Meet My: Market

Going to a Cambodian market is an experience. An experience that makes you want to plug your nose and sometimes cover your eyes. Everything is out for display, and they'll chop it up for you just how you would like it. They are definitely people who have learned to survive, and to find anything and everything that is edible.

This is our "market ming (aunt)" and her veggie stall in our market. We've been going to her for veggies since our second visit to our market. She gives great prices and is super sweet. She always asks how we are and always throws in some peppers and green onions for free. She really didn't want her picture taken, but I couldn't leave Cambodia without a picture of my market ming! 

This is the great part of the market where all of the veggies are fresh, and sometimes even locally produced!

 Our fruit lady. We used to have a different fruit lady, and then we realized she was over charging us real bad, so we switched. She's really nice and every once in a while she'll even have crisp apples from America!

 mmm, dried fish anyone? How about a crap load of oil and msg? This is the side of the market that I will forever avoid. It's the part that smells horribly. All of the fish and meat sitting out, I'd just rather not go over there at all. I braved it though to take pictures for you all. Oh, those are chickens, and this is pretty sweet as they have their heads cut off already. But maybe don't buy them, we've had bird flu in our area.

And lastly, the horrors of all horrors, the beef and pork section of the market. Where they just have slabs of every section of the animal set out, and they'll cut it right up for you, with flies swarming around it and all. Often there's a pigs head sitting out with it's tail in it's mouth, but sadly, not this day.

And last but not least, I took this little video of some of the fish in the market for you.

Visit to the Tonle Sap

My host uncle, who I don't really think of as my uncle, as it's a teacher at the school and is close to our age, bundled up his whole family in a van and we all headed off to Siem Reap to watch him get engaged.

A lot of marriages in Cambodia are arranged and that makes me sad, but this one wasn't. They both used to work at the same NGO in Siem Reap town, and they've been together for years. The time was finally right to finalize the engagement.  His fiancee is from a town which during the rainy season is only accessible by boat as it floods. We went at the beginning of the rainy season, so luckily it was still dry. The town was amazing. It was just one long road of houses that made up the whole village, and all of the houses are built on huge stilts.

 The house we went to was probably 20 feet off the ground and last year the Tonle Sap flooded so high, they had water in the house.

The below picture is a "layman" from the buddhist temple who came with us to ask the girls family for permission for my host uncle to marry their daughter.

 Above is both parents taking part in the ceremony with the layman chanting over them.
Below is the happily, newly engaged couple.

 After the engagement was all settled we all packed into the van on the insanely hot day and drove to the edge of the Tonle Sap. We went and relaxed in a fisheries building which was supported by bamboo poles underneath it, allowing it to float as the lake swells. If you look in the picture below you can see the outline of a floating village.

 Oh and as a little extra bit, look what Hal was able to capture through the floor boards of the house, about 25 feet down.

 A lot of families in Siem Reap raise crocodiles, they raise them to sell their eggs, or small babies. They can sell one baby crocodile for $18, which is quite a bit of money here. Sometimes they sell older ones to Thailand where they will use their skin.

Planning a trip to China

Now that we've decided to leave Peace Corps early, we thought well dang, what are we going to do with our remaining vacation days we've collected? We thought of all the places we wanted to go.

Both of us really wanted to go to the Great Wall of China. We thought, what if we actually went?

We looked up tickets, oh Air China has a deal where we could both go from Bangkok to Beijing round trip for $900? Hot dang, lets do it. We got over the phone approval from our program managers and our country director and we booked the tickets. Less than an hour had passed since we thought of going there. Both of us are getting a bit better at the whole spontaneity thing.

We looked up cool things to do in China and looked up which cities they're in. 

We wanted to go to the Great Wall, the Olympic Buildings we heard were awesome, The Forbidden Palace, Tiananmen Square, The Summer Palace, and the Terracotta Warriors. All but the last one were in Beijing.  Fabulous! A friend of ours had just gone to China and suggested we stay a the Red Lantern House, so we booked it. 

Then we started looking up trains, and thanks to the amazingness that is seat61, we were able to figure out we could take night trains to and from Xian, where the terracotta warriors are and then we wouldn't need to pay for a hotel. 

I think we learned since almost all of our planning for Scotland went awry, that it's ok to plan some things last minute and be more spontaneous. 

So in less than a week we're headed to freaking China. I still can't believe it. 

Have you ever been to China? Have any last minute tips for us?

Why we've decided to ET (Early Terminate our Peace Corps Service)

This is a hard post for me to write. It's hard to talk about why you've decided to quit the Peace Corps, and not finish the full commitment of 2 years and 3 months. Talking about ETing seems like such a taboo in Peace Corps. Well, it's a real thing and people really struggle, and what's the point of staying another year and finishing when the costs outweigh the benefits? I guess for a while I felt judged for deciding to ET, but since we've started talking about it with other PCVs they've been so supportive. Peace Corps has been amazing and life changing, but when it's time to go home, you just gotta go.


