You Will Have To Take My Word(s) For It.

"Is she back yet????!" Short answer: soon. Long answer: Wednesday. Sept. 17th. 19:00. JFK.

In just under 48 hours I will be boarding a plane in Milan, Italy for the final leg (if you don't count the drive from the airport) of my trip since COSing August 7th. It will be the first time that I have been on American soil since July 2012. This statement both astounds me and seems quite insubstantial. It has been simultaneously a lifetime and no time at all.

"Are you ready?" As ready as I ever could be. A good 3/4ths of my stuff made it back to my family (thanks Maggie, Ellen, and Cori!) before me (sorry Mom and Dad!), so it is my turn I guess. And no doubt about it I am excited. A bit nervous maybe, but also excited.

I have had an incredible time here in Italy. Oh did I forget to mention that?!? Yeah so at the end of August I left Nepal and ended up in Italy where I spent every weekend playing in Ultimate Frisbee tournaments (3 in total) and the weekdays doing a mix of exploring and eating and enjoying people's company. My darling friend Maggie (same amazing gal who visited me back in April) spent the summer working as an intern (tuttofare) at Tenuta di Spannocchia, a beautiful agritourismo a stone's throw from Siena in the Tuscan hills. The first week after a beach tournament I met up with her and her family who were also visiting and then hours later another great Kenyon College friend, Ffej, drove in after a whirlwind European tour. To paraphrase a great quotation, traveling with those you love is like home on wheels. Eating phenomenal Italian meals at the rented home or out in the small hill towns in Umbria we just couldn't go wrong. Pasta, cheese and meat, not to mention coffee, wine and gelato? Yes please! I left these loving friends the next weekend for Milan and tourney number 2 and then struck out on my own for the Cinque Terre ("Five Earths") along the Mediterranean for a few days of hiking, swimming and boating. Then on to the other side of the boot and Venice to wander the streets for a total of 16 hours over the course of a day and a half. Beautiful confusion. This past weekend I connected with yet another Italian Ultimate team and played in the city of Padova just a hop skip and a jump from Venice and the place where my younger brother Thomas spent the past spring on his study abroad program. I was fortunate enough to meet and have a lovely homecooked meal with T's host family and to get photo evidence that they actually exist! (Which you will just have to take my word for until I get on a real computer.) Family connections around the world. Continuing to make the world a bit smaller.

Now I sit in Trieste, a border town with Slovenia that may just be the least Italian city I have been in - more of a melting pot of cultures and peoples. A beautiful coastal city seated on the Adriatic Sea. And I am tired. Tomorrow I have a train to Milan and from there... well you know the story.

It has been a wonderful 3 weeks in Italy and a wonderful 3 weeks before that in Nepal. Additionally I am looking forward to a wonderful 3 weeks upcoming filled with big changes and plenty of excitement. It will be quite a transition and let me tell you why...

Once I arrive home I will have only 4 full days until I am on the move again. Where to, you may ask? Oh maybe I forgot to mention, I got a job. In Maine. Starting end of September. Rewind! Only just a week before COS I received an offer and accepted a position as Outreach Coordinator for a small outdoor education nonprofit based in Brunswick (read: big sister is moving to little brother's college town!). I had already booked and planned my COS trip long before that and so with the amazing support of my parents and the flexibility of the team at T3, I was able to go ahead with everything. So now in just a week's time I will be up in Maine! Jumping right into everything headfirst and full steam ahead. I think my Mom summed it up best in the note she snuck into my carry-on back in DC July 2012, "you are truly a rolling stone" never collecting moss.

So you will just have to take my word(s) for it that I was in Nepal and Italy as photos are yet to appear. And now I continue my journey along the streets with no names. Until next time.

Endings & Beginnings

"What's up with the radio silence Meg?! I thought you finished Peace Corps already..." is probably what all of you are thinking right? And I mean rightly so. On August 7th, I officially ended my Peace Corps service and joined the ranks of the RPCVs (depending on who you ask it either stands for Returned or Recovering PCV). The end was a bit anticlimactic, running around Phnom Penh checking off things on my to-do list(s) and in the office filling out paperwork and getting people to sign off on various things as well as last minute personal errands. Unlike the COS the month before (which was for the majority of the education volunteers), there was little group celebration as people seemed tired from a long couple of weeks of saying good-byes at site. At least that is how I felt!

