#rcpv

This is my first entry since my return to the South Bay over a year ago. To read more about my Peace Corps experience, click here ->http://valaxyy.tumblr.com/.

It was January 15th. I had officially been serving as a Peace Corps volunteer for a solid seven months. The heat lingered heavily in my tiny living quarters, daring me not to acknowledge its relentless existence. What I wouldn't have given for a couple minutes of air conditioning! The electricity was out again for the day due to heavy rains, and I knew it would be one of those days where you count the bugs on top of your mosquito net and try to save your computer battery as much as possible since no one could predict when there would be power to recharge it. During my service, there were many days like this one. However, January 15th was significant because it was the day that I realized one of the most important things I have learned yet- there is a significant difference between actually helping people and subconsciously using their seemingly impoverished means of living as a catalyst to promote American chivalry.

What were my skills? Did they even apply to the Cambodian culture in which I had immersed myself? As a former division one student athlete, I understand what it means to work tirelessly to achieve what you know will help you succeed in life. No matter what culture you find yourself living amongst, those who are perceived as most desirable are often driven, caring, and action-provoking individuals. Those skills undoubtedly guided me through tough times, but my interpretation of their meanings was not parallel with the Khmer culture. Everything I was equipped with growing up- my values, my answers, my social norms- were constantly being challenged and morphed by the lifestyle I had entered less than a year before. And it terrified me. It was then that I realized that my presence in Cambodia was not to help them, it was to help me. I was gaining adventurous stories, cultural perception, and credibility. But what did they get out of my time? Most Cambodians in my village had never even left their province, much less their country, to participate in what would inevitably become an engaging conversation starter. I couldn't fix Cambodia, or even leave a dent on it, unless I were to live there my entire life. Whatever volunteer that was to arrive to my village after me would have no way of knowing my methods or reinforcing my lesson plans, which leaves the students with an extreme lack of follow through and structure. They get attached to volunteers- love them, feed them, beg them to remember after they leave. But how do most respond upon their return home? They tell their adventurous stories, debate cultural differences, and gain credibility.

Bearing my thoughts above in mind- about five months later with a heavy but vindicated heart, I decided to leave Cambodia. I wanted to begin career in real estate in the land where I grew up, the beautiful South Bay of Southern California. My Cambodian host family had absolutely no idea what real estate was, and there is no translation for the term because it does not exist there in the same form as it does here. When one gets married there, the bride moves in with the groom's family or vice versa. In the rural villages, there is no construction or even paved roads. Trying to explain a concept that does not exist to another person without having the necessary language skills makes for an interesting game of charades… Upon showing my host family pictures of my home in California, all they could really do was question our motives behind planting grass. "Why didn't we have a vegetable garden or fruit trees instead?" "Can you eat grass?" "Why would you care if the front of your house looks pretty if you have no food?" "Do you not have a rainy season? Those houses would never survive the floods!" Etc. Of course, there are flip sides to every story and if I went into detail about the Khmer way of valuing the aesthetic before anything else you’d be reading this all day.