Lee how eeee.....!
Yeah--something like that. Goodbye in Khmer, um, I think. Am in the Tokyo Narita airport, which is beautiful and clean and lots of stores calling my name, but I'm trying to resist the temptation. My bags are absolutely packed solid after shopping at the Psar Chaa Market/"Old" Market in Siem Reap, but, man, duty free Chanel....... :) :) Yea, okay, so I already succumbed to the duty free Chanel in the Singapore Airport. Maybe I'll just settle for dinner (and there's this really cool meditation bell in the Japanese gift shop...that's a spiritual thing, right, so it doesn't count????).
Well, last coupla days were mostly (m restful, shopping, massage :), laying by the pool, getting my reading done for class, and, um, making frequent frequent trips to the bathroom. Yes--of course, I just HAD to drink the fresh palm juice from one of the villagers at Angkor Wat. I had a feeling that was not a good move, but where else will I drink fresh palm juice? Plus, it's not really quite the same experience w/o a good case of the sh*$s!!!! (I know, certainly, there are those who would beg to differ). So, being down and out for a couple of days forced me to chill out by the pool, which is exactly what I needed before going back to the 'real world.' Fortunately, Jennifer had been through the same experience a few days earlier and talked me into starting the CIPRO she brought with her, sooner rather than later. I didn't need much convincing. I had already developed a rash on my arm earlier in the trip and was beginning to think that, now with the diarrhea and flu-like symptoms, that maybe I had typhoid or some other wild swamp disease, being the hypochondriac that I am.
Sunday morning we left Siem Reap by boat. Fortunately by that time I was almost back at 100%. We hopped up on the top of the boat, which left from Siem Reap's Floating Village, and geared up for the 6 hour boat ride up the river to Phnom Penh. Apparently, so did all the other American and European tourists in Cambodia that day. We had not run into so many tourists during the whole trip.... There's just something about American tourists that makes me feel, well, "full of judgment," as Jennifer expressed it. She and I shared the same sentiment, so practiced acknowledging judgment and letting it go--pretty much the whole boat ride there. Good meditation :). He he...I'm still practicing a bit, I think, b/c I still feel like I'm on the boat, rocking back and forth.... Mildy uncomfortable, but oh well. (Is this karma?)
We arrived with enough time for me to shower at Jennifer's hotel and get to the airport for my flight to Singapore. Good, b/c I was pretty grimy and in no condition to make a good impression on Meng's sister, who was planning to meet me at the airport. After a good clean up, I made it to the airport without managing to get too covered in dust. Flight was easy, and Vivien was waiting for me as I walked about of Singapore's (incredibly low-key) customs. She and I went to grab dinner--lots of food, noodles with shrimp, fish ball soup, rice paper rolls with something yummy but unfamiliar on the inside, chicken and lamb satay, sugar cane juice, and fish paste in banana leaves. Needless to say, I was quite full and went to bed with a happy tummy after she took me for a drive around the city at night. It was really nice to meet her; she's very sweet, just like her baby brother :). Got 3 hours sleep before the cab came to pick me up. Had originally been assigned a really crappy middle seat from Tokyo to SFO (the longest part of the flight), but upgraded for a reasonable fee to a window seat in Economy Plus (oh boy, 5 more inches of leg room...amazing that this seemingly silly pitch actually works these days, with Economy being so amazingly sardine-ish).
So now I'm here in TOKYO!!!! Well, not really. I'm here at the airport. Gonna go grab some noodles, I suppose.
LOVE,
Me
Tomb Raider
Yesterday was a very nice mellow day, most of which was spent by the pool, talking w/ other travellers about their adventures in this and other regions... I did go visit a wat (temple), though, in the morning. Went to ask the front desk where it was located before setting off. Knew it was close but upon asking found it was, in fact, just across the street. Went there, lit some incense for the large, golden Buddha and met a nice friendly monk who wanted to practice his English. Sarwat is his name. We talked for a bit and then I went off to tour the rest of the grounds, which are home to shrines for people killed by the Khmer Rouge and during the civil war. Was approached by a young boy who spoke very fine English. He is an orphan staying with the monks, so he gave me a brief, informative tour of the grounds, after which I honored his request for a donation to the Buddhist monks that take care of him, plus a special donation for his fund to attend computer school :). No, not swindled--I am convinced that all people here are in need of and deserve as much help as possible... :)
Last night we went to see the Askara dancers, a beautiful show of traditional Khmer dancing, which included a Khmer dinner. The costumes were breathtaking, and each dance was a story, usually a mythological one. Today we got up, ate our nice French breakfast that is included w/ the hotel stay, and went to see Angkor Wat on a tuk-tuk we hired, plus a trained guide. Both driver and guide were absolutely excellent!!!! The guide, Sarat, was extremely well-informed, told us much about the wall carvings and the mythology behind each. Angkor Wat, well, I can't put it into words. Just breath-taking.