A lot has happened since then (I will get to that in a moment), that it all feels a bit like a dream. There was the completion of the Southeast Asia map mural, my friend Chamreun's baby shower (an event celebrated 2 weeks after the birth), fittings for sampots (traditional Khmer skirts) and outfits that my tailor friend Ee Roo and one of the midwives Heang insisted on giving me as presents. I crammed in 2 trips to Siem Reap for final goodbyes at my favorite coffee shops and guesthouse and with my tutor Sophoan as well as a extended host family trip for a Khmer buffet dinner with us all piled into my aunt's car one rainy night when my sister Ong had time off from work at the health center. There was mass cleaning of my room (on multiple occasions with the help of Emily), too many breakfasts at Bong Keya's to count, not to mention the coffee chats and the fried rice dinner party she threw for me. I had a last site visit from PC staff thanks to a minor accident, but which all worked out and I was able to ship a bunch of stuff to the office with them. In that final week, I wrapped up the nutrition project and made my rounds in the villages. Emily tagged along for many of my adventures including a visit to our friend Voleak's house where I may or may not have learned how to drive a moto (hypothetically... seeing as PC policy says no motos unless for primary assignment work and definitely only riding on the back... Whoops). Other rounds included giving out nine - yes 9 - framed 8x11 photos of myself decked out in Khmer wedding attire (from two separate occasions when friends from the States visited - thanks Cori, Ellen, and Maggie!). Narcissistic? Maybe... but they were a huge hit and put up alongside of other family portraits of similar spectacular photo-shopping mastery. Additionally, I put the same photos on business/name cards and on the backside put a little blurb in Khmer that said "Don't forget me. Thanks very much!" and then my US contact info. These I handed out like candy in the market one morning as I made my rounds to my favorite stalls and market ladies. (Now everyone expects Emily to do the same... Sorry I'm not sorry!) Thanks to my photographer (and wonderful site-mate) Emily, I was able to get photos with most everyone I interacted with.

What else did I do...? Oh yeah there was a Party. A party with a capital P was held at the health center on my final day at site. As it had been explained to me, it was to be a party in honor of the deputy director and kick-ass midwife turned Director, new staff (midwives, Sean and Pich), and side-note Meghan is leaving... I was told a month and a half prior to invite all of my friends and that I needed to get all done up. So the day of I got my nails done with my host mom, spent almost 2 hours at Ee Roo's for hair and make-up to rival any bridal party, and then squeezed into the outfit Heang had gotten tailored for me only 2 days prior. With fellow PCVs Emily (of course), Joel, Jeff and recent RPCV Kateri in tow and my host grandma yelling to hurry up and Ee Chhat (HC director ) calling every 2 minutes, we paraded down the street (maybe 150m) to the health center. It was probably quite the sight. Khmer-style bride Meghan holding hands with yeay leading her barang friends to the striped tent from which someone is sound checking the mic with a "hell-oh! Hell-oh! Muoy-bee! Muoy-bee! One-two! HelloHello..." over and over. A scene. A spectacle. So we get there and Ee Chhat runs out and gives me instructions to say hello to all the important OD folk and then proceed to greet everyone coming through the gate for the ceremony, mostly VHVs, teachers and my host family. Ushered over to a PC and English-speaking table, the ceremony begins. Quickly it becomes clear that the HC staff tricked me and this ceremony followed by a dinner and dancing party (to which I contributed funds) is entirely in MY honor. I was totally and completely floored by the speeches by the commune chief, the OD director and Ee Chhat about my contributions to the community and how much they would miss me. Then it was my turn to welcome everyone and express gratitude in a pre-scripted speech Ee had given me that morning to practice (in Khmer mind you). It was a bit choppy and choked up, but probably better than anything I would have made up on the spot, which would have included something dumbstruck like "woah I mean wow. thank you thank you!" The meal that followed was generously cooked by some of the VHVs and was typical wedding-style family-dig-all-in, which I barely had time to even taste as it became photo shoot and dancing and then a lot of toasting and cheers-ing with cases of Angkor beer. As per rainy season, it torrentially down-poured between the ceremony and the party and guests arrived drenched. I expected things to shut down for a bit as usual when it rains, but the music blared on with the giant speakers draped with tarps. The party went on and I was pulled out to dance in the rain with the VHVs and family of the HC staff. After 5 hours of constant dancing and merriness, I was exhausted. Seriously past my bed-time (at a whooping 9:30pm), I went to say my good-byes and found myself for the first time that week in tears. As I led (with the help of Ong) the other PCVs back to my house where we would have a massive sleep-over, I sobbed hysterically. Pitch black walking down the road by the light of phone flashlights, sobbing. I broke out laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. Welcomed home by Mai, we chatted and had some quality pillow-talk before falling asleep, only to awaken to a new day and a big change.

