Blonde Girl in Cambodia

Say what?!

2010-05-05T02:06:00.000-07:00

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...

Hello Kitty silk pajamas start looking like a good alternative for daywear.
Crossing the street reminds you of playing the game Frogger.
Answering to "Bong" becomes commonplace.
Living through driving a moto becomes a feat that you are constantly proud of, every time you get off said moto.
You start saying "No problem, no problem" after everything.
Smiling and nodding is your main form of communication.
Vaguely pointing is how you give directions.
You run into at least one person you know everywhere you go.
You can easily balance your family of 8 people on your moto, including your 10 chickens.
You start talking to the little lizards that have taken up residence in your home.
You constantly smell faintly of exhaust fumes, sweat, and trash.
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).
Wearing a helmet is only mandatory during the day when the cops are out.
The more stickers you have on your moto/tuk-tuk, the cooler you are.
You get escorted while at clubs like you are VIP. Because you actually ARE VIP.
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.
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.
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.
Paying more than $10 for anything starts to feel like a rip-off and a personal affront.
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

2010-01-19T19:00:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-12-16T21:15:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-12-04T01:46:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-11-30T23:17:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-16T20:07:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-11-04T20:38:00.000-08:00

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.

Work smart, not hard

2009-10-27T18:43:00.000-07:00

I realized that I have not really updated you all on my work here. Granted, there isn't a ton to update you on, but there are a few small things.

Mostly work is pretty slow here. I'm always terribly excited when I am given something to do or there is a meeting that I can tag along to. I think the reason why it's been so slow is because our office is going through somewhat of a transition period. Our new director has arrived, but the old director is still here for a little while more. Perry is quite new as well and I was kinda foisted on him, but hes a very good sport about that. David, who was my primary contact before I came out here, has his office at the Embassy so I don't see much of him on a day to day basis. Plus, he is really busy and is more on the administrative side than the technical side, which is part of the reason that Perry got stuck with me. We have a very limited number of technical staff in the office and they all seem to have their own pet projects and it is proving to be a bit difficult to get a slice of any of them.

That being said, it has been discussed that I will be taking a good bit of responsibility for the CQI project (Continuous Quality Improvement). I'm not certain on all the details, but this will involve working very closely with the data management team of NCHADS (National Center for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology, and STDs) and going with them on their site visits. Basically, they go out to sites and analyze data to see how the country is doing on key indicators that have to do with Care and Treatment of HIV. The CDC has yet to get their hands on this data, so this is a way to get it. Also, NCHADS said that they lack a lot of the technical support necessary to do this and so they have discussed giving me my own team to supervise as I supposedly have the technical expertise. Not so sure about that, but it sounds good, right? There are only two problems with this: 1) NCHADS uses STATA (a statistical software package) which I don't know how to use and CDC doesn't have it (and is having some issues getting it) and 2) The project does not currently have any activity so I haven't really been working on it. I'm waiting for NCHADS to determine when they are going out to Pursat but it could be awhile.

While I'm waiting, I try to make it a point to ask people for work, but usually that means that I get to review a paper/presentation/training/cooperative agreement for proper English grammar. Now, while this does keep me busy for approximately 15-20 minutes, it wasn't really what I meant. However, last week, I asked Prateek (our USAID strategic information guy) if he had any work and he finally gave me something useful that I can sink my teeth into. He is working on compiling the Annual Progress Report (APR) which is a document that we send to PEPFAR headquarters detailing our previous year's achievements on our country's indicators. He asked me to compile the CDC portion and he has been on leave since last week. I have spent the last couple of days going through spreadsheets of data trying to figure out which numbers should be included for which indicators. It is challenging because the spreadsheets are not usually formatted in any particular way and some of them are mostly in Khmer. But I'm having fun doing it because its finally something that has just been given to me and its a bit of a number challenge. I like those.

So in completely unrelated, but interesting, news- I'm trying to decide which moto I want to buy. I'm pretty sure I want a Honda and the Wave series is looking pretty good. Will update more when I actually buy a bike. Perry just bought a Dream and he is going to show me how to ride them. I know the basic concept...I just need to practice. :)

So many things, so little time...

