So we're in Kansas after all....

I have always been a fan of biking as a form of transportation because, well let's face it, cars are terrible. And I was a given a shiny-new-sky-blue mountain bike from Peace Corps but...I...don't....really....need it. My entire town is about the equivalent of 2-3 long blocks in Minneapolis. Okay, maybe four. The mundol sokapeeup (health center) is about 200 meters away from my house. The p'saa (market) is across the street from my house. And those are the only places I visit.

Okay, okay. I'm under-exaggerating a little but a bike isn't necessarily necessary in a place so small. But don't tell that to any Khmer person anywhere because having to walk more than 10 feet is ch'ngai naa (very far.) And I do actually need my bike. I need to ride my bike to cool places like the happening provincial town of Takeo, and to my training village Angtasom to get frustrated that the bank doesn't really provide any services on Saturday but is still open. Hait ai?! (Why?!)

So the bicycle is utilized for necessary trips far and wide in good ol' Takeo Province. I'm also trying to take more aimless trips to villages off the main road. So far I've taken only two such aimless trips on my own and during each of those aimless bicycle trips: I GOT LOST.

What me lost?! How is that possible? Travel with me in NYC; we can get off the subway at a random station and I know which way is north and please trust me (Xin Wang (I love you!!)) when I say which way is the correct way. I know! I have an amazing sense of direction thanks to my weird parents. My mom prefers to read maps and my dad uses landmarks such as car dealerships to find his way. I'm a nice mixture of the two.

My bike ride today started out like any normal ride through the village. Villagers ogling and laughing at me as I rode down the dirt road. Children screaming "HELLO!" at the top of their lungs a little too late as I'm well past their home. And I think to myself "I'm not saying "hello." You lost your chance. And I wasn't going to say "hello" anyway." The sun was beating down with great force but it was a lovely day for a bike ride, nonetheless.


Welcome to the jungle.


I found turkeys. And if anyone knows me at all, they know I like me some turkeys. I didn't chase them down the street as I usually do. I respected the beautiful animals and simply stalked them for a while. I asked a guy if he knew what they were called in Khmer. He did not know. Cambodia has a serious lack of birders.


turkeys! come back! I love you!!!!!!


I biked beyond the landmarks that were familiar to me and just kept going. I found a new wat that was beautiful for the most part, other than a deep hole in the earth and piles of dirt surrounding it. I did not take photos of that.


Wat the Wat?!


Once I moved beyond the wat, I found myself surrounded by mountains and fertile farm land dedicated to more than just rice. It was inspiring to be out there and I really thought I was OUT THERE! Like, I had no idea where the hell I was - out there. But I was happy to be wherever that was. I made friends with a yay and awkwardly asked if I could take her photo. She was more than willing and even had us walk to a bunch of trees she thought were pretty so she could stand next to them.


My new yay friend that I'll probably never see again.!?!


I rolled down the rocky, pot-holed, mud-holed, puddled old dirt road until "WHOOOAAA!!"

NO, I didn't fall off my bike. I spotted two amazing birds I've never seen before! They flew around the trees and spiraled around each other and chirped loudly and brilliantly. I gazed at them slack-jawed and tried to sear their color, shape, and size into my brain. I had to find out what kind of birds they were.

I looked through each page of my "Birds of SE Asia" book only to find one bird that sort of, maybe was the right one; the Asian Fairy Bluebird. But it wasn't the same bird. I then searched the internets, googled the description of the bird, and google failed me. The bird that best fit the image I seared into my brain earlier was the Bronzed Cowbird but according the know-it-all-internets, this bird is only found around the Americas, North & South. Now, what the eff? How did that bird get all the way to SE Asia? Flying, I guess. That's what I'm telling myself, at least.

Bronzed Cowbird. I did not take this photo. Photo by Jeff Wendorff


After my brief encounter with an exciting set of unusual birds, I felt kind of like I was floating through my unknown countryside, encased in dazzling green mountains. I rode blissfully through this wonderland and the question of where I was only tickled at my brain a little. It had been a good hour and a half since I left my house and I wasn't ready to return just yet. I also thought that I'd eventually hit the main road. According to my keen sense of direction...I was traveling Southwest...right? The sun is up there...above my head over there...wait, whut? humph...


Mountains and Fields.


Then I thought I saw a familiar landmark in the distance, a wat placed on top of a small mountain that's right off the main road. I was slightly relieved because I thought my navigation skills were being awesome for me. As I rode on...the dirt road just kept going and it never connected with the main road as I thought it would. "I coulda sworn that was the wat that's by National road 3...Okay, just keep going...you'll get there" was my thought process. "Just keep going. You'll run into it eventually."


