June 14, 2012
Sok subai friends,
I am now in Kampong Chhnang city, a two hour drive from Phnom Penh. I'm staying in the capitol of the province, Kampong Chhnang city. The province is known for its clay pots and carts of huge clay pots can be seen along the road into the city.
Rural Cambodia is very different from the capitol. There are fewer cars (very few cars), fewer people and fewer things to do. The population of the city and area surrounding it is around 50,000 people. It borders the Tonlé Sap river than is currently running north into Tonlé Sap Lake. Kampong Chhnang lies just at the southern tip of the lake. I'm staying in a guest house where I have one room with adjoining bathroom/ shower. My accommodations are nice and thankfully electricity in the city stabilized just before my arrival and there are only 2 to 3 short outages a day. Geckos invade my room at night and serenade me with their lizard ballads.
My transition from to Phnom Penh was a little disorientating and I was slightly discouraged my second day in the province. Here I was, the only foreigner in sight and in the company of all Khmers, of whom few speak English. I must correct myself, there is one other ex-patriot here. Amynah is a researcher in her mid-30s working for IRD and attaining her PhD. She originates from India, grew up in Kenya and studied in the States. She has also been very welcoming to me and is not afraid to hand down research and culture shock (?) advice. I put a question mark next to culture shock, because that could be what I've been experiencing, I'm not sure. For a couple days, and I've been listening to family encouragement and friendly advice, I've been feeling homesick and lonely. I realize how incredibly blessed I am to have this experience so I have been trying to rise above this emotional slump. I think with time and encouragement, this will all be behind me. This has also been a personal journey and I'm understanding more and more about myself. I'm more of a reserved person I realize, and being stared at wherever I go and having to find similar topics to share with my Khmer companions is challenging. More challenging than I expected. I believe this will be quite a growing experience for me, which sounds like it should be a given, but the reality of it is settling in.
So far, I've gone out into several villages with the IRD team to observe what they do. I attended a village meeting on mother-child health where they covered a number of topics from correct breast feeding to water sanitation and hand-washing. I've also been to a session where women of the village gather together talk, cook and feed their children a nutritional meal while an IRD doctor preforms physicals on the children to determine their level of malnutrition. There the women were all smiles and welcoming. They wouldn't stop smiling at me and I couldn't help but smile back. They mentioned how they wish they could be as tall and blond as me. I responded that I wish I could be as petite and graceful as them. We shared a laugh. Meanwhile, the children with their bright round eyes would look at me in wonder.
I also attended a male group meeting where 15 married men of the village gathered and discussed what their role as males and fathers was in the village. They were encouraged to assume more active roles as husbands and fathers, to bring their wives to the health centers and care for the children while their wives were busy.
Next week I'll be interviewing some families and conducting my mosquito net research with a translator. This week we set up which villages I'll visit, my translator and which families I'm going to speak with.
Some misadventures of mine... I had a mini-Khmer lesson with one of IRD's NGO partners, a community health worker. Consequently, I learned how to say duck, chair, rain (this one was key- it rains every day here in the late afternoon), hand-washing area, and sand--all of the things in his line of sight, which he would point out and have me repeat the word several times until he was satisfied I would remember it. As of right now, I remember 'rain' and the word for 'quack' (which was apparently what I thought was duck, until he started imitating the ducks as he pointed to them). He re-enforced my knowledge of numbers 1 - 10. This bit of knowledge is something I proudly recite any time a Cambodian asks me if I speak Khmer ('Khmai'). Yes, and every time they'll pull out their hand and point to the appropriate finger as I go along.
During my first lunch in the field, Sovann mothered me by continuely adding food to my plate. I think she added rice, noodles, cucumbers, and dried fish (I had one nibble) to my plate five different times. How could I refuse?
I also opened my backpack after the first night and was surprised by the large cricket residing inside. I adhere to the fact that it was a cricket, I refuse to acknowledge the possibility that due to its size it could be a cockroach. I also biked for the first time from the office to my guesthouse, only to get lost in the torrential downpour. I mean pouring buckets and buckets, and little 'ole me pedaling along, soaking and lost. It was great, I hung out under the closest gas station I could find and spoke English the two eager attendants. People love to practice their English here. And yes, I demonstrated my amazing Khmer language skills in return. 1-10.
This concludes my first week in Kampong Chhnang and rural Cambodia. As my research progresses and my experience continues, I will send updates.