Has been a long day. Tomorrow, market and massage.
Love,
Sara
Su'sadai!
That's my phonetic spelling of Hello in Khmer. Probably totally off, but guess it doesn't matter since they don't use the Roman alphabet here. Anyway, catching up where I left off... Polaroids in the village... hm..bucket shower.... yes, then a good night's rest under the mosquito net, though the mosquitoes aren't bad at all right now. It's the dry season. A larger problem is the huge amount of dust that is kicked up from the dirt roads. The Many Cambodians ride around with masks on or shirts covering their faces to protect themselves from the dust.
So, yesterday morning we woke up very early to go to the school. I had set up a meeting to work with the science teachers on lesson planning and to review the materials that they currently available to them at the school. We arrived at the school--a public government school that houses pre-K to grade 12. 1800 children attend. They receive add'l funding from the Christian org here in order to do pre-K and to pay the teachers a regular salary. HOwever, the catch is that all the teachers must attend a monthly Bible class back at the orphanage. (It was run by the teachers from Singapore on Monday and went on allllllllllllll day.) Now, I don't have a problem with freedom of religion or with religiously affiliated groups spending money to help less developed countries. I believe, in fact, that helping those in need should be a cornerstone of spiritual practice. BUT, this group, these people are those fundamental evangelicals you were reading about over Christmas, Poppee. So you know, this is not really about freedom of choice. I heard one of the Bible teachers trying to find out how many of the teachers were "non-believers"and how many Buddhist wats were in the area. He was also trying to arrange for a door-to-door evangelical campaign. HE was also telling me and Jennifer how one of the pastors was "given"Spanish when he was workign in Guatemala. He didn't learn it. It was just given to him by GOd after a period of time while he was there. It was given to him so he could preach in Spanish. Jennifer and I turned to each other and she said, "Yea, the silent period,"which is, of course, a part of the normal trajectory of language learning in which you can understand more than you can speak, and then suddenly you experience a drastic improvement in oral speech over time... But, yeah, whatever.
So, these are the reasons Jennifer and I have had to separate from this group. We made it very clear that we are here to help the teachers and students with science, but we will work with the MInister to determine the needs of the schools as opposed to the evangelicals. It turns out, after all, that the needs assessment was miscommunicated by the evangelizers. During my visit to the school, I discovered that the teachers actually do have a fairly decent set of text books for science, K-12, that does in fact integrate community resources. There were lessons on water contamination and malnutrition, as well as animal husbandry. So, after meeting with the teachers, I learned that the problem is not really the lack of a curriculum, but the lack of pedagogical content knowledge--or HOW to teach science. The teachers also expressed frustration with the lack of science materials, making it difficult to teach some of the lessons. They also needed help with lesson planning, so I went over a basic lesson plan design with them and agreed to write up some formats and activities they can use to be translated by one of the women who works at the orphanage (She has been our gracious translator the whole time and speaks excellent English. She received a BA in English from PP Univ.).
So now, the task is to help secure materials for the teachers. I will develop a list of supplies for the elementary science curriculum. The teachers gave me a copy of the science books for each grade level, 1 to 6, and although they are in Khmer, there are many pictures to help me get a general idea of what is needed. On a positive note about the Bible people, they seem to have tons of money (a kind of scary double-edged sword) and will be more than happy to purchase whatever supplies I tell them are needed. So that's that.
