An Update with a Twist

For the last two years, I’ve had a lot of expectations about what my last few weeks at site would be like.  I expected I would be teaching my classes as normal, but taking more time to appreciate the time with my coteachers and students.  I expected to take a few more trips to my coffee lady and chat with the ladies in the market.  I expected to slowly start getting rid of all the stuff I’ve acquired over two years (seriously, why have I been hoarding all this paper???).  I expected to savor the delicious meals prepared by my host family and eat as many mangos as humanly possible. 

I certainly did not expect to get sick and be medically evacuated to Thailand. 

Now, before you start writing your get-well cards, I’ll begin by saying that I am totally fine and all is well.  I even debated writing this blog, because it’s not particularly entertaining or exciting, but it is part of the Peace Corps experience, and it’s also a great excuse for why I haven’t been blogging lately.  When you have a 103-degree fever you don’t exactly feel like chronicling your experience for the public to read.

Getting sick is never a pleasant experience.  Getting sick abroad really sucks.  Your mom isn't there to take care of you, you have to speak in another language when your brain feels like it's on fire, and no one will give you fruit because they think it's just going to make you more sick.  And sure, you could just have pneumonia or a viral infection, but you could also have dengue fever or malaria.  Even worse, you could have something more serious that could potentially affect the rest of your life, and it really makes you think.  Was all this worth the possibility that I could be dealing with a strange disease for the rest of my life?  

As I was laid up in Phnom Penh for a week (and I am currently still recovering in Bangkok) I had a lot of time to think about that question.  It turned out to be nothing serious, but for a while, I (and my doctors) very genuinely believed in the possibility that I was going to be very sick, potentially for a very long time. 

It’s a scary thought for a twenty-three year old, on the verge of returning home.  However, after long periods of reflection (in between watching episodes of Orange is the New Black), I came to an answer to my question.  If I had become seriously ill in America, having never done the Peace Corps, I know I would have been sitting there thinking, “Man, I wish I had joined the Peace Corps like I had always wanted to.” 

I’ve met so many people here that I can’t imagine never being in my life.  I’ve had so many experiences I wouldn’t want to do without.  I’ve learned a little bit more about the important things in life, and I like to think that is something I will carry with me for a long while.  

So yeah, this isn’t exactly how I imagined ending my service.  But I’m definitely thankful for the week I should have left at my site by the time I return to Cambodia.  Things might be a little more rushed, but I’m looking forward to wrapping things up and starting a new chapter in my life. 

And hey, a few weeks with McDonalds (they have one INSIDE the hospital!) and air conditioning is never anything a Peace Corps Volunteer should complain about.

So expect a few more catch-up blogs this week since I’ll just be hanging out in Thailand, and I’m not really supposed to be wandering around for more than a few hours a day…and most of those wandering hours are used in search of food.  Today I found a Dominos AND iced green milk tea, so it was pretty much the best day ever.

I’m actually just on a food-cation.  

Reunited with my one true love, Mountain Dew.
Oh, and look!  I'm healthy-looking!

The End is Near

The last few days I have been attending the illustrious and elusive Close of Service Conference, more affectionately known as our COS conference (Peace Corps loves acronyms).  I know you all are thinking, “Oh crap, I thought we still had a few more months to contact that seal trainer to make sure a baby harbor seal can greet Kelly at the airport!” 

Never fear, I’m still not coming back until early July, so you’ll have plenty of time to get that baby harbor seal to make an appearance and bake me a few dozen cookies  (Yes, I realize that without the comma it sounds like the baby harbor seal will be baking me cookies and after further review, I’m going to keep it like that because I like creating unrealistic expectations).

If I don't see this in the airport, I'm coming back to Cambodia.
Just kidding.  Just the seal is fine.  The cookie is kind of asking a lot. 

Speaking of expectations, that is really all this COS conference is about and as far as I can tell, it’s pretty much just a time to let us know that we will have no friends left, no one will want to talk to us, and American culture will be completely overwhelming (I heard you can get a diet coke that is orange.  Is that even true????). 

