If there’s one thing that Cambodia doesn’t have a shortage of, it’s public holidays. In the time I’ve been here, we’ve observed over half a dozen of them, and the thing that sets Cambodian holidays apart is that one day off magically turns into two or three.  A holiday falling on a Wednesday means a five day weekend. The ‘big kahuna’ holiday, Khmer New Year, is drastically inflated. The official holiday lasts three days in mid-April, but as I learned, that unofficially means the whole week.  Plus, many of the teachers at Khmer school don’t come to class the two weeks before OR after the holiday – which means a three day holiday becomes one month of vacation. I told you! Pretty darn drastic.

The last holiday was a week ago. The country had one day off to celebrate the King’s birthday, so Diana and I decided to head to the southwestern part of the country near the city of Koh Kong. Diana had found online an awesome eco-lodge just south of the city so we stayed there for two nights. It’s called 4 Rivers Eco-Lodge and it’s by far one of the coolest places I’ve ever been. The resort has twelve floating tents on a secluded river and it’s only accessible by boat. The air conditioned rooms are heavenly, the food is delicious, and there are great little excursions offered.  The tents are so awesome I want to live in one someday (http://www.exclusivetents.com/)

One night we rode full speed in a speedboat in the pitch dark looking for fireflies. They were easy to spot because they all convene around one big tree and light up in unison – I’d never seen anything like it before. We also spent a morning at a nearby fishing village playing with the cute little kids and having them show us around their pagoda and school.  It didn’t seem that they were used to seeing many foreigners, as they poked and prodded at Diana’s legs while giggling uncontrollably.

After our two days of paradise were finished, we headed to Koh Kong, where we spent one night. We hired a boat driver for the day and had him take us to another fishing village and Koh Kong Island. After our two hour boat ride, we arrived to a totally empty and deserted beach – clear blue water and all. We beach-combed and swam for a little too long – my lip became severely sunburnt and would take four days and $84 to heal. But that’s later.

The beach was so wonderful it felt fictitious. But our bliss was over, and the next morning we began our journey to Chi Phat, a fishing village two hours away.

The next two days were what you’d call an adventure. Imagine a small, desolate, Cambodian fishing village combined with Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. The one main dirt road is lined with boarded up wooden houses and the horses and buggies can be heard every few minutes transporting the vegetables, fish, or construction materials through the village. In the center of this road is the Cambodian Eco-Tourism headquarters, a small, open-aired building with a miniscule restaurant and a large, handmade map of the Chi Pat area. It is from this map that the ‘eco-tourist’ chooses their excursions; anywhere from a three day trek to an afternoon bike ride. The prices were incredibly reasonable, and the best part was that some of the villagers ran small guesthouses in their homes for $5 a night.

After thirty minutes of standing in front of the map and sorting through their itinerary binders, Diana and I decided on a waterfall bike ride, sunset viewing via moto, and a day-long river-boat ride (with possible gibbon sightings).

I won’t go too in depth about the next 48 hours, because overall they were great. The area is gorgeous and much greener and mountainous than we’re used to. The people were more than friendly and so accommodating. However, it was hot. We think in the 100’s. Our previous day in the sun proved to be our worst enemy. Because of my burns, I had to wear a long-sleeve shirt the whole time. Because of my now blistered, swollen, puss-filled, yellow, hardened lip, I couldn’t leave our room without covering up with my purple bandana. It was impossible to drink water without a straw, tooth-brushing was unbearable, and smiling was out of the question. To add to my discomfort, the village only has electricity for two hours every evening.  So, we would hurry back to our room from dinner right at 7pm and turn on the small fan. We did our best to fall asleep by 9pm so that our sweat wouldn’t make falling asleep impossible.

On our three-hour long bike ride, my discomfort quickly escaladed. I am a woman, and when I ride on a bike fitted with a male’s bike seat, I feel like……I won’t go into the description, but it wasn’t comfortable since the terrain was pretty rough. When our guide (who spoke zero English) hopped off his bike and pointed to a trail, we followed him by foot to the waterfall. Since the rain hasn’t hit hard here yet, it wasn’t flowing massively, but there was enough water to take a dip.

I was treading water and realizing how strange it feels to be wearing a long sleeve shirt while swimming when Diana comes out from around the rock where she was changing. “I think I had a leech on my leg!? I pulled it off, though.” she says, much less frantically than I would have been. “Really?” I say, “Did it hurt?”. She said she didn’t feel it at all until she saw it – she had previously taken a tumble while we were crossing a river, so we assumed it had been on her since. Right at the time she fully entered the water, I casually glanced down at my hand and saw something small and black on my ring finger. Oh my GOSH! Yes, it was a leech. I tried to pull it off but I couldn’t – the thing was attached like glue. I kicked my way over to Diana and as she attempted to pull it off it quickly expanded around my finger like a ring. Thank goodness Diana was there; otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to pull it off on my own. Knowing that it’s sucking your blood AND getting bigger by the second is petrifying. She was able to pull it off me and I clumsily maneuvered myself out of the water and across the slippery rocks to examine the rest of my body.

AHHHH! One more! This time the side of my big toe was POURING blood and after I attempted to pull the leech off, our guide thankfully stepped in and yanked it off. He probably thought the whole thing was hilarious.

