a crazy cambodian night

My last few weeks have been spent reuniting with my fellow PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) for an additional bout of training in Takeo. Nothing too notable to share from that time, except for one specific, crazy night. Well, maybe it wasn't that crazy, but the series of random events that occurred where quite different from my normal evenings of eating, lying down, playing on the computer and passing out all before 9 o'clock. I venture to say, it was probably one of the most interesting nights I'll have in terms of village or town life during my time here. During this round of training, we all went back to live with our training host families, however, my original family's toilet was flooded due to the rainy season, so I stayed with a new family. They are great, very welcoming and I was folded into a larger family that a few PCVs had already been a part of. This family invited the four of us to go on a tuk-tuk ride somewhere for some sort of celebration. This is the usual amount of prior knowledge we can gain before being whisked off somewhere. We were all pretty excited about it because we also knew we would be eating one of our favorite meals, num ban chok, which is noodles with curry sauce. The evening started with the landing of Obama in Cambodia and watching what seemed to be a frozen image of his plane for probably 15 minutes. Once Barack and Hillary successfully disembarked, we jumped into a tuk-tuk with approximately 8 other family members, some very small children. As the sun went down and the rice paddies went dark, we were being shuttled along the backroads to an unknown location. The ride got rocky and was reminiscent of a Disneyland Indiana Jones ride with little promise of a safe return. At one point, the moto which pulls the tuk-tuk carriage even detached itself. No problem, it was fixed and we arrived at our first destination for the evening. One of the cousins had taken us to his family's house, which was without electricity, where we were presented delicious food. After we ate until we could no longer move, we learned we might actually be heading to the wat for some sort of celebration called "Katan". Grandma and several more family members jumped in and we set off for the wat. As we drove through the darkness of the rice paddies, a light appeared in the distance. It seemed out of nowhere that this wat with a huge carnival inside appeared at which all the families from Traeng, our training village, seemed to be at. This carnival had food stalls, merry-go-rounds and other small carnival rides, a theater with apsara dancers, games with household prizes and much more multiplied by ten. As we walked through, it felt like we were repeatedly entering the same carnival with slightly different landmarks. At one point, we were pulled into one of the wats where there were diviners who would read your fortune. Us PCVs were not used to such a stimulating and late night, so after an hour or so we were starting to lose steam while our teenage hosts continued to pull us along to visit new friends. They saw us yawning profusely and knew we were ready to go home. Of course at that moment, it started to pour rain so we were sealed inside of our tuk-tuk with a few more family members thrown in (I think we now possessed about 20 members inside) and began our stormy ride home. All of a sudden, we found ourselves in front of our homes and we manoeuvred our way through the lighting and pouring rain down our sandy road to our beds.

Luckily, Kat, a fellow PCV, was able to capture some of this evening as you will see below:

Some of the passengers, including Mark and myself

At the carnival

The beginning of our tuk-tuk journey, with Ryan

One of the merry-go-rounds, Mark and Ryan

I also added some new pictures to the flickr page toward the end of this set; please check them out:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sam_wise/sets/72157631710877176/

i'm famous!

...in the world of PC Cambodia blogs. Here is a link to my friend and provincemate's blog. He does an excellent job of covering a vast array of topics with visuals. He recently has been featuring PCVs from different provinces; here is mine: http://60x27.com/2012/11/01/volunteers-at-site-11-samantha-weiss/

t'ngai somrah

Little Khmer lesson for you: say "tongue" then "eye" as quickly together as possible = t'ngai which means 'day'. Somrah means 'rest'. These words together is how you express a holiday or day off work. It seems that many of these have been occurring ever since school officially started on October 1st. This week there are 2, both King related, and last week I also had 2 days off of school for the administration of a test for entrance to the RTTC (Regional Teacher Training Center which trains lower secondary teachers) for my province and the neighboring one. That being said, I have not taught at my school for a bit of time, which has not been too surprising as I was pretty well prepared for the reality of multiple vacation days at schools, often without forewarning. When I correspond with many of you, naturally you ask me how school is going which is my primary job as a volunteer here. I either am not sure how to answer the question due to a lack of information or surprised to get that question as teaching is not what I feel I am primarily doing everyday. My current schedule, without holiday interruptions is as follows:

Monday: 9-11 English at the PTTC, 11-12 English class with my tutor, 3-4 Khmer tutoring, 5-6 English for staff at the PTTC
Tuesday: 11-12 English class with my tutor
Wednesday: 7-9 English at the PTTC, 11-12 English class with my tutor, 3-4 Khmer tutoring, 5-6 English for staff at the PTTC
Thursday: 7-9 English at the PTTC, 11-12 English class with my tutor
Friday: 7-11 English at the PTTC, 11-12 English class with my tutor, 3-4 Khmer tutoring, 5-6 English for staff at the PTTC

Babies taking care of babies: Daibee is a faithful baby sitter

To the average PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer), I might seem quite busy with a total of 21 hours scheduled to teach each week, but this is not quite the full load of teaching, especially that is expected at my primary job at the PTTC (Provincial Teacher Training Center). I only have what I believe to be half of my class load currently there as only the 2nd year trainees are in class currently and the 1st years will begin in December when I return from my additional PC training during November. When I explain the abundant surprise days off I have been experiencing recently to those stateside, my old co-workers are drooling in jealousy in response to the amount of time I am free from my job. Although I used to pray for snow days, I hope to be in the classroom more regularly soon, but I also realize I am susceptible to the system. In future months as I become more familiar with my community and site, I hope to find other opportunities outside of my primary job so I can act rather than sit idly by. This comes with time and more integration into my site.

I mentioned above that my primary job as an English teacher at the PTTC is not what in fact occupies my days. I spend my time exposing my community to running/exercise (hatt bran) by going on runs by the riverside and around the small concrete park roughly every other day, partially in preparation for the Angkor Wat Half Marathon. I read A LOT. I walk around the market and hang out at my friend's num ban chok (noodle soup with flowers) stand to talk to passerbys. I bike around town, sometimes around sunset. I sit around with my family and neighbors who all seem to be aunts, uncles, etc. Some days I feel busy even though I maybe didn't teach that day. But I also won't lie to you that some days, I feel like my sisters work harder than I do caring for baby cousins or attending school for more hours than I currently do. It all balances itself out eventually.

Minutes later, Daibee is ready to head back to school