Needless to say, this is a time of high anxiety for most volunteers.  I just spent the last half hour looking through my calendar realizing that I have something scheduled every weekend (of which I only have seven left) for the rest of my service.  It looks as though the days of lounging in my special chair, reading for hours, and chatting with my favorite market ladies are coming to an end, and while this brings the excitement of being reunited with friends, family and McDonalds, it also brings the anxieties of how things have changed back home and within my own point of view. 

A lot of people understand that I must be so excited to come home.  I am, believe me.  I’m excited to live in a place where climate control exists.  I’m excited to drive a car and not be dirty all the time and have my own seat on the bus and have access to a washing machine.  I am so excited to start working toward getting my master’s degree in Library and Information Sciences while working as a graduate research assistant in the Special Collections department at the University of Iowa (that’s what I’m going to be doing, by the way).  I’m excited to be able to hug my mom, crack some jokes with my dad, watch movies with my sister, and endlessly debate useless topics with my friends.  I’m unbelievably excited for all these and more, mostly food-related, things. 

But as my time to leave draws closer, I am starting to reflect upon the things I will miss in Cambodia.  I will miss being a stone’s throw away from fresh coconuts, mangos, and 25 cent iced coffees.  I will miss being able to have conversations in a language I didn’t even know existed two years ago.  I will miss the feeling that comes with teaching my students something they didn’t know before, or helping them with their pronunciation until that get that “th” sound just right.  I will dearly miss the teachers at my school who have helped me understand what was going on during staff meetings and invited me to share a meal with their families.  I will miss all these other Peace Corps Volunteers who were crazy enough to spend two years in Cambodia with me, and I will miss simply riding my bike past majestic pagodas and into endless ride paddies. 

So while I’m so very excited to return home, I’m at the point where I realize that no matter what, my life will be completely different in just a few months.  Again.  And while some aspects of the transition will be easier this time around(I’ll know the language, for one), some parts will undoubtedly be just as shocking as my transition into Cambodia.  Like why is this coffee so expensive?  Why is it so cold in here?  Why won’t people stop looking at their phones but also seem incapable of emailing me back?  Why doesn’t everyone want to talk to me?  Aren’t they curious if I’m married or not, or how much money I make a month? 

It seems as though I’ll be sort of thrown into life again, much how I was in Cambodia.  After traveling to Vietnam and China for just a week, I’ll arrive home and have a little more than a week before I need to move to Iowa City and start my job.  There are plenty of doctor’s appointments and bachelorette parties and some much needed quality time with plenty of people I’ll have to fit in there somewhere, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out. 

In summary, I’m so very happy to tell you all that I’ll be back in a mere eight weeks, but this is tinged with the sadness I feel about leaving my home away from home for the last two years.  Of course, I’m not done yet, so expect some posts about my final projects and some more reflective ramblings.  And I promise I’ll do at least a few more embarrassing things I can blog about before I leave.  Goodbyes are awkward.  It’ll happen. 

 

Water Rocket Project

For those of you who don't follow me on Facebook, I thought I'd let you share in the fundraising fun!  I will be writing a much more detailed blog about this project once it's completed, but for now I'm in the beginning stages and working to just get enough money to complete my final project in my community.
My final project consists of this: taking the entire school and getting them to build rockets out of plastic bottles, plastic sheeting and tape.  They will then propel these rockets using water and an air pump.  There will be a huge contest to see which rocket travels the farthest, so they'll have to use their smarts to figure out the perfect pressure and angle to use.  This project was completely thought up and designed by one of my amazing Cambodian counterparts, I'm just helping out with the budgeting and planning, which is exactly how I like it.

This project is really important to me, because science education in Cambodia is lacking any hands-on experiments or real-life application.  I don't think I would have made it through a single science class without those, so it's amazing what these kids have been able to learn despite that.  I mean, can you imagine biology without microscopes or chemistry without test tubes?

