#cambodiyeah

For those of you who don’t know, my sister is amazing and coordinated a ton of letters and notes from friends and family before I left so that I could get a message of love and encouragement about every other day this year. It has been a major blessing for me this year. A while ago, I opened a note from Mo with a blog post request. She asks two things:

“What do you think Americans have the most in common with Cambodians?

What language are you speaking the most these days? a. English,                 b. Khmer, c. German”

I can answer the second with ease: Khmenglish, usually with a stronger emphasis on the English

The first question, however, has been working in my mind and every observation for about two weeks. It is so hard to explain; it is like comparing apples and oranges, except in Cambodia, oranges are, in fact, green. So maybe a better comparison would be American apples and Cambodian mangos. So that is how I have decided to begin to approach this answer.

If I ask you to think of an apple, it is probably very easy for you. You can imagine a fist-sized red, green, or golden fruit with a crisp crunch and that sweet or sour tang that floods your senses after that first bite. It is likely that, you probably know where one is within the building you are in, and you for sure know where to buy them in your local grocery. Now, if I ask you to think of a mango, you probably have a pretty good idea of what it is or at least what it tastes like, but you likely found it more of a challenge than the apple to think up on command. If you are like me, before I came to Cambodia, you know it as that bright orange fruit flesh that is in a lot of smoothies and dessert type things and that you can buy at most grocery stores in dried strips.

A similar, but opposite thing will happen in Cambodia. See, apples in Cambodia are the more “exotic’ of this pairing. The apples here (unless you frequent an expensive, city-based, western grocery store in Phnom Penh) are about half the size of the apples you can find in the states, are not crisp (though not mushy) and while they have a sweetness to them, it is a shadow of the taste of apples in the USA. However, the idea of a mango in Cambodia is as beautifully more delicious than the American idea of a mango in a way that puts the superiority of the American apple ideal to shame. In Cambodia, there are so many mangos and so many ways to eat them, and none of them are quite like American mangos. When you eat a mango here, it is firm, sweet, tangy, and quenching or sour, crisp, and surprising. It is something that I will never be able to do justice describing because no matter how hard you try, when I talk to you about Cambodian mangos, you will go to the mangos you know and try to imagine them better, in the same way that Cambodians will understand American apples as the apples they know only better, and really, they are just different.

Obviously, there are some things in common between apples and mangos just as there are between Americans and Cambodians.  Apples and mangos are both fruits and therefore share certain characteristics just by being. For example, they can both be sweet or sour and are both tangy, they come in a variety of sizes and colors, and they both can be stand alone snacks, in a meal , or part of dessert.  Whereas Americans and Cambodians share commonalities that I consider parts of human nature - smiling at/protecting/loving kids, friendships and family playing important roles in people’s lives, love, trust, faith and religion, community, overuse of smart phones and tablets, etc. - but even these shared traits can take very different forms. It becomes difficult to recognize the similarities when you dive to deep into the beauty of these manifestations.

However, after a lot of thought and speculation, I have decided to delve into the fruity flesh of the similarities for what I have decided to call “Sunday Life.” I chose this term because two things that the internet and television tell me (as well as my life experiences growing up in the USA) are most commonly associated with Sundays are church and football (or is it better just to go with sports? this is the place where my personal experiences leave me short). While Sunday in Cambodia (or really anything in Cambodia) is not at all generally affiliated with church or football, the phrase stands.

In the USA, there are many devout christians and many more who go to church for Christmas and Easter. This is not a judgement on either of those groups of people, just a fact. Similarly in Cambodia, there are many devout buddhists, but (based on conversations and my experiences here) I would venture to guess that there are also many more who only go on holidays. Probably the biggest difference here (other than the religion itself) is that there are only two major Christian holidays, while there are 23 Cambodian national holidays (where even the “secular” ones tend to send people to the pagoda).

As for the football element, it is pretty simple. In the USA, there are people who will watch every football game, on TV or from the stands, who know the players, and who know all about everything to do with football. We also have the people who couldn't care less about football and middle ground people, like me, who don’t really watch anything but the Superbowl (and maybe Thanksgiving) and have loyalties to our home teams because that is where we happen to be. Regardless of where each individual fits in the spectrum, it would be difficult to find somebody who didn’t have a basic idea of football or hasn’t seen at least part of at least on football game (even if it was just a thanksgiving episode on Friends). Here, in Cambodia, the football equivalent is Kun Khmer (Cambodian boxing - same as Muay Thai). Most peole at least see it occasionally while others watch it regularly. Restaurants will usually have it on TV if they have a TV and Cambodian Idol isn't on. Cambodians have a ranging interest in Kun Khmer that I believe is very similar to that of American football fans interest in American football.