Yesterday we caught a bus to Siem Reap. Was a long hot bumpy ride, but we made it. We are staying in a mid-range hotel because we are feelin'the need for a little comfort. There are a handful of hotels in town with a pool, and we are staying at one of them! The place is beautiful. There are little bungalows, it's off the beaten track, and lots of jungle vegetation throughout the grounds. We're staying in a room for $35 a night, incl breakfast. Pretty good deal. Hotels here range from $10 to $1500 a night. Apparently there are some very high end tourists who come from all over, particularly Asian countries, though, to see Angkor Wat. Today we are going to rest up, tomorrow the temples.
Safe and sound,
Sara
Wow. It's been 3 or 4 days since my last post. Feels like 3 or 4 months. Weird. Well, let's see.
Saturday morning after I last wrote:
Jennifer and I hired a tuk-tuk and went down to the river. We at at the Press Club, which I guess was where the journalists spent a lot of time during the past twenty years or so covering the civil war, etc. Anyway, was a nice restaurant overlooking the river. Then, we went for a massage/facial/body scrub combo. (I know, I know, rough life!) Was 2 hours of body work for $50! Kind of on the higher end of the price range here, but well worth it. Then...we went to dinner with the people who are sponsoring us here, at which point I (and, I think, Jennifer, too) decided that in order to continue working here in Cambodia we will have to make a complete break from this org. Jennifer had informed me that this group was religiously affiliated, but before coming here, she interrogated them several times as to whether or not the school at which we would be working was connected to any sort of outsider religious endeavor/agenda, to which they reassured her, that, no, the task was only to help with the science curriculum. AND, SOO... let me just put it this way: We ate dinner with the organizers who had invited as well a group of students from Jerry Falwell's Liberty College. NEedless to say, I didn't eat much, and pretty much completely lost my appetite when they started talking about the importance of Christian witnesses in such remote areas, particularly in a 95% Buddhist country. We walked out before the meeting was over and waited outside for our ride back to the hotel. However, we remained as diplomatic as possible (I let Jennifer do the talking:) ) and kept our plans/promise to go up on Sunday to the province to assess the curricular need and do some science teacher training while there.
Sunday, to the Banteay Meanchey Province:
We rode up with several other Cambodian workers and 2 very ambitious Bible teachers from Singapore. I endured the attempted conversion in the van on the way up, and managed to survive without biting a hole through my tongue (although just barely). On the ride up, though, we quickly lost our paved road in Phnom Penh for the bumpy dirt roads of rural Cambodia, which is most of the country. The similarities between the countryside here and that of Guatemala were absolutely uncanny. I felt like I'd been transported back in time.
We made it there after dark, and Jennifer and I declined an invitation to attend the (Pentacostal?) service and went to bed early, staying in one of the villager's huts--which was very nice. We each had a mat the size of a double bed on the second floor of the hut (well, the only floor of the hut, which is on stilts, but there are hammocks on the first floor). We slept under queen-sized mosquito nets as well.
Monday in the Province:
Monday morning, (pleasantly) awoken early by the chanting and prayer from the Buddhist wat (temple), I went for breakfast with some of the other visitors. We went to a restaurant "downtown"and I had rice noodles with pork. Ten of us ate and drank for a total of $4....
Later that morning, Jennifer and I went for a walk in the village. We met several of the kids and were invited into the houses of some of the elders. They were the most amazing people--one of them was toting me down the road exclaming to everyone that I was her daughter. We didn't know what she was saying until we ran into one of the children from the local school who spoke some English. When she realized we now understood what she was shouting (My daughter! My daughter!) she cracked up laughing. One older jovial woman who wanted us to come see her house said that her house was very very old (we borrowed the kids who spoke English for the rest of our walk). We asked how long she had been here, and she said she was born in the house. Of course, she has the strength of a survivor. I can only imagine the things she must have seen.
Afterward, we rode a tractor/trailer (no, not what you think--no semi's here) to the rice fields to see the kids from the orphanages working in the fields. Apparently, it is harvest time, so everyone goes to work in the fields all day for 2 weeks to a month, depending on the amount of land they have. All of the kids (orphanages or not) and families go; the children go at 3 or 4 in the morning and then come back to school for the rest of the day. I asked some of them if they ever play sports, but they say there's not much time for that. It was about 45 min to ride on the bumpy dirt road to and then through the fields before we came to the orphanage's plot. Jennifer and I asked if we could help, and though our request was met by sheepish grins and chuckles from the kids, they were patient and kind teachers. We harvested for a bit and no one lost any limbs due to our inexperience with the sickle, and then we rode back to the orphanage. We were incredibly impressed by the children. After just a short time in the field, Jennifer and I were ready for a long rest.
