Conversation #1 takes place at the dinner table, as my host mother is munching on a piece of dried dog meat, left over from the previous evening’s festivities.
Ma: Have you ever eaten dog?
Me: Yes, at ODOV’s office. But I do not
like to eat it.
Ma: Oh, it is very delicious. Do they eat
dog in Canada?
Me: No.
Ma: You have dogs though, right? You raise
them and feed them, but do not eat them?
Me: No. Dogs are like part of the family.
Ma: But even when they get old and die, you
still do not eat them?
Me: No. (Thinking: didn’t I just say like
they were part of the family??)
Conversation #2 takes place in the evening.
The family is hanging out in the living room after dinner watching television,
and I am studying Portuguese to give me a head start on the language learning
for when I move to Mozambique in September.
Ma: What are you doing?
Me: Studying Portuguese language. After I
leave Cambodia I am going to work in Africa for three years, and they do not
speak English. They speak Portuguese.
Ma: Oh! But Africa is so hot! What do you
do there?
Me: Similar to what I do at ODOV. I will
teach students at high school how to grow vegetables.
Ma: Will you get a salary there?
Me: No, but I will get a house and food and
a motorcycle, same as I do now.
Ma: Oh, I pity you! I know a Peace Corp
Volunteer (who used to live just up the street a couple years ago) who had to
move to China to teach English because it was so difficult for her to find a
job in America. I pity you. But Africa is so so hot, their skin is black black.
You should move to Thailand to find a job instead. Thailand is nice.
Me: (Tried to explain that temperature is
similar to Cambodia, but failed. There is this understanding in Cambodia that
skin colour is directly related to surrounding temperature, therefore Africa
must be a scorching desert. Within a country, variations in skin colour are
explained by what the mother ate during pregnancy).
I was about to try to explain that I am not
a migratory worker like all those Cambodians who leave home and poor job
markets behind and move to Thailand in search of a job. But then I thought,
maybe that is exactly what I am doing. I, along with all of the Peace Corps
Volunteers, English teachers in Korea, and international development workers,
am a part of the next generation of migrant workers, leaving home behind in
search of a new way of life.
Speaking of migrating to new places, most
of you probably already know that I am preparing to go to Mozambique in
September. But before that, I am migrating back home for the month of August, a
time that is swiftly approaching. I only have a couple of weeks’ worth of
productive workdays left at ODOV. My last day in Mesang is the 12th
of July. My sister Janet is also coming to visit me for the first week of July
when she finishes her teaching job in Korea. I am super excited for that. The
other SALTers and I have prepared a list of all of the things we want to do in
the city in our last few days together before the three of us fly out on the 17th
of July. Even though we leave Cambodia on the 17th of July, I won’t
return to New Brunswick until the 1st of August because I must
attend a SALT re-entry retreat in the States, as well as a general orientation
to prepare for going to Mozambique.
So, with only a couple weeks total left at
ODOV, this is as good a time as any to give an update on what I’ve been working
on the past few months. At the beginning of May ODOV got some fantastic news.
They’ve received a very large grant from the Canadian Food Grains Bank to implement
a three year Integrated Community Development Project. This is basically a
repeat of a three-year project funded by MCC that just finished in March, with
a few changes based on their previous experience. Through this project ODOV
helps establish village banks and agriculture cooperatives so farmers can save
money and access low interest rate loans; trains farmers in sustainable
agriculture and nutritious food preparation; and provides the inputs necessary
for farmers to make natural fertilizer and start small home-gardens, fish, and
chicken raising. It was an incredibly valuable learning experience for me to be
a part of that whole process from project proposal, defining objectives and
project indicators, draft after draft back and forth with MCC advisors and CFGB
funding staff, and finally approval! I also worked with the executive director
of ODOV to make a baseline survey for the project which he later translated
into Khmer. I was present when he held a meeting with the field staff to
explain the survey. Afterwards, the staff practiced the survey on each other. I
told Thea she could ask me the questions and I could follow along since the questions
were also printed in English. Through lack of imagination, I started answering
the survey listing the ages and occupations of my real family in Canada.
