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)