On our journey back to the village an hour later, we stopped to cross a river and I looked down. MORE BLOOD! Good lord, they loved me. There was blood oozing out from between all of my toes on my left foot. “Diana!” I yelled to her as she was stepping off her bike. She looked down and this time her reply was, “I have to sit. I might faint”. So I spread apart my toes and found one little black leech hiding in the fold of my pinky toe. I was able to pull it off this time and I rinsed my foot in the water, which provided no relief since it was about 2,349 degrees.  

The rest of the bike ride was delightfully uneventful and leech-free.

Once we returned to Phnom Penh (Yay! Electricity!)  I visited a doctor to see about my lip. I was given cream to put on it daily and then he sent me in to see his nurse. The nurse spent about twenty minutes with alcohol-drenched gauze in one hand and tweezers in the other. He pulled off my dead, infected layers of blistered skin to uncover the most sensitive, pink, and cracked undercoating. He would pause to show me the yellow puss-covered gauze before applying a new piece which stung like crazy. I left the doctor’s office with a white lip (from the cream) and noticed many stares while walking to the market. I am thankful to say, one week later, that my poor lip is completely healed and my blood-sucked finger and feet are doing okay.

The children were incredibly concerned about my lip when we returned to APCA that evening. However, once I explained that I was given medicine for it and that it would soon be healed, they thought it was hilarious.   

So, on to the next holiday! This time it’s the King’s mother’s birthday, so the country will enjoy a day or two of rest to observe her 74^th year of age. I plan to pack my sunscreen and head to Malaysia to visit a college friend. I’ve never been to Kuala Lumpur before, so I’m excited to explore a different city. When I return I’ll be ONE month away from coming home to civilization! Woo hoo!

“All I want to do is BICYCLE!.....”

And that is the song that plays in my head every morning at 6am when I hop out of my already sun-drenched bed to join Diana on our daily bike ride. About two weeks ago we each invested in a $40 used bicycle. I named mine right away. Her name is ‘Gong Sabai’, which means ‘happy bike’ in Khmer. And a happy bike she is! Her shiny, perfectly pitched little bell comes in handy as we maneuver through herds of cows. Her beautifully un-dented white wire basket (it won’t stay that way for long) comes in just as handy since Gong Sabai’s rider can’t seem to stay hydrated in the early morning heat and needs to bring frozen water bottles with her. We spend over an hour each morning getting lost in the rural dirt roads. We ride through small villages where the mothers holding their toddlers stare at us as we pass by. I think their first thought is, “Who the heck are these two white girls?” and then after we smile at them and say hello it changes to, “Where the heck are they going?” In addition to the confused mothers, we also pass pagodas, monks who are out for their morning offerings, children walking to school, and dogs who have nothing better to do than to run after the two white girls. Sometimes APCA kids will join us if they don’t have class, and it’s funny to see villagers’ reactions when they see Diana and me pedaling along with a pack of 8 teenage boys.

Bikes haven’t been the only exciting new addition to our daily routine. Thanks to the donations Diana and I have received (THANK YOU AUNT HELENE!), we each bought a netbook just like I mentioned in my last post. Now, whenever we aren’t teaching a class, we’re monitoring two kids on Rosetta Stone.  It’s an awesome program because it’s self-paced, so we just have to slap two kids down on the computers and give them headsets. Okay, maybe ‘slap’ isn’t the right word. But anyway, it’s really fun for the kids and they all enjoy it. Diana and I can’t go outside without someone yelling our name and motioning like they are playing an invisible piano, “Maliss! Computa?”

Cinco de Mayo has come and gone already? Crazy. Diana and I treated the Amret staff to our ‘cooking’. We decided to make tacos. This meant a trip to the international grocery store in PP to get taco shells and wraps ($5 for 10 wraps!!!), big cans of chili, lots of fake cheese (we couldn’t risk it melting in the 90 degree sun), olives and salsa. Add some onions, tomatoes, and 5 Amret staff who only shop at the local village market, and you’ve got a lot of explaining to do! Can openers, hard vs. soft tacos, how to fold the soft tacos, fake cheese, American eating habits, Mexican Independence Day (which we didn’t know much about), tequila….the list goes on. Let’s just say that Diana and I each had thirds (we have a picture of our clean plates to prove it) and most of the staff enjoyed the tacos, but not nearly as much as their teachers.

Next new development: Diana and I bought three swing sets and a slide! It was very exciting to have them delivered and watch as the little ones couldn’t wait to hop on and try them out. It was a great, fairly cheap investment for the kids; there is rarely a time when the swings are all empty, and it give us a good place to visit in the evening while star gazing and singing,” You Are My Sunshine”.  One of the swing sets is painted pink, which is pretty cool.

The boys’ dorm is finished! They are all moved in and the monks came last week for the blessing. One of the monks who came to perform the blessing is in my big kid class, so it was fun to see him do ‘monk’ things for the first time. As soon as the blessing was finished it was move-in time for the boys, who quickly and excitedly boxed up their belongings and organized their space. It’ll start raining regularly pretty soon, so the timing is perfect.

From my hotel room in Saigon (I had to leave Cambodia to renew my visa), I’m looking at these posted pictures like it’s not even me who took them. As much as I know each of the kids and their amazing personalities, it doesn’t even seem like this experience is real. I still find myself thinking, “How did I get here? In rural Cambodia? With 69 kids? Riding bikes with them, playing Bingo with them, teaching them about superlatives and comparatives..” It’s been an amazing experience and I’m so thankful I have two months left to soak it all up.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! I love you!