The date for my departure is rapidly approaching. I am preparing to go on a NYC/Boston/DC/New Haven (and Måneskin concert) goodbye trip this weekend and next week to say goodbye to all of my friends, but when I get back to Texas to finally start packing, I think that is when I will be the most nervous. I have been working on my Khmer language lessons through the Peace Corps, but that has been slightly difficult, to say the least. Last night, we had our second Zoom meeting with the in-country Peace Corps staff and incoming volunteers. The first Zoom meeting discussed an overview of logistics as well as meeting all of the staff, including the doctors and safety and security staff who are there in Cambodia. There are for sure a lot of names and faces I need to remember, but the biggest thing I took away from the first and second Zoom meeting was how nice everyone was. I am looking forward to being in country despite one small, small, small setback: the snakes.
The rest of yesterday's Zoom meeting was more questions that people posed and got answers to, such as "what type of charging converter should I get? what technololgy should I bring for lesson planning? where can I send mail?" things of that nature. If you are interested in the answer to those details, please let me know, but I am sure you do not really need to know the answer to logistical travel questions (unless you decide to visit me in whatever province I end up in). But then someone submitted a question: "I know Cambodia has a good variety of venemous snakes and insects, so what can we take to be prepared? Should I get snake chaps?" I knew this question would come, especially because in the last Zoom meeting, one of the country leaders said "yeah there are a LOT of snakes here, so much so there is a Facebook group called 'Snakes of Cambodia' and people post their snake photos there and then the admin indentifies the type of snake it is and if it is venemous." Of course after he said that, I was on Facebook during the Zoom meeting looking at 'Snakes of Cambodia,' majorly in fear but also slightly intrigued by the multitude of different snakes there are (if you aren't super afraid of snakes, I recommend to look at the page because it is interesting). Anyways, I decided to tuck that into the back of my mind and ignore it. For those of you who don't know, I went to camp in Texas for 6 years, and of course, camp+Texas= snake encounters. So, it is not like I have not seen a snake in my life, but I think because I have seen so many, I mentally capped myself at not wanting to see more. At camp they still made us swim even if they saw a water moccasin in the water (and they would send the riflery department to shoot the water to try and scare it away-that's a Texas camp for ya). Even as I am living temporarily in Texas now, I have only seen one snake this summer and it was dead. (I also want to note this fear is only with snakes, I am not afraid of lizards, cockroaches, spiders, scorpions, etc.)
Resuming to the Zoom call story: With this question that this person submitted, I thought to myself "here we go again". One of the doctors in Cambodia said multiple things: 1) there has not been (so far) a record of a volunteer getting bitten- oh great. 2) You need to watch where you step, especially at night, because a snake will attack you if you hurt it or threaten it- this is great advice, however, my thought process is more that I do not want to be bitten by a snake, but I also do not want to see it in general. 3) Don't get snake chaps (I wasn't planning to, but ok) because a snake can attack your whole body, not just your legs.
At this point, I turned my camera off on Zoom and looked at my mom, who was standing in the kitchen, and just covered my mouth and went oh my gosh. I think this is more when reality set in because I knew there were snakes in Cambodia (hence the Snakes of Cambodia page), but I never fully processed the snakes in Cambodia part. So my solution of if I see a snake, which was to get on my bike and ride it as fast as I can, may not work, and I will need to suppress my fears. But then the story of the Zoom call gets better.
The safety and security officer then said something after the doctor. I know his job is safety and security, but like I said before, everyone is so nice, and so when he described the snakes (because we were still on the topic for at least 10 minutes), he made it a little less threatening. This is a paraphrase but he basically said: "Snakes usually live in the jungle and in the mountains. You will not live in the jungle and the mountains. However, when a snake is in your neighborhood it is usually after it has rained a lot, and they are on a little field trip to your area because they don't want to swim in the water. The number one danger in Cambodia is not snakes, but road accidents! So do not worry we will be going over all of this in the safety and security training part of your Pre-Service Training". I turned off my camera once again and told my mom what happened and she said "please stop telling me this because now I will just worry about you".
The zoom continued on, with more answering of logistic questions, and my fear is not gone (I am talking Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark scared), however like Indiana Jones, I will push through and still survive (spoiler from that movie but he ends up trapped in an Egyptian archeological site but he escapes). I know this is a bad reference, but at this point, I am not as worried about the snakes as I used to be. I think I just don't like the way that they move, like they don't have legs so it looks weird to me. Anyways, I am still really excited, haven't even started packing yet, and am nervous, especially because I know no one, but I am actually really looking forward to this next adventure. (I will be saying this same phrase a lot leading up to leaving because there is no other way to describe it).
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