I'll write this as the short story and the long story. Then if you don't feel like reading, you can stop after the short story.

Short story:
-Hal got a scholarship to go back to BYU (yay!) this year...(Boo!) We decided it was an opportunity that we couldn't pass up.

Long story:
-Hal has been very unhappy in his job here in Peace Corps. His program is currently undergoing huge changes, as it wasn't set up where volunteers felt like they were doing anything towards their primary project (working at the health center). So he began thinking, I wonder if BYU would end my deferment a year early. So he wrote to them to ask if it was something that was possible. Through a miss-communication, they moved his deferment date to come back this fall.

We talked about it and decided ok, we'll leave it for now and if things are better around July we'll just push it back again. It's a really competitive program and so people are always trying to get in. So we went on our way and things got a little better for Hal. He found a place to help in the health center and made some friends of his co-workers, but he still wasn't feeling fulfilled. We talked so much, and he still really wanted to go home early.

I was really struggling with this because I love Cambodia, and I have really enjoyed my time here. I prayed about what to do endlessly. I felt like Heavenly Father had sent us here for a reason, and we had fought so hard and waited so long to get here that I didn't just want to give up. Before we left for Scotland I prayed a lot about this. I finally said, Heavenly Father, I don't know what we're supposed to do. I said if you would be amazing and bless us with a scholarship I would know that we were supposed to go home. I didn't say anything about this for a while. I finally told Hal the deal I had made with God. Neither of us thought much about it for a while.

We went off to Scotland and had a lovely time and came back to site and things were a little better. Well one day in late April or early May Hal checked his e-mail. Low and behold, BYU had given him the scholarship he had applied for. Literally the first thing I thought was Aw Crap! How can I argue with that?

It still took me a while to come to terms with the fact that we had to go home. I wanted so badly to stay and not feel like I was giving up. I made a deal with Hal then. If he would try, would really try to enjoy himself and get projects going at site, then I would happily go home. Apparently that was the motivation he needed, as he started teaching English, and started giving health messages to people waiting at the Health Center. He was so much happier having something to do, and some motivation to work for.

So even though things are better at site, we're still going home. Hal compromised for me and stayed when he was so unhappy, that I now feel like it's my time to compromise for him and go home. I had a great talk with my Country Director about our time table to leaving. I really want my non-compete agreement for federal jobs, and I was prepared to stay a month and a half here without Hal. Good thing we have such a great Director because we get to go home together, and I get my non-compete agreement.

It's hard to think we only have two months left here, the place we've come to think of as home. I'm going to miss it so much, and I hope so dearly we'll be able to come visit again some day. I guess we'll be seeing everyone back home a whole year sooner than planned...

Medical Update

It's been a while since I've talked about how Hal and I are doing on the medical front. Really, I haven't talked about it since my bout with dengue.

Well this past week Hal and I both had a bit of medical trouble. Really for living in a third world country where volunteers have had giardia a bunch of times or dysentery, we've been pretty lucky. I'm just going to let you know now, I have no problem talking about poo, and I hope you don't either, or you might not want to read part of this post. But hey, if I'm accurately portraying our life out there, then I gotta talk about poo, right?

Well, it all started when I called to schedule our mid-service physicals, and I just mentioned to my Khmer PCMO (medical officer) that I had a bad bout of diarrhea...for 3 weeks. She said it sounded like I had giardia. Ok, so I took the meds. Bad idea. They made me feel horrible. Down right horrible They made me nauseous, and I started running a low grade fever.

This was soon overshadowed by what happened to Hal. So let me set the scene. Hal was in the living room teaching our host family English. He really pushes them on pronunciation, and he was teaching them the difference between tongue and tong. He thought, "oh they have a tong in the kitchen, what a great object lesson, I'll go grab it. Let's just jump over this hammock to make it to the kitchen." Bad idea. His feet didn't clear the hammock and they swung up in the air propelling his upper body to the ground. He landed straight armed on his right arm.

At first he was fine, and then he was not fine. His arm started to swell and was really painful. We went to our "hospital" here in town, and Mr X-Ray, our host dad, took x-rays of Hal's bent arm, and said it wasn't broken. Well, Hal couldn't straighten his arm...so the PCMO said come to Phnom Penh. After a series of doctors and x-rays and reviews they found a fracture in the radial head of his elbow. Luckily it is a clean break, and all he needs is a sling for two weeks and he should be alright. Thank goodness!

