Mambo

It’s been about 2 months since I’ve last blogged and now I REALLY don’t feel like writing a blog because there is just way too much to catch you up on so I am going to give you the highlights in pictures...

1. traveled India (obviously we couldn’t quite get the picture right)

2. toured some villages in Tanzania

3. taught at Watoto Rau (Rau Kids) Nursery School

4. climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro (5th highest mountain in the world and tallest free standing mountain…fyi...nbd...)

5. went on a safari through the Serengeti

…and that’s pretty much all you’ve missed in my adventures. I will try to blog more in Europe but can’t guarantee anything. Only one and a half more months and then I’ll be home. See yall soon!

Namaste

I am currently en route to Dehli from Bangkok and as was about to begin my 20 somethingth game of spider solitaire when I heard Carli’s voice (bbm) in my head...”post another blog! You last one was shit!” So I stood all the way up, reached into the overhead compartment and unlocked my laptop. But as I stare at this blank document I really have no idea what to write. The past month and a half has been a whirlwind. My last few weeks at Palm Tree were spent going to Siem Riep again (some donors took the entire orphanage) and just hanging out. We never resumed class, standard Cambodia, and because I had no structure in my days somehow they flew by and I couldn’t find any time to blog! Between the swinging, eating, working out and playing games I was just too busy! I am really really really going to miss the kids at Palm Tree. I am sure I will go back and visit them many time in the future, as most past volunteers do, and hopefully be able to keep in touch throughout their lives.

Leaving Cambodia, I traveled with Stacy’s parents to Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi in Vietnam and Chiang Mai and Bangkok in Thailand. We had a great trip and visited pagodas, wats, temples, tombs, orchid farms, floating markets and even squeezed in some elephant riding. Going from our not so luxurious Palm Tree bedroom where Stacy’s mattress was on the floor, to some of the most amazing hotels I have ever seen was much appreciated but, don’t worry, the second we split from Stacy’s parents and headed to Koh Samui (a Thai island) we were right back to our “backpacker” lifestyle. We were a little late on the booking and ended up staying at Jinta- a hotel soo far from where we wanted to be, literally the other side of the island. Also one other minor mishap, we went to Koh Samui for the Christmas Full Moon Party buutttt somehow we either missed it or it never went on. Who really knows... There may have been one Christmas Eve, the night we got there, but needless to say we did not attend any full moon party. We tried to make the best of it (it being “stuck on a beautiful, tropical island with 2 days to kill”) and went on a boat tour of the surrounding national park islands. We snorkeled, kayaked and climbed to see an amazing lagoon. Although it ended up being the exact opposite of the wild party weekend we anticipated we still had a great time and made it back to Bangkok to spend one night in a hostel, get organized and leave for India!

So now y’all are caught up. My two and a half months in Southeast Asia were more than I could have expected. I LOVED Cambodia: the people, the culture, the city. It was all great. Southeast Asia as a region is very welcoming. Just driving around the cities and will never cease to amaze me. These people live day in and day out doing the same exact thing. Many of them have homes on top of or attached to their stores, therefore never really leaving one little area. Their lives are just a circle without any really desire to leave or change it. They are content with the lives they have built for themselves, which is a really peaceful thing to witness. Opposed to always aiming for bigger and better things they just make use of what they have. I think that is really what I am going to take away from this region. I thought about it all the time in my little Cambodian town of Tuek Thla. Sometimes it is okay to just stop moving and enjoy- the future does not always have to be part of the plan and life will go on whether you anticipate every step or not.

Okay this is kind of starting to sound like I am writing another personal statement for law school so I am going to stop right now. The computer is burning my lap and making me so hot on this Air India plane filled with stewardesses in sarees I can’t even breathe. According to the little map thing on the screen in front of me we should be landing in about 22 minutes. I have to prepare myself for another whirlwind 10 days!

Miss you all! Happy New Year!

Love, Jessica

I’ll leave you with one picture...

