The Parent Perspective

This is what my mom had to say about the trip to Cambodia: 

On November 22, 2013 Charlie and I boarded a United flight from Newark, NJ to eventually arrive (22+ hours later) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to see Meghan. We had said our goodbyes about a year and a half ago (July 2012) in Washington, D.C. as she embarked on her life changing Peace Corps service as a health care worker. 

On our 2 week visit, Meghan gave us a glimpse into her rich Cambodian life, introducing us to her 2 wonderful host families and extended families in Angtosom and in Sasar Sdam, her neighbors, friends and Peace Corps friends. Charlie and I do not speak Khmer except for the 3 phrases we learned while with Meghan, but through witnessing all of the warm conversations we know that Meghan is loved, cared for, and entrenched in her community at her site and wherever she goes. Everyone we met extended such extraordinary hospitality to us. We had so much fun sitting on the floor in Mai and Pok's home and playing Connect Four with Ny, Nooan, Hong, and Hing and looking at wedding photos of Aleck and his bride. Much is communicated without words, though I would have loved to have understood the fun banter back and forth and the laughter filled conversations between Meghan and her community friends and family. 

This is what Peace Corps is all about - becoming such an integral part of the community that lines are blurred and differences don't matter. Acquisition of language is so important. Meghan has worked extremely hard to become fluent and converses with all in Khmer. She surprises most Cambodians who don't know her with her language facility. 

Meghan planned our entire trip to share with us the big city life of Phnom Penh and the Tuol Sleng Museum, the country village of her wonderful family in Angtosom, the southern regions of Kampot and Kep on the Gulf of Thailand with the crab markets, Siem Reap with the temples of Angkor and our Halo Trust field trip to see land demining in action in the northwestern region of Banteay Meanchey Province,  and her second wonderful host family in a village 30 kilometers outside of Siem Reap. 

Cambodia is a beautiful country with green rice fields lining the roads for miles and big vibrant cities that are growing by leaps and bounds. Our senses were constantly stimulated, from the sounds of traffic, smells of foods being cooked in the markets and different fruits to be savored, to the temples and the Royal Mansion. There was so much to see and experience. Traffic in Phnom Penh is a bit like playing chicken. There are few traffic lights and no street signs, but there is this sense of organized chaos. As a pedestrian Meghan advised us to go with conviction, make no sudden movements, and flow through the motos, cars, vans, buses, tuk-tuks, taxis to cross from one side of the street to the other. Kampot and Kep gave us a bit of a respite from the big city comings and goings of Phnom Penh. We swam in the Kampot River, hiked in Kep National Park, walked Kep Beach, where we dabbled our toes in the Gulf of Thailand. We visited a crab market where women were catching crabs in the rocky shallows with traps. It was really fun to watch Meghan communicating with the women in the market place and the laughter that ensued when Meghan found out that "the crabs just wander right into the traps without bait; they're a bit stupid."

Cambodia's present is vibrant, lively, and filled with hope. While its past history of the Khmer Rouge and its devastating impact on families and an entire generation of educated adults, and the continued political instability and poverty impact the country today, we were and continue to be overwhelmed by the resourcefulness, resilience, and warmth of everyone we met along the way. Thank you for opening up your homes, your hearts, and making us feel so welcome. Cambodia is a special place. Meghan, thank you for giving us a renewed perspective on life and what is truly important. 

Bundling Up For Winter

Today marks the winter solstice, but winter came early to Cambodia. Six days ago. Last year I could count on one hand the number of times I wore a slept with a blanket and this year I have had to ask my host family to borrow another one and sleep with socks, a hat, and multiple layers more than 5 times already. As I type I am now wrapped up in a blanket huddled under my mosquito net… mid afternoon. So how cold is it really?? Drum roll please……….. 19 degrees! (Celsius that is. So 66.2 degrees Fahrenheit.) I am not complaining, at all. Having different seasons is something that I miss about home and so waking up cold and having the temperature climb 13 degrees before mid day is a change. And a welcomed one at that. It has been a odd cold “dry” season as it is because it has actually been raining. Last week it rained almost every day and there was general worry about the rice would not dry fast enough - the rice is laid out on tarps anywhere available for drying (takes 3-4 days typically). But now the rains have stopped again, at least for the time being. Who knows what surprises the rest of this winter will bring.

