Mildly Surprising

This past weekend was my first weekend at site in a long time. At first I was kind of intimidated at the vast expanse of time and nothingness that lay ahead of me (especially because it was a three-day weekend due to 1/7 being Victory over Genocide Day), but eventually I filled my schedule with things like washing my shoes and destroying my legs with an especially long run/hike.

But Cambodia, while sometimes event-less, is never boring. The following are things from this weekend that I deemed semi-noteworthy and slightly surprising.

My siblings’ desire to learn: While everyone else had the day off school and learning, my siblings and cousins requested that I continue teaching into Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. With nothing else to do, I could hardly say no to their beaming, gap-toothed faces. On Sunday we ended up playing word games for almost an hour past the end of the lesson, mostly due to the fact that playing games attracted the more reluctant cousins to come out and everyone kept wanting extra turns.

My language tutor’s shenanigans: I shouldn’t even be surprised anymore whenever I walk into class and the first thing he says to me is, “Christine. I have something to ask/tell you.” Today he asked if I’ve “ever eaten the meanest fish in the sea, the shark”. When I replied that I’d only ever eaten the fin, he said that he was cooking shark meat soup in the back right now and led me to his kitchen to show me the bubbling pot of shark stew, complete with fanged head intact.

My Muslim girls: These girls learn English from my language tutor at a time that’s too late for me to join them, and I’ve been hearing from him for awhile that they want to meet me. This weekend, I finally did, and they invited me to their explore their village and meet their parents. While there, I noticed, not for the first time, that they were all wearing the prettiest long skirts made out of sarong material. I expressed my desire to get one, and they took me to their tailor to get it made. When I walked out wearing it, several Muslim women in their community asked if I’d be getting a head scarf to match. When I left, they chorused, “I love you very much sister!”

My “Reproductive Health” club: I had asked my girls ahead of time when they had free time to speak some English with me and they said 4-5pm, every day. So today I showed up at the school ready for some intimate conversation with these girls to get to know them before asking if they want to learn about reproductive health. Unfortunately, they told all of their friends, male and female, that I was going to be teaching English at 4pm, so I had a classroom full of a mixed audience. No point trying to talk reproduction then. I asked the class what they wanted to talk about and one boy said, “Love! I want to talk about love!”

My school’s odd rule: When I met my Muslim girls at the school, I noticed that none of them were wearing their head scarf. Surprised that they allow themselves to be seen as such in front of men, I asked why they weren’t wearing it. They said that the school forbids them to wear any headgear, and that not wearing the scarf worries them, but it is the school’s rule and there is nothing they can do about it.

My lack of self-control: There has been, for some time now, a man that will ride past me on his bike while I run, heckling me with, “Muy! Bi! Muy! Bi!”, which is the equivalent of “One! Two! One! Two!” Yesterday, while running, he heckled again, and I lost it. I stopped in front of him on his bike, and menacingly said, “What?” a few times in his face while he cowered over repeating, “Att hien, att hien,” which means “I don’t dare [mess with you].” I should have stopped there but I was full enough with adrenaline to advance one step closer and shove him with both hands, resulting in him toppling over onto the ground, while letting out the Khmer equivalent of “Fuck!” I ran home and didn’t look back.

My Ma’s reaction: When I got home, I felt extremely pumped showing that S.O.B. who’s boss but also a little bit of fear: what if he ambushed me next time? So I told my ma, and she laughed. By the end of the day the entire village knew what I had done.

My Pa’s reaction: “You hit him? Did he hit you back? No? Good. If he does that again hit him harder. Then tell me, and I’ll go hit him. And then I’ll call the police to take him away. He is a bad man. When I get drunk I sleep. When he gets drunk he does bad things. I like beer.” (He was drunk when he said this, but I appreciated the sentiment nonetheless.)

It’s weekends like this that completely fulfills me, my role as a PCV, and makes me want to stay at site more. Cambodia, you temptress of adventure, you.