Still in shock from the outpouring of love from the night before, I packed the last of my things, had my final breakfast at Bong Keya's, took group photos and then got in a car to Siem Reap with few dry eyes to speak of. Mai and yeay were the two family members who accompanied me to the bus station and when they gave me hugs (a very American and not at all natural Khmer gesture of love) I felt physical pain. The pain of my heart breaking. (It sounds overly dramatic, but for anyone who knows the feeling of leaving or being left you may understand that hollowed out part inside that aches.) A physical and emotional sensation I am so grateful to have experienced when leaving my community. For as hurtful it was, it also was a signal of how much the people of Sasar Sdam have left impressions on my soul.

Now these memories feel more and more dream-like since I have removed myself from their immediate reminders and triggers. I am not back "home" - a concept I still struggle with and which has always puzzled me. On the contrary, I still have a month to go before I land back Stateside. I am currently writing this from the foothills of the Annapurnas, in beautiful Nepal, relaxing after a 9-day trek (where I may or may not have gotten altitude sickness at one point, but don't worry I am fully recovered now!). I have a little over a week left in Nepal on a pilgrimage of sorts to reconnect with the people and places that I encountered nearly 4 years ago while studying abroad with the School for International Training (SIT), the organization and experience that I credit for turning me on to Peace Corps in the first place. It just seemed fitting to come back here to pay homage to something that I can barely describe. Maybe a desire to make the world a little bit smaller through peace and understanding. Maybe a wanderlust with a humanitarian focus. Or whatever it may be... Here at an end, coming back to a beginning.

P.S. Trouble uploading photos. Words will have to suffice for now...

When Feelings Invade.

Since my last post, two important dates have come and gone: 1) the one-month left mark and 2) two full years in Cambodia. Both passed with numerous facebook status updates and posts from my fellow K6 cohorts (or at least those who are still around), but overall pretty tomahdah (trans: normal or ordinary). It wasn't until the most crucial part of my in-country support system for the past 2 years left this past weekend that these time marks became very real and I began to really think about what THIS (whatever "this" is... my experience, my service, my relationships with my community and host family, the uncertainty of the future and when I will return, etc.) means/has meant. In otherwise letting myself really process it all while still here so that I can transition smoothly (ha!) or at least conclude my service purposefully; saying the jom reap leiahs and the jewup k'neya payl graowees (trans: goodbyes and see you laters) I need to say. Like when I dropped Sam off at the Siem Reap International Airport on Saturday, I may be unable to say the words to express gratitude and love in those final moments thanks for an emotional temperament and a shaky voicebox, but maybe small gifts and notes will be able to speak for me.

I have tried to keep busy this past month with activities like singing with the Peace Chorus (fellow PCVs) at the US Embassy's 4th of July Celebration; a weekend in Kampong Cham (one of the last provinces I had to visit - still haven't been to Preah Vihear due to PC policy...); host sister Ong's 24th birthday; painting a South East Asia map mural with students and Em to complement the world map at the high school; meeting PCVs from Nepal; applying for jobs; and making rounds around the villages. Especially big news of the past week was 1) on 7/11 my friend Chamreun gave birth to a beautiful baby girl who she named Nidta and 2) Em's youngest host sister, Srey Nyeat (8 yo) fell in the bathroom and was hospitalized for severe hemorrhaging (currently her condition is stabilizing, but still scary). Despite all those activities, I feel as though I am slowly ripping off a ginormous Band-Aid that is covering my entire epidermis and internal organs too. The worst possible waxing experience. As my Khmer friends would say knyom chhu jet (trans: I hurt heart = my heart hurts = heartbreak).