Obviously, there are a lot of things I could delve more into and make comparisons about between Khmer and American culture, but also, it is important to recognize the mango as a mango and the apple as an apple.  By appreciating the unique features of both, while recognizing their similarities, we come out with something even better.

Peace,

-       If your laundry is somehow fully of ants, it is better to try to get them off your clothes as opposed to just putting them in a giant bucket of water to drown them unless you want your clothes to be full of dead ants

-       If everyone around you has a smart phone and you are going to dinner, bring something to do so you don’t feel awkward when everyone just plays games the whole time

-       Always have a few extra dollars on you in case your bike tire somehow blows out and you need to replace it

-       Never assume you know where you are going or what you are doing when a friend tells you to come with them (but still go if you have time)

-       When you don’t understand something after the second or third time it has been said, it is usually best to laugh and just tell that person that you don’t understand at the same time

-       It is often better to just go to the same shops and market stands for complicated things because then you not only build a relationship, but they also know what you are looking for in case you don’t have the words

-       Try everything but don’t be afraid to just eat what you like if it is available

-       If you like something be sure to say so and say it often so that people know

-       Sometimes you just have to change up your routine to meet new people who will become your friends

-       If you have the time, always offer to wait at the banana stand, eventually the banana lady will begin to teach you how to make her cooked banana deliciousness

-       If you get to the point where you have exhausted everyone’s language abilities, it is always fun to bust out in song (my personal favorite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irJ2drthzME)

-       If you want to walk around the small island and you can see that any part of it is not beach, bring your shoes

-       Nice flip-flops are the best option, always.

-       Don’t tell people you can sing part of a song before a wedding or else they may try to make you sing it with the band

-       If you get invited to something, you should go unless you have a really good excuse

-       Never let quinoa sit in water while you wait for the stove

-       Puppies are so little and cute and while I knew that already, I just feel like I re-learned it

-       Beautiful people are not always industrious. (Okay this is just a quote from a children’s book, “Rose Grows in Cow Dung,” but that IS the moral that the book was trying to teach)

-       When you are teaching pronunciation, there comes a point were you realize how much you don’t like how certain English words sound in your mouth.

-       No matter home much you try, most of the Khmer students will never be able to say the ends of words. (“ask” becomes “ass,” “fried” becomes “frie,” and “comes” becomes “come” etc.)

International Women’s day was today. I have heard it mentioned once or twice before in my life, but that is about it. Here in Cambodia, it is a pretty big deal to the point of school being canceled and LWD (my NGO) throwing a party and taking this upcoming Friday off. While I am sure there are plenty of people in Cambodia (just like in the USA) who completely miss the point of International Women’s Day and do not celebrate women or use this day as an excuse to enforce gender roles, it was really interesting to see how it is a big deal here.

During the party mentioned above, many of my male coworkers stood up to talk about what today means and why it is important (while it is a bit ironic that only men talked about this, the top positions in my particular Area Program Office happen to be men, so it was appropriate that they were the ones speaking). Totally caught off guard, my site supervisor and the project manager asked me to speak about what International Women’s Day is like in the USA. I am and was quite embarrassed because I couldn’t say anything be cause I didn’t know. Another staff member then encouraged me and told me that in 1911 was the first International Women’s Day and it was in the USA so we must do something, and I needn’t be shy. But I wasn’t being shy, I actually don’t know. So, even hough it is not totally about my experiences here in Cambodia, I am going to give you a quick run down of International Women’s Day according to two articles I just read on the internet.

International Women’s Day most likely got its first spark in 1908 when 15,000 women strikes in New York for shorter hours, better pay, and voting rights. By 1910, during the second International Conference of Working Women it had sparked the idea of an international, unified, celebration of women, and in 1911, the first International Women’s Day was born with over 1 million people in countries across Europe and North America marched together for women’s rights. Then in 1917, not long before the Russian Revolution, the women in Russia stoked for the right to vote and were successful and ceases their stoke on March 8th. Since then, International Women’s Day has been celebrated on March 8th. This is a wonderful day reminding the world about how much and how far women have come, especially in the last 105 years and to push us to keep striving for equality, not just for women, but everyone on a global scale.

Happy International Women’s Day! Please tell the important women in your life how much they mean to you! For more information please read this, or if you think International Women’s Day is cheap and pointless please read this.

