Site Visit Recap

A rite of passage with a certain anticipation built in, site visit is when bright-eyed and bushy-tailed PCTs visit what will be our permanent sites for the next two years. Anxiety and high and everyone is usually trying their best to love, not just like, their assigned situation as it’s where we will be working, living, and integrating for the duration of our service.

The omnipotent hand of Khemarith the Health Program Manager had chosen to place me in Kampot province, Teuk Chhu district. I was rather pleased off the bat to be placed in the Kampot province because Ryan had taken my group to the provincial town of Kampot on our PCV visit and we headed to this wonderful little bar called Bodhi Villa and jumped off a few mounted 3 meter 2×4 planks into what must have been murky-as-fuck river water that thankfully the night skies camouflaged. I was even more pleased when my welcome packet informed me that my village is only a short 12 km (look at me, going metric!) from the Kampot provincial town.

A little note on distances in Cambodia, though. My training district of Tboung Kmoum looked, on the map, approximately equidistant from the provincial town of Kampong Cham as the other two districts, Chamkar Leu and Prey Chor. However, when we compared biking times, my group was able to bike from our village to Kampong Cham in about 55 minutes. It took Chamkar Leu about an hour and fifteen, and Prey Chor about an hour and twenty. Normally I would just jump to believing that our group is simply athletically superior, but there are some quite athletic people in the other two villages so stamina probably isn’t the issue. When I inquired about the exact distance from Tboung Kmoum to Kampong Cham, though, the answers I got pretty much ran the gamut. My host sister claimed it was a short 14km, my host brother the commercial driver said it was more like 20km. One of the LCFs (Language and Cross Cultural Facilitators: they teach our language classes and tell us if we’re doing something un-Khmer like (read: wrong)) said it was 22km and the Kampong Cham native LCF said it was about 25km. Between all of them, there is a good 10km of variable distance so I’m not entirely sure what to believe, except that I should always take Cambodian estimates of distance and time with many large grains of salt. Bottom line, whether it’s 12km or 15 or 20km, I’m by far the closest of any of the trainees to Kampot town because I was able to hop on a tuk-tuk (a motorbike that’s pulling a wagon with seats and a sunshade) from my village and 30 minutes, 4 stops, and 1500 riel (about 40 cents) later, I found myself in the bustling market of Kampot.

Because I’m the kind of person who gets almost perversely excited about things (and usually the outcome is kind of sad and pathetic so I end up getting hugely disappointed), I tried my best not to anticipate immediate bonding and feeling exactly at home at my new site. Dara, one of the language coordinators, had told me that Teuk Chhu has beautiful clear waters to swim in and mountain trails to hike, causing the outdoorsy side of me to rub its greedy little hands and cackle gleefully. Unfortunately, the Teuk Chhu district is not to be confused with the rather well known Teuk Chhu provincial resort, with its plethora of beautiful waterfalls and majestic mountains (and what Dara was talking about), but it does pretty well for itself. The community straddles the National Highway #3, has a small market about 500 meters from my house and various little shops and restaurants that line the highway. The health center, wat, and police station are all adjacent to each other on this dirt road that leads 1km east of the national road. My house is on the corner of the national road and another paved road that follows the 2km to the base of a mountain that looks, had I been in possession of tools (and knowledge), perfect for rock climbing. Along all of these small roads are rice fields for miles against the backdrop of the Kampot mountains, dotted occasionally with coconut trees and other miscellaneous foliage.

My permanent host family is comprised of a mom, a dad, and three children: an 18 year old daughter, a 13 year old son, and a 9 year old daughter. They are a farming family and in the backyard there are 2 cows, 2 sows, 10 newborn baby piglets, and an innumerable number of chickens and chicklets. One of my favorite things to do during the two days was to stand in the pig stalls watching mama pig chow down while petting the 4-day-old piglets (it was the only time I could get to them because at any other time when she wasn’t distracted by delicious rice porridge she’d jump up and start sniffing menacingly at me if I got too close). I even had the honor of watching my host mother inject the newborns with some kind of deworming medicine one night—she would literally pick each piglet up by its hind leg and jam a syringe filled with an ominous dark liquid into their buttock, not even flinching as they jerked back and forth squealing bloody murder. Having never lived on a farm or even near one during any period of my life, this was all really exciting and awesome and I didn’t even mind the permanent scent of cow dung hanging in the air. Or I don’t know, maybe that’s just how animals smell, shitty. Because what can be said for my family is that even though they are a farming family, they keep everything super, super clean. The pig shed is de-pooped three times a day. The living quarters are kept so squeaky that I can eat off of the floor, and that’s saying a whole lot for it being Cambodia and all. The bathroom is spotless and without that smell most Cambodian bathrooms have and the upstairs is dusted and swept constantly. The family and I enjoy Khmer telenovelas every night after dinner and everyone is always willing to help. When I took a shower first thing in the morning the host mother assumed that it was because I was really hot that night (which I was) so the next night there was a fan hooked up to a car battery (I think the only car battery the family owns; we use car batteries because we don’t have 24/7 electricity and the generator is only on from 6pm to 9pm) underneath my mosquito net waiting for me. When I told my host mother I needed a tuk tuk to get into town today she ran and called one for me, and as I was leaving stuffed a fresh coconut and various cakes into my arms saying that if I got hungry I could eat them. They really don’t have much but they are so willing to accept me into the family and give me everything they have, and I just wish my Khmer were good enough to express how truly grateful I am.

At the end of it all, I guess you can say I’m pretty pleased with my permanent site and host family, perpetually optimistic outlook or not.