Hello from Cambodia

I sent out a couple email updates while in Cambodia since the internet wasn't fast enough to load it to the blog, but now that I'm in the Seoul Airport with fast internet and time to spare, I might as well upload them here as well...

Just wanted to check in and say hi! I arrived in Cambodia Sunday night, after arranging to volunteer 2 weeks at an orphanage at the very last minute. So far so good. The program here had a two day orientation preparing us for the struggles of volunteering and making sure we knew we weren't actually going to make a difference lol. Sounds bad, but it was actually a really good experience. They included a little city tour at the end too.

I knew very little about what I would actually be doing at my volunteer placement though, even after orientation (it was more general). I went to the orphanage today to meet the director. None of the adults there can speak a lick of English. There are no other volunteers at that placement either. The kids range from about 6-17 years old. Their english skills are about as varied as well. Since it was the first day, someone from the organization that I registered though came with me to translate and find out the details. The first thing the director said to me was, "We don't always have volunteers here, even though we keep asking for them. I don't want a volunteer for only two weeks, I want someone for much longer. These children need to learn English, and they can't do it if volunteers come and go and only stay for short periods of time."... He eventually gave me a schedule to go by, and the kids have books that a previous volunteer was going through with them, so it should be fine... It is a bit eye opening though, and I realize it might have even been sort of selfish for me to "volunteer" for such a short period of time. But I am here now, so I'll just do my best working with the kids for the short 7 days that i'll have them. Several of the volunteers are staying for multiple months, and some even a year...

I am living with a host family, as well as two other volunteers (a couple of guys from Denmark). The family is very nice, though the adults here also speak almost no english. They have two kids, both of whom speak it quite well (though I rarely see them). The food is always delicious. And, despite the language barrier, I feel like I've at least connected with the cook. I have my own double bed with fan, and bathroom, and the family even has a washing machine, so I feel like I'm at the Ritz! No internet though. I'm typing this at an internet cafe where the speed of the internet makes me feel like I'm back in 6th grade on my dad's computer with dial up. I tried posting this as a blog but the version of internet is too outdated to support the website.  



eating beetles!

Cambodia is full of unusual foods. In the four days that I've been here, I've tried at least 5 new fruits (all amazing), squid, a full fish with eyes, fins, guts in tact, a roasted frog, as well as a cricket, a beetle, a grasshopper, and some other big weird bug. They were all surprisingly ok. Just tasted crunchy and salty, with a hint of fishy barbeque flavor... They eat tarantulas here as well. We'll see if I'm brave enough to try one before i leave.

Crossing the roads in Cambodia is unlike anything else I've ever experienced. Similar to several of the other countries I've visited, here traffic signs/lights/laws are ignored. People drive where and how they want. However if you're a pedestrian here,  you don't wait to cross the road until it's clear (maybe because it rarely, if ever, is). Instead, you just slowly walk across, with motobikes, tuk tuks, and cars zooming by on either side. It is the strangest feeling to be staring at a car that appears to be headed right for you and have to force yourself to just stay put and not bolt. I'm having to retrain my brain to make myself just slowly walk across rather than wait, or run out of the way. 

 

Ok... Well this ended up being much longer than I anticipated... Hope you are all enjoying the holiday in the states. It seems so weird to type that, I feel like I couldn't be further away from Thanksgiving and Christmas right now. The heat and humidity here are killer... Happy Thanksgiving!!! As always, I love getting emails from people back home. :)