One Month In...

As of tomorrow I will have been an official Peace Corps Volunteer for exactly one month.

I must admit that when I was a child dreaming of being in the Peace Corps, this is not exactly what I had in mind. In my perfect Peace Corps world I was stationed in the South Pacific on a romantic island with white sandy beaches and no mosquitoes...I would fall asleep to the sound of the waves crashing on the beach, and I'd spend my days teaching in a sarong and flip flops.

NOT quite what I am doing now.

I may not be in the South Pacific, but I am in the tropics. And somehow I ended up with the exact opposite of my dream--no beaches and lots of mosquitoes...I don't fall asleep to the sound of crashing waves, but instead to the screeching twang of music from the Wat down the street, or to the dogs barking madly at things that go bump in the night. Actually, I don't fall asleep to the dogs barking...I rant and rave at them in my head until I get tired and pass out.

I've spent a lot of time trying to get to know my host family. I have a brother (Daro) one year younger than myself, and a sister (Dary) the same age. Dary attends University in Phnom Penh, though, so I only get to see her every other weekend or so. Daro is a quiet man with a pretty hearty sense of humor. He knows I'm afraid of the big spiders here (bigger than a dinner plate, and they defend their territory) so he bought a fake spider at the market and hides it in places I where it will either fall on me or I will see it at an inopportune moment. My mother also likes to tease me about spiders and often yells "Prolyat! Ping Pieng!!" Which means, "Look out! Spider!" just as I'm about to sit down at the dinner table, or as I'm walking down the Stairs of Death and Doom at night.

I suppose I should explain the Stairs of Death and Doom...

As is typical of a lot of Khmer families, my house is two stories. The bottom floor is made of cement and the top is wood. There are two sets of stairs to get to second floor, one in my family's private quarters, which is rather like a tree house ladder, and one that pretty much only I use. Those would be the Stairs of Death and Doom. They are made of cement, which is nice, and they are quite sturdy, which is also nice. The first half of the stairs are nice and normal, leading to a landing where Nyung, our black dog, usually sleeps when I go up for the night.

Once you get past the landing, though. the stairs are WICKEDLY steep and the steps are not a standard height. If I stand on one stair tread, the next stair comes nearly to my knee. So at night, when there is no light on account of the electricity being shut off, well....it's not exactly a trip downstairs I enjoy making. Due to the Stairs of Death and Doom being, well, all death and doomy, I am the proud owner of a chamber pot. Which, I shall not describe in detail. No need to thank me.

One of the benefits of living here is that I have produce trees in my back yard! I have coconut trees, banana trees, and even a tree that grows a fruit that tastes exactly like grapefruit but is about the size of my head. It took me three trips to the market to buy bananas before my father took me out back and showed me the banana trees...he thought it was funny. I....well, I did too. I also realized why the banana lady at the market didn't want to lower the price any more for me...why should she when I have FREE bananas at home???

These are the current joys of being a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cambodia.

This is the good life...