Rocking the Sampot

Hello Readers,

I had composed a great pitch to post on here, however the sheet has disappeared into the chaos of my bag and cannot be recovered. So I’ll start with an apologizing for the unorganized post as the good stories come to me in my remaining moments at the internet cafe on the coast of Cambodia.

I will start with the day I decided running would be an excellent idea, mainly due to the copious amounts of rice and food my host family has been feeding me. However as you have gathered Cambodia is a humid hot country right now, so this was quite the undertaking. But I laced up my nikes, left my house and did a running motion to my family and attempted to say I would be back soon. I think the Ï have my cellphone” hand motion gave them the certainty to not follow me. My house is located basically in the market, so I had quite the audience as I made it to the rural road. As I turned the corner to the rice fields, the best sighting of all occurred. There was a 2 year old boy with a barbie head from a “mysize”barbie or something and he was dragging it by the hair. A great way to start my run for sure. Then going through the rice fields was amazing! The fields are very green and have palm trees planted everywhere around them- my guess is to distinguishing crops -and also these palm trees are in a natural enviroment, which i love. unlike some other places i have lived *cough socal cough** and also along this road is a beautiful wat- pagoda- that is amazing. So after this peaceful jog through the beautiful country side, i turn back on the main road to head back to my house and as im making the last turn a huge dog comes charging me out of no where, the fake out and string of ädult”words didnt do much, however the laughing locals and one g-ma with a stick helped me out a bit. needless to say i will be running with a stick from now on.

Learning the language has been interesting… my teacher says i need to work on my pronunciation. my family says i speak khmer sweetly. i guess that is putting it nicely. haha

Life right now is 6 days of week training and one day off. my day is composed of 4 hrs of language in the morning, a 1 hr lunch break then 4 hours of seminar classes on how to teach or other PC things. Then being at home with the family. nothing happens after sundown and women especially cannot be out after dark.

So my family is a big part of my life here.  I have a mom and dad that are around their 50s and own a restaurant, and their daughter and nephew, 24 and 18, work in their restaurant, and a set of grandparents in their 80s who cook for the restaurant at my house and transport food to the market (where the restaurant is) all live in my house. Then mom’s sister owns a market stall selling garlic…i think. And mom’s brother and wife own another stall selling baby products. They all eat dinner with us every night. PLus the ten dogs. And then another set of grandparents own a shop and house is attached to the market  that is also related and constantly around. As my friend here described my family one day, which is quite accurate, I live with the tsars of the market, they know everyone!!

And they way we discovered this…. I came home from language training ready to test some of my new words. I headed into the market with some friends, immediately saw my mom, said hello, and continued on our search for fruit. Before the time I got back she had already heard that I was buying fruit from another friend. And was confused why I needed to be buying fruit my the time I got home, and I wasnt even the one who purchased anything. haha. But on the flip side, this family loves me enough that they had fruit in the basket of my bike the next morning for me.

I feel like I have written an essay, hopefully gives you enough information to know I am alive and loving life here.

Also I am currently in a coastal town on a visit to another Peace Corps volunteers site, so i am happy as a clam.  Side note I dont have internet much obviously, but do have a cell phone so if you want to hear my lovely voice or shoot me a text. Please email me or call my mom/brothers to figure that out.

Ps where the title comes in.. i feel like this is the vain of my existant here and it must be noted. Traditional women’s skirt’, the sampot, is this wrap skirt made out of the thickest fabric possible, rumored that is the same as curtains, and it goes down to your ankles. A completely logically make up for a sweltering hot country, is the uniform I am blessed to wear to teach in every day. And have to wear during training way too often. So when you start to sweat back in the states multiply that feeling my 100 and you can sympathize with me.

miss you all, xoxo leslie