who am I?

January 15th, 2013 will be my 6 month mark. I'm nearing 6 months in the Kingdom of Wonder and it continues to leave me wondering.

I've been living with my host family and village for 4 months now, and at times I feel ashamed by the lack of personal connections I've made so far with my family, community members, and co-workers. This feeling ebbs and flows with each day which makes everything here so much more challenging for me. With so much time already passed, I feel like I'm not meeting my own expectations.

I think back to my first unofficial day of college. The first day of Cross Country camp. I walked toward Ytterboe Hall with my bag and watched the other girls bounce around joyfully as if this wasn't all completely new to them. I remember Laura Melcher and her amazingly curly locks and thinking "she must be a junior or something; she looks mature." I remember Nicole Novak, stoic and tall as she will always be, eating brownies or cookies or something and thinking "I think we could be good friends."

Nicole is the tall and stoic one on the right


I almost didn't join Cross Country at St Olaf but it wasn't because I didn't want to. It was because I was overlooked for some reason. I don't know how it happened but I wasn't on any of the lists of first year students interested in the sport. (How could they?! I'm the fastest runner in the world!) And St Olaf, of all private colleges, is open to runners of all shapes, sizes, and abilities. St Olaf has an exceptional Cross Country team because of it's immense team and "diversity." I say "diversity" like this because it wasn't a culturally or ethnically diverse team by any means. But it wasn't just a team compiled carefully of the sought out, stick thin, varsity running prototypes either. This is what made the St Olaf CC team special.

And before I knew anything about the great history of the St Olaf Women's CC team, I simply sat back and observed the mad interactions of the sophomore, junior, and senior women. At first I thought to myself "Oh dear, what have I gotten myself into?" I was afraid I wouldn't make any friends. I was especially concerned for myself because I was quieter than I had been in perhaps a decade...which is a long time for an 18 year old!

I realized that the shy little 5 year old Laura still existed inside me and I was shocked. I was, however, able to express the weird, LOUD, and silly Laura in different ways; more subtle ways. I had these awesome shoes that were bright green, yellow, and black. They looked like the Jamaican flag, actually. And to go with my shoes, I had a neon yellow bag that I always carried around my shoulder.

Shy Little 5 year old Laura. Maybe I'M 5. I don't know


It wasn't long before I made eye contact with Caitlin Molsberry from across the room and felt all warm and fuzzy. She was my savior. She may not even know this, but I think she helped me open up because she was so welcoming, gregarious, and had a mile long smile. It didn't take long for the St Olaf Women's CC team to become my family.

The Junior CC runners 2006 - we have no excuse for our behavior, Caitlin is the one eating me, Laura Melcher and I are the dweebs in front....



Left to Right: Caitlin - Sailor, Laurax - Pirate, Laura - Sailor, Nicole - Sailor


Meanwhile in Cambodia, I still find that the shy little 5 year old Laura is immobilizing weird, LOUD, and silly Laura. This makes me sad when I think about it for too long. I am so reserved and stiff around even my host family and I don't want to be. I want to be myself but I don't know how to be myself in Khmer. I don't know how to be the goofy person that I really am while in a completely different culture. I don't know how to make jokes in Khmer and I don't understand most Khmer humor...but I laugh along anyway to pretend that I know what's going on.

Since I can't have deep conversations with adults in Cambodia, I turn to the kids in Cambodia. Instead of trying to understand what they say (because children only speak gibberish), I just make weird noises and dance with them. This is the best way I've found to avert most depressive thoughts.

My dance friends


I have to constantly remind myself that this was never supposed to be easy. That it does take time. That it will get easier to talk to people here. That my language will get better. That I'll actually start doing something productive. But it doesn't negate my experience NOW. I know it will get better - it already has gotten better. But it's still f*@$ing hard. And I will always be hard on myself (unless, of course, I get hypnotized or something. Anyone know of any good hypnotists/Gruu Khmers in Takeo Province?)

Other than yearning for the weird, LOUD, and silly Laura to finally be released into the Cambodian wild, I also yearn to utilize my strengths. Shout out to the StrengthsFinder 2.0!!!! I took the Strengths Finder quiz back at my old job in the US of A. It was something that my co-workers and I were slightly obsessed about. My boss made a graph-type thing of all our co-workers, our shared and different strengths. It was awesome.

Anyway my strengths, based on this quiz, turned out to be Adaptability, Developer, Empathy, Positivity, and (my favorite) Woo.

I'm pretty sure I've nailed down my skill of adaptability. That one is a given. Although, I don't want to pretend that I'm really roughing it out here on the other side of the world. I have it incredibly easy as far as living, eating, and amenities go, actually. This is Posh Corps as far as I'm concerned, which I'm not (I'm not concerned.) Some of my friends live in a bona fide "shit hole" over here. Their words, not mine. I live in a mansion. I am very lucky.

Have you seen my house? This is my Khmer Mansion. Posh Corps4Lyfe.


The strength I'm most in tune to is Empathy however it's severely stifled. My energy in empathy is being channeled mostly toward characters in books, episodes of Parks & Recreation, and music rather than the people around me.

Part of me believes this is happening because of the empathy or lack thereof I've witnessed in Cambodia. I've heard from several people that the word "Empathy" doesn't even exist in the Khmer language. While that may be true, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist in the culture. It just means that it is expressed in a way that I cannot fully comprehend.

Some days in the health center I get so frustrated by the apathy of the staff. A child comes in with a gash in his head and there is laughter amongst the staff and parents when the child is screaming from the pain of the alcohol on his fresh wound. I cannot make sense this kind of reaction to pain and suffering. Laughter is often a reaction to discomfort or embarrassment in Khmer culture. How can I, as an outsider, understand whether or not the staff and parents are making fun or feeling discomfort, or empathy for this child? And how can I expect myself to try to understand this reaction given the country's dark and not so distant history?

I was reading a little something about Empathy and I seem to fall best into the "Personal Distress" category; where my ability to have empathy for a person can actually be detrimental for my own mental health and stress levels.

I think some of my empathy skills are muted in Cambodia but some are also EXTREMELY HEIGHTENED. For example, my host family had an aunt and uncle visiting from America today. It's been years since they've seen each other. I nearly started crying out of happiness for my host mom when she saw them. My host mom gave her aunt a HUG for crying out loud! Khmer people DON'T. HUG. This was a big deal and I could hardly compose myself.

My heightened empathy and overall emotions make me question my effectiveness and presence in the health center. I question my presence in the health center on a daily basis for many reasons, particularly for my extreme lack of medical expertise. But my ability to stomach the everyday illnesses and injuries is getting seriously tested and I'm not sure how good it is for my own sanity and wellbeing. There are some days that I see some pretty terrible things and feel myself getting pulled down, down, and down by the severity of health problems in this country. And for that to coincide with indifferent health care staff, I'm left feeling hopeless and still...useless.

HOWEVER! (I'm going to turn this around, I swear. I don't want you to leave my blog feeling depressed.) If I were sent here to improve health care in Cambodia, I wouldn't have been sent here! Wait, that's really confusing and poorly phrased. My title is Community Health Education Agent. For my remaining two years here, I will devote myself to the C in the CHE program. If I give myself time, I will be more comfortable in my community and the people in my community will be more comfortable with me. Through said comfort, I will build relationships and respect within the community. From there, I will make small steps to help my community take the right steps to improve their own lives. It's not about me, it's about the people here in this community and building on their strengths and abilities. I'm just going to act as a guiding force or maybe like a cow plowing the rice field or something.