Piglets

Sorry, I don't have any pictures uploaded from our Cambodian adventures yet. It's hard to find wifi, and I didn't bring a cord for my camera. But I have a funny story to share with you.

Our very first language lesson in Cambodia was at our teacher's house. We were sitting in this super hot attic frying our brains out while trying to learn some Khmer(pronounced kuh my) All of the sudden I see them bring in a pig downstairs. I was all excited because I love animals. Like 5 minutes after the pig was brought in we heard this uncontrollable squealing for a minute and then all of the sudden is stopped. I was freaking out. I kept saying if they are killing that pig I am going to cry. Our teacher just acted like it was nothing and just wanted us to keep going.

The next lesson we heard more squealing. We went to the side of the house to look at a banana flower since we were learning that word, and I saw the owner of the house with these big knifes, rubbing them back and forth. Seriously, I booked it out of there.

We decided to ask our teacher if he was a butcher because we had heard the squealing a few times the day. He said no, he is a welder. We asked him why he has pigs. He said he raises pigs, and asked us if we saw that male pig that was brought over the other day.

Oh the differences in culture. We hear squealing and thing it's being harmed. He hears squealing and recognizes it as pigs mating. Oh yes, it was pigs procreating, not dying.

It's crazy how much we still have to learn about life here in Cambodia. We have technical training for half the day and then 4 straight hours of language training each day. life is pretty hectic here. I never thought I would get used to going to bed at 9pm and waking up at 6 each day, but I'm fairly used to it. When the entire village is pretty much dark after dinner, everyone goes to bed early. The markets are fairly empty by 10 in the morning. Life just operates at a different pace here. I feel I'm adjusting pretty well since I knew I was going to have to adjust, I think coming home to that pace of life is going to be much harder.