2009-10-27T02:31:00.000-07:00

Well, I have been informed that my Aunt prints out my blog to share with my 97-year old Grandmother, which means I probably should censor myself somewhat, but I'm not going to. Sorry, Grandma. :)

Anyway, I'm sorry that I have been a bit remiss in writing on my blog, but I have a lot going on here and sometimes its hard to figure out how to write about all of, but here I go.

A little over a week ago I went on a scavenger hunt with Perry and his children. Their school, the International School of Phnom Penh (or ISPP as us locals call it), puts on the "Fun Rally" every year apparently. We went with his two younger girls (Ellie -5 and Jessie - 8) while his wife went with his oldest daughter (Sarah -12). It was a lot of fun because we got to see a lot of things in Phnom Penh that you probably wont find in the tourist book. Like, did anybody know that there was a really old kite museum in Phnom Penh that is filled with ancient Khmer kites? Yeah, I didn't either. But my favorite part of the day (and this will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me) was when we went to the orphanage. The Missionaries of Charity (a Catholic order of nuns established by Mother Theresa) has an orphanage in Phnom Penh and apparently a hospice of sorts a bit outside of Phnom Penh. We donated a bag a rice at the orphanage and got to play with the kids for a couple of minutes. I will say more about this a little later.

Not only do I play with orphans, I also hang with prostitutes (yes, Grandma, you read that correctly). Last Wednesday Perry and I went out with one of our government funded partners, PSI (Population Services International), on their risk behavior and condom education outreach program. They go to places in Phnom Penh in which local men can pick up indirect sex workers like beer gardens, barbeque's, and karaoke places. I know, they don't sound like your typical sex shops, do they? My personal favorite is the karaoke places in which you walk in and there are separate rooms (kinda like a brothel) that have TVs and couches set up and you pick which karaoke girls you would like to be in the room with you from a lineup of Khmer girls. Perry took me into one in Battambang and they must have thought he was really kinky for bringing me with him. Anyway, we went out with PSI and they showed us what they do. They had a famous Cambodian rapper at one of the barbeque's rapping about how condoms are like raincoats and body armor (I can't make this stuff up if I wanted to!). It was hilarious and I ended up hanging with the rapper and his posse for a bit because we share a common interest: Reggaeton! I was so excited! Once PSI was done taking us around, Perry and I were a little disappointed because we didn't really see many sex transactions. The places that we went too could almost be family friendly. So one of our other esteemed coworkers, Prateek (he works for USAID but we work together on everything), decided to take us to a "sexpat" bar. It is exactly what the name sounds like: a bar with scantily clad hott cambodian women draped all over old, ugly white men. I was the only white woman in there and I was chatting up the girls. Again, I think they thought it was weird that I was in there with 2 Americans (although Prateek is of Indian descent), but Prateek told them that I was with him. That must have made it look weirder, on hindsight. Anyway, the girls were really nice, and I felt bad for them more than anything. They really were just trying to make a decent living. So we talked to them about condom use, because really that has become my life.

Thursday night I went to a party at the Assistant Defense Attache's house. Yep, I hung out with the Army guys. That was actually awesome because Jay, the Assistant Defense Attache, it Latin and he had some pretty good music. His wife was speaking to me in Spanish, which I loved, and she said she would help tutor me. Excellent. Not only that, but the Defense Attache is a COLONEL! I was inordinately impressed by meeting a colonel in real life, much to his and his wife's amusement. His wife is super funny though so we got on great. My favorite part of the night, though, was when one of the army guys came up to me and asked me if I had been in the military. Here is what the conversation went like:
Army Guy: Have you ever been in the military?
Me: No, why?
Army Guy: Because of the way you carry yourself. You seem to have a lot of confidence and you are really fit.
Me: Don't you mean fAt?
*Awkward silence while Army Guy tries to decide how to get out of that one*

It was really funny and I was quite flattered actually. Good night, all in all.