My daily schedule, as is everything else here, is very dependent on the weather. As a result the past 2 weeks have been a bit unusual (and that’s not mentioning the nationwide MMR and polio vaccination program and multiple births at the health center that changed things up - I will write more on this later…). However, I did promise a post on my daily schedule although no one day is quite the same as any other. But here is an “average” day in the life of Meghan:

6:00 - 6:30am - wake up and either go for a run (I have been slacking lately) or do laundry or just read my book for an hour while drinking coffee and eating oatmeal in my room or head to the market for breakfast

7:30am - my second alarm goes off which signals that I need to get my butt moving

8:00am - arrive at work which is a 2min. bike ride east of my house past the elementary and high school, bookshop, a few tailors, a moto wash and an assortment of roadside stands

8:00 - 10:30 or 11:00am - @ the health center - depending on the patients at the health center which can vary drastically I do a number of things including: weighing babies and charting growth on charts and talking to mothers about childhood nutrition; shadowing the ANC check-up midwife, watching and assisting (if possible) births; talking about breastfeeding with new mothers; informing about birth planning methods available; and one week helping with diabetes screening.

11:00am - head back home for lunch with the family or by myself 

11:30am - 1:15pm - read or naptime

1:15pm - when my afternoon alarm goes off telling me to get off my butt

2:00pm - I am usually out the door and off to somebody’s house to visit a baby, newborn, new mother, friend, village chief, village health volunteer etc. that is if the health center doesn’t have a meeting which I present an activity at each time and on Wednesdays I have a standing English club and then a girls club meeting back to back.

4:00pm - I head back home and end up stopping and chatting with neighbors for a while.

5:00pm - a little yoga or playing with my host siblings/cousins

5:30 - 6:00pm - dinner sometimes with the family, sometimes by myself.

6:00pm - typical bucket shower time

6:30 - 7:30pm - teaching English or watching cartoons on my computer with the host cousins

7:30 - 8:00pm - get under my mosquito net

8:00 - 9:00pm - watch TV or read

9:00pm ish - bedtime…

Does that sound boring? On paper it doesn’t look like much, but it is hard to have a typical day and to describe "normal" because something will always remind me that I am in Cambodia and that what I am doing is quite unusual. Whether it is a comment on the way to the market “Woah. This is weird. You are a foreigner going to the market. Oh and you are fat.” Or a spontaneous conversation about sperm donation with my neighbor. Or talking about the normalcy of cohabitation pre-marriage in America. The schedule may be similar but the conversations and interactions can deviate drastically. Life is odd. For those who have come to visit me I hope that they get a sense of my life here, but at the same time I know it is a lot to hope for in such a small span of time to condense the past 17 months into a nice box and tie it with a bow. Every day is an adventure for sure.

When Worlds Collide

It has been over a week since my parents landed safely back in the US of A and it has taken me a while to sit down and write about their trip for a number of reason, but first and foremost because I am hard-pressed to believe that it really happened. The 12 days that they were in Cambodia went by like a blur. But it is time. Time for me to type up a post and publish it for others (and myself) to see how much Team Henshall experienced together over here and how real it really was.

was it all just a dream?

I met my parents at the airport with sweaty palms, bear hugs, and a Oreo-box sign (the Phnom Penh airport is really not big enough for me to have needed a sign...). After allowing them to sleep a bit (see photo above), I threw them into the bowels of downtown Phnom Penh which in one word was "overwhelming" and in two "chaotic" with a morning run with Dad and then a visit to the Tuol Sleng Torture Museum (S-21), an infamous reminder of the horrors of the Khmer Rouge.

listening to a tour at S-21

one big family :)

We attempted to digest the tour over lunch at Mama's New York Deli, a hole-in-the-wall eatery run by a no-nonsense Khmer woman who spent 20 years in NYC, before heading south (crammed in a taxi) to my training host family's humble abode in Angtasom, Takeo. Watching my parents interact with my elderly host mother (Ma) and father (Pa), older sister (Bong Srei Mum) and grandmother (yeay) was like witnessing worlds collide. Pa used his limited knowledge of English, French, and Russian to talk to my parents over fresh bananas from the yard and I translated while we got a tour of the house and farm.