This is me getting “coined.” In Cambodia they rub tiger balm all over and then use a cap or a coin to rub really hard until the area is all red and irritated. They think that when you are sick it helps rid the toxins from your body. I, being crazy, wanted to try it even though I wasn’t sick at all. I had those marks all over my back, arms and chest for about a week and they slowly turned more of a bruise type color and then went away. It did hurt a considerable amount but I am glad I tried it, I wanted to see what all the hype was about!

Sorry it's been so long...

Cambodia is over. I have traveled through Vietnam and and almost through Thailand.  Headed to Koh Samui this afternoon for the Full Moon Party....next comes India and then Tanzania for a month..write more soon! 

Some pictures of my faves at Palm Tree..all the balls were sent by my parents from home. They LOVED them!

Siem Riep

After my weekend trip to Siem Riep I would go as far as saying without any hesitation that whoever declared “first is the worst, second is the best…” has never been to Angkor Wat.  Stacy and I decided to take a weekend trip, 6 hours on a bus, to Siem Riep to see the beautiful palaces and temples of Angkor and enjoy the much more peaceful city of Siem Riep.  While I loved the city and was blown away at the differences between Phnom Penh and Siem Riep (which I did not remember being so extreme) I was not as impressed with the temples the second time around.  They were still amazing and very “Legend of the Hidden Temples “ like, but I did not feel the same excitement as I did when visiting with Semester at Sea.  That being the case, I had to find some other ways to entertain myself as we toured from 5:00 AM (sunrise) to 5:00 PM (almost sunset, didn’t quite make it).

Here were my 3 favorite means of passing the time:

1.     Taking pictures of other people taking pictures:

2.     Playing with random little children running barefoot and dirty throughout the temples:

3.     Stalking (aka playing paparazzi) Stacy as she viewed and enjoyed the temples:

And one more hilarious picture from Angkor Wat….

I have no idea why these people were carrying their child like this but it actually seems to make sense for a few reasons:

1. He is too heavy for one parent to carry by him or herself.

2. If they held him by both his arms they would probably dislocate his shoulders.

3. If they held him by his legs all the blood would rush to his head and that would just be uncomfortable.

Therefore, I think it is actually quite genius that they came up with carrying him as they did.  He seemed to be enjoying it and at the same time they were amusing passersby’s like Stacy and I. (Side note: I saw them flip him after a little while so neither leg or arm was getting too much pull. Don’t worry)

Just to keep you up to date- nothing new is going on at Palm Tree.  It was water festival this weekend (as many of you probably know due to the stampede that is all over the news).  The festival is to celebrate the water gods in hopes of a good harvest.  There are boat races, food vendors and millions of people mulling around.  We spent one day walking around with 2 older Palm Tree students and made a quick walk through the next day but we were not there Monday night (the race finals) when the stampede happened.  Thank you all for your concern but I honestly did not even find out about it until I woke up to go to the bathroom around 4 am and saw all the bbms and emails flashing on my phone.  Going to the internet room to post this now.  It is Tuesday and there is no class today (water festival continuation) and there was no class Friday or Monday either.  Literally every day is a holiday or they find some excuse to cancel class.  Fine by me!  We have made a lot of progress on our dvd watching and book reading.  Modern Family, True Blood (3 seasons) and almost Big Bang Theory (3 seasons) completed as well as 4 books…lots of free time.

Just noticed the really long post.  Hope yall enjoyed it!

Week Three

For entry #3 and week 3 I am going to tell you a few things I have learned thus far living in Cambodia.

1.   They love love love pajamas sets. Everyone, babies to grandparents, wears matching pants and button up tops to work and play.  I don’t know who started this fashion trend but I do not think I will be joining in any time soon. 

One of my students in his yellow pajamas

2.   They call every meal “eat rice.” Apparently rice refers to all hot food and since we are never served anything cold they can just ask us “eat rice?” and that means “are you eating lunch/dinner?” At first I thought they just didn’t know how to say anything else but then I was told that is how they translate lunch and dinner.  Weird.

3.   The kids will play with anything and everything.  So far Stacy spotted her old cereal box being used to carry school notebooks (like a trapper, remember those?) and I have seen my old bowls and spoons being dug up like prized possessions.  