This project requires very little sophisticated equipment, and after the air pumps are purchased and the launchers made, my school will be able to use them year after year and repeat this project with very little cost to them.  Sustainability is my middle name!  

Everyone has been AMAZING so far and even though my grant has only been up for 4 days I only have $63.50 left to raise.  Even if you can only take care of that last 50 cents, I'll be eternally grateful!

Just follow this link and remember that all your donations to Peace Corps go directly to the community AND they are tax deductible!  What a deal!

https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=14-303-012

This Place About to GLOOOOOW (This should be sung to the tune of “Blow” by Ke$ha)

It was that time of year again.  GLOW TIME!  For those of you who are unfamiliar, Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is a leadership camp for girls that is held annually in a lot of Peace Corps countries, including Cambodia.  Although the idea behind the camp and acronym are old hats, it’s up to each Peace Corps Volunteer to put their own spin on it and make it their own. 

This year was quite a different story, since my group of volunteers were now the “veterans” and responsible for most of the planning.  Planning any event is stressful, but planning an event in a country where time is not exactly of the essence and Murphy’s Law is inevitable, is a bit of a different challenge.  Needless to say, I was a bit stressed out, but it was a good reminder that I can still hack it in the real world and I probably won’t die in graduate school. 

Aside from a few very minor hiccups, everything went really well and I’ve gotta say, it’s all because I have a pretty extraordinary group of volunteers in my province.  The thing about PCVs is that they are not always awesome, but everyone who lives in Takeo certainly is. 

The team in our awesome Camp GLOW shirts

 But most importantly, I had a really great time with my students and I hope they learned a lot!  It was a three-day workshop spanning topics from women’s health, sex trafficking, CV writing, all the way to healthy relationships.  The girls also got to spend the third day at the beach picking up trash, learning about the downfalls of plastic and, of course, eating seafood and playing around on the beach.  Cambodia’s not so rough on the eyes sometimes. 

 

Making our country beautiful 

Camp GLOW is such a unique experience for these girls, since it’s the first time many of them have stayed the night somewhere other than their home, and the first time some of them have even left their district.  A lot of the topics we discuss, like women’s health and sex trafficking, are not commonly brought up, so I think it’s really important to start getting these topics in the common discourse. 

Brainstorming ideas about cooperation in relationships

Learning

It’s hard to know if these camps are ever really as effective as we hope for them to be, but it’s easy to see the difference in the girls I brought with me.  Since Camp GLOW, their confidence in class has risen and even the shyest girls were willing to stand up in front of their class and tell them what they learned.  And if nothing else, the smiles I got to see all weekend were well worth it.  

Competition Culture

A few weeks ago I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in a Spelling Bee with four of my students.  To be honest, I wasn’t super pumped about this project.  Sure, it was a spelling bee.  Whatever.  I’d probably have a few students participate and it would be just something else for my English club to focus on for a few weeks.  But life is funny in that way where the things you least expect to enjoy turn out to be one of your most memorable experiences. 

The students were given a list with about 300 words with varying degrees of difficulty.  My four students struggled during our first few practices and I wasn’t too optimistic about the results of this competition.  However, as the weeks went on my students really surprised me and studied that list like their lives depended on it.  At the provincial spelling bee, two of my students placed first in their grade division, meaning they got to travel to Phnom Penh for the national spelling bee! 

My student, Raisy, getting ready for the Provincial Spelling Bee

Choyi spelling a word P-E-R-F-E-C-T-L-Y at the National Spelling Bee

Needless to say, they were very excited.  There were tears of joy and also tears of disappointment from those who were not able to move on.  This was an entirely new experience for most of my students, since competition is not commonplace in Cambodian culture.  While men will sometimes compete while they play sports, there are few other games that are as intense as say…Monopoly Deal.  Even competing for grades is not really a common practice since the “sharing” of answers on tests is rampant throughout classrooms and seen almost as a necessity. 

