs, and took hot showers. Val's getting a massage tonight, think i'll do the same tomorrow---rephrase, I'm doing the same tomorrow.

Time for some Shark Week! dinner of a scrambled egg, bananas, apples, some random bread, and my last orange.

Basically, today rocked. =)

"Kgnom joul jet Campucheea!! Rea trey suo sudei!!"

"Kgnom Awt Sroul Clooin' Te" =(

Stuck at the hotel feeling under the weather today. I've been trying to soak up the culture here as much as possible...even if that means eating or drinking something that's a bit questionable. Eh, oh well! So, while I'm lyin' around, I thought I'd tell you all about my past month!








On Saturday, September 5th, mom and I drove to Atlanta to put me on a plane from Georgia to Soeul, Koreal. Yeah, 15 hours on a plane. But it wasn't all that bad! I ate 3 meals, had my own personal tv on the back of the seat in front of me that had movies, tv series, and CDs uploaded onto it (and also had a setting where you could see a map of our flight route), was given a toothbrush with toothpaste, was offered wine, and slept for at least 6 hours. It





was weird, though, that as we were moving backward over timelines and we all were getting tired at about midnight our time, it was still light out over the Pacific ocean into Asia. AND the luckiest part was magically waking up as we were passing over a mountain range in Alaska!!


Finally, I got to Korea. I think it was about 3 or 4 AM in Georgia time but I wasn't tired at ALL. Being in a different country by myself was so crazy feeling! That was the most liberated-feeling 2 hours of layover I've ever had.
After buying a subway sandwich, leaving my passport on a phone booth, freaking because I couldn't find my passport, running back to the phone booth, breathing for the first time in 10 minutes, and buying a couple packs of gum, I boarded my plane from Soeul to Siem Reap, Cambodia. I was not only the only white person on that flight, but I was the only native English speaker, too. The plane was small and all of the announcements were in Korean and Khmer (Cambodian). No English. That's when it hit me that I was literally on the other side of the world.

The flight was about 5 hours long, most of which I either slept, ate yet another airplane meal, or tried to learn "hello" in Khmer. When we got to Siem Reap Sunday night (remember I left Saturday mid-morning), the weather was so bad that we circled around for about 45 minutes before landing. I got in line to show my VISA, picked up my bags, met by Meng, my project coordinator and basically bff in Cambodia, and went to my hotel.

My first day living in Cambodia was so busy that it's basically a blur to me. What I did:

• Woke up at 6:30 for breakfast


• 7:30-8:30 My first Khmer Language Lesson


• 8:30-9:30 Orientation


• 9:30-10:30 Brought presents to a pagoda and was blessed by the oldest Monk I've ever seen


• 10:30-1:00 Went to lunch with Meng and bought myself a bicycle


• 1:30-2:30 Visited the Orphanage


• 3:00-4:00 Visited my first school (CLFCA)


• 4:30-6:00 Visited my second school (Khmer Help Khmer)


• 6:30-7:30 Saw a traditional Cambodian dance


• 8:00-9:30 Went to dinner with Meng


• Passed out by 10 in my room

YEAH. and the way we got around everywhere was either by TukTuk (Cambodian equivalent of a taxi) or by Meng's motobike. I also took about 150 pictures on that first day, all of which are on Facebook. Jennifer Hicks if we're not already friends.

Although that was one of the most hectic days of my life, it was also the most exciting. I couldn't WAIT for the days to come.

My first week was perfect:


I woke up early every day for breakfast,

had my Khmer lessons,

had from around 10-12 to plan my lessons for the day,

bicycled 3 km to CLFCA where I'm literally THE teacher (there's no assistant at that school; there is Heng who can translate when I need him. Heng rocks.),

bicycled 4km to Khmer Help Khmer where I'm the music teacher for one class, then the teacherteacher for two others (we're doing Imagine by John Lennon right now! I'm slowly converting them all to UUism haha..),

then biked home at about 7:30, skyped with mom and popo,

and was asleep by 9:30.




(Notice, that there's no lunch or dinner in there. For the first 4 or 5 days breakfast was my only meal because I couldn't muster up the courage to go biking around a strange, Cambodian city looking for some grub. I've since gotten over that. The first lunch I did go out to buy I found at this funny little Fast Food resturaunt. It was noodles, chicken broth, bones, something that looked like a heart, and a spinal chord I think.)





Also, during this first week in Cambodia is when the Fountain Incident and the Frog-Ka-Bobs happened. If you don't know about those, lol ask.

My first weekEND in Cambodia, Meng and I went to Phenom Penh (the capital) and Sihanouk Ville (the beach). When I agreed to go to Phenom Penh, I didn't know that it's not just Augusta to Atlanta, it's like Augusta to DC! We were on a Cambodian equivalent of a Greyhound for 8 HOURS. First thing we did when we finally arrived was go to the Khmer Rouge Museum. It was actually really interesting..I didn't know much about the history of Cambodia, so I was glad I went. Then, Meng and I split for a little, he went to visit with his relatives and I walked around downtown near my hotel for a bit. That night I went out to eat with Meng and 3 of his Cambodian friends.