That afternoon, I met with the science teachers to discuss problems they were having. Only about 6 of 25 are actually teaching science right now, so we talked about some of the problems (materials, teacher training) and discussed some simple lessons they could start with, based on resources/problems in the community (sanitation, bacteria, dust, water contamination, etc). The teachers are phenomenal and very eager to learn, but the need here is very huge.
In the evening, we went for another walk in the village. I brought a Polaroid camera that I'd borrowed from a friend. It was a huge hit!!! Some of the families, once they saw some pictures, went inside to clean up and then came back out for family portraits. The kids loved the photos, of course, and I think we nearly started a riot. Wish I had brought more film!
That night, I took an all-too-familiar bucket shower, again taking me back to L. America, but it felt sooooooooo good. I was pretty ripe :).
Well, I've got to continue these updates but I think we're going to eat so I'll finish later. We are now in Siem Reap. I'll explain more tomorrow.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LARA!!!!!!
Love,
Sara
Tuk-tuks and sea legs
Hellllllllloooooooooo!! Spent my first night in Cambodia last night. For the most part, I slept well, though woke up every couple of hours due to weird dreams and jet lag. Still have sea legs this morning. Feel a bit loopy and dazed but relatively okay otherwise. My roommate/professor-adviser-friend, Jennifer, slept in, so I got up this morning to come down and call my Gemini twin. Talked for half an hour on internet phone for only $4! Then went and got more fish porridge for breakfast--thought about diversifying and maybe going for the intestine porridge, but, nah, I'll save my food adventure for the fried crickets at some later point in the trip. Had a cup of STRONG coffee with milk--which is actually sweetened condensed milk just like in my old Dominican neighborhood in NYC. Yum yum. Then they brought me the check which was only $1.50 for the whole meal, but instead of being excited I felt a huge lump in my throat. This is actually one of the nicer restaurants in town and I ate for less than $2???.... When Jennifer woke up she had to go to the bank, so we hired a tuk-tuk (or took-took?) which is a motorbike with a sort of carriage attached. Afterwards we came back and had 2 more coffees (WIRED!) and I ran by her some of my ideas for the curriculum, which she was very excited about. Man, if I only had 2 years instead of 2 weeks... She is meeting with the national curriculum specialist on the 15th after I leave, unfortunately, but I will look forward to hearing how it all goes. Today we plan to tour around Phnom Penh a bit, have most of the day free, then dinner w/ some of the Cambodia Project people. Tomorrow it's off to the province so I will be out of touch for a couple of days as of tomorrow morning. Then, I think we will travel to Angkor Wat. We will have a few days off so that's probably our best bet.
Jennifer has been giving me updates on the village before we go. She was there for 2 days and stayed in one of the orphanages, which is where I will sleep. Apparently there are a lot of orphanages due to parents dying from HIV/AIDS as well as from landmines, etc. Anyway, I"m looking forward to meeting the children, the teachers, seeing the area, getting out of the city. She said the teachers are very eager for help, training. There are few teachers who've been formally trained--obviously. I asked Jennifer about the availability of scientists as resources in this country, even in the capital, who could help out with the science curriculum and teacher training. She's going to look into this, but most academics left the country during the Khmer Rouge regime when any person with formal education (although that was not the only requirement for being designated as a threat to the Pol Pot regime) was executed. More recently, people are going to the university in Phnom Penh, however. So things are transitioning. The Minister of Education just secured a multi-million dollar grant to invest in "Education for All," which is kind of a new thing here b/c formerly education was only for the elite. So, possibilities are endless.
Weather here is kinda weird. Was really hot last night but this morning it's quite cool although now starting to warm up. The cool weather was very refreshing, however.
What more to say for now? I don't know. Only that I am SOOOOOOOO excited, feel so incredibly indebted to the Universe for this opportunity. I hope I can accomplish whatever it is I came here to do, learn, etc... I am too cheesy, but I LOVE this planet, these people, this fascinatingly unique place.