Here they are using Stacy’s thrown away Pringles can to hold their rocks (used to play “jacks”)

4.   Sleeping and a bed do not necessarily have to go together.  No matter the time of the day I can find someone sleeping miscellaneously around Palm Tree.  Here are my favorite 2 spots so far- the bookshelf and literally RIGHT outside our door:

5.   This fifth point is a little weak but I want to make a list of 5 so here it is: there is some weird obsession with Korean socks.  We have seen numerous signs advertising, “YES! WE HAVE KOREAN SOCKS!”  Stacy and I are yet to get to the bottom of this but I will be sure to update you when we find out what is so special about these Korean socks.

Week Two

Well week two of volunteering is finished (no school tomorrow because of Coronation Day- whatever that is..)  annndd it was pretty much exactly like week one.   Learned another letter in the starter class- moved on from B to P and continued reading the same 10 page story in the “advanced class.”  I’m already correcting the teachers and talking over them to pronounce words or fix their vocabulary.  I wouldn’t be surprised if at the end of two months I’m teaching the class and the are chillin in the back.

Stacy and I started our “to do” list of Phnom Penh sights to see before we leave.  First, we went to Independence Monument, which is really just a big pointy temple type thing.  The most exciting part of it was trying to cross the city’s largest roundabout to get close enough for a good picture.  The roundabout seriously is huge but we made it successfully across AND back. We also went to the National Museum today (half day of school, again don’t know why) to see some Khmer artifacts.  Well, we walked through that museum in about 30 minutes butttt as we were wandering around afterwards we stumbled upon Anthony Bourdain (No Reservations on The Travel Channel)!  We both walked right past him and then did a double take and went back.  Shocking to see a celebrity all the way in Cambodia but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, I tend to find celebs everywhere I go…anyways we lurked a little bit and when they stopped filming took a picture with him.  I’ll try to post it.  He was very nice and the journalist that was with him told us about some good street food to check out. 

Tomorrow we are headed to the beach for the 3-day weekend. Sunday is Halloween which they call “Ghost’s Birthday.”  They love ghosts here and 100% believe in them. Every single one of them has a story to tell you about one time when they saw/heard/touched a ghost.  It’s hilarious. That’s all for week two. I’m going to include some pictures of the orphanage so you can visualize all of these stories I’m telling you.

The main area where the kids play and hangout- our room is in that building on the left.  The girls dorm is above us.

The volunteer eating area:  The red tables behind are where the kids eat.  At 11 and 5 everyday bowls like that are waiting on the table for us.  Rice goes into the white bowl and the food is in the green bowl.  We have to bring our own forks and spoons from our room.

Some of the students in my advanced class

The next few pictures are of the kids playing with the games my parents sent.  I left them on a shelf, went to dinner and came back to find the kids all over the table and floor outside with every single game out being played.  I don’t think they knew how to play any of them but they just made up their own rules I guess.  I even found some kids playing with the box like it was one of the games.

(sorry dont know how to rotate this..)

Finally a picture of the dried sting ray Stacy and I wanted a picture of but the lady made us buy it to take a picture.  We both "tasted" it but all I could manage was a tiny nibble.  Not good. (It really looked like a sting ray until the lady put it through a flattener type thing and it streched out to this.  We didn't know how to communicate that we wanted it in it's original form, maybe next time.)

A day in the life...

October 21, 2010

Well, we have been here for about 5 days now and so far so good.  Stacy and I are sharing large king sized mattress on the ground and another girl Annie is in the other bed.  The room is kind of tight for 3 people but Annie is moving next door once the other guy, Ben, leave for the month of November.  Annie and Ben are here working for EGBOK (everything’s gonna be ok) (Ben’s non-profit he started.)   They train the older students from different orphanages in hospitality and then prep them for interviews and help them get jobs. It’s a pretty cool organization that Ben started a little while ago and they are doing very well.