I am not looking forward to these goodbyes and to leaving my community behind (a terrible phrase that only depicts the physical leaving). But there is a lot to look forward to as this significant life transition fast-approaches. As I look forward, I will continue to keep an eye on the rear-view mirror; a reminder that the past may become more distant, but will always be there.

 

 

 

Happy July! Good luck friends!

Where did June go?! I seem to blinked and the month passed and here we are staring at the Education PCVs (ETTTs) first COS date TOMORROW. What does this mean?

the originals...

airport chaos

It means that 16 PCVs from my cohort (K6), who I have been with in effect since Staging in DC mid July 2012, are wrapping up loose ends with PC and getting on flights and buses to make their journeys home. It is very festive actually as the 4th of July is also upon us. This post is for those government-issued friends I have the pleasure of getting to know over the past 2 years! Thanks for the memories!

There have been a few events in the past month that highlight the support between fellow volunteers that I have been lucky to experience.

The final meeting of the K6 Women's Group (aka Booster Club). 

This group was established in December 2013, spearheaded by the lovely Sam, with the purpose of bringing female PCVs together to talk in a candid manner about issues we face in Cambodia, problems we have (current, past, and future), and celebrate successes, all in a confidential environment. While some people wrote this off as a "bitching circle," the group was very very far from that. I have never felt so at ease and supported in Cambodia than I did during our meetings. Some of the members I was already close friends with, others it was a pleasure to get to know them. In such a tight-knit, at times suffocatingly small group of people who make up the PCV cohort in Cambodia (around 100 at any one point), the gossip happens. It can be immature and harmful. Having a space and group that is 100 percent committed to confidentiality and that exists to work through issues collectively and with much need group support, has been crucial for my happiness these past months. And I could not thank enough those who gave me a boost through this wonderful group. Thank you!

meeting with personalized cupcakes!

The Phnom Penh International 1/2 Marathon

Was I ready to run this race? Had I trained at all prior to making it to the starting line side-by-side with Sam and Amy? NO. Was that stupid? Maybe. Probably. Despite the course being less than ideal (I mean stopping traffic was nice, but seriously why all the loops repeated!?), it was quite an event and I am so glad I got peer pressured into signing up. Plus these lovely ladies were waiting at the finish line with warm beer that Catie won with a 3rd place finish in the 10K! A great way to end my 2 years of races in Cambodia (see previous: here, and here, and here.)

Health Fairs 

Some members of the CHE program have pushed for mass messaging on healthy behaviors through traveling health fair project at primary and secondary schools across the country. I was fortunate to be invited to attend and help teach at one about 20km from my site with Emily a few weekends back. We met up with about 9 other PCVs (K6 and K7s) from the northern provinces at Joel's site after a very eventful bike ride from our site - popped tire, hitch-hiked back, exchanged bikes, continued, got a ride from a pick-up filled with fish that broke down, hopped on another and only was 30 minutes late! Emily was my lovely assistant and demonstrated how to properly brush teeth 5 separate times for the groups of 30 plus students, while I got them to sing, color, and chant about the major lessons of teeth brushing. About 150 students rotated between our lesson, and others on smoking and alcohol abuse awareness, hand washing, exercise, nutrition, and cross-cultural understanding. Success! Snaps for Joel for organizing.

student participation :)

IN OTHER NEWS: 

Kep Yoga Retreat with Nataraj Yoga Phnom Penh.

I took some time for myself and recharged with a lovely yoga retreat in Kep with the Nataraj Yoga studio based in Phnom Penh. The retreat was filled with (of course) yoga, meditation, a hike, pool time, a bike ride to visit a local craft shop, good food, a trip to the Crab Market, and interesting conversation with the 11 other ex-pat women (of different nationalities) in attendance. A very rejuvenating experience, one with plenty of time for reflection, leading into the final months of my PC service.

relaxing post-yoga

bike ride with the group

WHADA shop, weaving a "kroma" (khmer scarf). It tough!