However, it was soon apparently that we own nothing of value: no animals (cats
and dogs don’t count), no water pump, no ox-cart, not even a motorcycle. Pretty
soon I had to start making things up. Imagine a family that doesn’t have so
much as one square meter of rice field! I had us making a modest income selling
fish from our fish pond and pumpkins and cucumbers from our garden as well. I
suppose it is true that we have a garden and a fish pond at home, though most
Cambodians would probably shake their head in confusion at the handful of
goldfish and all the flowers and trees that aren’t good for eating. Most
Cambodians are at least a bit impressed though when I tell them I sometimes
help my father grow vegetables.
Back from the bunny trail… I have also been
updating ODOV’s website some more, helping with other grant proposals, working
on organizing ODOV’s database, and of course, planting vegetables! The vegetable
growing slacked off during the holidays in April, and then it was too hot to
really grow anything besides green onions. But now things are picking up again.
I have two beds of tomatoes grown from seeds I saved from the previous crop.
Since the original seeds were from an unknown source, we weren’t even sure if
any seeds saved would be viable, but they seem to be coming along splendidly! I
hope they held up alright under all that rain we had last night. From now on,
any rain in Canada will seem but a drizzle, and most thunderstorms will seem
brief, and mild.
Along with the rains come poor roads, which
is unfortunate as I have a lot of traveling ahead of me in this next month!
Next year, the road will be paved all the way out to Mesang making travel much easier.
I’m almost sorry that the road will be paved as it will surely mean that Mesang
will lose the rural feel I’ve come to love. I’m not sure if any of you are up
on Cambodian news, but there is an election coming up at the end of July, hence
the new road. In addition to reading the Cambodian news, I try to read the BBC world
news every now and again, as well as CBC’s New Brunswick news. It’s so easy
just to get caught up in our own small world and not be in touch with what’s
going on around the globe. This is true of Cambodians just as it is of
Canadians. If I was more eloquent in speech and more philosophical in thought,
I could probably come up with a very striking statement about ironies of
reading the New Brunswick news from Cambodia. I made note this year of every
time animals feature in the headlines of the New Brunswick news. Here’s a few
that I can remember off the top of my head: it was proven with genetics that
that guy actually did shoot a wolf in northern NB, a series of ongoing articles
about Tiny the 30lb cat rescued by the SPCA, formation of a moose corridor
between NB and NS to help with moose breeding, the day someone skinned a wild animal
and left it on a lamppost in downtown Fredericton, and my personal favourite:
two collisions caused by one family of ducks on the Vanier Highway in
Fredericton. Two ducks died, but no one else sustained any serious injuries.
I love New Brunswick. I love that I grew up
in a place where people care enough about fender benders and baby ducks that it
makes the front page news. Here, in a country barely bigger in land mass than
New Brunswick, the news is rife with political corruption, land grabbing and
forced evictions (largely thanks to political corruption), illegal logging,
false conviction and jailing of innocent people to cover up said forced
evictions and illegal logging, garment factory strikes due to low wages and
working conditions, and other human rights violations (in addition to previous
topics). Sometimes I wonder: if I grew up caring that much about overweight
cats and lonely moose, how can I care about all those poor workers, displaced
and voiceless peoples, and bulldozed forests without being overwhelmed? I’m not
really sure what my point in all this is. I’m not saying that New Brunswickers
should stop caring about ducks for then it would cease to be the home I love;
we just need to remember that caring about those things is a privilege of the
greatest kind, and we should at the same time keep perspective, not ignoring
the needs of others in our communities and in our world.
That’s all the reflections for now. I’ll be
busy the next few weeks what with traveling, finishing up at ODOV, and moving
back to the city, but I’ll try to write one last time before I leave. If not,
I’ll write to you again from Akron, Pennsylvania!
Yours truly,
Rebecca
PS, Can't remember if I've introduced these guys on the blog yet or not. Oh well, you can never get too much kitten cuteness.
In loving memory of Merida- the a most curious and adventurous cat who found out too late that mean black dog downstairs doesn't make a good friend. |
Alternately called pumpkin pie, cinnamon, custard, cream... really whatever food I happen to be hungry for at the moment. |
An old picture from October-ish. The road to Mesang as it looks during the rainy season. No, I did not get wet while driving that time, but I have gotten wet since! |