Anyways, a typical day here for us is: wake up around 8 (if we can sleep that late.)  The kids get up at 5 and do exercises right outside our room or dance upstairs.  Then they play from 5-7 screaming and yelling outside.  Today was the first day both of us slept until 8 am.  Everyone says to give it a week and we wont even notice the ridiculousness that goes on so early in the morning.  After we wake up we eat some cereal and warm soy milk juice boxes we bought because they don’t eat breakfast here.  We teach from 9-11.  I am in the intermediate class and we are currently working on verbs and some sort of literature.  The classes are so relaxed and they take breaks all the time.  Josh- you would love the amount of “breathers” the teachers give them.  I just sit with the kids that I like and feed them the answers so they can raise their hands and get the questions right.  Haha . The teacher all speak Khmer so they don’t speak English that well either, probably like a 5^th grade level so sometimes we teach them things and correct them.  We are basically in these classes to help with pronunciation and working individually with students that need help.  At 11 we go down and eat lunch.  The volunteers sit in a little swing table type thing that has been nailed down so it doesn’t move.  Every meal is a pot of white rice and then we each get a bowl of some sort of cooked vegetable with random seasoning and who knows what else.  I told them I am a vegetarian so I either just get fried eggs or the vegetables everyone else gets with eggs on top.  Not horrible.  The kids sit in a pavilion next to us and get white rice and some other random stuff to eat.  They do not get as nice of food as us so we can give them our leftovers. Oh also, the eggs I get are duck eggs (instead of chicken eggs) so they are BRIGHT yellow. So weird.  Then we have 2 hours to nap and chill (that is right now) and we go back to class from 2-4.  I am with younger kids then in the starter class so we are working on the alphabet and sounds.  Yesterday we learned B: ball, bell, cub, cab.  That was my homework.  Hard words to pronounce when you think about it!  From 4-5 we just play outside with the kids and dinner is at 5.  Then play some more (swing, run in circles, sing, play with tires- the usual) and go to sleep around 8! Tough life.  

The volunteers go out sometimes but we have yet to do that.  I think tonight we are going to have drinks at Terry’s apartment. He is one of the founders of Palm Tree.  He adopted his daughter from Cambodia 12 years ago and then came in contact with Palm Tree-which was going under and took over.  He is recently divorced (I think) and lives here with his 25 year old Cambodian girlfriend (I would say he is like 60!)…Phon my bff here just walked up and I just spent 10 minutes on the photo booth taking pictures with him.  I will post some.  He is 13 and was born in the same orphanage as Maddox (Jolie-Pitt for those who don’t know Maddox)! But then that orphanage closed and all the babies were adopted besides him and 3 others who were special needs so now they are here.  I have tried to ask him if he knows Maddox but he doesn’t remember.  He is so tiny we just carry him around and he climbs on things and is just so cute and funny.  Literally like a little monkey.

Hmmm not much else to report here yet. I attempted my first run yesterday down the dirt “street.” I had to avoid all of the motos, stray animals (chickens and dogs), people pushing their carts and the mushy water mud poop.  It was very eventful.  I got so many stares. I do not think they have ever seen someone run down the street in shorts and a t-shirt, or probably run at all.  Considering I was dripping sweat before I even left the orphanage I think I am only going to be able to handle it every other day.  After class today we are going to check out “The Place.”  Taylor recommended it- it is the gym for Asia’s elite.  I cannot wait. I hear it has good showers so I may attempt to wash my hair for the second time here ha.  Our shower is a handheld in our bathroom. We can only keep it on for 30 seconds and then have to turn it off for 10 seconds.  The pressure is bad and the water just goes right onto the bathroom floor so then when we use the toilet for hours after its wet. The wet hair is all over and I HATE wet hair.  That is the only thing that grosses me out here.  Probably the least bad thing but for me it is by far the only thing I hate. It is the weirdest thing but that’s how all showers are here.

Overall our first week here has been pretty good. Everything is so relaxed and no one cares what we really do, or what anyone does for that matter.  As Taylor said, “everyday is a Sunday!”   I love it.  Ok, Phon is back so I am going to play with him and go to class! Bye!

(ps- Daryl- listened to Summer O’ Fun the entire time I wrote this post. Phon loves it!)