So Sunday, I went back to the Missionaries of Charity orphanage. I told the Sisters that I would and asked if they needed anything. I brought them some formula and diapers, which they were terribly pleased about. Least I can do since I live like a queen over here. I don't really know how to describe the orphanage. It was fun and sad and hopeful all in one. The kids there range from little toddler (its hard to really tell their age because of size and malnourishment) to maybe about 6-7. The older kids seemed to all have special needs. There is this one little girl who is just a ball of sunshine and you barely even notice that she doesn't have arms past the elbow or legs past the knee. No hands or feet. The kids love having someone come to hold them and would start to scream if I had to get up to grab a Kleenex. Clearly, they have some abandonment issues. I held this one little boy for almost the entire time that I was there. He was quite malnourished and listless and I have a theory that holding him will help. I fed him too and the nun's were quite impressed with how much I was able to get him to eat. He pretty much just laid his head on my chest the whole time (he was facing me) and didn't hardly move. It was sad. Clearly, I'm going back.

So looking back on this past week, it appears that I have quite the motley crew of friends. I hope I didn't shock you overly much, Grandma! :)

Karaoke bus, "Bonsai", and Reggaeton!

2009-10-13T05:58:00.000-07:00

I'll just start off by updating my previous post- Ive made friends now. Lots and lots of friends. You just need to go out with one person and your list of friends will grow exponentially. Its been pretty nice cause Ive got to visit a couple bars, some restaurants, and the Russian Market because I now have friends. My friend from Hope has been really great about showing me around and I met some really cool people through a guy that I work with. Also, I went on an Embassy sponsored trip and I met some single Cambodian girls that work for the Embassy who are going to be my new best friends.

So let me tell you a little bit about that trip. This past weekend was a 3 day weekend as we had Columbus day. The GSO in the Embassy sponsored a trip to Sihanoukville, Cambodia which is a major beach/resort town here. Its right on the Gulf of Thailand so its gorgeous there...reminded me of the Bahamas. Unfortunately, like an idiot, I left the memory card to my camera in my laptop so I don't have any pictures, but everyone else on the trip has tons so I will steal those and post them soon. We drove down on Sunday in a bus and let me tell you a bit about that. First, the bus has a flat screen tv so I assume we are going to watch a movie on the way down, right? Wrong. It's like 8 am in the morning and here are the Cambodians busting out the beer and the *Karaoke* DVDs. It was awesome! We are driving through scenic Cambodia and they are belting out songs in Khmer at the top of their lungs. They even had some english songs and of course, I joined in. That's right...they call me Celine Dion! I think I sang "My Heart Will Go On" like 10 times. Everytime it came on, they kept handing the mic to me. When in Rome, right?

So we finally get there (we had to stop every 30 minutes because people kept yelling "Bonsai" which is a slang term for bathroom, including the GSO who had to pee like every 10 minutes...way to go Paul) and we spent the night at the Sokha Resort there. Its a 5-star resort. Google it if you dont believe me. Its gorgeous and they have a full service spa so I took advantage of that. I was treated like a dessert (buffed with sugar, brushed with yogurt, wrapped up like a fruit tart, and then kneaded like dough). It was 2.5 hours of bliss.

That night we had a grill-out at the beach and it was probably the most fun Ive had in a long time (besides the Karaoke bus, of course). It is definitely my favorite time in Cambodia so far. The AGSO brought a boom box (literally from the 90's) and hooked up his I-POD too it. As I was the only other one with an IPOD, we took turns DJing. He basically had rap music and I had the Spanish Reggaeton, salsa and merengue. My favorite part of the night was the first time I turned on the Reggaeton and the Cambodians went WILD for it. It was a crazy dance party and they loved the Reggaeton. So here I am, on a beautiful beach in Cambodia, playing Reggaeton and teaching the Cambodians how to dance dirty, like the Latinos. :) They took to it like fish in water. There are actual videos. I also taught them the Cupid Shuffle for the heck of it. And they returned the favor by teaching me how to dance traditionally Khmer. So now the local staff at the Embassy all think I'm a good dancer and singer. Just some of my many talents... :)