Love,
Sara
Rice is the new black
Well, here I am in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. How I managed to get here I can't quite figure out yet. Sometimes things just happen, it seems. Still a bit jet-lagged but not too bad. Left on Wednesday, Jan 2. Arrived in Singapore at 12:50 a.m. on Jan 4 after a short layover in Hong Kong. Flight wasn't too unbearable, except for the fact that United apparently is one of the few airlines w/o the personal on-flight video screens, so I didn't really get to watch any movies, but it was fine. Once in Singapore I took a taxi to my hotel, showered, and went to bed. The next day I woke up to BBC, found out that (what?!) Huckabee is the Republican choice for Iowa. Scary. At least Obama won. That's cool although Im still torn between the top 3 (and Kucinich who is my fave but oh well). ANYWAY, then I went for a walk and got some fish (
rice) porridge for breakfast in honor of Meng. A very nice woman named Grace came to pick me up after I checked out of the hotel. She is with the organization that is working in Cambodia. She drove me around Singapore, to Mt. Fabor where we checked out views of the city, and then for chicken and
rice and sugar cane juice across from the WTC. Yum. I had 2 glasses of sugar cane juice. Delicious and not as sweet as you might think. She chuckled at my inability to properly use a fork, which is mostly for scooping rice onto your spoon, apparently. Singapore is a beautiful, very developed city. Lots of high rises surrounded by water--I mean, the island, not the high rises :).
Grace dropped me and my happy bloated belly off at the airport, where I bought some trinkets for the kids in Cambodia, drooled in front of Starbucks (did not allow myself to indulge), and briefly checked email. On the flight from Singapore to Cambodia, I was served a meal of fish and
rice which I mostly picked at, but then we were served rice--I mean, ice--cream for dessert. Happy, bloated belly Take 3.
I arrived in Cambodia painlessly after freaking out a bit on the plane when I finally got around to reading my Lonely Planet and realized that there are no ATMs in Cambodia. You must bring US dollars, which you can use and then get change in Cambodian riels, but apparently US$ are preferred in most places. So I'm thinking, huh, mmm, okay cuz I didn't have many US$.... WELL, as it turns out there are now like 3 ATM machines in Cambodia: 2 in the airport, so I pulled out a bunch of money just in case (I passed another on the way through Phnom Penh--Take note, Lonely Planet.) I exited the airport to find no one waiting for me, except for a few anxious taxi drivers. I hated to disappoint them but I had absolutely no knowledge of my destination and therefore no way of supporting them with my patronage, though they continued to try to convince me otherwise. Just as I was getting, uh, nervous, someone ran up to me with a sign that said SARAH, so I figured that was probably my ride. Turns out, it was. Riding through Phnom Penh was an amazing experience. It's a very interesting mix of thatch huts, "lamina" shacks, and French colonial buildings along mostly dirt roads. Also, motorbikes and scooters seem to be the preferred method of transportation. :)
I got here and was let into the room that I am sharing with Jennifer, the professor from San Jose State who got me involved with the Cambodia project. She was out at a meeting with the Ministry of Education and some people from the province where we will be teaching/developing curriculum/etc. Apparently, the govt is very interested in supporting the community-based science curriculum that we will be developing. Well, that's very cool. Will be even cooler when I have more of an idea of what the curriculum will look like, but for now I'm thinking of several strands to be developed across grade levels, including Health (HIV, water/food-borne bacterial illnesses, etc),. Sustainable Agriculture, Natural Resources management/Ecotourism, Anatomy/Medicine, and Ethnoscience/Community Science Knowledge (medicinal plants, etc). We'll see where it goes. The teachers have no formal science training. It's pretty clear that the curriculum must be tied to that which is both familiar and helpful to the people. Competition in the global scientific/technological arena is not a suitable or realistic vision for the country, but revenue from ecotourism certainly is. Apparently there's been massive logging over the past several years to earn some revenue for the country, but Cambodia is actually one of the countries with the most impressive rainforests and fauna in the area, so to earn income from preserving it rather than destroying it makes some sense.
Anyway, I'm rambling. Met up with Jennifer a couple of hours ago. She brought me dinner--fried egg and
rice--a couple of hours ago. She has been here for a few days already--is excited but also exhausted. Tomorrow she and I will explore the city before we take off for the villages.
Take care and write me emails,
Sara
