I do-do things here, I swear.

Suas'dai mut peat! (hello friends!)

Something I realized lately is that I have yet to explain to the world what I'm doing in Cambodia. There are several reasons for this:

1. I don't know what I'm doing. That is a lie, but...
2. I do know what I'm doing but it's difficult to explain without a lot of background information that may be uninteresting/confusing to outsiders.
3. The Community Health Education (CHE) program is still very new in Cambodia. It's fluid and evolving as we move forward.
4. I know to expect the unexpected, there is no standard, and every village can and will be different.

The past two weeks of training were enjoyable...to me....for the most part! Hiat ai? Why? Because the past two weeks were much more hands on and experiential. Two weeks ago we grouped up with some awesome Khmer students and did different community assessment projects with them.

One day, I co-facilitated a group discussion about sexual health with a couple of my fellow trainees. This I fully enjoyed because I love the topic. I'm all about spreading the word about safe sex, STIs, reproductive & sexual health to youth of all kinds! Put a sroam-ana-mai on it!!!(Condom) When leading a discussion about such a sensitive subject, there are things that are considerably different and challenging in comparison to an audience of Americans:

1. Khmer people are very shy.
2. Khmer girls are especially shy.
3. Khmer students are accustomed to "being talked at" rather than "being engaged" in school settings. Or so I've heard and witnessed.
4. Khmer students are easily influenced by their peers. Oh, wait...that's not different from the States...but whatever. It still makes it difficult to get individual opinions, nonetheless.

Before the actual discussion began, we handed out surveys for the girls to fill out anonymously. It appeared that one girl had most of the "correct" answers and the others followed suit with the same wording and all.
Best Answer to the question - "Explain in your own words what sex is...":

"Sex is mean that the man and women they make sexually."

And I'm not trying to make fun of their English skills because these girls are far more advanced with their English than I am with my Khmer. These girls are very smart and I'm happy that they even attempted to answer the awkward/embarrassing questions.

The girls definitely knew a lot more than they were willing to share initially during the discussion. It was also interesting to hear what was most important to the them in terms of relationships and sex. They were most concerned about finding a partner that they could trust. We played the game "Sex in the Dark" in which they anonymously wrote any question about sex and we picked the questions randomly out of a plastic bag and answered them as best we could. The most popular question was "How do I find a man that I can trust?"
Well......
How do you find a man you can trust??...very good question. We answered the question as honestly as possible. We stated that it was important to trust their gut, to trust their friend's opinions, and also trust their family's opinions about the boy/man. We also made it clear that we were all still trying to figure out how to find a trust-worthy man and that it takes time. There are plenty of good men out there!


So that was something I did.


The activity this past week included a household survey and "workshop" regarding alcohol consumption and drunk-driving. This topic was decided by the students the previous week during a needs assessment/priority ranking activity. For the household survey, my group went to houses/shops near the Wat and asked people their thoughts on alcohol consumption and drunk driving in their community. Most people agreed that alcohol was a problem in the community. We learned from an officer that 20% of accidents in Tramkok were alcohol-related and that 7 people died in July 2012 due to alcohol-related accidents.

Our "workshop" (I put this word in quotations because it was "kind of a discussion and demonstration" more than a workshop) was held on Friday at our language teacher Siphen's house. We talked about advantages and disadvantages of alcohol, and the cost of drinking and driving. I don't want to bore you much more so here are photos:

DISCUSSING THE COST OF DRUNK DRIVING: DEATH


I also made some awesome posters. The students decided on the slogan and I made the posters like a machine!!!!!

MORE DRINK...MORE DRUNK...MORE ACCIDENTS...MORE DEAD.


I'm going to leave you at that note. You drink, you drive, YOU DIE!!!! My apologies if this post was not as entertaining as it could be. I hope everyone is doing well back in the U.S. of A.
Things are A-Okay here in Kampuchea.


Lots of love,

loRAAAH!