Now back to poo. I didn't have giardia, so while we were in Phnom Penh for an unexpected week I had to give not one, but three poo samples. Have you ever tried pooing in a cup that they use for urine samples? It's not so easy, but it's better than pooping on a plate. So they couldn't find anything in my poo that would be causing almost a month of diarrhea. Finally on the last sample they discovered that I had way too much yeast in my poo. Yeah I didn't know that you were supposed to have yeast in your poo. Anyway, the awesome PCMO gave me probiotics to help reestablish the level of yeast and flora in my intestinal track, and I got awesome clay to drink to rid my body of toxins. It's a real thing, drinking clay, see?

Now we're both on the mend thank goodness, send good thoughts our way so we'll be able to heal and go on vacation next week!

ECCC field trip part 2: Tuol Sleng

After visiting a Killing Field outside of Phnom Penh, the last part of the ECCC field trip was to go to Tuol Sleng, also known as S-21 Prison. (Read part one, the Choeung Ek Killing Field here.)

Before the war it was a school,during the Khmer Rouge regime it was used as a torture prison, and now it is a genocide museum. During the four years of the Khmer Rouge regime, it housed between 17,000-20,000 people, also hence the number of people who were estimated to be killed at the    Killing Field. Reading about what the inmates at S-21, many of whom were just teachers or educated individuals went through is astounding. They were tortured in the worst ways possible to make them confess to any sort of crime, or to turn on anyone they knew. If you would like to read more about what the inmates endured during their months in Tuol Sleng, go here.

In one of the old school buildings they have set up some of the beds that inmates were strapped to and tortured in, next to pictures of them being tortured. In the next building, it is full of pictures of every inmate. Looking at these really gives you an idea of how many people suffered there. The pictures seemed endless.

If you are coming to Phnom Penh and are looking to learn more about what the country endured during the Khmer Rouge regime, go here, and also visit Choeung Ek Killing Field.

ECCC field trip part 1: Choeung Ek Killing Field

As a part of the field trip to the ECCC (Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia) they take you to the court house outside of Phnom Penh. I was bummed that my own students couldn't go, but I'm very grateful that we were able to go with a friend's group of students. (If you missed my post about this, you can read it here)

I had been on a field trip to the ECCC before, but I had never watched a trial. While we were there, they were questioning Pol Pot's(The leader of the Khmer Rouge) nephew. It was absolutely amazing to watch the trial and to listen to the questioning. I was so impressed that so many Cambodians make a point of coming to witness the trails of those accused of genocide of their own people.

After spending the morning at the ECCC they send you to a killing field, Choeung Ek one of the largest outside of Phnom Penh. This is where they would bus people in to be killed, many who had already been tortured in S-21/Toul Sleng.

The horrors that were committed there are unbelievable. To save on ammunition, all over the country they would do horrible things to kill the people. Around 17,000 people died there in four years. There is a large Buddhist stupa containing about 5,000 skulls at the entrance of the killing field.

It was really touching to go there with all of the Khmer students and teachers and to see their reactions to the killing field. It's really hard to describe the feeling of being there, so hopefully the pictures will give you an idea of what it's like.

You can also read my post about Part Two: Toul Sleng

When Bureaucracy Matters More

It has taken me quite a while to be able to write this post. I was so angry in the beginning that it wouldn't have made for a very coherent post, so hopefully now I can explain this and some of the problems that face Cambodia.

About a month ago my school and another volunteer's school were scheduled for a field trip to Phnom Penh. We had worked it out with the ECCC (Extrordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia) who pay for students to come to Phnom Penh, watch the Khmer Rouge trials, go to a killing field, and tour Toul Sleng(S-21). It's such an amazing opportunity for the students! They don't really learn about what happened in the Khmer Rouge in school and most parents who endured it don't like to talk about it either. I wanted my students to know! I wanted to do it with another volunteer so the students from different areas could meet and talk about this experience together.

So it was the day of the field trip, because I'm so far away from Phnom Penh my school decided to ask to DOE (District office of education) for some money so the students could have water and a price of bread for the long trip. They were really nice, and one of them chipped in from his own pocket.

2 hours, you hear that? 2 hours before we were scheduled to leave, the POE (Provincial Office of Education) called us and said we couldn't go. WHAT?!

I didn't know this, but apparently they "needed" a letter from the ECCC saying they said it was ok for the students to come and basically accepting responsibility for the students since they paid for the trip. I talked to the ECCC, I talked to my school director, I talked to my Peace Corps Program Manager, they all talked to the POE. The POE wouldn't budge. They wouldn't accept a letter from anyone other than the ECCC, who weren't willing to write a letter, and so less than two hours before 150 students who were supposed to board the buses that were already at my site, the trip was cancelled. I felt so bad, I felt horrible. Students were already waiting at the school. They kept calling my co-teachers asking what happened. They had bought new clothes for their first trip to Phnom Penh. It was a sad moment.

