Nerd Alert

Let me try to paint a picture of my life the last 24 hours. After school yesterday, which consisted of two hours I spent observing my co-teacher (or making a wish list of where I want to travel.) I went home to enjoy another bowl of rice and stir fried pumpkin stems for lunch. Took a nap, read my book then went on an hour long bike ride into the country, farther out there than I already am shockingly. The surprises I found were the E.U. donated money, or came in and made, the road I was riding on last year, hence why it was so nice. It cost $2,257 US dollars to make a 3 room/buildings Primary School (thank you Vision Fund for printing that on the entrance to the school) in the countryside of Cambodia. And I also saw my first birdhouse. It was at a super nice and big house way far out there (the real reason I kept riding was to see this large house) and instead of a Buddha temple, like most houses have, it seemed to actually be a birdhouse. I am convinced this is Angelina Jolie’s house- perhaps she would have more security. Side note: Maddox is from my province; her house is actually close to me along with her orphanage or school she built in honor of her son. (Or to cover up the fact she broke the law by basically stealing him, which is tidbit of knowledge that depressed me) Anyways those were the big events of that endeavor, and it started raining in the last 15 minutes of the bike ride. Oh, and I only had to out bike one dog! Success. So I came home, showered — or poured buckets of water over myself hoping that there were no mosquitoes or mosquito-eating-fish in my bucket, while I trying not to trip over the urinal in the floor that is my toilet. Then possibly the most traumatizing experience yet occurred. It was funny at first, when one uncle was squirming and screaming about something in the bucket. Then I looked and it was a fat snake, about a meter long. First thoughts, did my host dad bring that back from the farm as a joke? Did someone actually catch that? And are we going to eat it? Then another uncle is called from our backyard, through our house to the house across the street to come help. I hope you can imagine how loud my host mom screamed…. He comes he flexing his muscles, laughing and asking me the English name. SNAKE. Then proceeds to cover his hands in soot and wrestle the snake eventually cutting its throat. It’s about to go down hill fast. (This is where I almost vomit and have to leave.) He then cuts out the spine with all the blood going into a bucket (that I have and will probably use again to wash my clothes) and slits the neck again. So the snake no longer has a spine or whatever is in a snake alone the spine region and is completely open perhaps like a fish fillet. Then the snake then BITES him! And he proceeds to rip out its teeth, like no big deal. This is also when I realize it’s still squirming around too. You would think: this is the moment where I almost lost it. Nope. It was right after that when he poured said bucket of blood out onto the concrete and into the “drain.” This is the same location where I sit on a stool to wash my dishes or do my laundry. Just lovely. This is when I lost it, and had to retreat to my room and fan. After my mom stir-fried the poor guy it seemed like another dish with vegetables. Perhaps if I had never seen it being killed, I would have tried it. However my previous plan to become a carnivore and desensitize myself to meat before coming here has failed. I realized back at home, I could disassociate meat from the source, and enjoy the bloody things. Yet that is IMPOSSIBLE here, and the association of animal to my food is the reasons I became a vegetarian in the first place. Seeing pig heads for sale, full slabs of meat – I mean one day I watched a man pull half a hog (one front leg and one back) out of a metal bowl tied to the back of a motorbike, or seeing about 50 chickens tied by the feet to motorbike hasn’t quite been an easy adjustment to eating meat again. And those are the just animals most people eat for protein state side as well. I’ve also seen frogs (also last night at my house), crickets, tarantulas, congealed blood, friends of mine have had dog served to them, turtles…. not exactly a vegetarian paradise. And yes Buddhist followers are tolerant of other religions, but being sensitive to vegetarianism hasn’t seemed to fall under the same category. Back to my 24 hrs… I cooled off from my horrible dinner experience with 3 episodes of Scrubs. Which, I now love! It’s unfortunate that I found season 3 at the Peace Corps office, so I’m really not sure of the entire background story. But I do know I can buy the complete show for like 20 bucks at the mall in Phnom Penh…. This morning I woke up at 6:30 not wanting to get out of bed for my 8 o’clock class, only realizing that when I have 7 am class –like tomorrow- I’ll be leaving at that time. As I stepped out of my windowless room, to retrieve water to make coffee and oatmeal, I realized it was raining. Then debated for about 5 minutes if I should go, because last week only one student showed up in the rain. But seeing my sister decided to go, I should to. And we had a full class too. But really the trauma in going to school in the rain would be I would have to wear a poncho, because Cambodia knows how to rain! A poncho is the best thing when riding your bike though, covers the knees and the back and the seat! However when you add the fact that I have to wear a helmet (thank you mama Peace Corps) it is quite a scene. I had my huge green poncho with a hood, then my helmet on top of that riding a bike. 1. I am the only teacher to ride a bike. 2. Half the student body rides motorbikes, a quarter ride bikes, and the rest walk. 3. No on wears helmets on bikes, ever. 4. Less than half of people who drive motorbikes own helmets, never the two other people on the bike, and at the driver might be wearing it or maybe just has it on the handle bars. So I felt kind of like a fool. And I had to come home for lunch in the rain, return for afternoon lessons in the rain, and come back home in the rain. Perhaps this is a costume I am just going to have to get used to. And I’m not saying that wearing a helmet is bad, or that I’m not going to wear it, just that I look like a fool.