We continued further south to Kampot and Kep where we spent a few days swimming, exploring Kep National Park, walking the beach, visiting the crab market, relaxing, and eating heartily.

hiking in Kep National Park 

A brief stop in Phnom Penh where we wandered the Riverfront, explored Olympic Stadium, and enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving Buffet dinner before heading off again for my home province: Siem Reap.

 

Adventures abounded in Siem Reap! We went on hikes and explored temples, did some fair-trade market wandering, had a mini food tour of the fruits of Cambodia, and saw the Phare Ponleu Selpak circus performance of "Chills."

   

with some of the circus troop performers

Other notably adventures included, most notably: a trip with HALO Trust Cambodia (the organization that my Dad ran a marathon to benefit) to visit two landmine clearance site near the Thai border, running the 18th Angkor Wat International Half Marathon with 6,000 plus other runners (I ran it last year too), and spending time in my host community.

@ a HALO site

 

We pulled up to my front yard in Sasar Sdam in a tuk-tuk and were immediately in the spotlight for the rest of the day. I gave my parents a tour of the market and introduced them to as many people who I engage with on a day-to-day basis: my breakfast lady, my tailor, my co-worker's sister, the head of the market parking area, and anyone else who made a surprised comment about all the barangs roaming the market. I was told on numerous occasion that I looked like the spitting image of my Dad... that is after they confused my parents with my older siblings! They look young, but COME ON! We lunched in the pavilion in my front yard as the honored guests, separate from my host family despite my insistence that we eat all together.
 

mom, mai, me :)

In the afternoon we played board games with my host cousins before visiting my site-mate Emily and taking a tour of the school and health center. My parents got to meet and sit with my best friend/neighbor/aunt-figure/mother-figure Bong Keya and they spoke through me in the most powerful and loving conversation of which I will ever be a part. I watched as differences faded away between one of my co-workers (Om Phanna) and my parents as I translated about him understanding how difficult it is for parents to have their children far away and that they shouldn't worry because I had people here watching over me. Jokes were exchanged at the tailor shop when the matriarch (Ee Roo) commented on how handsome my Dad is and then asked if I could take a Khmer husband. It was a powerful day. Exhausting to translate, but an incredible experience to watch worlds collide and families meet and for us to all come to realize how similar we all are.

@ Independence Monument slurping sugar cane & coconut

Before returning my parents to the airport and seeing them off, I showed them around my favorite spots (public parks) in Phnom Penh treating them to fresh coconuts and sugar cane juice. When we did part at the airport it felt right. We had done so much and I had let them experience my life here in Cambodia. It wasn't perfect, but the ups-and-downs were realities of what life is like for me here. Sometimes the things I had planned didn't end up going as well as I hoped, but that is life. And then there were those times that everything worked out better than I could have planned. I am incredibly blessed to have parents willing and able to fly halfway around the world to see me and to be adventurous enough to try to take in and experience as much as I pushed them to. It was a Thanksgiving that I am sure no of us will soon forget. Thanks for always being there and supporting me, Mom and Dad!

@ the end of a great trip!

Boats and Planes

There are various forms of transportation in Cambodia. This post will not really go into these at this time, but I promise to do so in the near future. Here I would like to highlight two important events that I have been wrapped up in recently. 

1) Water Festival (Bon Om Touk) happened last weekend. The holiday is based on the history of the Water War when Cambodian troops used rowing boats to defeat their enemy. Every year since the victory, Cambodians have celebrated with a regatta on the Bassac River in Phnom Penh with people coming into the city from all of the provinces near and far. However the boat races have been cancelled for the past 3 years. In 2010 a stampede killed over 300 people and so the following year the government cancelled the celebrations. Last year the King's death triggered a 3 month period of mourning that cancelled the celebrations again and this year because of the heavy flooding and subsequent deaths the government cancelled the races once again in Phnom Penh although the provinces were allowed to continue as planned. That being said, Bon Om Touk lasts for 3 days and this year fell on November 16th, 17th and 18th as a according to the lunar calendar. The festival includes 3 ceremonies: Illuminated Float, Moon Salutation and Ok Ambok. At my site I was able to see modifications of each of these ceremonies. At the local wat on the 2nd night (full moon) my neighbors, cousins, and siblings all headed to the wat with Ambok (flattened rice that looks like Khmer-style cereal and which I have eaten for breakfast most days this past month as it is in season), bananas, and shredded coconut. 