Then I was mad. I was so angry. My Program Manager was so lovely. He was very comforting to talk to, saying "I am so sorry, because this is my country and I don't understand how just a piece of paper could stop this."

Well, we the POE couldn't stop us volunteers from going, so we made it to the other volunteer's site and went with her students. She lives in another province and was so lucky to work it out with her POE to go.

We had a great time and watched Pol Pot's nephew be questioned. I wish so much that my students could have gone and learned about what happened to their country during the Khmer Rouge.

This is just an example of one of the things that holds Cambodia back. They're still struggling to break the chains of the Khmer Rouge from their political system. I guess I can't really say much more, as we are here at the invitation of the government, but Cambodia is so full of amazing people and I hope one day that the people will be who matter the most.

25th Birthday

Guys, this is really weird to me. Last week I turned 25! I even had to be a big girl and work on my birthday. I met with a director in Siem Reap, which of course was then a good excuse to spend the rest of the weekend in Siem Reap.

For my birthday Hal took me out to one of our favorite restaurants, Il Forno. It's owned by a great Italian family, and they have sister restaurants in Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville and even Vietnam. 

Our favorite thing to eat there is the gnocchi. SO good. It's practically dripping in butter, just how I like it. 

 It's hard to feel pretty in Cambodia when you're often wearing grungy clothes because hand washing them is awful, and you're sweating your brains out, so it's so nice to get dressed up every once in a while and remember what it's like to feel normal. Since it was a pretty big birthday Hal and I decided to get all dressed up. I wore my fancy dress he bought me for Valentines day and he wore the fancy tie a friend sent him for my birthday. A tie with an anchor on it = great gift idea. Hal was awesome and thought ahead and bought me the cutest shoes from Zara while we were in the UK. 

I had such a fabulous month celebrating my birthday between Koh Rong, and Siem Reap. I don't think it could have gotten any better. Good food, cheap hotel rooms, and good company is all you need to make me happy. Oh just kidding, I need one other thing to make me happy, a little mille feuille from Blue Pumpkin (possibly the best dessert ever).

Birthday trip to Koh Rong

All of us K5 (5th group of volunteers in Cambodia) decided we wanted to go somewhere awesome to celebrate our birthdays all together, and that awesome place was Koh Rong. Koh Rong is an island 2 hours off the coast of Sihanoukville.

To get to Koh Rong you have to take a 2 hour boat ride. That's at least 2 hours, more depending on the weather. Going to Koh Rong we had lovely weather and a nice relaxing boat ride.

On the island we stayed at Monkey Republic. The bungalows were nice, we got one with a shared bathroom, and I'd say if you're not on a volunteer's budget go for the bungalows with their own bathroom. The staff at Monkey Republic were really nice. And they just dropped their prices on the boat ride to $9.50 round trip, so if they try and charge you $10 each way make sure and inquire about their new prices.

Our second day there we tried to take a boat to the pristine side of the island (you know, the #32 most beautiful beach in the world). Our friend had a hurt foot, and couldn't do the hike so we rented a boat.

We got going and it was nice and sunny and beautiful.

We were having a good time being driven by this little 9 year old (no joke, he steered the whole way back and the 16 year old captain just hung out)  when all of the sudden as we were making our way to the tip of the island the waves started getting real big and we were all getting wet as the boat would splash through the swells. Finally after about 45 minutes the driver said we had to turn around. Blast! He said he'd take us the other way around. Ok...He didn't take us the other way around. He took us to another stretch of beach about 45 minutes to the other side of our hotel. It wasn't pristine, but it was beautiful none the less. The sand was white and gorgeous.

Then we saw this big path over the mountain. Oh, this must lead to the pristine side, right? So we hiked it. 3 people hiked it without shoes. One of them being Hal.

So he busted out his boy scout skills and made his own shoes. How baller is that?
After hiking we realized that side just led to a small fishing village, and was in fact, not the pristine side. So we never got to see it, but we still got to see some stinking beautiful stretches of beach.

We had a lovely birthday dinner celebration by going to Treehouse bungalows down the beach, as we heard they had excellent pizza. It was indeed excellent.

It was on the brink of raining when we boarded the boat to head back to Sihanoukville. Hal and I took motion sickness medicine which proved to be a good choice as soon enough we were in the heart of the storm and it was raining inside the boat. Every inch of pretty much every person on the boat was soaked, including most of the bags. The waves were very large and were causing the boat to rock, a lot. A large portion of people on the boat threw up over the side. I'm pretty sure every life vest on that boat was being worn as a lot of people were generally scared for their lives. We were all very happy go reach land. It's one of those moments where you just say "Oh Cambodia" and then get over it. Hopefully all of those tourists weren't scared off.
As a suggestion, don't go to Koh Rong in the rainy season.