Say what?!

So I realize that I am not so good at updating this blog. I know, I know, it's been 4 months since you have had an update. I do apologize, but really, most of the time I can't see what would be interesting enough to talk about here that won't have you flipping back to your Yahoo homepage within 15 seconds. You know you do it.

However, here is a basic update. I have now been in Cambodia for 7 months (7 months?! Where has the time gone?!). I have accomplished very little, frankly, other than to immerse myself in this culture. I am now actively reading and writing Khmer (how many white people can say that?!). Granted, this is at a Kindegarten level (complete with picture workbook) but I can still do it. The main problem that I have encountered is that I can read the Khmer, but I have no idea what the word/phrase means in English. Working on that bit still.

Since my last update, we have gone to Bangkok (before all the Red Shirt protests), Siem Reap (complete with a visit to Angkor Wat and associated temples), Kep, and Prey Veng. Still need to get to Vietnam, Singapore, China, Laos, and possibly Korea, Japan and the Phillipines. All in good time, all in good time.

For my final thoughts today, I am going to leave you with a note that I posted on Facebook some time back. I have added to this in my vast experience in Cambodia. Enjoy.

You know you live in Cambodia when...

1. Hello Kitty silk pajamas start looking like a good alternative for daywear.
2. Crossing the street reminds you of playing the game Frogger.
3. Answering to "Bong" becomes commonplace.
4. Living through driving a moto becomes a feat that you are constantly proud of, every time you get off said moto.
5. You start saying "No problem, no problem" after everything.
6. Smiling and nodding is your main form of communication.
7. Vaguely pointing is how you give directions.
8. You run into at least one person you know everywhere you go.
9. You can easily balance your family of 8 people on your moto, including your 10 chickens.
10. You start talking to the little lizards that have taken up residence in your home.
11. You constantly smell faintly of exhaust fumes, sweat, and trash.
12. You think the safest motos to ride on are the ones that look the oldest and junkiest because these are the least likely to be targeted for purse snatching (never mind the fact that you are a blantanly obvious white girl).
13. Wearing a helmet is only mandatory during the day when the cops are out.
14. The more stickers you have on your moto/tuk-tuk, the cooler you are.
15. You get escorted while at clubs like you are VIP. Because you actually ARE VIP.
16. You find yourself grabbing 16 cans of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup off the shelf at your grocery store because you might not see this again for another 6 months and chance's are that you will be sick in that amount of time.
17. Wedding's are not a cause for celebration, especially when they are right outside your house and you can't think because of the incessant, constant noise.
18. Rain, any type of rain, causes the streets to be rapidly replaced by rivers. Kind of like a third-world Venice, albeit a very dirty one, without the boats.
19. Paying more than $10 for anything starts to feel like a rip-off and a personal affront.
20. The power goes out in your office at least twice a day and you have to listen to all the back-up battery packs beap until it comes back on.

FAQ and all that jazz

So I get a lot of questions about my life here in Cambodia. I thought I would go ahead and make a FAQ section so that we can get this out of the way all at once.

1. Is it fabulous living over there?

Why yes, it is. Thanks for asking. I am getting to do things and see things that I may never have done/seen before. I get to meet amazingly different people everyday. I get to travel Asia. So all in all, yes, I'd say it is pretty fabulous.

2. How do you get around town?

I bought a moto (refer to previous posts). So I will either drive my moto, hire another moto, hire a tuk-tuk, or bum rides off my friends who actually have cars. I really enjoy driving my moto, but its really not convenient for grocery shopping.

3. What side of the road do they drive on there?

Technically, the correct answer is the right side (same as in the States). However, the more accurate answer is whatever side of the road there is space. That's right, wherever you can sneak your moto/car/tuk-tuk/18-wheel truck through is the side that you drive on. Nevermind oncoming traffic. The rule of the road is the bigger vehicle has the right of way, so if there is an 18-wheeler headed straight for you, you better move, and move damn quick. Oh, and sidewalks are also fair game if you can fit your vehicle on them. Be advised that stop signs are advisory, not compulsory. Usually the largest road has the right away and does not need to yield.

