In My Wildest Dreams

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

posted by Sara @ 9:20 PM