That night has been really the only time I've been miserably homesick. And let me tell ya, I hope it doesn't happen again. It really sucked. Phenom Penh is kinda gross..it's just a big, noisy, Cambodian city..not to mention, I didn't have my laptop so I couldn't skype or facebook with anyone. Come to think of it, that's probably why I was extra miserable.

The next morning Meng and I headed to the bus station for another 5 hour ride to the beach! The beach was actually quite nice, the room was nicer than the one in Phenom Penh, and I ate some awesome foods including squid, octopus, lobster, crickets, and jackfruit. (and there was a HUUUUGE storm while we were there, you can see it pouring in the background of the pic) The next morning we rode back to Phenom Penh, tourned around the city for a couple hours, then rode the long trip back home to Siem Reap. And god was I glad to be there.

The next few weeks were pretty tame. I had bought groceries for lunches so I didn't have to go out for every meal, I was learning the names of most of my kids, visiting pagodas, finally getting a hang of Khmer, and really falling in love with my new life here. Then came my first sign of American civilization: Elderhostle.



Elderhostle is a group of spunky older people who go on trips around the world to learn about different cultures. The group in Siem Reap was 11 50somethin'-80somethin' year olds who were really some of the coolest old people I've ever met. They were here for a week which not only gave me a break to speak some English to people, but gave me a break from lesson plans every day! They brought arts and crafts, new great ideas, and entertainment for the kids that took a load off of my shoulders for the week...and gave the kids a break from EnglishEnglishEnglish, too. Also, while they were here, we went to Angkor Wat. :)










(that's our tour guide, Li. lol he's a goofball..likes to call me a lot hah)

When you're looking at ruins of anything, you have to keep reminding yourself (or at least I did) that all this what now seems like a bunch of crap USED to be freakin awesome. Imagine all the people who've walked right where you're walking: their lives were soooooo different from ours...AND imagine how long it took to do every single carving by hand!! Angkor Wat and all the temples (including Tah Prohm, the one where all the trees are growing out of the ruins) are really, truly breathtaking. But either I'm a teenager or the temples all look the same because after 2 days of touring, I was templed out. Majorly. Some highlights of our Angkor Wat weekend include that temple, the elephant ride!, and getting lost for 2 hours by myself at Tah Prohm.

So, that was two weekends ago. Angkor Wat Temples. I kinda can't believe I've actually been there! There're about 34,729 pictures on facebook, too. =)

3 days later, Elderhostle and I took an awesome morning trip to the Floating Village, a community where some of the poorest people I've ever met (mainly Vietnamese who can't legally own land in Cambodia) live in an enormous lake on boats. they technically can't "own" water. It was FINALLY a beautiful morning and we got a bunch of fantastic pictures!

Elderhostle left last Saturday. Like I said, it was really great having them here. (I miss them!!!)They came at the perfect time, too. I'd been here for just over a month and they were here to help break up the "same old same old" that can happen from doing the same thing every day. I like what I do, I love it, but...it is the same...every day. I hope to stay in touch with them via internet somehow--one even has facebook!! (like I said..awesome.) Also right around the weekend that Elderhostle left, Cambodia felt what was that huge hurricane/storm in the Phillipines.

We didn't have school on Wednesday or Thursday because of heavy flooding. CLFCA is surrounded by puddles but the school managed to stay dry because it's covered and slightly elevated, but KHK is more or less completely under water a foot deep in some places.

So, the rain is what's been causing problems lately.

ALSO on Saturday, Val Mulhern, an executive level business woman from Boston who's been to nearly 50 countries, came to Cambodia to teach for 5 weeks! It's SOO nice having some company here!! I had never thought of myself as lonely in Cambodia without anyone, but having her around to talk to and plan lessons with and go out to eat with really is a great refresher.
AND in a couple weeks another woman from the US gets here. We don't have a confirmed name, age, or duration of stay, but still! The timing couldn't be more perfect! I went from having nobody to having not one but two friends here! Oh life's been good lately.

I think you're pretty much up to date now. I realize I may have left out a thing or two, or five hundred. I've been living here for a month, getting a routine down, and really enjoying every second of it. I know not much of this was about how I'm feeling or deep inspirational realizations I've had--those are coming. I actually have made a bunch of decisions about my life lately. This has been the most life-changing thing I've ever done...I'm just blogged out for now. =) Also, hundreds of pictures on facebook. Facebook is for pictures, Blogger is for journal.

"Awkun chiran! Jooup k'nee-uh chapchap!"

P.S. - Happy Moon Cake Day!!!

well, hey!!

Well, I wish I hadn't procrastinated so much in starting a blog of my trip. I've officially been living in Cambodia for over a month now--feels like just a couple days!! Sometime soon I'll write all about my past month and the week leading up to the trip. So, blog number one: done!
"Rea Trea Suo Sudei!"