So...where am I? Oh look! a mud pond.


And then self-doubt began to seep in. Maybe my navigation skills aren't that awesome. What has Cambodia done to me? It was time to stop for directions. I approached a T in the road and asked a smiling woman where plow layk buy (road number 3) was. She told me to go that way, and then that way and then you'll be there. That's probably what she said. And I was all like "oh, of course. I know exactly what you are saying to me." I will go that way. I went that way and then I was still not there yet.

I stopped for directions again. I found some gentlemen and asked them where plow layk buy was and this time I also asked them "ponmaan kilo brohail?" (about how many kilometers?) One man said "Tramkok? brampeul kilo, ch'ngai" or 7K, far.

HA! Oh, yeah. far... And when he said Tramkok, I thought he was referring to the district of Tramkok which is fairly large, not the town Tramkok. Because I thought I was miles and miles away from home. Remember, I was OUT THERE! And he told me to turn right and go through the wat and some other stuff. I clarified with him several times until I thought for sure I knew where to go. This place was completely new to me.

I did as the gentlemen told me to and biked toward the wat and then I was filled with crazies and confusion because all of a sudden, I knew exactly where I was...I was within 7K from my house. Wait, whut? huh? How is that possible? And in that moment, I was no longer floating and cruising in my blissful state of mind. I knew where I was and I was going home. I felt like someone had smacked me with a large log to wake me up after a happy dream. I wasn't ready to go home.


a nice view


And here I am back in my stuffy room, melting my brain on the internets. I really need to go on more bike rides.

Book Report

By: Laura Olson


Something I learned early on; Time moves slowly in Cambodia. During training, time moved slowly but I was so busy that I didn't have time to realize it...odd, I know. Training was long; at times pretty boring and other times challenging, stressful, and all-in-all, draining. There wasn't a lot of room for philosophical, deep, intellectual thought. I'm also not much of a future thinker. I'm more of a "it's so damn hot and I'm sweating" in-the-moment thinker. Therefore, I was ill-prepared for the reality of my actual service which coincided with a complete lack of pre-arranged structure.

I remember explaining the benefits of the Peace Corps experience to friends and family before I left and "structure" was one of the words I used. I always wanted to travel and experience different ways of living but couldn't just get up and leave the way some wanderers and explorers do. I'm surprisingly too responsible and not surprisingly too obsessed with saving money to just get up and go. Peace Corps would provide me with the structure and new cultural experience that I was too scared to set off for on my own.

And here I am! I'm finally serving in the Peace Corps and have zero structure!!!! Woo-hooo!! Oh, this world is just so funny sometimes. The world of Cambodia is especially funny.

Henceforth! I read books to pass the time. Here we go with the main subject of this blog post! Onward soldiers march! I'm a slow reader and I'm not like every other PCV with a fancy touchscreen book face reader thing. I got me some real live books! They're made of paper and smell delicious. So far, almost every book I've read since in Cambodia, I've been able to relate to my life in one way or another. Is this something everyone does? Probably, but my experience is COMPLETELY UNIQUE compared to everyone else's so I'm special. Just kidding. What am I talking about?? Focus Laurax.

Book #1: Naked in Dangerous Places: The Chronicles of a Hungry, Scared, Lost, Homesick, but Otherwise Perfectly Happy Traveler

By Cash Peters (in my head I keep thinking his name is Cash Powers...)

Don't worry, I'm only getting naked in appropriate and safe places


This book was a gift from my dear friend Geneva before I left Minnesota. It was a perfect gift (given my history with Geneva) because it was in the perspective of a person, Peters, that was not much of a traveler but was hired to be in a reality TV show about traveling to obscure and exotic lands.

I read it so slowly, especially in comparison to other PCTs, so slow that I hadn't even finished it yet and another person finished their 12 book since training started. Holy geez, what's wrong with my brain? It's hard to stuff a lot of things in there all at once.
Either way, I enjoyed reading this book during my first month of training and introduction to Cambodia. There was a chapter dedicated to Peters' short stay in the Kingdom of Wonder and I knew he was talking about Cambodia before he even mentioned his location. Within the first couple of sentences he mentioned something about monks and how it's not even 7AM and it's hot as balls. Or something like that. I'm paraphrasing.

When reading this book, I was very fresh to Cambodia as was Peters' and I was able to laugh out loud in agreement with his initial feelings and reflections of his visit.


So that turned out to be the only book I brought with me to Cambodia other than my travel book and Birds of Southeast Asia book (which I love!!!! Thank you, Auntie Barb!)