This is a schedule of important times to note in my day-to-day life (it is also exciting that I have been here long enough to really have established a daily routine):

4:30 - Wedding starting time/the beginning of blasting wedding music as loud as humanly possible 5:00 - Pagodas become active 6:20 - Wake up time on morning school days 6:35 - breakfast time on morning school days 6:45 - Wake up time on non-morning school days 7:00 - School starts 7:05 - Breakfast on non-mornng school days 7:30 - The start of the LWD work day 8:00 - LWD work day start on Mondays 9:00 - Lunch money collection time 10:00 - Market time (on Weekends) 11:00 - Morning classes over, beginning of sombra for students (like siesta/lunch) 12:00 - Lunch at LWD/The time that monks stop eating for the day 12:30 - LWD sombra 1:00 - Afternoon classes start 1:30 - LWD sombra ends 1:45 - field staff English class for LWD on Fridays 2:00 - Khmer tutoring on morning teaching days 3:00 - End of the LWD work day on Fridays 4:45 - End of the school day (on afternoon days) 5:00 - English lessons with Mony, Monday-Thursday 5:30 - End of the normal LWD Workday 6:00 - Dinner time 7:15 - Cross-stitch/read/write/relax until bed 10:00 - bed time 11:30 - Wedding music stops (on day 1, day 2 is more in the air)

other things to note:

In Cambodia, you don’t really say, “No.“ It is just not culturally appropriate. In the USA (or al least the parts of it I have experienced), it is better to avoid being frank. That is not to say that people in Cambodia don’t ever say no and people in the US never are frank, but it becomes a lot more noticeable when you are placed in a different culture, much as I have been. In order to really explain what I mean, I have an example and how it might go (as I have experienced it) in both cultures:

USA: You sit down to a meal at a friends house. It is corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, and steak. The steak is WAY too salty and you cannot do it. So, you eat as much as you can and only eat corn and potatoes for the rest of the meal. Most likely, if the cook asks you if you want more steak and has not mentioned that the steak is too salty themselves, you are going to say something along the lines of, “You know, I have been trying to increase my veggie intake, I’ll stick to the potatoes and corn!“ or “This is so good, but I don’t think I can eat another.“ Everyone leaves happy, and you don’t have to eat another steak. Unless you know the person very very well or it is at a restaurant, you will probably not say, “Wow, this steak was way too salty. I really don’t want another, it was hard enough to get the first one down."

Cambodia: You sit down at a meal. It is sour soup and stir-fry. You take a bit of the sour soup and are reminded that you do not like it. So you stick to eating that yummy stir-fry.  If somebody tells you to eat more soup, you most likely are going to say, "Knyome ot joljet“ (I don’t like it) or “Ot Chnany“ (Not delicious).  After that, it is left alone and everyone leaves happy.  You would never simply say, “No, thank you."

It seems like these two things would not be sort of similar in the long run, but honestly, they are not. The more I figure out, the more it seems like not saying. “No“ may be more direct in a lot of cases than not being frank. There are those times, like when people don’t know how to say, “no” so they just laugh and leave you hanging, where „no“ would be so much more effective. But there are so many more that seem like are smoother in the long run because of the frankness. In the examples above, the USA story may lead the cooks of the steak to serve another super salty steak to you assuming that you like it, whereas in the Cambodia story, now people know you don’t like sour soup and unless they forget, they won’t ask you about it again.

Okay, so I have a big old list of blog posts that I have started (or just thought a lot about) that I have not yet posted. Part of the problem for me has been that living in Cambodia is just my life now. I am past the point where I totally experience something new and amazing every day. That is not to say that I don't, but the level of newness that I experience every day is equivalent to that which I experience on a daily basis at home in the USA as well. However, I have the hopes of playing some catch-up on my blog here in the next few weeks. And for starters, I figured it best to go with simple and sweet.

This is a weird little frog. If you cannot tell by this photo, he kind of looks like a little leaf or rock from afar and like an awkward little lump of froggy up close. I only started seeing these guys in the last month and a half, which is surprising to me because it is dry season here in Cambodia. However, 90% of these particular frogs that I have seen have been indoors - particularly this one that I have to keep removing from my bathroom. To help explain why this is so funny to me, I need to describe the journey this lumpy hopper has to take in order to get to my bathroom.  First of all, the guy’s got to jump up about a foot and a half of elevation split between two steps to even be on the same level as my building. Then, regardless of which way he enters my building, he has to hop/waddle a good 25 meters down the hall, past two hungry identical cats to even make it to my door. That is also assuming that nobody is going to see him and remove him from the building while he makes this trek. Finally, once he has make it past the cats and feet and everyone else’s doors, he has to wriggle and squish himself under my door. Once he has gotten that far, he is fairly protected for a while and can probably take his time to explore my room if he wants. However, as I have only ever witnessed him in my bathroom, I am assuming that he pretty much makes a straight shot in that direction. Once he makes it to the bathroom door, he has to climb over the raised door frame and hope to god that I left the door open for him. If I have, then he gets to hop right in and hang out in his favorite place (the drain). Unfortunately for him, I have the annoying habit of scooping him up and taking him back outside whenever I catch him and he has to start the journey all over again. Pretty soon I am going to have to name him.

I hope my little frog story helps you to see even the slightest glimpse into my life in Bavel. I am open to any and all name suggestions for my little frog friend. Feel free to let me know what you think!