The next day we went for a boat ride, supposedly to this island with a beautiful beach. We stopped at this little hut for lunch where they had a bunch of chickens with little chicks, 2 grown dogs and 3 puppies, a pig, and a cat. These poor animals were terribly malnourished, especially the dogs, one of which was nursing the 6-day old puppies. So instead of eating my lunch, I gave it to the dogs. I tried to give some of my beef to the cat, but he was really picky. He wanted the prawns. So I would eat a piece of meat and then give one piece to each of the dogs. They were my best friends. I think I ended up giving them a whole human serving a piece. They ate well that day because then we gave them the left-over rice too. We ended up not being able to go to the island though, because the water was too choppy and we were in the crazy boats like they had in Peru. So we turned around and headed back. Then we got back on the Karaoke bus and drove back to Phnom Penh.

All in all, it was an awesome trip and it only cost me about $70 (excluding the spa). I met a lot of great people, including the GSO and AGSO who were 2 really cool guys. Both former military, of course and lots of fun. Also, most of the people who were on the trip were Cambodians (out of 30 of us, only about 4 were American) so I got to interact with the Cambodians a lot. They are a lot of fun. Ive been here less than a two weeks and already Ive made it outside of Phnom Penh. Im also going to the provinces of Battambang and Banteay Meanchey tomorrow and thursday with Perry for some work related business. Less than a month and I will have travelled almost the entire country. This is the life! :)

I love Cambodia!

"Cambodians are like Spider-Man..."

2009-10-07T23:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I have been in Cambodia for a week now. I'm still not quite sure what to make of it. The people are really nice so far so thats been really good. I have yet to make a lot of friends whom I can hang out with after work. I'm actually not quite sure how to go about doing that. Most of the Cambodians my age or older are married and have kids and I havent found a big ex-pat scene yet either. Most of this stems from the fact that I still dont know where anything is in the city as of yet, but I'm managing.

Work has been slow up till now. They have a reluctance to assign me to anything yet as the current director is leaving quite soon and the new director has yet to arrive. They are waiting for Dora, the new director, to arrive so that she can figure out what to do with me. I've been trying to go around and find work for myself, but its rather difficult as the office staff is quite small and most of them are out a lot. The only other American here in our office is quite new himself (he's only been here a month) so its a big transition period right now. Perry, the new medical officer, has asked me to figure out the prevalence and number of HIV cases in all the different provinces, something you would think they already have. Turns out, its all based on assumptions and estimates. It was quite fun trying to track down all the appropriate numbers, but I managed. Needless to say, Ive spent a lot of time reading documents to try to familiarize myself with the programs here.

I met with the ARSO (Assistant Regional Security Officer) yesterday, which was my first foray into the US Embassy. I have one word for the Embassy- Fancy. I got an Embassy badge, which is quite useful as I can now go into the Embassy at any time for any reason. They have an ATM and a small library which were my personal highlights of the tour. Anyway, back to the ARSO. He wasn't near as scary as the RSO guys in Lima, so I did appreciate him much more. However, he did strongly suggest that they put bars on my apartment windows, even though I'm on the second floor, because the "Cambodian's are like Spider-Man, they don't need any suction cups to climb walls here." They are also installing a new door in my guest bedroom as the one that's there now would be demolished with a good kick of my flip-flops. I'm also getting a lot of new deadbolts. I feel like I might be living in a prison because of these things, albeit a very pretty one. Please refer here for pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059801&id=11401382&l=5a25db480b Turns out my shower leaks horribly as well. They were supposed to fix that today, so I'll have to see about that. All in all, the apartment management is extremely accomodating because I am the first American from the Embassy that they have been able to lure in so they want to keep me and have me spread the good word. They are even trying to find me a rocking chair...yep, thats right, a rocking chair. :)

I have had a couple of Cambodian meals now and I have to say, I'm not terribly impressed. Perhaps I have not been going to the right restaurants. Yesterday, we went to lunch and I ordered Fried noodles with combination pork. Now, we weren't quite sure what "combination" meant but I decided to go for it. Turns out that wasn't such a good idea. Combination apparently means that they throw every type of seafood available in with your pork. Now we all know that I don't eat seafood and here comes my plate piled high with big ole pieces of squid and other indiscernible seafood entities. I was shaking my head no the whole time and the waitresses didn't quite understand what I was so appalled at. Luckily, the nice Cambodian lady next to me spoke English so she translated that I was not expecting seafood and that I just wanted pork, so they brought me out just pork. Crisis averted.