So now what? Luckily, my friend Amanda let me borrow her Kindle for a little while and I went for a classic Book #2: "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury.
This book let me escape the world around me when I was tired and sweaty. I had very little emotional attachment to the book (perhaps because I was reading it with a Kindle...?) however it did make me yearn to read more books. It felt extremely strange reading a book about a society that burned all of it's books to keep from polluting their minds ON AN ELECTRONIC READER! It didn't feel right. But it kept me distracted.


I lucked out during my one day vacation to Phnom Penh before moving out to permanent site. There are kids in the tourist area of PP that sell books for cheap. The quality is not always that great because they're photocopied versions of the originals and then bound with a cover. I bought two books for $8 (I'm sure I coulda bought them for cheaper but I liked the kid selling them. He was really great to talk to.) The first book I chose was a no-brainer.

Book #3: Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind

By: Loung Ung


The second book by Loung Ung; highly recommended by yours truly


I was extremely happy to acquire this book since I read Ung's first book, First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers before I left the states. I left the book with my parents hoping that maybe one of them would read it (AHEM, Mom. Maybe she did?)
Ung recalls her dark childhood under control of the Khmer Rouge in "First They Killed My Father" and I was captivated by her story. One of the most challenging things for me was retelling the story to my friends and family back home. I wanted them to know about her experience as well as the millions of others that suffered during the Khmer Rouge genocide but it's not something many people want to sit and talk about while drinking coffee and eating brunch.

Once in Cambodia, I found other PCVs that either read the book or wanted to read the book for obvious reasons. Cambodia was making great progress as a nation before the Khmer Rouge trampled on all the efforts made by its people in 1975. It makes me wonder how necessary Peace Corps Volunteers would be had it never happened.

I read Ung's second book, Lucky Child, during my first couple of weeks at permanent site and was probably one of the best books for me to read given my situation. Ung is the "lucky child" as she was chosen to follow her eldest brother to America after they sought refuge in Thailand. All the while, much of Ung's family including her older sister, Chou, remain in Cambodia. Her family in Cambodia continue to endure attacks from the Khmer Rouge soldiers as well as struggle everyday to find enough food to survive.

Ung's new life in America is not comparable to that of her family's suffering in Cambodia however she experiences many personal and emotional challenges that are not apparent to the naked eye and possibly harder for others to understand. Ung is in a new foreign land where she doesn't speak a word of the language and completely depends on her brother and his wife for everything. She eventually begins school but is behind because of her lack of English skills and finds it difficult to integrate for more reasons than just the difficult language.

I was able to relate to Ung's difficulties with finding a place in the United States because I was going through very similar challenges here in Cambodia. How can anyone make real friends and real connections with a new community when everything is foreign and strange? Ung became the token Asian girl at times and I find myself being the token "barang" or foreigner to so many people in my community. Because I am! I look really weird! I have whitish skin, blondish hair, and a big nose! I get that but I yearn for the words to explain to others who I am beyond "I'm Laura, I'm from America, I'm 26 years old, I have one brother, I'm not married yet, I'm a volunteer, I'm not a doctor, I'll live here for two years."


Time heals all wounds. In time, I will grasp the language and hold deeper conversations with my family, friends, and co-workers. While this is still very raw and bpi-baak (difficult) now, I keep telling myself that in one year, I will barely even remember how challenging life is right now. Or I'll look back and laugh at how ridiculous it all was. And even better yet, this isn't even as difficult as it will get! Hooray!

In conclusion, this post took me about a week to finally shell out because it was basically homework. See title (Book Report.) I have more books to review and blabber on about and how I can relate so well to the characters, fictional or not. Books are good! Books are fun! Books are pretty! On to the next one, on to the next one.

And to end this blog post even more narcissistically, here's the most recent photo of myself. Please note that I accidentally cut my bangs. I like them! Sorta! Mostly! Don't worry, I'm still growing my hair out. Never give up! Also, other than the constant compliments about my beautiful skin color, I also get constant compliments about my nose. Now, this is funny to me because I've never been a huge fan of my nose and it's right out there in the open for everyone to see! Either way, the compliments about my nice nose are frequent and coincidently, two babies that are currently cooking here will come out with my nose! My host sister is pregnant and said at dinner last night that she wants her baby to have my nose. One of the nurses at the Health Center is also pregnant and she stated something similar a few weeks ago. So there you have it folks: my nose, my book report, my life. I hope I didn't bore you too much. This was really difficult to write!


OOOooh hair and nose.


I'm out!

Rainy Days and Mondays

Chump Reap Sua (wuzzup wuzzup homies!!!!!)

