The ball comes and I kick. It feels uncomfortable, but I'm trying not to be a wimp anymore. I gaze down, casually, and notice an avant-garde splash of vibrant red offsetting the natural earthen tones of cow manure, sand and shattered brick caked on my toes, the brutal terrain of our makeshift soccer field not heeding the existence of my sandals as protective footwear. I lament, vaguely, for a second and sigh, “chiem (blood)” as the kids gather around my leg, hovering around my navel, obscuring my surrealistic painting of a toe, replacing the view with a pinwheel of bobbing furry black heads, each more curious than the next about my downfall. I apologize for having to quit playing for the day, I just didn't feel like splattering blood everywhere let alone allowing more cow shit and diaper pieces to add to the picture. The kids walk back with me telling everyone on the way I'm bleeding everyone peaking down at my foot, giving me much more anxiety about the state of my feet than the state of my sweaty, red face from trying to play soccer against a bunch of kids half my size. I find the older I get the more soccer mom rage I accumulate; I even stopped at one point and asked a kid who's team he was playing on. More than once. “leng chiemuy krom knhom ot??” He didn't have an answer, just a goofy smile missing his two front teeth while the other kids called him crazy and pushed him around. We lost pretty bad, me picking the underdog team, the kids younger than the rest and prone to running away and dancing on piles of rocks in the middle of a defensive rush. Thanks a lot, guys.
I went home and bucket-showered, washing my toe hoping I don't get gangrene or something and then reflect on what it means to be a volunteer, working in the Cambodian countryside in a world where “goodwill” stories proliferate and I, unwillingly, sometimes subject myself to comparing these stories to my experience within my own cultural psyche inundated with classical classical mixed-messages of “pulling yourself up by bootstraps” while we also venerate “giving to the less fortunate” as essential cultural foundations. How much does my self-critique come from pride and how much from education?
Peace Corps is on its 9th cohort here, interesting compared to some countries on their 50th+ year. We're a newer program and still have hiccups and bumps along the road that are inevitable in any peace corps program and I'm grateful and less pleased to be part of the process of integrating this organization in the inner-workings of the “srok khmai” (Khmer District, slang for Cambodia). When my commitment is essentially finished (if such an experience can ever be finished) the K11s will be coming to replace us K9s, a wild, voracious group that is maybe one of the biggest incoming groups to this country.
So far I have met amazing people working with the Peace Corps here. People that really get me, and hopefully feel vice versa about me. I'm excited to collaborate on projects, share experiences, go adventuring and taking all these relationships back home--or whatever happens.
I was selected to serve on the Diversity Committee for Peace Corps Cambodia with my application invoking a militaristic attitude towards ignorance, but a gentle, grassroots approach for education. But if anyone who knows me well it'll be hard to separate the two not by my personal affect but by the content and its stubbornness I'm prone to when exacerbating a topic of interest. You know. I'm excited to see where these opportunities lead in terms of community outreach and how it can affect my service and future projects in my community.
My village is a wonderland of slowly-becoming-recognizable faces, if never by name at least by smile. I try to overcome feeling shy, but it's hard sometimes to rationalize approaching strangers, although here there really is no such thing. I want to make it a goal to approach new people when they say, “hello,” in an attempt to reconcile more with this distinction of me as foreign and them as citizens. The more I tell my story, the more support I garner and it's refreshing in its psychological effects even if physical fruition is vague and never begetted. I wish I was fluent in this language and not shy to make mistakes, my anal retentive personality souring my linguistic accomplishments. “Chill out!” my chill, alter-ego named “Chad” whispers to me while making a mixtape and playing frisbee at the same time. Ugh if only, CHAD!
Coming up the first two weeks of February is our in-service training that lasts for two weeks in Phnom Penh full of more training similarly to what we did for the first 2 months. I'm not 100% sure on the details, but from what I heard it sounds like a long break from the country and a lot of umm bonding?
I have my art club going and I have my English club on top of teaching 20 hours formally and 3 hours with the children not including playing occasional soccer. All together rounding out now to about 28 hours of education a week, maybe adding more depending on community needs and assessments, and also depending on my sanity. ~120 hours a month for $140. This is really volunteering to say the least and probably the most in a passive aggressive jab at other “service expeditions” to other countries in “need.”
Bitterness aside, Cambodia is saturated in international aid, a sort of hot spot for favor between the US and China, Japan and South Korea, Australia and Britain, etc etc. Throw a rock, hit an NGO. There aren't any in my village, however, so I have no one to compete with, thankfully, given that any NGO could outspend my personal budget until of course I can receive a grant. Speculations and speculations! I still feel confused about my mannerisms when I eat let alone trying to ask strangers for money to do something.
Each volunteer’s experience is unique and no comparison is, to me, ever deemed acceptable or fair given that anyone is prone to any sort of situation hindering or enabling their time in Peace Corps. When times are hard, you shut your phone off and ignore Facebook, stop comparing, start organizing and remember your time here as beautiful and rare, a truly one of a kind experience that no one NO ONE has claim to.
(Granted there are instances where the volunteer isn't necessarily being the most helpful or really doing much, but those are few and far between. Ish haha!)
Peace Corps is strange and strange things happen and the stories flow and flow. The moods will swing and the awkwardness will ebb and flow. Health will spiral and climb, feelings of utter impunity versus days of clarity where 40km bike rides are easy peasy.
The drama comes and goes, boredom amongst volunteers grasping to any fragment of ‘normalcy’ in their lives, any sort of power and control and high we get from gossiping about this and that--all dumb and all so good at the same time.
There aren't secrets in peace corps, but who are we to judge anyone????? A question I wish resounded more heavily with some volunteers when they look outwards at others’ experiences.
The time has come to go home and take off my collared shirt and nice pants and just lounge it out. Catch a movie, read a book, do a lesson plan ;) or work on my art piece for art club tomorrow!
Getting back to working with my hands and producing tangible expressions is something I've been missing and I'm excited to indulge in my creativity once more. Oh and try to explain Picasso in Khmer to however many students show up.
Wish me luck
Okun churan, metpeak