Summer Solstice

I have been doing some summer cleaning and to celebrate the coming of summer Emily and I decided to use the TON of paper I have hoarded over the past 2 years (I had stuff from my staging and pre-service training!) to have a bonfire and make s'mores. The sky was cloudy so no stargazing was involved, but it sure felt like summer! (Despite that it actually has been a bit cooler here, as in low of 81 degrees F...)

My staging workbook is now ash/fertilizer for the garden.

World Cup

So the times for the games played live are at pretty inconvenient times for the usual volunteer whose host family goes to bed around 8:30PM. That being said, that has not kept me from keeping on top of this international event and watching as many games as I can. Last night, I stayed up for the 11PM kick off of the Argentina-Switzerland game. I was planning to sneak in a 2 hour nap between then and the start of the USA-Belgium game, but no the blue and red had to go into extra time. So a quick cat nap and then up again for the 3AM start of the USA game. Again another extra time that ended in an unsatisfying result but a whirlwind ending that pumped adrenaline through me as I watched under my mosquito net. So when it was all said and done it was 5:30AM and my host mom was up and out to the market with the sun and so I was too. Thank goodness for cheap Khmer coffee, a wonderful HC staff, and a siesta time that is respected (here called "chop somrack" or "dayk layng"). That is patriotism for you.

P.S. Flights and travel are all booked. Back stateside Sept.17th. Just fyi...

This Is How I...

The past few days I have been spending a bunch of time with my site-mate Emily creating videos of everyday actions that we do in our town that have become so normal that we often think nothing of them. As I approach the one month left mark, I have been trying pondering different ways to represent my full service and remember everything that has become so ordinary, but which are all things that are important to my daily life. Once my routine changes I fear I will forget all of the little things. Whenever someone in the community asks me how much longer until I leave, they tell me not to forget ("gkom plet"), I respond my saying that I couldn't ever, that I don't know how to forget ("awt jeh plet dtay"). In order to make that statement true, I have consciously started to meticulously document everything that makes Cambodia, my host family and friends, co-workers and community unique. While there are some many similarities between people around the world, the unique differences and funny quirks about this little town easily passed by without a blink of an eye if you weren't looking for it on the way to the border or on to Siem Reap, are what make little SSSD (my abbreviation for security purposes) so special to me. There will be more videos to come. But here is a little sneak peek:

For more on our market check out Emily's blog post "In which I show you the wonders of the market..."

Besides the market, I will missing skipping across the street hand-in-hand with my 6-year-old neighbor Sokhane (whom I call my "songsaa" meaning sweetheart) to get him a 25 cent (1000 riel) hair cut from the barber in the corrugated metal shack. And biking north 3 km to visit a permaculture farm called very accurately the Happy Farm - with Sokhane sitting on the back of my bike giggling the whole way. I will miss the rain storms that roll in every afternoon like clockwork during wet season to effectively cool things down for 15 minutes before I start sweating just as vigorously as before. 

But I am not leaving yet. So the mushy posts can be postponed. In the meantime, let me recap most of the past month. 

OTHER HAPPENINGS AT SITE

World Map makers!

Kimsan stopped at Pouk market

 To celebrate the completion of the World Map, Em and I took 14 of the hearty World Map makers on a trip to the West Baray (reservoir about 20 km east of town) for lunch, hammock time and swimming. We all biked out to find that the water was quite low and shallow with quicksand like mud as far as we ventured out. It was quite a different experience than the last few times I have been there, but despite the lack of water, we all had a great time celebrating our success and the world!

blood pressure and temp on a tiny 10 year old

Ee doing check-ups

There is a World Vision office in my town that is funded through partners in Korea. They have targeted many of the villages under my catchment area and sponsor many youngsters for primary school. Every six months or so the staff teams up with the health center staff to conduct health check-ups for those kids enrolled in the program and I get to tag along, weigh and measure height, blood pressure, heart rate and temperature. I love doing outreach like this and spending time with the staff outside of the health center doing meaningful, substantial work.