Also, another quick note about driving- the traffic police stand on the side of the road and try to pull you over by stepping in front of your vehicle. You may treat this as more of a suggestion to pull over rather than an order as the police (we call them smurfs because they wear blue shirts with white helmets) have no means of transportation to run you down should you choose to not pull over. As long as you are fast enough to avoid them, drive on my friend. Drive on.

Finally, traffic signals here can be confusing. Please do not be alarmed when your green left turn arrow, green straight arrow, and green right turn arrow all come on together. Please just be advised that oncoming traffic has all the same arrows green and try to avoid getting hit. The best thing to do is to just start turning left before the light actually turns green (there is a countdown on each light so you will know when it is going to turn). Again, watch out for traffic coming at you from ALL directions then (because the people in front of you are thinking the same thing but the people on either side of you still have a green light). Good luck, my friend.

4. Whats the weather like?

Mostly its pretty hot. It is tropical here afterall. We do have a monsoon season but I was lucky enough to avoid that this year. So far its been a pretty temperate 90 degrees everyday. Lately, it has only been about 80, which apparently here is cold weather. Either way, its usually nice enough to swim in my pool so I can't complain much.

5. What is working at the Embassy like?

Its like working at a fortress. One in which the doors are really heavy and there's a grand piano in the lobby. Luckily, I do not work on the Embassy compound, but rather we are co-located with part of the Cambodian Ministry of Health. However, I do go to the Embassy quite often to conduct business and to get money (the most secure ATM in all of Cambodia!). Fortuitously, the Embassy community here is quite small and friendly and they have given me a badge to be able to come and go at will. I also have been extended some courtesy services for which I am incredibly grateful. There is always some Embassy event going on (from trips, to happy hours, to blood drives, to holiday parties, etc) so we get to know everyone really well and everybody has been incredibly welcoming and friendly. I have quite a good group of friends this way.

6. What do you do at work?

The official answer is that the CDC works directly with the Ministry of Health through Cooperative agreements to battle the HIV/AIDS epidemic under the umbrella of PEPFAR (the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). Basically, we provide Technical Assistance to the Ministry when we hand them tax payer money. My actual role in that is still a bit murky. I am attempting to work with part of the ministry on a Continuous Quality Improvement project to improve the care and treatment of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) but it has been slow going.

7. What language do they speak in Cambodia and can you talk with them yet?

In Cambodia, the official language is Khmer (pronounced Khmai). However, a lot of people can speak a modicum of English at least. That statement may not be true for most moto or tuk-tuk drivers so you will have to be prepared for that. The ones that do speak English will try to charge you more. I have been taking language lessons for awhile now and can converse at a minimal level. I am quite proficient at getting where I need to go and giving directions and I can make my wants/needs known at a basic level. I can also bargain in Khmer which is a terribly useful skill here. I have found that it is a bit difficult to learn a language that has a completely separate alphabet because you have to try to translate everything into Roman characters and that gets complicated.

8. What do you do for fun?

This is probably one of the hardest questions to answer. There are no movie theatres here that play English-speaking movies. I have yet to find a bowling alley (although I hear rumors that there is one). Apparently, there is an adult go-kart course somewhere a bit outside the city but I have not seen it. Basically I would say that I have a lot more human interaction here than I do in the States. We get together with people and have dinner parties or some Embassy party or go out to bars/clubs. I go to the markets and buy pirated DVDs and then we end up just watching them at home. I still read books for entertainment, but they are harder to find here. My TV has a lot of pretty good English speaking channels so Ill watch that. My boyfriend has a PS3 that we will play to pass the time. We go out to eat a lot and try new restaurants and new food. Pretty much I just do what I did in the States but I go out a lot more to hang out with people. Hanging out with people is pretty much our main form of entertainment.