Hey, guess what? I'm still in Cambodia. I've been here for....hold on let me get my calendar out....82 days. Wait. Seriously?! That can't be right. I counted the days in my calendar (actually several different calendars, just in case) about 10 times and I still don't feel like that's right.

That's a really long time! That's close to 100! And I'm trying to figure out what I have to show for it. There are some days here in which I feel as if no progress is being made. "My language skills are plummeting! I don't understand anything! How am I going to initiate any projects! I can't even take a successful trip to the bank!"...is often running through my head. Especially in the past couple of weeks.

I'm going to give myself some credit. I think I'm underestimating myself. I can't help but compare my "first month at site" experience to everyone else's. My comparisons are based off of very little evidence, as in 2 sentence Facebook status updates worth of evidence. But some days I still read another K6 volunteer's status and think "OH MY GOD!! I'M A FAILURE! Why am I not teaching English to monks yet??" or "Why haven't I measured a pregnant woman's belly yet?!!!!"

This is where reality checks are important but the banks in Cambodia will charge you 3 dolla for those and they won't process them on Saturdays so you have to go back to the bank on Monday.

I needed to (and still need to) remind myself that every volunteer has their strengths and weaknesses. And that I need to use my STRENGTHS to compensate for my WEAKNESSES. How do I use my strengths to compensate for my weaknesses, particularly in Cambodia where I don't speak the language very well and seem to terrify children? Thanks to my previous job at TBI Metro Services (shout out to my homies at TBI! wut wut!), I know how to answer that question very well if it ever comes up in a future job interview.

I spent many hours at the health center "observing" and "taking notes" until I decided I understood that in this room we talk to ladies mien-p'tay-bpooah (preggers) and in this room we talk to people with chu-g'bal (headaches) and chu-bpooahs (stomachaches.) Now, how do I fit in?

Oh, duh. I can draw.

And then you're all like "Wait, Laurax, I don't get it. Where's drawing going to get you in a health center?"
And then I'm all like "Whatever, dude. BE CREATIVE! I love little children and I need to some how lure them into my trap and make them love me back."
And then you're all like "Wait, Laurax...I still don't get it. You make no sense, yo. You can draw and that's great and all but that won't get you anywhere in a health center."
And then I'm all like "Whatever, dude. I ain't no gruu-bpait (doctor) and please remind everyone in my village of this because they keep approaching me with their ailments. I'm a Community Health Education Volunteer! Yay! So I'm gonna educate me some k'mayng-k'mayng (children) that be chillin' at the HC with some coloring pages that have secret HEALTH MESSAGES! Wash your hands you silly billy! Eat yr veggies or else!"
And then you're all like "Huuzzahhhhh!!!! Now I get it!"

END OF DIALOGUE.

Insert relevant photo here:

Learng dai before you eats and after you poops!


And this one:


Eat more than just rice, for serious.


And now I'm working on my "Exercise" drawing which entails bears doing different physical activities. Will people actually consider said physical activities? Now, that's another story. We'll not get into that right now. Nonetheless, I enjoy doing stuff like this.
The first day I brought the coloring pages to the health center, the HC didn't seem to understand the point. Some of the staff started coloring and eventually one of the staff members took the drawings and markers out of the lobby. "Ummmm...no...those aren't for you. Those are for the kids...and don't put it away...noooo....please? Okay. Whatever."
But then I brought them back out the next day and had little children scribbling all over them, front and back. I think these coloring pages are more of an introduction to coloring than to my secret health messages. Either way, I will carry on.
Even if the HC staff still don't really completely understand me, at least they find me entertaining when I draw. And now they're commissioning me to draw rabbits, tigers, etc.



And now, to completely change the subject!
Today is my father's birthday. He is super duper old. And since I'm on the other side of the world from him, I was unsure what to get him for his birthday. The other week I was talking to my mom and she mentioned trying to get my dad to start a Facebook account. I knew my dad wouldn't do it himself so I took it upon myself to get him going on the Facebook.

Go ahead and be his friend if you're not already. The more the merrier! He's a really cool dude. He enjoys The Carpenters and anything related to motor oil...or Bob's Oil Blog...or something like that.

Speaking of, here's a photo of my seriously cool dad:

Here's my cool dad being a cool dad! ohmigawd there are cookies on the table!


Oh yeah, and photo courtesy of my lovely aunt, Barbara Olson.

And did I mention that I have a really cool dad that I miss and love a lot? Hi dad. I love you. Please accept that e-mail from Facebook, now.

Okay, bye.


Much love,


Daughter Laura