“Being boring is a choice. Those mild salsas and pleated khakis don’t buy themselves. And so it is with happiness – a choice.”   -Eric Weiner, from “The Geography of Bliss” 

Sorry for this unorganized post. There have been lots of little exciting events that have taken place in the past few weeks, so I’m relying on my chicken-scratch notepad outline to help guide me in relaying them to you.

Basically, I love the APCA setting. It’s a 1.5 hour taxi ride to PP, where I can buy just about any necessity I need. Including chocolate and Pringles - more on that in just a second.

Last weekend I came to PP to pick up the new American volunteer! I’m so excited to have Jessica at APCA with me; it’s nice to have someone to bounce teaching ideas off of and help out with the teaching load. We were on the same Semester at Sea voyage! Once we get into our normal routine, we’ll each be teaching three classes. This means I’ll actually have time to plan more for my classes and get semi-organized! A very good thing.

The two of us came into PP again this week – it was time to renew our visas (I can’t believe I’ve been here a month already!) so we are taking the opportunity to stock up on school supplies and food. I also visited my favorite $7/hr masseuse Lhsya – she failed to disappoint again. This time, she didn’t play around with my funny bones. Instead, it was like she was taking the sharp curved part of a hammer and prying apart all the muscles that I used to have memorized which make up my hamstrings. Still, I love that lady and the pain she puts me through, so I’ll return.

Next topic: Food. I could go on for hours about all of the thousands of feelings I encountered when I stepped into a full-on American style grocery store at 8am on a Friday morning. I was the only customer, there was American music playing (Michael Buble, if I recall correctly), and it seemed that every aisle was staffed with a cute, friendly employee just waiting to help me.

After rice and fish for three meals a day for nearly a month, I kind of went crazy. The sugar content didn’t matter and the prices certainly didn’t matter. I just wanted to stock up on any sort of familiar food. Preferably the most chocolate-y kind of anything. I ended up making three grocery store trips to two different stores in the weekend. Peanut butter, REAL Pringles, Crystal Light, Cranberry Juice, Hershey’s syrup, 3 Musketeers! I won’t bore you with the details, but it was the only time so far where I thought to myself, “I wish I was traveling with someone!” I wanted to share this exciting, overwhelming, and satisfying experience with someone who knew just how much comfort and happiness a can of Pringles can bring (they had more than just Original, too! Pizza flavored, BBQ…I’ll stop my Pringles rant).

Each weekend, I really enjoy getting to know PP a little better. Even the tuk-tuk drivers outside the guesthouse I stayed at remembered my name and wanted to chat again. And by chat, I mean that we try to converse in Khmglish. Only knowing, “thank you”, “delicious”, 1-20, “a little”, “no problem”, and “I don’t know” makes it limiting. Everyday I’m working on it though, and the kids love correcting my pronunciation (which needs a lot of correcting).

Highlights from the past few weeks (so you have an idea about the posted pictures).

-A visit from a Korean acupuncturist. It was the weirdest thing. The Korean NGO that supports APCA occasionally has an acupuncturist visit. When I asked what the purpose of this visit was, I was told to prevent the kids from getting sick – that was all the explanation I received. Some kids were very excited and willing to get a needle twisted into their finger and another one (or two) in their feet. When I asked others if they wanted to do it they said, “No!” but then after we ate rice I came back inside and saw that all the kids were being prodded. Some were crying and others were trying not to. Even the two youngest kids just sat there quiet and patient as a rock (are rocks patient?). “Maliss, you want accupuncta?” I was asked. After I politely declined with the excuse that I didn’t feel sick at all, it was followed up by, “but don’t you want to be more beautiful?”

I should say that I don’t have anything against acupuncture. Mom used to get it done and benefitted from it; the only thing I didn’t like was the black licorice looking marbles that she brought home one day and I tried out - without knowing for certain what it was. And it certainly wasn’t black licorice, or anything resembling candy. Then she told me how expensive each of those black balls were. Sorry Mom!

I love shopping in hot, crowded markets with a twelve cent waffle in one hand and ice and Coke in a bag in the other. I realize this sounds pretty drug-related, but I assure you it’s not. Just a small plastic bag with crushed ice and a can of Coke poured into it with a straw sticking out. Pair that with five acres of fake North Face and Birkenstocks and Molly couldn’t be happier (except if you handed her some Pringles).

Week #2 of line dancing. More Akon music = more kids getting their groove on. It’s nice to give them a break from their daily Khmer dance lessons. It’s fun to hear ten year old Cambodian’s say, “Kick ball chain, Kick ball chain…” (you’d love it, Liz).

The past week I taught body parts to one of the classes, so this week Jessica and I taught them the Hokey Pokey. The monks that recently joined the previous classes asked to stay for the lesson, but once they heard Dora The Explorer’s Hokey Pokey song on the speakers, they slowly found their way back to the pagoda.

All of the boys play volleyball in any free moment they have. Last week, I decided to join some of them instead of playing football with the younger kids. One of the older boys became really excited when he realized my name rhymes with ‘volley’. So, I explained to them that in ninth grade, when I played volleyball for my first and final year, someone came and watched me play and saw how good I was, so they said, “No more ‘volleyball’ – we’ll call it ‘Mollyball”. So, now in America nobody calls it ‘volleyball’ anymore. Needless to say, instead of being referred to as, “Teecha” or “Maliss”, “Mollyball” is my new APCA name.

Fun fact: in Bhutan, they believe that every time you sneeze, that means someone is thinking of you. So, I’d like to thank everyone who has been keeping me in their thoughts. This PP air is so different than APCA’s country air. I think thirteen sneezes in one day is a lot for me. It’s also a little awkward when you’re lying face down with your skull being karate-chopped and you’re afraid of releasing the sneeze because it might scare poor Lhsya. Don’t worry. I was able to somehow manage.

New things I will blog about next: Valentine’s Day! Jessica and I are looking forward to making it the best day ever for us and the kids: candy, balloons, Valentines, and even the cute red heart envelopes that we made in second grade to hang on our desks. We’re pretty excited. I will also write about how amazingly independent and energetic the littlest kids are. I teach them every morning, and although it’s hard and frustrating at times, my frustration disappears later on in the day when they climb into my lap and want to cuddle.