9. Is it dangerous there?

Well, probably, if you are stupid. The most common issue with safety here is purse snatching. There have been reports of people being pulled from a moving moto because they refuse to let go of their belongings. I have not had any problems with safety here for a couple of reasons. First, I'm not an idiot and I don't carry a purse in sight at night on a moto. I usually sit on my purse on a moto and my purse is black and small so it blends in quite well with a moto seat. Secondly, have any of you seen my friends here? I hang out with the Army Special Forces guys or the Marines usually. Neither of which are a group of guys that you want to mess with. Especially since most of the Cambodians are smaller than me, never mind my military friends. I am quite well protected, so you need not fear.

10. How long are you going to be there?

Who knows? My initial contract ends at the end of Sept 2010 but there is already talk about renewing our contracts for an additional year. I will let you know when I have that figured out.

Well, I hope this has been informative and answers the majority of your questions. Please let me know if you have any others that you would like me to answer.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Oh wait, no its not!

It's hard for me to get in a really Christmasy frame of mind when its like 90 degrees out everyday. Its like having Christmas in July. In addition, I keep getting all these work emails about meetings on December 25th. That's crazy, but I guess thats what happens when you live in a country that doesn't give a fig about Christmas. However, a few things have contributed to me getting a bit more in the mood as of late. First, my awesome Mom sent me a package that contained a bunch of Christmas decorations and wrapped presents, complete with a fully packed stocking. So while my aparment is still light years away from being Christmas tricked out, it does have a bit of holiday cheer now. Secondly, I went to Toys N Me today, the local equivalent to Toys 'R Us, in order to get some stuff for Toys 4 Tots. I compare these stores with a bit of a smirk as Toy N Me is nothing at all like Toys 'R Us, unfortunately. Luckily for my wallet, it is a million times smaller than a normal Toys 'R Us, and the selection is also quite a bit worse, unless I want to pay $200 for a Leap Frog, which I don't. However, if you know me, you know that I tend to go quite crazy in toy stores, especially when buying them for needy kids. So I walked through the store with one of the clerks following me around and I just proceeded to throw toys at her when I saw something that I liked. I must have made her happy because at one point she stopped and said "I'll give you 10% off anything in the store." It wasn't quite like Black Friday at Toys 'R Us with Mom, but its the best I can do here. And they didn't even have any dolls other than porcelain ones. What little girl gets porcelain dolls to play with (besides me, of course as I had like 30 of them...but they werent for play, I had a bunch of plastic ones for that)?

So on Saturday I'm leaving for my trip for Malaysia, Borneo and Brunei. I'm getting really excited. I started packing...I have my bikini and sunscreen. Do I need anything else? I think not. :)

Merry Christmas all!

4 days...and I already crashed the moto...

Yep, thats right. 3 days into owning a moto, I crashed it. Literally. Into a building. A glass building.

Now, honestly, it really wasn't my fault (I know everyone says that, but it's quite true in this case). So it turns out that my awesome bright green moto has a few problems (but of course, it looks good on the outside, not so great on the inside. This will teach me to judge a book by its cover, or more appropriately, a moto by its color.). You start my moto and it dies. So you start it, give it a bunch of gas while in neutral... and then it dies again. Apparently, the only way to keep it going is to start it, give it a bunch of gas in neutral, quickly flip it into first and give it some more gas right away. Well, when you do this, the moto doesnt seem to register that it is in first gear right away and then you end up lurching forward at an alarming rate of speed. Yesterday when I did this manuever, I was parked inbetween 2 buildings in my apartment complex on a small foot path. One of the buildings is just a small office and is made up entirely of glass walls and has a bunch of lovely potted palms in front of it. Well, when I pulled my little starting "manuever", the front wheel was turned, and I did not account for the quick lurching of my moto (granted, it doesnt always do this so it is a tempermental lurch). So, the moto lurches, I grab onto the handle bars, which effectively adds more speed as the acceleration is actually one of the handle bar grips and I plow into the glass office and end up in the doorway of the glass office with my moto pretty much on my leg. In the process, I thought I had totally broken the glass, but it turns out that I had only shattered the clay pots and spewed dirt and palm trees all over the place. In addition, I had cracked a small piece on the front of my moto, as well as bent one of the side mirrors all to hell. I had also banged up my leg between the door frame and my moto. Moto = 1, Allison = 0. It was one of those moments where nobody moves and Im still straddling my moto thinking to myself "Holy shit!" and finally one of the guards comes over and pulls the moto up and out of the doorframe. The worst part though- about 8 people from my apartment complex witnessed this little display of moto awesomeness and probably now think I'm a horrible blonde white girl who can't drive a moto (they may actually have a point there...). Either way, I persevered and made it out my gate, after many apologies on my part, to drive on to work. Half way to work the adrenaline must have worn off because my leg started hurting like a bitch. I get to work to find blood running down my leg from a nice shin cut which had a nice large softball size swelling bruise. My knee is also quite colorful and it turns out that the back of my calf has a nice long bruise up it to (don't ask me how the back of my calf has a bruise...no idea). I limped around work for the rest of the day and had to endure bad jokes like "was it one of those fast moving buildings that you hit?".

