As mentionned in an earlier post, I have begun helping (sporadically) to cut up the fish. "The fish" is a chest of fish that my brother/students always bring home at night to be cleaned and cut. I do not consistently help because sometimes I go to sleep before my brother gets back or also they cut the fish before they come home (which I think is them telling me that I am doing a bad job- because my family always says "it's ok Alex, you are still learning. If you said you were a professional, this would be a bad job."
(warning: no gory pictures but many fish involved!)
When I first arrived at my house, I noticed that every couple of weeks my older brother would come home with a chest of fish he caught and the females in the house (usually my older sister, my niece, sometimes the grandma, and one of the students) would then come outside and scale the fish or also gut the fish and cut the heads of the fish off. At first, I would just sit outside to keep my family company, and I kind of wanted to learn but wasn't dying to hack a fish head off. After my site visit, where my PM from Peace Corps came to visit, I was allowed to help chop the fish. Before, my sister would not let me chop the fish because she was scared I would hurt myself with the big knife. I was then allowed to because my PM told my older sister "it's ok if Alex hurts herself she has a medical kit"... So I got to learn. I had already gotten used to eating fish with my hands (easier to pick apart a whole fish with your hands instead of a spoon) and also got used to eating fried little fish (head and all). Alex from a year ago would not be as chill about it (I used to hate having the eyes look up at you).
But now Alex from a year ago for sure would be DYING. My first time to help chop fish was during a weekday at 9:30pm. We all sat outside the front of our house with the little cutting boards, knives, and bucket of salted water we put the chopped fish in. My brother came home (alongside the pack of boy students who also go fishing with them) and dumped the chest of fish down on a rice bag. Then it started. I chopped the head of one fish off and then cut and gutted the fish. I will spare the rest of the details (although that is kinda it, pretty easy). Let's just say I didn't do the greatest job, but I did it! After that, you have to put the fish on a stick (between 8-10 per stick) and then my family smokes them for 4 hours. SO it is a super long process. And in the end, my family sells the smoked fish to all the people in our town.
I was super happy to be included in the family activity, but that feeling went away real quick when my brother came back the next day with another whole chest of fish. I began to notice that it wasn't a once a week activity, but a daily activity of my brother and students coming back around 9:45-10:30 at night with a chest of fish that needed to be cut up. I get up at 5:45 to get ready for school, so cutting up a chest of fish at 10:30 at night is usually not on my agenda, but nevertheless the fish still came! (Even one time I saw the students get on the motorcyles to go fishing and I did a dramatic "NOOOOOOOOO" and one of them laughed and said "awwww you want to go to sleep..... well too bad! hahahah" and then drove off, coming home later with more fish.
Through all of this, I have learned a lot about my family and how hard they work. Me not wanting to stay up late is a pesky complaint, and let's be real...I am still majorly learning how to cut the fish correctly. My sister teaches full days (like literally always teaching to make money for the family) and then helps to cut the fish and stays up late to smoke the fish too. The fish are another way for my family to make income and many families in Cambodia do extra jobs in order to provide for their families. Teaching at the high school is not my sister's only job, she teaches extra classes, runs the student house, and is the head of the fish operation that is going on at the house. (Calling it a fish operation is a joke but I swear they have the routine down pact).
And for sure a smaller achievement, but an achievement nonetheless, I feel like I could totally be stranded in the woods and survive... just hoping there are no snakes, no wildlife, and it isn't at night (hahah so still working on that part.)
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