Yesterday, Cambodia's Sunday, the girls went to the market to pick out our sarongs, sampots and kromas from the market. Sampots are traditional Khmer skirts that we will be wearing to work, sarongs are to wear when walking to the showers, and kromas are multi-purposeful: worn around our shoulders when walking to the showers and used to wipe sweat off of our faces. The markets are extremely hot because they are composed of independent stalls selling pretty much everything under ths sun, all in one building that serves as a free sauna as you navigate through the claustrophobic routes. If you ever thought shopping in the U.S. was stressful, think again. Still, in all the hustle and bustle of bardering to lower the price by 50 cents (which goes quite a long way) and dealing with the heat, opportunites arose to use the little Khmer that we had learned and the Khmer women were visibly appreciative that we were making an attempt to communicate in their language. That's one of the things that I instantly loved about Cambodia- if you try to say anything in Khmer, no matter how much you butcher it (which is so easy to do as some of the consonents require lip muscles that English speakers aren't used to using, and there are subtleties in the pronunciations of words) someone is most likely going to gladly help you try to say what you mean to say. Today was refreshing because instead of getting frustrated with my mispronuciations of words that my LCF (Language and Cross-Cultural Facilitator) had me repeat over and over again, I would break into laughing fits. I'm not sure if that's the best way to deal with the situation at hand, but hey, it's making me a heck of a lot more zen, and sane, so I'm happy with it. Just try saying "pbi...pbi...pbi" over and over again without laughing-just try.
We meet our host families in the villages tomorrow- all I know about mine is that there are 3 members of the family: a married couple in their 60's and a 30-something-year-old man who rents a room from them, but is considered part of their family. The patriarch of the family is part deaf, which adds to the challenge of communicating with him, but I think it's God's way of testing my patience (touche, God) so it will be an interesting attempt at exchanging dialogue to say the least.
Hmm, a few more notes before I tuck myself in to rest up for roughing it in the village, sans computer for the next few weeks....Cambodian children are adorable. Period. They'll wave and yell "hello" or "anglais" as we pass and laugh when we respond to them. I took a picture of a group of kids near one the statues in the city (Kampong Cham currently) and showed them all the digital image on my screen and they were delighted and asked me to take more. So, now I know, if I'm having a rough day, I'll look for children to cheer me up.
I finally video-chatted and talked to Grant on the phone today which relieved a lot of stress. Missing him makes this process that much harder, but his encouraging words were really what I needed right now, especially as I'm about to disconnect from most international connections for quite some time.
Well, blog-readers-family and friends- I love you all, and miss you! It's only been a week or so but it's felt much longer, for better or for worse. Please pray for me, and I'll update the next chance I have!
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