However, I feel justified this morning as one of the guys from my apartment complex offered to get my moto started for me (probably to avoid a repeat performance of yesterday) and he almost did the same exact thing! The difference is that he has the moto riding ability to be able to quickly pull the bike away at the last second to avoid hitting the building. I'm not that accomplished yet.

Oh me and my bright ideas of buying a moto...






At least I'm still alive and its day 4.

I have done it...

I have bought a moto. And it's bright green...I figured I didnt stick out enough, what with being white and all in Asia, so I thought bright green would be the color to go with. (Actually, I was just concerned about not being able to find a black moto back in a crowd). I think I'm the only white girl in Phnom Penh with a bright green moto, so if you happen to be driving, please watch out for me. Thanks. I have yet to take pictures of it (Ive been a little busy trying to learn to drive it) but as soon as I do, I will post them. Last Thursday, Joan (Perry's wife) and I went moto shopping and she also bought pretty much the same moto, except her's is not the cool green (its black). I did not bring enough money on that day to buy a moto (I was just browsing) but then I found the bright green moto (its a 2006 Honda Wave 125S) and I had to have it. So I gave the guy some money to hold it and I picked it up yesterday with Joan. I honestly wasn't quite sure where the moto shop was and consequently got really lost on the way back to work. I ended up on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, almost in the provinces, so I pulled over and turned off the moto and consulted my map. I figured I had to turn around and eventually I would run into something familiar so I was going to do that but I couldn't get my moto started again. I'm sitting here, turning the key and nothing is happenening. So I motion to one of the guys at the wall and he comes over and he...pushes the start button. That's right...its an electric start. I'm such a blonde sometimes. But eventually I made it back to work and I was just proud of myself for driving in traffic here and not dying. I've had the moto for 2 days now, and have not died yet, so I think I'm doing pretty well.

Thanksgiving here was pretty good. A few women from the Embassy invited me to their houses when they found out that I was, for all intents and purposes, an orphan. And it was lovely because they actually had 2 (not one, but TWO) real turkeys (shipped in from the states of course...gotta love the Embassy people), ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, deviled eggs, and lots of other yummy stuff that I like. The Marines were there as well as the Army people so I knew a lot of people. The Army guys invited me to go with them to the next Embassy house that they were going to (its like a Thanksgiving feast crawl I guess...?) so I went with them. It was good there too...lots of food. Later that night I had a nice dinner with some friends at their house (non-embassy) but also really delicious. So it was a good day, all in all.

So today, they decided it would be a good day to tear off the roof basically of the place that I am working...they say that they are "fixing" a leak in the roof but it is going to take them 10 days. 10 days for a leak?! In the meantime, I get to listen to non-stop sawing, drilling, and hammering. It is driving me insane. O well. C'est la vie, oui?

God bless Cambodia.

Diplomatic tests

So it turns out that I am not so good at updating blogs (although I appear to be better than my ASPH fellow counterparts...lets get some updates people!). I think part of the reason is because I havent had anything terribly exciting going on here that I should update you on. I'm really just enjoying living here and meeting new people.

