I just finished a month away from site and I am actually really really happy to be back. I will be posting separate updates about my In-Service training in Phnom Penh, my holiday at the Cambodian island of Koh Rong and in Thailand, and then Khmer New Year.
The first two weeks of being gone was because I had a training in Phnom Penh, called In-Service Training, with my fellow volunteers. To get to Phnom Penh, I biked to the bus station while my older sister and a student from my house went next to me on a motorcycle. The student then took my bike home, my sister told me goodbye, and I got on my little mini van and started the 6 hour journey to Phnom Penh (which flew by while I got to look out the window and see a lot of the country). (A small anecdote about how Khmer people always share things, the woman next to me bought a bag of cut mangoes when we stopped in Battambang and offered me a piece just because I sat next to her).
The training consisted of refreshing our TEFL teaching skills, some administrative things, and also learning a lot more Khmer! I took two « Khmer Slang » classes and so now I feel like a fake cool kid being able to talk to the kids at my house more. After hours of training, my friends and I would go get dinner, mainly consisting of foods like Mexican, Italian, Thai, Greek, etc., but I honestly was missing the food from my house (although my classic cheese quesadilla was a dish I was missing a little too much- so of course I got that at the Mexican food place). I was also really craving bok lehong- aka spicy papaya mix- from my house, so a combination of what I wanted to eat varied. After the training for the first couple of days before going to eat, we ended up going to the mall a lot, which weirdly reminded me of going to the mall during the Christmas holiday (maybe it is because there was air conditioning in the mall and I haven't been to an actual mall in so long).
Thursday night there was a talent show put on by one of our committees, and although I never perform at talent shows, I had an idea to have everyone say a motivational phrase that my mom had taught me to say and then also sing Roar by Katy Perry, which has been my ultimate hype song to get me through some tough days. I sing it to myself sometimes when I bike home so I thought it would be a nice hype song for everyone. Well, since I talked about it so much (especially to one of the committee members), I actually did it and everyone said the motivational phrase with me and then cheered me on to my really bad karaoke version of Roar. What’s funny though is although I am usually super embarrassed by it, I had a lot of fun just dancing and jumping around. So a lesson learned for myself is to never be afraid.
On Saturday, we had some language class, played some fun Khmer games, and then Kyle and I went to the National Museum of Cambodia, which had a lot of artifacts from around the whole country. The artifacts mainly were from the Angkor period or before, but there was also some newer pieces from the last two centuries too, including the world's longest Krahma, which is a traditional Cambodian scarf. For Saturday night, we went to a free charity concert which had a bunch of Cambodian rappers. You may be asking, how did this happen? Well, I have taken a liking to the Cambodian rapper Vannda (he is on Spotify so go listen if you wanna hear!) and I saw a post on Facebook (a Khmer necessity) about this charity concert while I was in Phnom Penh. It was perfect since we were already there. My friends and I went, I got bok lehong, and we got to listen to other Cambodian rappers, and overall it was super fun! For sure some people looked at us four Americans thinking why are they here, but one lady in front of us started to dance with us and also liked how we knew some of the songs.
On Sunday, I got to go see my old host family in Takeo province, which was the family I lived with during training (the first 3 months in Cambodia). I don’t know how, but in the three months I was gone, my 13 year old host sister turned into a complete teenager who loved to text her friends all the time (mainly just texting them emojis). We just hung out and chatted but now I can see how I was as a teenager, she for sure saw me as an uncool older relative (example: I wanted to make a tik tok video from a song she
showed me 6 months ago and she was disinterested because that song was « out of style »). It was still a nice day just to see my old family and know I have family in Cambodia everywhere!
For the second week of training, we
did more language and information sessions (shoutout to Alia’s awesome session on gender!) Wednesday night, we had an organized boat tour which was a nice time to spend with the whole cohort and sing karaoke, eat food, and chat with everyone (shoutout to my LCFs❤️: Yanuth, Sovichea, Kanharin, Sophorn, Sopheaktra, and Vida). Then on Thursday, my school director and one of the teachers I teach with came all the way down from my province for a day long conference with other staff members from the other volunteers' schools. They told me they got no sleep driving down in the night to get to Phnom Penh, and so I told them I could not thank them enough for still coming. We had lunch and had the conference, but it was mainly a nice time to catch up with my school since I had been gone.
On Friday, we had a cultural day and learned about some Khmer traditional music and dances before our closing. During that time, we got to wear some Khmer traditional pants and do the stretches and dances alongside the professionals (although not nearly as good, especially because these dancers train so much to be super flexible). Unfortunately, Alia, one of my closest friends that I have made through Peace Corps had to leave due to medical reasons. It was like losing a big sister and I’m going to miss her in Cambodia but I know that she is just a phone call away! Kyle and I still text her, but I wish she was still in country with me (especially to tell me that I need to wear more bug spray and help me make decisions about what I want to order when we went out to eat)
Recap:
After training for two weeks I.......learned more Khmer, went to the mall too many times, bought too many jeans (yes I wear them in the heat), had a fun time at a Cambodian concert, saw my fellow PCVs, missed Khmer food, went on a boat tour in Phnom Penh, saw a couple rooftop bars, learned about Khmer culture and dance, and had to say goodbye to a close friend. Stay tuned for the next post about my holidays!
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