Mai (host mom) preparing the ambok to take to the wat

Ambok with banana, shredded coconut, sugar and a decorative flower :)

cousins and siblings rowing the boat my host grandpa made,
in the pond by the wat (not really a race...)

We went early (9pm) and got to watch fireworks and little boats with candles floating on the pond next to the wat while eating boiled peanuts. We added the ambok, bananas, and coconut to the offerings and listened to the monks' chanted blessings, but did not stay long enough (midnight) to participate in the forcing feeding of the food all mixed together. (Although I love the stuff!.. it was bedtime.) Since the holiday fell on a weekend, my health center decided to move it to include Tuesday as well. Four-day weekend! I spent the extra day visiting with people in my community and planning for... 

2)... MY PARENTS' ARRIVAL! I am so lucky this Thanksgiving to be able to spend it with my parents here in Cambodia - my adopted home. My parents will be touching down in Phnom Penh in less than 3 hours and I will be greeting them at the airport with this: 

it's on the back of an Oreo box :)

The last time I saw them was over 16 months ago outside of a Holiday Inn in Washington DC at Staging. 

what seems like a long time ago...

Needless to say, I am excited to see them and to spend just under 2 weeks showing them around Cambodia and introducing them to my host families and community, food and language, and everything that I can as these two worlds collide. TEAM HENSHALL in CAMBODIA! 

Plan Your Future

No this post is not about my future plans... that is a topic for a later post, although fellow K6s have been talking about the "countdown" which I am trying to avoid for a number of reasons but mainly because I still have so much that I want to get done in the time that is quickly flying by...

So instead let me tell about the cool opportunities that I have had recently. Back in September, I asked the school director and my tutor if they thought that students knew about the options available to them post-high school and told them about a workshop called "Plan Your Future" (PYF) lead by a team of college students from the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP) who had created what they deemed the Career Advising Service (CAS) Team (they also presented at our Camp GLOW last May). I applied for the team to come do the PYF workshop and it was all set to go for last Saturday. There was a slight hitch in the plans when last week I went to confirm everything with the school director and he told me that I needed to go to Siem Reap and the provincial office of education by myself to get permission for the workshop that was going to be put on in 3 days time. So I dropped everything and biked the 60+km round-trip for a meeting with a very important person and one signature. Needless to say I was nervous and showed up in my most sopheap (appropriate/polite) Khmer-style attire and rehearse what I was going to say over and over again, only to arrive and find a middle-aged man with a sense of humor and bright smile who was more than happy to sign the letter I had brought. Unnecessary worry, sweating the small stuff. And then of course the day of, everything ran smoothly and the students (sixty-two 11th and 12th graders) learned a lot and had fun.

gallery walk of work and college major options based on a career cluster survey

playing the board game "Life" Khmer-style!

The group :)

At my health center the past 2 weeks, Village Health Volunteers (VHVs) have been bringing in people from their respectively villages for diabetes testing. Each VHV and village was assigned a day and I helped the TB specialist, Om Phanna, with interpreting the blood glucose level results on the little machine that the health center was given by the OD. The instructions which were, as a lot of technologies I see in the health centers, in English and thus not helpful to the staff who don't read English besides the pharmaceutical bottles. I hope to do sessions on "Managing Your Diabetes" once the health center identifies those individuals in each village.

Om Phanna testing a patient

I also helped out last week with check-ups for children sponsored through an INGOs elementary school program with the head midwife (also my site-mate, Emily's host mom) Ee Chaat and my health center director Boo Phally.

 

And the last PYF type experience that I have had recently had to do with my younger host brother's wedding. Aleak and I have the same birthday (January 20th).

