Saturday, September 18, 2010

Slowly but surely

We're slowly but surely making our way of the "training phase" and into the "volunteer phase"... Training in now over and most of the volunteer's have come to Kampong Cham to get together and then go together to Phnom Pehn on Monday. Then this week, we'll be having a counterpart conference in PP. This is where all of our local co-teachers and co-health assistants come to PP (or at least that's the plan, whether they actually show up is an entirely different story) for a conference where they learn how to be a counter part and what sots of assistance we will need and not need etc. Should be interesting at least and I'll try to maybe blog about it in the next posting.

I left my family on Friday... that was sort awkward. Well... there's more to the story than just that because it gets even more awkward from my own doing... I'll explain, haha... sigh.

Ok so I told my family I was leaving on Friday, mostly everyone from our village was leaving then too. So in the morning, they were super sad and kept telling me that I shouldn't leave, stay... blah blah blah. I had a meeting to go to at 8 am so I leave in the morning for the meeting, with the intention of leaving later on that day (and the intention of eating lunch with my family- key!) with all the others leaving at the same time. I get to the meeting only to find out that everyone's leaving at 11 am. Big problem! I told my family that I was going to leave after lunch lol... so I definitely can't leave at 11 am. Conundrum- so I get anxious about what to do because if I stay that means that I have to get a taxi to Kampong Cham alone, which isn't that big of a deal but still... I didn't want to take one if I didn't absolutely have to... so I come home from the meeting only to find that my family has really already said goodbye and no one talks to me for the first 30 mins plus eventually once I get lunch, its NOT even remotely delicious and I'm left disappointed and slightly sad... sigh. But the story continues... so I leave my family around 1pm to walk to the market to catch a bus. But first on my way, is my girl friend Liz's house so I stop to hang out for a little while, its mid day and fricken hot out so I wait a few hours... they feed me, we're laughing, hanging out and then I realize that its around 4pm now. By now, Liz's family has invited me to sleep at their house and eat over for dinner... I contemplate it for about another 30 minutes and eventually decide that its ok, I'll just stay the night and the next morning I'll leave for Kampong Cham... This ends up being a great decision because I get a good night's rest with the exception of some dogs being eaten alive, but here in Cambodia you take what you can get lol... anywho... the story still continues... the next morning Liz and I are just hanging around and we're talking about how my family would react if they knew that I hadn't left. We start playing cards (which are illegal in this country) and who ends up moto-ing passed the house? My entire family!!! At first I hide and then I realized that there's really no hope, I've been spotted and then the jig is up from there. Also another's volunteer's host father moto's up to the house and sees me, which he is really the gossip of the town- so if it weren't for my family seeing, I'm sure tey would have heard about it anyways... haha... sigh, I just can't wait until I can learn enough Khmer to actually explain what went onand what happened to make me stay- because by now, they probably just think that I didn't like them enough to stay... fml

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Photos...


So I guess it's about time that I actually put some photos up on this here blog. It takes a while so I'm not sure how many I'll be able to post but we'll see... love you all and miss you mucho!

Ok. soooo, that didn't work, I've been trying to figure out how to get the photo thing to manage all my photos on this page but it just ain't happening. If you really want to see picutres, try my facebook page and hopefully that will work as I am currently trying to upload photos right now.

So what's going on with me right now... Our group, titled K4 (the fourth group of volunteers to head into Cambodia) are getting ready for our second and final language exam. Basically language speakers from different parts of the country come and interview us to see what our language skills are. Last exam I ended up getting novice high, which is what we need to pass for this go around however I'm just hoping that I haven't back slided my language skills.

It's a little sad though becauase as we prepare for this language exam, we are also preparing to leave soon for our individual permenent sites :(....