This brought me to think about America and how competition-driven our culture is.  I’ve been competing in things since preschool, and probably even before then.  And while competition has taught me a lot (for example, how to take awesome photos with trophies) it hasn’t always fostered the greatest sense of community.  Constantly competing for better grades or better mock trial parts or a better job definitely drives people to do better, but does it really make us better people? 

But I hope my students’ experience in this competition will be remembered very similar to how I remember the various competitions throughout my life.  I can’t tell you every grade I’ve ever gotten or what my scores were in my 8^th grade History Day Competition.  I can’t tell you what place my broadcast news team got at the speech club competition in Des Moines and I can’t even tell you what place we got in most of our mock trial tournaments (key word being, “most”).  But I can tell you about that time I thought my professor wrote “baller!” on my mid-term essay, but what she actually wrote was “better!”  I can laugh about that time I put waaaay too much cornstarch in my hair to try and look more like Eleanor Roosevelt for my six-page monologue at the State History Day Competition.  And I will always remember those crazy road trips to various mock trial tournaments with jumbo Slurpies and ridiculous poses for team photos. 

That courtroom was a battlefield

Headed to the Night Market in Phnom Penh! 

So I hope my students remember the new friends they met, that time they went to the night market in Phnom Penh, and the awesome library the competition was held in.  And hey, if they remember that they are also both the 2^nd best spellers in their grade division in the nation, then that’s okay too. 

                                                         

Choyi and Raisy having some fancy ice cream!  

An Exciting Day in the Life of a Peace Corps Volunteer

People I talk to from back home often say to me, “I don’t have anything to talk about because my life is boring.” 

I try to explain to them that all in all, my life is not that thrilling.  Sure, the first six months were really exciting because everything was new and different, but at this point, I'm in just as much of a routine as I was in the States.  Just to prove how unexciting my life is, I kept track of all the things I did today and recorded them here.  Enjoy. 

5:25am: Wake up to the sound of my host dad throwing rocks inside of a wheelbarrow.  Over and over and over again.  But screw this because today is my day off and there is no way I’m waking up this early.  I shove my earplugs in a little farther and drift back to sleep.

7:20am: This time I actually wake up.  But like I said, it’s my day off so by golly I’m going to sit in bed and watch an episode of Friends, because I can. 

7:45am: I decide to actually get out of bed and head off to the market to get some breakfast. 

8:20am: After a nice 15 minute bike-ride, I’m at the market and ready to enjoy my favorite dish, bon-chaio with fried noodles.  It’s basically a thin crispy omelet with baby shrimps and veggies…and no cheese, with fried noodles on the top, topped with fish sauce.  It's good, I swear. 

Mhhhmmm, yummy

8:40am: After conversing for a while with my bon-chaio lady I head over to my coffee lady to drink a coffee and hang out for a while because, hey I got time. 

9:10am: After hanging out for a while, mostly just with myself, I find out that the daughter of the coffee shop lady is not going to Phnom Penh to go to University, as previously planned.  I’m not quite sure what is going on with that, but I didn’t feel like it was my place to pry, so I hung around a bit more and then biked home. 

9:40am: I’m home early enough to do some laundry…but I just did some yesterday…and I don’t like it so I decide to write some emails and “play Facebook” (spoken like a true Cambodian), instead.

11:00am: IT’S TIME TO EAT LUNCH!  Today I had a stir-fry with pork and pineapple, some beef in a sauce thing that is super delicious, and a mango.  Oh, and rice.  Lots of rice. 

11:30am: Time to watch more Friends pretend to work on a Graduate Assistant application

1:30pm: Start reading The Things They Carried.

2:00pm: I’m horrible at reading war novels for long period of time, so I decide to watch a movie, instead.

4:00pm: Think about going outside…but it’s pretty hot and I’m pretty comfortable in front of my fan. I could go get a coffee but I don’t really want one.  I could go buy a money card for my phone, but I don’t really have any money.  I could go visit one of the teachers from my school but they are either in Phnom Penh studying or busy taking care of their children.  Sooo I decide to journal a little and then call a fellow volunteer to chat for a bit. 

