In With The New

Now that I’ve been at site for a good while and soaked up nearly all there is to observe in the community, I’ve started to notice some gaping differences between life here and life in the States. The really obvious ones, though, are no fun to discuss, so here are the subtler ones that one wouldn’t immediately suspect from life as an average Peace Corps Volunteer in Cambodia.

A new family dynamic: Back home in the States, I never saw my parents drunk. I don’t know if they’ve ever been drunk, because my dad always stops after a glass (or a mug, his preferred chalice) of wine and my mom after a sip. Here, my Pa is popping open cans of beer every other day and about once a week he’ll break out the serious guns with the rice wine, drinking with his pals until everyone’s retired from the dinner area already. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve seen and interacted with him drunk, and that’s not counting the times where he’s been drunk and I don’t know about it.

A new favorite dinner topic: Recently, my family has taken to discussing whether or not I can tell if my host father is drunk during dinner. For a Khmer man, he hides it extremely well sometimes, especially when he’s just a little bit tipsy, so I thought nothing of his coming late to dinner today and sitting down with a heaving sigh. That is, until my 9-year-old host sister leans in and asks, “Bong Stine, did you know that Pa is drunk?” The family erupts in laughter as I pointedly look over to Pa grinning sunbeams and say with wavering certainty that I didn’t know. Pa then lifts a finger and points to my sister, saying, “That dark child is att la-oh [bad].” Which follows with more laughter.

A new name: Practically no one here can say my name correctly, and I don’t blame them, because I can’t even remember anyone’s names, let alone pronounce them the right way. (It’s just so much harder, because their names all seem like random incongruent sounds here. In the States I am practically name master because I can usually remember everyone’s names. I learned all 50+ of my students’ names after the first lab session last spring.) My Ma calls me “Seen”, my younger siblings call me a variation between “Bong Stine” (bong means elder), “Bong Ko-seen”, “Bong Seen”, or, if they’re feeling lazy, just “Bong”. My health center supervisor actually comes the closest, with “Chreesteen” and a spectacular roll on the r.

A new feeling: If there’s anything to get used to in Cambodia (I mean besides the lack of toilet paper), it’s the feeling of utter stupidity. It’s normal, really—we’re in a new country with a fledgling grasp on the language and culture. It’s like learning how to live all over again. Unfortunately, with my Arian desire to constantly win even though there is no competition, feeling stupid is not something that jives well with me, and so saying that I’ve come to accept it is probably the biggest accomplishment I’ve had since passing my driver’s test (failed once because I ran over a curb, and was so traumatized I didn’t get back behind the wheel for 6 months). This “new feeling” I’m talking about is one that is so completely serendipitous that I felt like high-fiving whoever’s running the show and bowing thanks: my Ma, seeing me pore over my sister’s notebooks with the organic chemistry printed on the inside front cover, invited the high school chemistry teacher over for dinner, who then invited me to sit in on his private chemistry lessons. I went, and didn’t regret it: even though he was speaking Khmer the entire time, I understood everything perfectly. Atom is ah-tome? Acid is ah-seed? Totally picked up on it. First time I didn’t feel stupid in Cambodia.

A new puppy: I didn’t know that, prior to the acquisition of Kobe, that I would be capable of baby talk. I was always the one to snort when people would talk to their pets or babies or significant others in that warped high pitched tone and vow that if I were to ever get a pet or a kid I’d always speak to them like adults because they’d learn faster that way. I was so delusional. Just one look at Kobe’s wagging stub of a tail and her tongue flapping this way and that has me saying “Kobe! Heeeyyyy Kobes my wittle girl! Who wants a bewwy wub? Who wants a bewwy wub!” It’s disgusting. I disgust myself. And yet I can’t help it. So I keep doing it.

A new sense of freedom: I don’t remember the last time I had this much free time. For the past year, if I wasn’t studying, either for classes or the MCAT, I was teaching, grading lab reports, attending meetings, holding office hours, or working as a tutor. But here, I can do whatever I want whenever I want. A trip to Kampot town to use the internet for an afternoon? Why not, there’s nothing else I have to do. It’s not all sunshine and roses on this side, though: as I see the high school students bike by every morning and then every afternoon, I’m practically simmering with jealousy at their regimented schedule. The student life was so sweet, and I never thought I’d ever say that because classes were the absolute bane of my existence my last semester. But as usual, hindsight is 20/20 and everyone was right—the absolute freedom from responsibility that comes with the catchall of using “student” as your occupation is something I miss dearly.

A new boyfriend: New country, new dude. Seize the day.