The reason we stayed: Liza's student was having an engagement party, which is unusual for Khmer because they only have wedding ceremonies, but she is getting married to a Westerner so they were combing traditions from both. It was more or less a Khmer wedding without the ceremony. It had the same pink and yellow "tent" set up in the street, all the fancy dresses, and of course the food. At the party was me, Liza, Jake and Molly. We sat at a table with six Khmer women, one of which was getting quite close to Jake especially considering that she spoke absolutely no English. I can't begin to talk about how much food there was on the table. I don't even remember what there was, shrimp in every sauce you can imagine, salads, cashews, lobster, duck, chicken, pork, noodles, white rice, fried rice, and a number of desserts. We showed up at 11 am, and we found that there were a lot of students from CWF at the party, including one of mine. My student told me that the festivities began at 7 in the morning, and that she had woken up at 3:30 am to start preparing for the day... I was tired enough from going to bed at 11 and waking up at 9, I couldn't imagine the day she had. Anyway, that was the most of what happened between new years and now, only one weekend and two weeks filled with classes.
As far as class goes, I have slowly warmed up to my level 5s. At first I hated them the most because they had the least reaction to the material, but then I realized it was because they were bored with the material which they had already learned. Now my level 7s are bored with the material, and my level 4s are pretty stagnant. The 4s just stare at me, pretend they know whats happening, nod and move on. Then when I try to test their knowledge later, they just stare at me with no response. Aside from the one girl who apparently wants a much older western husband (ie. me). All I can do is look away and ignore what they're saying because there isn't much of another way to deal with it. Other than that, classes have been pretty normal. I don't mind it as much as I did. Now that I'm able to read their moods and pick up on the material they like and things of that nature, teaching becomes easier. I could even see doing another semester in the future (more on that later as well).
As for this weekend, it was packed with things to do. On Saturday we went to a buffet restaurant where we celebrated Vathana Mao's farewell. As a quick side note, Khmer people cannot prnounce the sound of a V, so you pronounce it was a W, a very difficult topic in class. Anyway, Vathana was our Khmer teacher for the orientation period and he's always around the school and such. He is off to the United States to live with his parents and sister in LA while some other family members stay in Cambodia. It was a really nice lunch, I got to work on my Khmer in the restaurant, which was needless to say an utter failure. Anytime I speak Khmer people just start laughing at me, in a good way, since it is quite funny. To finish the day, Vilde, Liza and I went down to the central market where I bought some new headphones, Vilde a tiny speaker with a ton of power and Liza some pairs of pants. Mostly it was a way to get out of the house. The Central market is pretty interesting. It's one of the tourist hot spots because it's just like the Russian market, just less crowded, quieter and in a colonial French building that was constructed sometime in the 30's. Most people were off to bed quickly because we were going on a trip to a zoo the next day.
On Sunday (this morning) we hopped into a private minibus that held seven of the volunteers and seven staff. I got into the back with all the Khmer speakers, which was fun and confusing all at once. I have only learned words that pertain to the price of things in the market and ordering at a restaurant, so unless they talked about that I had no idea what was going on. Seanglay made fun of me for most of the time because I was looking out the window at the rice fields and the random shit on the back of motos, which she kept say "is a normal sight for Khmer." From then on, every car ride consisted of them teaching me and some others ways to address women and men in Khmer. Once I had the pronunciation down, I would say it to another unsuspecting Khmer speaker and they would either break out in laughter or stare at me in horror. So the major lesson of the day was: do not trust anything that the staff teaches me in Khmer.
After an hour of being laughed at in the back of the minibus we arrived at the zoo, or the Phnom Tamao Wildlife and Animal Rescue center of Cambodia. There were three major highlights from the zoo. One was that most animals looked comfortable in the larger than normal cages, compared to the other places I've see so I didn't focus much on the well being of the animals (until we got to the birds). But it started with some bears that apparently exist from the Himalayas all the way into China and over here in the SE peninsula. The funniest thing about the bears was they they all looked a little slow in the head, but they were pretty cute. Then we moved on to the monkeys. There were all sorts. Especially aggressive ones. We stopped at once cage that had two monkeys in it. As we walked up, one was starting a call that you could only hear in a jungle that quickened as it got louder. As he did that, he banged on a barrel and jumped up and down on it... Then we stayed for a few minutes to watch again. I was egging them on trying to get them to make the noise again (not jump around like a maniac again). A few more minutes went by and it started yelling and banging again so I took a few photos and started to move on. As I passed by the corner of the cage, the other monkey who was on the other side of the 25' x 25' managed to leap across the whole thing in two leaps and bounds, and before I knew it he had smacked me on the shoulder. In pure terror I screamed "OH SHIT" turned to get away and ran into a tree... The second highlight of the trip pertains again to the monkeys but it was simply that I learned what their name was in Khmer and that I could almost perfectly mimic their call, which provided huge laughs for the Khmer speakers on the bus later on.