My host family is being AWESOME. As always. But recent developments include: my host sister has started working at a midwife in the health center 5 km north of our home. She is super busy and I don't see her as much as I would like to, what with 24-hour duty every 3rd day, but she has said that she likes working with the other staff and was only scared of ghosts one night that she stayed over so far. It would have been great to have her work at the closer health center with me for 2 months, but we are well staffed in the midwife department, that is until one of the midwives gives birth to her first child, a boy!, in mid-August (unfortunately I will be gone by then...). Maybe then Ong will help fill in and be able to come home for lunch and spend more time with my host mom who will be very lonely soon because my host dad is away until November! A while back my host dad submitted an application to get more military police training in Vietnam and was selected along with 5 other colleagues. He left on Saturday, with a limited knowledge of Vietnamese, and has already called once to say he arrived. But at least for the next month and a half I think my host mom will be a bit busy as she is studying for her 12th grade exams. Mai ("mom" in Khmer) was about 9 years old when the Khmer Rouge. She completed 5th grade before then and did not return to school to get her 9th grade certificate until the mid to late 80s. At that point, she studied at a vocational school - primary teacher training center (PTTC) - and was certified to teacher 3rd - 6th grades. When the civil war began in the early to mid 90s, Mai was married with two young kids (Ong and Aleak). She continued to teach when it was safe. Now with her kids fully grown, Mai decided to finish high school so that she would be able to get a higher salary and possibly teach higher grades. I am so proud of her and will wish on my lucky stars for her to pass her finals early in August. Such perseverance! ... This family has been so good to me. It will be hard to leave. But we will cross that bridge when we get to it, I guess.

host mom working hard grading in the background while we color :)

Days of Future Past

On a recent trip to Phnom Penh, I ran into some folks headed to see the new X-Men movie. Despite not having seen any of the films outside of the major three, I decided to tag along and have a bit of a blast from the past to my middle school days. (Note: supposedly the film company in charge of the franchise has to come out with another movie ever 2 or 3 years in order to not give up the rights to the franchise. Hence the good, bad, and the ugly.) 

So why am I writing about an extremely American movie franchise (there were Khmer subtitles... some things just don't translate...) when my close of service is fast approaching, you ask? Good question.

For starters: X-Men: Days of Future Past, as evidenced by the title, revolves around the idea of going back in time and making different decisions to affect the future. Not your simple time-travel as Ellen Page pulls some Inception-type antics. But when it comes down to it, having a link to the future (and knowing that the world with devolve into war with transformer morphing enemy type killer robots - more on that later) helps one make "better" decisions for the greater good. Would I make different decisions looking back? Whatever happened to "no regrets" and "make do with what you have"? Is there anything I can do in the present to rewrite a better future instead of focusing on what I should have/could have/would have done? Because at the end of the day, I can't get back those days of past and I don't have the power to send my future self back in time. And if I could, would I? It's hard to say. As I look back on my service there is plenty that I would do differently. But if I had I would not have the unique perspective I have at this current moment in time. Maybe I could have studied more Khmer, visited that bong srey down the street more, pushed my projects more, etc. MORE, MORE, MORE. And there it is, I am slipping back into the mentality that I could have/should have done more. That I am not enough. BUT I did what I did. I gave what I could at that time. And that is enough. Because I don't have the power to change the past. The decisions I made in the past (maybe not as extreme as J-Law in blue body paint assassinating a man trying to rid the world of mutants, read: a different race) happened and I must reflect on and learn from those decisions to create a future of which I only really at any point in time have a fuzzy image. As this "Nothing to Envy" article from Yoga Journal reminds: "you lack nothing, because you are, at your deepest core, part of a vast field of energy that contains, potentially, everything you could ever want or need."

Now back to the transformer-morphing killer robots. They were used to destroy the X-men, sure, but that type of technology (gained from exploiting Mystique's genetic make-up) emphasizes the broader notion of adaption. If you haven't seen the movie (spoiler alert: it in essence renders all other X-Men prior to it irrelevant), these robots react to the situations they enter, reading the strengths and weaknesses of their opponent and then morph into the element that causes most destruction. Ex. fight with Iceman, robot turns into fire and melts Iceman. This ability is an important skill in an ever-changing world. While here, I have had to adapt to different situations, adjust and accept to cultural norms, and become a different version of myself. At the beginning this was a defense mechanism, protective layer, immersion strategy, etc. but as I became more comfortable I was able to morph back into the "real me" - like Mystique, except not so blue, scaly and naked...