Well, I should probably go back to work now. I'll leave you with this thought about Embassy security from my boss: "I never understood why they would put 30 minute doors into 5 minute walls..." I'll explain later.

Cambodia life...day 1

2009-10-03T04:58:00.000-07:00

So I got into Phnom Penh airport late last night. Luckily, the US Embassy sent someone to help arrange for the proper visa and he pretty much handled it all. I followed him around like a puppy and kept an eagle eye on my passport that he kept handing to different people. He pretty much kept cutting everybody in line, which was pretty funny to me. After that we went outside where David, one of my mentor's in the program, was waiting with his wife to pick me up. They were very nice and drove me to my hotel. I don't have much to say about the ride because I was so exhausted that everything was like a blur. Fortunately, they had already arranged hotel accommodations and David already had a cell phone and an Embassy welcome packet ready for me. They told me that the next day (today) a couple women from the office (Sokha and Bory) were going to come pick me up and take me to look at another serviced apartment to see which one I like better to live in.

So today, I woke up naturally at 7 am and couldn't go back to sleep. Decided to talk to my parents online for a while and update them on my life here. After doing that, I was tired again and went back to bed until 1 pm. I had to get up then and get ready for Sokha and Bory and they were here promptly at 2 pm. They took me over to the Garden mansion which is lovely and showed me the 2 bedroom apartment. I love it! Its really spacious and has 2 balconies, one which overlooks the pool. Across from one of the balconies is apparently where the Spanish Ambassador lives, which excites me (someone to speak Spanish with!!). Its brand new and they are willing to do anything to it that I would live. For instance, in the second bedroom, there is a door with a window in it that is not terribly secure, but they have agreed to put a solid door in for me. Also, they are going to get me a new desk, and it does have a flat screen tv in it. So, I'm living the high life. :)

After seeing the apartment, Sokha and Bory took me to David's house where we picked up his wife to do some shopping. We went to City Mall which was interesting in that it didn't have shops like American malls do, but more of stalls just set up wherever. Everything, of course, is way to small for me as I am a big, white, blonde giant over here. I'll have to find someone to hand-make my clothes. Some girls came over to me and were just staring and talking excitedly and Sokha told me that they were admiring my skin and that they really liked it. That was weird, but nice. I then ate a "fried chicken burger" at a "fast-food" restaurant. It was strange, and I expect that I may get sick from it, but c'est la vie, oui? They, then, took me to a Lucky supermarket which was actually a pleasantly surprising experience! They carry many American food brands like Kellogs, Post, Smuckers, Lays, Haagen Daas (although it was $12.50 for the small container), Kleenex, Ragu, Campbell's, Laughing Cow, Skippy, etc. I f0und many good things and am excited that I can find things that I like to eat.

Anyway, its about 7:12 here and I'm exhausted already. I need to go make some dinner (a PB&J) and then try to stay up till 9 pm. Thats my goal. Au revoir!

New people, new places, new adventures!

2009-09-21T18:30:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody! I decided to start this blog as a personal history of my life in Cambodia and for those of you who are interested in my life there. Just as a little background: I was selected as an ASPH/CDC Allan Rosenfield Global Health fellow in Cambodia for one year (possibly two). I will primarily be based in Phnom Penh. The fellowship is with the CDC Global AIDS Program (GAP) and I will be working on a variety of issues relating to HIV like maternal/child health, TB, and general surveillance.

Currently, I am in Atlanta undergoing orientation with the other fellows who will be stationed all over the world. I will be the only fellow going to Cambodia but there is another fellow going to Thailand. We are the only ones in SE Asia. So far, orientation has been very enlightening. There is a lot to learn but this is a one in a million opportunity and I am very excited to begin!

I will be flying to Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Oct 1, 2009. Stay tuned for more...