The third highlight of the zoo was that we got to see some elephants. They had more than enough space to live so they were not confined, and the were nice and happy (the lengthy happiness description was mostly to appease any worries a certain friend from home might have had). If you paid 200 riel (50 cents) you could feed them a stick of bamboo or sugar cane, I don't remember which. But then I saw a baby in the distance, also in the back of my mind I though I needed a photo of a baby elephant for the aforementioned friend. When I got closer I was told that the baby had either stepped on a land mine or had birth defects. Either way it had a prosthetic leg, which it seemed to be able to use quite well. Of course we fed the baby as well since he looked quite hungry and he was just too cute anyway.
After that we went to a place that was full of tables with hammocks above them and no chairs to eat lunch. There were the usual children who would hang around and wait for us to finish our drinks so they could collect the cans or bottles for the money return. We hung around the table for a pretty long time, just relaxing and getting out of the sun. When we were finished with the food, we decided to give it to the kids, who quickly pulled small plastic bags out of their pockets and packed the food up for later. Then the game with the kids started. We heard the ice cream man go by and I started to whistle along with the all too familiar tune. A few minutes later I noticed one of the more quite and less pushy kids was whistling as well, weather to mock or mimic I'm not sure. Then we started going back and forth making any sort of whistling noise we could make. The one quiet kid showed me how to cup my hands together and create the noise that reminds me of some Native American instruments, very airy and almost mysterious. I showed him how to place a piece of grass or leaf between his thumbs and make that terrible squealing noise. He showed me how to whistle with a snail shell placed between two of my fingers. That continued going on until the two of us had exhausted all of our knowledge regarding whistles. There was another kid who sat there and just started giggling at me every time anything remotely funny happened. Luckily, Vilde forced me to get into a photo with them so I won't later regret not having pictures of them. I imagine that I played with the kids for about a half an hour at least, and I had so much fun with them. The most amazing part is that we never spoke a single word to each other, but there was still a lot to our conversation (super cheesy I know).
Now on a separate note, everything that has been going on in my life separate from travels and school, but still a continuation of the day.
On the way back to Phnom Penh I checked my phone and saw that I had a text message from Heng, who Vilde and I met on New Years Eve, and who we'd been trying to meet up with since then. We settled on getting together at seven for dinner. We ended up getting to the meeting place a little late and Heng had to go somewhere. So again, Vilde and I were disappointed but we stayed up in the northern part of the city and had some dinner of our own. As we were on the moto back home, Heng called me and asked if we wanted to go for a walk, so we went back to our original meeting place and waited for Heng and Lin. We finally met them and realized that Lin had to go to the hospital for some reason, but she was doing well enough to hang out.
We quickly realized that "going for a walk" does not exist for Khmer people. We were told that they never walk anywhere and drive everywhere. What an understatement. We followed them on their moto, and they eventually led us to a bridge that went across river, where we had only gone by to another town. They asked if we had ever been over there and we replied no, to which they got really excited and told us to follow them. When we arrived, we realized we were at a carnival. And since Khmer don't walk, we drove right up to the front of the game that we wanted to play. It was the game where you throw darts at balloons and win prizes. We ended up with two Angry Birds mugs, which is fitting considering how big of a thing Angry Birds merchandise is over here... Then Heng and Lin told us that, since we played we got free tickets to a ride. We hopped back on the motos and rode about 50 yards to the ride. When we got up there we realized we were at the wrong one so we turned around. Behind us? Bumper cars. We all agreed that those would be the most fun, and waited to get into cars the next round. Vilde and I soon realized that everyone else thought it would be hilarious to gang up on the one car that had white people in it. After 10 or so minutes of driving around dodging others and being tossed around, the ride came to an end. Heng and Lin asked if we wanted to do more, but we could tell they were tired, so we all decided tonight was fun enough and we'd all head home. Much to our surprise, Heng and Lin paid for everything, and they said that we could pay next time, which Vilde and I are both looking forward to. We both could not be happier that we both have Khmer friends outside of school, even if we can barely communicate in the same language.
And possibly the most important piece of news: the motos. I'm not sure what I've told people, what's been on Facebook, and what I've written here, so I'll do a quick summary, since it's late and this post is pretty long as is.
Basically, I got the idea that I would buy a moto, and ride around SE Asia until my flight in April. Well 2012 turned out to be a pretty impulsive year because January first rolled around and by the end of the day I had bought a Suzuki moto from an old volunteer. By the next day, Vilde (who asked to come along beforehand) bought the other moto owned by the old volunteers. Now, mine won't start and I have less and less time to practice on mine, which rides completely differently from Vilde's. But tomorrow holds promise for fixing it up, and getting some good rides around the city in. The most important part, I can't be seen any longer riding around Phnom Penh on the back of a moto with a girl driving. I'm not trying to be sexist, but the amount of looks and laughs I get are too much to bear. The problem shouldn't be too hard to fix, its just a matter of finding a good mechanic that is close enough to walk my massive moto to. That is the gist of the moto situation, and of couse I ride around here and I have buyers remorse when I see other motos that might be better, but I'm sure that's only because mine is not starting properly.
Ah, I almost forgot, the most important piece of information about life in Phnom Penh. I've decided it's not over here. If all goes to plan, I'll be home for one more summer to make some money and spend time with family and friends. Come sometime fall of 2012, I'll be on my way back to Phnom Penh with no return flight.
Central Market (Psar Thmey)
Me, Heng and Lin (courtesy of Vilde)
The Kids from Phnom Tamao