The theme of adaptation and change isn't limited to the killer robots. The Professor sacrifices the use of his legs to "stand up" and regain his powers. Magnito's character struggles to find the balance between using your powers to destroy or rebuild; bringing up the questions, can we change? or can we be changed from without? Then there's the whole JFK bullet conspiracy theory and that he was a mutant (changing history), and the themes of prejudice, war and genocide. But what really hit home was even if we can't get a glimpse into the future or back to the past, and as change is inevitable, we must always have hope. 

There are plenty of other things to be said about the movie and the franchise, but these have been my musings on what I gleaned as lessons and messages related to my time here with PC. While others (like Wolverine) can be the messengers and inspire us (like the younger version of the Professor) to be our "true" or "best" selves, who we will become and what we will do really comes from within and it takes time and is shaped by experiences, challenges, obstacles, etc. At our greatest moments we may be surrounded by a team of support (fellow X-Men), but there will be no magical powers to change the past (no Ellen Page, most likely. We must build upon our past and present - we cannot rewrite the past. And remember to always have hope. 

Closing Time

I still have 2 months in Cambodia, but with all the pressure to wrap things up, I feel like singing this 1998 classic by Semisonic. Not really pressure, just a sense of approaching finality. Mainly since our close of service (COS) conference (although PC likes to call it the "continuation" of service conference since we are expected to bring our country of service back with us, figuratively, and share) was last month...

The ones still standing. For more info/cool stats check out my friend Evan's blog post "By the numbers - Peace Corps Cambodia K6 Volunteers."

And then there's me.

...and the vast majority of the education volunteers (refresher: there are two programs here in Cambodia, English teaching and health) will be flying out in just one month's time. See Kelly's "The End is Near" post that explains a lot of the conflicting emotions and expectations that come with "coming home." (I will be sure to write a similar post sooner to departure.) But don't let me get ahead of myself. There is still much to be done. And since I didn't post about the last month's happening, allow me to entertain you.

TRAVEL

I did a bit of vacationing and was away from site for a good chunk of May, between a yoga & meditation retreat, COS conference, a SCUBA trip on the Gulf of Thailand, visiting my training host family, a final GenEq committee meeting, an Ultimate tournament, and a trip to visit a nearby "mountain," Phnom Kulen.

Bohitree Yoga Center gang

Morning meditation

bat sunset exodus - Phnom Sampeau, Batambang

Ochres 2 Beach, Kampong Som

Where there be monsters...

Koh Tang bound!

SCUBA fun!

Phnom Kulen with Voleak

Diamond Island Warriors Team hundle

Warriors come out to play!

Cramming a bunch of unused Annual Leave (AL) days before it was too late to use them.
As much as it was nice to have a break from site and recharge before gearing up for the final months, the travel itself was quite exhausting. It is nice to be back and to see how the nutrition project is progressing...

It is good to be home with these hoodlums!

Being oh so PC at the HC.

Vitamin A Vaccination runs with Heang.

Enriched bobor feeding session.

ENRICHING THE FUTURE PROJECT

As with any adventure into the unknown there are bound to be some ups and downs. This is just the case with the nutrition project. One of the vendors, the wonderful Bong Samy has been selling the enriched bobor alongside the other rice porridge for over 45 days! On the best day, she had 12 buyers on the worst there were 3. It is still gaining traction and I am hopefully that it will continue to be (what I think is successful) for the next 2 months and then that she will decide that it is worth it to continue. Only time will tell. Right now is a hard time to be selling anything in our area because of an uptick in the number of people (including parents with children under 2 - the target population) who have migrated to Thailand for work. While the financial benefit can be seen by the increase in large homes being built (many of which then become vacant for the better half of the year, but alas is a symbol of wealth and status...), it is hard to see such a toil on the community at large. Many children are left behind under the care of lovely (yet set in their ways) grandparents. Additionally, rice planting and soon transplanting season is upon us, which means that many people are busy in the fields. In sum, business can be slow these days. And because of that, one of my vendors has pulled out of the project completely. It was a disappointment especially since there is such need in the area in which she was selling, but if you don't have the seller buy-in what can you do? On the flipside, the one VHV involved, Om Ruin (the 3rd and final seller who has a stand across the street from the health center) began selling finally on Friday! It is too soon to tell how that will go, but we are optimistic.

ONWARD!