Site Visit

I just got back from visiting where I will live for the next two years. It was great and I think that I am really going to love it! My family are the nicest people in the world. Also, I'll have two sisters who are excited for me to be living with them (despite me taking one of their rooms!) On the amenities side of things, I have electricity 24-hours a day (they get it cheap from Vietnam), my own huge bed, and my own attached bathroom with a western toilet! Before coming, I could not have even imagined that a house could have all these things, but they do...so, I'll take it! Also, the community has really welcomed me. Because they have had a volunteer before they know what to expect. It seems that this will make my transition as a community member a lot easier. I wasn't going to learn to write Khmer but the volunteer did, so I have a feeling I'll have to. Also, she LOVED Khmer weddings and Khmer dancing. I've already been attempting to talk myself into being open to the idea of Khmer dancing.
Oh, one kind of funny thing that happened with my family was that at dinner the school director came to my house for dinner because he is friends with my family. We're all sitting down to eat and my dad starts filling these shot glasses with what I assumed to be water because it was from a water bottle. He then passed the shot glasses around the table to all the men and me. I thought, "weird, why not just cups..oh well." Then he toasted to me in Khmer and we all took drinks. I tell you what, that was not water!!! It was definitely rice wine and it burned all sorts of pain going down my throat definitely making my face turn red and I thought I might start a coughing fit.

Getting to my village was kind of crazy. Literally, I went to this market with the name of my taxi driver written in Khmer on a piece of paper and showed it to some of the drivers in the market. They then told me where he would normally be. Oh, I should note that someone had arranged for him to meet me in the market, so I wasn't just showing up even though that's kind of what you do...you just go to the market where your taxi and buses leave from and try to catch one. So, I go to where he should be and showed the paper to a security guard of sorts. He then proceeds to communicate in very little English and then Khmer that he will be at that market tomorrow! To which I respond, "impossible, I need him to come today." Then my driver actually calls me. Now, I speak VERY little Khmer and even more little on the phone because I've gotten the whole routine down of reading lips and using hand gestures as cues for what is actually being said therefore making the phone impossible to ascertain what's going on. I then decided to just hand the phone off to the guard. He then tells me that my driver is in another market and that he will flag down a moto for me to take to get to him. I then have to tell him I cannot ride motos, but that a tuk tuk I can take. So, he gets a tuk tuk driver who for $3 takes me about 20 miles across town. The entire time I kept thinking, "this is CRAZY" and that you really have to be trusting of other people. Anyway, somehow it all worked out. I met up with my driver and made it to my village in about 3 hours. I've found that you get what you expect here of people. Also, once people know you are here to teach English and are a volunteer (no worries I tell everyone I meet this and can do it in Khmer) people want to help you and protect you because they know how much of a service you're doing to their country and practically everyone wants to learn English.

Today is my last day in Phnom Penh which is sort of sad because of all the Western luxuries.
I'm kind of ready to get back to the village and finish training. Today we actually get to go to the tribunal of a former Khmer Rouge officer. It's VERY, VERY exciting. The genocide here happened 30 years ago, so it's kind of crazy that they would finally be trying this guy. He was a higher up that was over a massive killing program. I'll try to post more on this next time because it's all so interesting.