Aleak - the groom

I joke with my host mom that we are twins (koan plooah)... but 3 years apart. Last year he got engaged to his girlfriend or sweetheart (songsah) of 2 years, Phallika (I actually didn't know her name until I got the wedding invitation because my host mom and her now mother-in-law didn't know it either!). After consulting the stars (or something like that) the elders in the families decided on 11.11.2013 as an auspicious date for the 2-day wedding festivities to begin. So on Sunday my extended family loaded up the car (after a lot of confusion and indecision may I add) and headed to the bride's house where we would stay for 2 nights. When we arrived at 7:30pm the music was pumping and the wedding tent was already set up and I was already exhausted. We, like a lot of other relatives and wedding party members, staked out areas of the house to sleep on the floor and called it a night... well sort of... the music blasted all night and I got little sleep as the bridesgroomsmen (?) kept turning on the lights and talking every 2 hours or so. When it was time to get up at 4am I was a zombie. The next 3 hours involved a lot of sitting around, waiting, and getting dolled up. Make-up and hair and I looked like a zombie bride.

4am... zombie bride...

The wedding processional began at 7am and lasted 30 minutes. A 50 meter walk to the bride's house with fruit offerings.

Ming Sean (my aunt) and Hing (cousin)

the bride and bridesmaids acceptance the fruit offerings

Then we went to some random house for another extended photo shoot with the wedding party.

the wedding party in someone's garden...

After an extended nap time, we had dinner and then a dance party Khmer-style and I fell asleep to the blaring music for the 2nd night in a row. We got to sleep in to 5:10am the next day before prep began for the greeting of the 360 plus guests who arrived for the luncheon.

Ee Roth (aunt) getting help with her dress from the cousins

Ong (sister) and me

It was a very fun, exhausting, and photo happy 2-days and it was a relief to get home almost 45 hours later and have a long dreamless sleep. Congrats to the bride and groom!

I had a recent request for a post on my daily schedule... although it varies greatly, expect an attempt in the coming weeks. Here's to the future!

Flying Plates, Running up Mountains, and Halloween Khmer-style

Last weekend my dad ran his first marathon at the ripe age of 55! He raised over $3,000 for HALO Trust Cambodia! Check out this article of my dad, the "internet star!" http://www.halotrust.org/media-centre/news-press-releases/another-race-clear-landmines.

Half a day before my dad made his way over the starting line in Washington D.C. I crossed the starting line of the first ever Bokor Mountain International Marathon in Kampot (southern Cambodia) - running a mere 10K with my friend Sam. I was pretty unprepared for running at higher altitude and on a surface that was far from flat, but it was quite cool to be a part of history, to be running in spirit with my dad, and to be surrounded by most Khmer runners - running is not very popular here.

starting line in the mountain mist

view of the old casino from the course

new friend pushing the downhills

happy at the end of the race with Sam :)

In other exercise news... my friend Jared, whom I met during the Phnom Penh Ultimate Frisbee Hat Tourney last February, recently came to my community to help me do an Ultimate clinic/workshop. With 12 discs we taught the basics of throwing (flick and backhand) and catching with thirty-some 10th and 11th graders. Joel, PCV an hour east, also came to help out. Unfortunately the field space was limited as the soccer field is swampy for a good majority of the year. (The school director is pushing for a sports court...) But the resourcefulness of Peace Corps Volunteers, Ultimate players, and Khmer kids combined is an amazing thing. By the end discs (or flying plates - chaan haa) were everywhere! Great fun!

Last week I headed into PP to help out with a diversity training for the PC staff. I presented a brief history of American diversity (very difficult to break down such a complicated topic!). I started with an activity where I had groups of 5 Khmer staff try to order events in American history chronologically. It was fascinating to see the staff work together. Fellow PCV and friend Ryan presented on supporting volunteers doing activities like identity mapping, social conditioning, and prejudice responses.

Ryan presenting

identity mapping

prejudice and labeling

Halloween has come and gone. This year I donned my Angry Birds pjs and headed to market to buy 5 kgs worth of pumpkins, 5 bags of  candy, and a bag full of scary masks. I spent the afternoon with my host cousins and siblings cutting out construction paper pumpkins, bats, and ghosts to hang around the living room. We also made ghost puppets out of cotton balls and old sheets, carved the pumpkins and roasted the pumpkin seeds. Halloween night the kids put on their masks and knocked on my bedroom door with plastic bags after I taught them to say "Trick or Treat!" Afterwards we sat out in the front yard and illuminated the pumpkins. It was a great night and now it is November already where is time going!

ghost puppets!

Nooan carving pumpkins

trick or treat!

PUMPKINS! (the front says "Kampuchea" - Cambodia)