Best,
Margot
I am now in Kampong Chhnang city, a two hour drive from Phnom Penh. I'm staying in the capitol of the province, Kampong Chhnang city. The province is known for its clay pots and carts of huge clay pots can be seen along the road into the city.
Rural Cambodia is very different from the capitol. There are fewer cars (very few cars), fewer people and fewer things to do. The population of the city and area surrounding it is around 50,000 people. It borders the Tonlé Sap river than is currently running north into Tonlé Sap Lake. Kampong Chhnang lies just at the southern tip of the lake. I'm staying in a guest house where I have one room with adjoining bathroom/ shower. My accommodations are nice and thankfully electricity in the city stabilized just before my arrival and there are only 2 to 3 short outages a day. Geckos invade my room at night and serenade me with their lizard ballads.
My transition from to Phnom Penh was a little disorientating and I was slightly discouraged my second day in the province. Here I was, the only foreigner in sight and in the company of all Khmers, of whom few speak English. I must correct myself, there is one other ex-patriot here. Amynah is a researcher in her mid-30s working for IRD and attaining her PhD. She originates from India, grew up in Kenya and studied in the States. She has also been very welcoming to me and is not afraid to hand down research and culture shock (?) advice. I put a question mark next to culture shock, because that could be what I've been experiencing, I'm not sure. For a couple days, and I've been listening to family encouragement and friendly advice, I've been feeling homesick and lonely. I realize how incredibly blessed I am to have this experience so I have been trying to rise above this emotional slump. I think with time and encouragement, this will all be behind me. This has also been a personal journey and I'm understanding more and more about myself. I'm more of a reserved person I realize, and being stared at wherever I go and having to find similar topics to share with my Khmer companions is challenging. More challenging than I expected. I believe this will be quite a growing experience for me, which sounds like it should be a given, but the reality of it is settling in.
So far, I've gone out into several villages with the IRD team to observe what they do. I attended a village meeting on mother-child health where they covered a number of topics from correct breast feeding to water sanitation and hand-washing. I've also been to a session where women of the village gather together talk, cook and feed their children a nutritional meal while an IRD doctor preforms physicals on the children to determine their level of malnutrition. There the women were all smiles and welcoming. They wouldn't stop smiling at me and I couldn't help but smile back. They mentioned how they wish they could be as tall and blond as me. I responded that I wish I could be as petite and graceful as them. We shared a laugh. Meanwhile, the children with their bright round eyes would look at me in wonder.
I also attended a male group meeting where 15 married men of the village gathered and discussed what their role as males and fathers was in the village. They were encouraged to assume more active roles as husbands and fathers, to bring their wives to the health centers and care for the children while their wives were busy.
Next week I'll be interviewing some families and conducting my mosquito net research with a translator. This week we set up which villages I'll visit, my translator and which families I'm going to speak with.
Some misadventures of mine... I had a mini-Khmer lesson with one of IRD's NGO partners, a community health worker. Consequently, I learned how to say duck, chair, rain (this one was key- it rains every day here in the late afternoon), hand-washing area, and sand--all of the things in his line of sight, which he would point out and have me repeat the word several times until he was satisfied I would remember it. As of right now, I remember 'rain' and the word for 'quack' (which was apparently what I thought was duck, until he started imitating the ducks as he pointed to them). He re-enforced my knowledge of numbers 1 - 10. This bit of knowledge is something I proudly recite any time a Cambodian asks me if I speak Khmer ('Khmai'). Yes, and every time they'll pull out their hand and point to the appropriate finger as I go along.
During my first lunch in the field, Sovann mothered me by continuely adding food to my plate. I think she added rice, noodles, cucumbers, and dried fish (I had one nibble) to my plate five different times. How could I refuse?
I also opened my backpack after the first night and was surprised by the large cricket residing inside. I adhere to the fact that it was a cricket, I refuse to acknowledge the possibility that due to its size it could be a cockroach. I also biked for the first time from the office to my guesthouse, only to get lost in the torrential downpour. I mean pouring buckets and buckets, and little 'ole me pedaling along, soaking and lost. It was great, I hung out under the closest gas station I could find and spoke English the two eager attendants. People love to practice their English here. And yes, I demonstrated my amazing Khmer language skills in return. 1-10.
This concludes my first week in Kampong Chhnang and rural Cambodia. As my research progresses and my experience continues, I will send updates.
Best,
Margot