However, yesterday I did meet with the Ambassador, so I figured I could give you a bit of information on that. First of all, I was pretty nervous, even though I kept reminding myself on the ride over to the Embassy that she is "just a person, just a normal person". However, for a normal person, she has a frightening amount of power and I think thats what made me a wee bit nervous. But I get to the Embassy to find that David (the Associate Director of CDC Cambodia) was going to escort me to meet her. I have a sneaking suspicion that my bosses just didnt trust me alone with the Ambassdor, but I was assured that this is just protocol. It was actually quite nice because David offered his opinions in this rather informal meeting, so it wasnt just me talking all the time (which if you know me, is a good thing. The less I talk, the less trouble I get in). :) She pretty much just asked me about my background, how I got here, what I have been doing here. The questions werent terribly hard to answer until she asked me what I thought of the Ministry of Health and if I thought they were doing a good job. I've been in the country less than 2 months, and in that time, I have not worked that closely with the ministry of health yet, so all my opinions are just based off the stories of Perry and others that I work with. So I stuck with my diplomatic "Well, I think parts of the ministry are trying to do a good job, but there is always room for improvement" kinda response. She then talked for awhile and at the end asked me if I had any questions for her. Of course, being a curious sort, I had like a million questions, probably none of which were appropriate to ask and which she would not have been able to tell me the answers to anyway. So I just stuck with asking about her personal background and how she got this gig (you never know, maybe I want to be an Ambassador someday...). I really think it would be fun to spend a day in the life, just to see what she actually does on a day to day basis. I bet she has some great stories too because she has been a career diplomat for 30 years now and has been all over the place. So after we were finished David told me that I did a good job and that she liked me. I am now "official" (whatever that means) and I have passed my first diplomatic test. I hope there are not many more.

Alas, I fear there are since the Marine Ball is coming up this Saturday. Talk about a diplomatic test. Geesh. There is an actual VIP table. However, my dress is finally ready (not exactly what I wanted, but still simple elegance... I hope), I have all my accesories, and I know where to get my hair done (I wouldn't be getting my hair done if I would have just thought to bring my curling iron...). However, getting my hair done beautifully here only costs about $8 so what the heck? (I also got my eyebrows waxed for $3- Mom, pass THAT along to Deb!) This is what I love about Cambodia. If I don't want to, I really don't need to sacrifice many creature comforts (like when I need to go to a ball). But most of the time, it's just the dirty, sweaty Cambodia that I love...where no matter where you go or what you do, you will always have the faint smell of garbage, sweat, and a whiff of fish stuck to you. God bless Cambodia.

What an amazing weekend...

This past weekend may have been my favorite weekend in Cambodia so far. However, looking back, I realize that I say that about all my weekends, at least until I get to the next one. They just keep getting better and better. There has to be a point where they will plateau but I hope that doesnt come soon.

Anyway, this past weekend was not only Halloween (my favorite holiday ever) but also the Water Festival so I had a 4-day weekend (Sat-Tues). The Water Festival is supposed to celebrate the end of the rainy season and usually people who live in Phnom Penh go out into the provinces and people from the provinces travel into Phnom Penh (don't ask me why, this just is). So the population of Phnom Penh swells by the millions and its crammed with people, which makes for a fun time usually. I, however, made no travel plans as I wanted to see what the Water Festival was like in the city. I had heard that there are boat races on the river and fireworks at night and it sounded like a fun time.

I ended up hanging out with the Marines most of the weekend. I met them on Friday night at their Halloween house party and after that, they just kept inviting me to go out. This was actually quite nice because I got to walk around a lot at night without feeling unsafe (when you have 4 large Marines with you, you feel pretty protected). We did a lot of things, many of which will not be detailed here, but it was an awesome time. One thing I learned- never argue with the Marines about directions. You will lose.

So by hanging out with the Marines, I found out about the Marine Ball. I bought my ticket (Nov 21) and I have a Marine as a date so now I just need a dress. I am terribly excited about it. I will keep you updated on that.