Two months down, two years to go!

And just like that … training was over. The language proficiency exam is done. Our community project is complete and I am just two days away from swearing in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer. I know I haven’t updated you all in a while, so I’ll do my best to catch up on the highlights.

I can now say I survived amoebas! When I see a bottle of water, I assume that it is bottled water. But you know what happens when you assume. During my site visit, I drank some water that may or may not have been sterilized and ended up sicker than I have ever been in my life. As I was trying to nap on the bathroom floor (I can not be happier to say that my new family has hot running water, a western style shower and toilet) while frantically texting our medical officer because I thought I might actually die, my host family informed me that they were surprised I hadn’t gotten sick sooner. Glad they weren’t too concerned. Amoebas are single cell animals – oh yes, animals – that live in your stomach and populate until your body rejects them violently. Easily cured with a 3-day drug that turns your blood to formaldehyde if mixed with alcohol. No joke. At least I have a story to tell my children that rivals my parents’: “I had to walk to school in the snow up a hill both ways.”

Always the novelty princess, I also managed to take up yet another hobby. While in Phnom Penh, I bought a guitar! Tiffany got one too and I think some of the other PCTs are going to grab one on their way to permanent site. We aren’t allowed to leave our provinces for the first three months, so we’re going to have plenty of time on our hands. I try to play for about an hour a day and one of the K1’s offered to teach me a few basics when we are at the Hub for swear-in. I already know how to play a two octave scale and a few chords, but I’m not the rockstar I am when playing Guitar Hero. Give me two years though and we’ll see.

In local news, today was the last day of the two week Pchum Ben festival. Every morning at 4 a.m. the monks begin chanting over loudspeakers commemorating the community’s ancestors. Everyone comes to the temple before sunrise to throw sticky balls of rice around the Wat to appease their ancestors who have ended up in Hell. At 9 a.m., people return to the temple with more food – this time, for the monks. I opted out of the 4 a.m. ceremony (I could hear the festivities just fine from my bedroom), but I did attend one of the mid-morning ceremonies. With all the little nuns in the corner gossiping, kids running amok while their parents yelled at them, and pot-luck style buffet of food, I could have sworn I was at a church picnic in Hollidaysburg.

Another big highlight was our end-of-training community project. We split into several groups, designed and implemented a one-day community event. I am happy to say that my group’s “American Game Day” was a huuuge success!! Tiffany, Franz, Rebecca and I organized a field day at the local primary school. We taught about 40 kids how to bob for apples, play tug-of-war, have a three-legged race and water-balloon toss. They absolutely couldn’t get enough. They also couldn’t get enough of the prizes we had for them. They swarmed around us like sharks when they saw we had toys. I was actually a little worried when they started fighting each other in line to get closer to the grab bag, so I put Franz on prize duty and watched the mayhem from a distance. It was awesome to see the kids so involved as they wobbled across the sand pit arm-in-arm during the three-legged race, and when the girls kicked the boys’ butts bobbing for apples. It was, by far, the most exhausting, but gratifying morning yet.

Now that we’ve finished our community project and language lessons, we haven’t had any structured lesson time. We’ve been cooking together, hanging out, watching movies and gossiping. During all this free time, the girls decided it would be fun to get traditional Khmai ceremonial clothes made for swear-in. We will all wear our teaching skirts (sampots) and traditional shirts. Mine is made out of metallic mauve lace. No, you probably haven’t seen anything like it in Vogue lately … but I’m pretty sure your grandmother has curtains just like it. I’ll post pictures for blackmail later, don’t worry.

Next time I write – I’ll be an official volunteer! :)