6:00pm: IT’S TIME TO EAT, AGAIN!  I got some chicken and some noodles with curry.  It was delightful.  Oh, and I got a mango, too. 

6:20pm: After talking to my host mom for a few minutes I head up to my room because one of her friends is over and they are busy speaking in rapid Khmer.  Then I started writing this blog.

Things I have planned for the rest of this Saturday night:

-Do a Jillian Michaels' workout

-Take a bucket shower

-Post this blog

WOW.  I’m so bored just from writing that.  I’m sorry you had to read the whole thing.  But anyway, this just goes to show, that yeah, some days are really exciting, and most days are at least a little more exciting than this (for example, I’m attempting to help teach an art class for 2 hours tomorrow, so we’ll see how that goes!), but Peace Corps Volunteers have boring days too.  So next time you think your life is so much less exciting than mine, just remember this blog.  But you probably won't, because chances are you've probably already fallen asleep.  Don't worry, if you're as lucky as me, someone will be there to wake you up soon, preferably with the sound of hundreds of rocks hitting the inside of a wheelbarrow.  

P.S. Sorry this doesn't have more pictures, but i dropped my camera in a lake a couple weeks ago during one of the more exciting days in my Peace Corps service.  

How the Peace Corps Prepared me for Pregnancy

 I know what you’re thinking.  

“Awwww heck, Kelly done got herself pregnant in the Peace Corps.  Ha!”

Well, sorry to disappoint (or provide with a great sense of relief, Mom and Dad), but I am definitely not pregnant.  However, if I ever were to get pregnant, I totally have that whole thing on lock down. 

Nine months with no caffeine or alcohol?  Nice try, pregnancy.  I already went two years without a steady source of Mountain Dew.  If my body could handle the chemical sludge withdrawal before, I’m sure it’ll be even easier the next time around.  And as far as alcohol goes, a proper lady never drinks in her village.  And I’m high class.

Overly sensitive to odors?  I’ve walked down an alley filled with trash, feces and urine in Cambodia, and totally held it together.  I think I can handle it. 

People always commenting on how big you are and trying to rub your stomach?  People do that to me all the time…and I’m not even pregnant.

None of your clothes will fit well?  Done.  I’ve looked like a bag lady for about the last year.  Turns out, hand-washing your clothes does not help them maintain their shape.  That and the constant weight gain (Darn you, rice!)/weight loss (I bike 50k on the reg) saga that is my Peace Corps life.  I haven’t worn anything that didn’t contain an elastic waistband since leaving America (Wow…that’s actually horrifying).

Morning sickness?  Try “first six months of service” sickness.

Hormones making you feel like you’re on an emotional rollercoaster?  Yesterday I laughed for about 5 minutes at this:

I was discovered yelling “TOP HAT, WHY ARE YOU TAKING ADVANTAGE OF ME?!?!?!?” at my computer during a very heated game of computer monopoly, and I started to tear up when I was talking to someone about how hard my students were studying for the upcoming spelling bee.  I don’t even think I have a hormonal imbalance.  This is all just coming to me naturally. 

Nine months seem like a long time to carry a child?  That’s less than half of a Peace Corps service. BAM. 

You have to poop and pee in front of people when you’re in labor?  I’d rather not get into it, but let’s just say that it happens to everyone in the Peace Corps at least once. 

After it’s all done, you have a whole new person for whom you are responsible for the rest of your life? 

Oh right…I have no idea what that’s like.  

But other than that, you can see how the two situations are quite similar.  I really think the recruiting office should start working this angle more. 

*Disclaimer: this blog is meant, in no way, to belittle the efforts of the pregnant people of this world.  I may be in the Peace Corps, but being pregnant is way too intense for me.  Please don’t kill me in a hormonal rage.