7 months

There are times when I think about how I’ve been here for 7 months and wonder why it’s gone so slowly–I feel like I’ve been here forever! These are the times (usually) when I spend too much time on Facebook and am reminded of the fabulous American lives of my friends, filled to the brim with things like American food, Mexican food, Chinese food, Korean food, Other food, running water, electricity, the privilege of feeling cold, any other modern amenities…

But then there are times when I think my entire existence here in Cambodia is validated by certain interactions and observations. Those are the good days, and these are some of the highlights of the good days:

The solid core of students that come to my after-school “club” meetings participated in the first ever Cambodian Writing Olympics this past Thursday. Just the fact that they were willing to show up on a Thursday morning when they had no school because the teachers were all in meetings warmed my heart. It didn’t even bother me when, at the end of the hour, one of the boys stood up and asked, “Can we go now, teacher?”

When heading back to their villages from the Writing Olympics, three of the Christian boys rode their bikes past a horde of primary school children (no older than 7, I think) walking home from school. They ended up stopping and letting three or four of these primary school children pile on each of their bikes, and gave them rides home. I rode past the boys as the kids were loading onto their bikes and they all laughed and said, “Goodbye, ‘cher!”

Our mother cow gave birth to a baby cow recently, and has been very protective of it. I’ve been sneaking past the cow shed while she’s eating to pet the baby cow, and my pa caught me during one of these trysts. He giggled and said, “When you go home, I make you one to take with you.”

When I was at the health center one uneventful morning, a pair of young girls who had finished with their consultation had trouble getting their motorbike to start. What immediately followed was several people, men mostly (but one of them was my student who accompanied his sister to the health center), all crowding around and trying to help them start their vehicle. None of them succeeded, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. The women ended up just walking their motorbike home.

The students in my evening Health/English class (cousins, brother, and brother’s friend) just finished going over the fairy tale “Rapunzel” with me. My former English teacher told me that the new Disney movie “Tangled” is based loosely on the tale so I bought a copy and spent the past two nights’ lessons watching the movie (in barely-audible English) on my little netbook. Their simple delight at all the slapstick humor in the movie and ecstasy when they are able to catch certain phrases (like the main one: “Rapunzel, let down your hair!”) made all the effort more than worth it.

After a week of declined attendance for some reason, my after-school “club” again had participants in the usual numbers (around 15 or so). Today I told them the story of Rapunzel, which they followed with wide eyes, laughs, and gasps at all the right times, and I ended the session with word tic-tac-toe: each square has a word in it, and before you can put your X or O in that square, you have to make a sentence with that word. I split them up into teams and told them that if they were unable to make a sentence or if their sentence was wrong, the opportunity would pass to the other team to take that box. Team 1 lost a square (and the game) when a boy on their team made an erroneous sentence with the word ‘child’: “My dog had five childs.” Team 2 lost a square (and the game) when a girl misused ‘cure’: “When I’m sick the hospital cure me.” I ended the session when it was 1 to 1 to avoid any hurt feelings and sore-losership.

The miraculous thing is that every time I need a pick-me-up from feeling the Peace Corps blues, one of these good days filled with good things will happen, and will strengthen my resolve to serve out the rest of the two years. 7 months down, only 17 more to go!