things have been a complete blur here. we are still in the provincial town of takeo for one more night staying at a guest house. this will
be our 'hub site'during training that we will visit about once a week
for the first three months. peace corps rented out a school building
and we have lots of long meetings there. this morning i woke up at
5:30am and went on a run along the river with some volunteers. it was
beautiful watching the sun rise over the river. people
think it's hysterical that we run. exercise is a novel thing to khmers
i guess. running in a group is helpful because stray dogs bark and
charge at us. (we had a health presentation today. all i know is i hope i never get raibes) we just run with a few rocks in our hands and throw them
in the direction of the dogs to scare them off. after the run and a
shower we had breakfast at a place across the street from where we are
staying. yesterday for
breakfast i had rice porriage, today i had noodle soup similar to pho.
it has lot of cilantro in it but i'm trying to learn to like it. i tend to stay away from the meat and usually just eat the vegetables and rice. today we had a plate of sauteed ants for lunch-
but i wasn't quite ready to for them.
i've been so impressed with the level of structure of our training.
the khmer staff is AWESOME. they are so kind and smiley and fun. my
language teacher kim kong is so warm and makes us all feel really
comfortable practicing the language. the language is
interesting...it's not very complicated as far as grammatical
structure (there is no 'to be'verb, thank god) but the sounds are difficult to
reproduce and i seem to instantly forget words that i learn.
i hope to have the chance to upload some pictures soon. the internet is slow and unrealiable. it takes long enough to even sign into gmail. thats all for now. tomorrow we meet our host family and we are all beyong nervous. i only know a few phrases at this point and i dont think a khmer conversation with me wouldn't last more than 60 seconds. so the rest of the time will probably be spent staring at eachother, smiling and giggling nervously. wish me luck!
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ReplyDeleteI am glad to hear you are up and running in your new home for the next couple of years. Honestly, I think I would rather eat the ants than cilantro. Cilantro...I don't know if I can EVER GET USED TO IT. Nasty. Go with the ants.
ReplyDeleteD.Yoon
keiks, im LOVING the blog! good work keeping us all informed. cilantro - yuck. maybe its an aquired taste, like coffee and wine, and we both learned to love those! we miss you here!
ReplyDeletecant wait to hear about your next adventure!!
leroy
Dear Keiko,
ReplyDeleteI understand this Blog from Dan.
We are watching you from Tokyo.
Please take good care of yourself and become useful person for Peace of Cambodia.
Keiko,
ReplyDeleteHope you remember me. I heard this blog from my dad, "Uncle Kenji" above. You are in Cambodia!? Wow! Tokyo is hot and humid ever but I guess Cambodia is much more... Take care and I will be looking forward to reading your "exciting 'bode life" blog!!
Hey, sounds like things are crazy but pretty much exactly what you expected them to be.
ReplyDeleteOn the topic of language, there is a guy named Tim Ferriss that has been my idol for a while. He is a master at deconstructing situations. He has a few posts on his blog about languages that are very interesting. Below is one that incorporates a few of them. I highly recommend you read this article, and the articles he links in the post as they are all very interesting.
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/01/20/learning-language/
Don't let the dogs get you!
Keiks, this sounds absolutely AMAZING!!! Don't worry, I won't tell PETA about your dog-repellent. I can't wait to come visit! Good luck meeting your host family. They will adore you. Can't wait to hear more!!!!!
ReplyDeleteKeiksss! Nothing less than what I would expect from you- a complete and genuine appreciation for every minute of your time there and all of your surroundings... Keep updating us, your posts are inspiring and help me with my Keiko deficiency. Much love- Tam
ReplyDeleteHi Keiko.
ReplyDeleteHow are you doing with your host family and your language class at every day. I thought you were very intense to going to the class when I called you yesterday.
I know that you don't like the Cilantro very much, but I can't believe that host family are eatting the ants.
I hope you will be not chacing the ants in my backyard when you come home in the future.
Anyway, I sent you a many snacks for you and young brother and sister at host family.
The post lady said that it will be takes about 6 to 10 days.
Hi to your new friend in Cambodia. love mom
Hi Keiko - can you believe your Mom is howing me how to do this? dad
ReplyDelete