All Packed Up | 080508

080508 All packed up…

All packed up for our overnight trip back to the hub site. It’s hard to believe we’ve already been at our host family’s place for a week. Over all I would have to say we couldn’t be more satisfied with this place. The family is really great, our living space is just fine and we’re learning new phrases every day. Although I admit the 4 hour language training classes do get to be a bit draining. It’s hard to want to sit down and practice anymore, or try and rack your brains when you’re with your family because your head is already so full from the morning.

We leave tomorrow at 6:45am on a minibus (small van) and all 14 of us will ride in it. It’s hard not to become an early riser here with all the commotion that happens so early in the morning. Maybe jet lag is still on my side; as most know I’m not the best at getting up early. But here I think we start hearing brooms sweep around 5am (or maybe earlier). The roosters crow rather early as well, and everyone in the neighborhood has at least two dogs barking right at sunrise.
The last two mornings have been exceptionally busy. It’s the national 12th grade exam, and our host cousin Riat is taking his exam right now. We have a few extra guests (teachers/and a few policeman) staying in the house-hold for the last 2 days too. Apparently they have EXTRA security while all the students take the exam as they don’t want anyone cheating. So that means many teachers are on call to watch and they bring in extra policemen to ensure that all is fair and square. Students who pass the national exam are then eligible to go to University if they wish.
Overall it’s a pretty big deal and Riat explained (gestured) to us that he was really nervous.

Oh one thing that I didn’t mention yet from yesterday’s post was that my host mom, Sopeap, showed me how to sew (sort of) on her push pedal sewing machine! I closed up the sarong that she gave me as a gift, and put elastic in it (as I’m not able to properly get it to stay up without the elastic. So anyway- that was kind of fun. I still need to learn how to tell her that I got a sewing machine last Christmas from Will and I am still learning how to use that thing.

Hmm… I guess not toooo much else is going on. Hopefully I’m able to post everything I want to tomorrow. We’re sort of limited on time as we have seminar all day long. So we’ll see.

Hope all is well back home. Feel free to drop a line. Take care & eat lots of ice cream for me.

Oh speaking of ice cream…. one funny quick story. Durian is a fruit that is grown here. People either love it or hate it. Note there are a few places in some towns that have signs that say something along the lines of “no eat durian here” because they have a really bad stench. Apparently they do taste good to a number of people, or maybe it’s some sort of after taste thing. But, I have already decided that I hate it. Last week Will bought a bag full of durian flavored taffy candy and shared it with all of us trainees. Most of us, not knowing what the flavor was, willingly and open-mindedly grabbed some of ‘new’ Cambodian candy from the bag. About 10 seconds into chewing, Will found that most people were running to the nearest garbage can to spit it out. I don’t think Will’s intention was to lose everyone’s trust when he offered up a treat, but that is definitely what happened. Then yesterday afternoon in the middle of language break, we heard the ice-cream cart going up and down the street. Being it was a fairly hot afternoon and we still had an hour of language lessons left, Will offered to buy our class (5ppl total) an ice cream treat. So he went to the stand and paid 500 Riels (which according to our host brother was the going price, even for a foreigner) and picked out a few different flavors. They were basically little ice-cream-sicles. A couple of different colors were available and both Deidre and I picked yellow. We took our first bite and immediately were reminded of that awful taste and smell of the durian taffy’s. We both glared at Will and scolded him. But he claims (as he started to bust out laughing pretty hard) that he swears he thought they were banana flavored. I just don’t know how many more things I’m going to be able to try that Will offers up!

Oh well. I had better get to bed. All the best and more when I get the chance.
-over and out…. smb