Sports: Well, if you read my latest blogs, you'd understand that I'm very happy about Men's Basketball. Sorry Arizona football, you heavily disappointed me. However, it is making me kind of sad that I can't be at home either watching the game on the couch with friends or even worse, at the game itself cheering the team on! It's okay, and I've accepted the fact that I just won't be able to get to watch the games I want to, unless of course Arizona gets to the Final Four (this is hypothetical, don't worry...no jinxing going on here), then I will spend as much money as it takes to watch the live feed on 3G. Other than that, I'm pretty content with my near-heart-attack experiences watching the page reload every 30-seconds.
Projects:
Guppy Farm: I'm still waiting for my health center director to buy the water jars. He says when the OD pays him at the end of the week, we'll get them. He said that same line two months ago. It's pretty similar to "the check is in the mail." No worries, though. Once I do get the water jars, I have the fish available to begin the breeding process!
Health Center Sustainable Garden: I'm still waiting for my health center director to come up with a figure for what the community is willing to raise. Once I have that number and the money, I can officially submit a Small Project Assistance (SPA) grant proposal.
Now, it seems it would be easier if I did all of this myself, however, that would defeat my being here. The point of all for all of these projects is for the people of my village and health center to learn from it not just the material but how to continue teaching when I'm gone. It's all about capacity building. So, unfortunately, I get to sit back and wait while my Cambodian counterparts figure out how to get things moving. I give them a push here and there and help out with suggestions, but the more involved they are, the better the overall results.
On to projects I'm doing at my own pace:
CHE Health Manual: It's going along very well. We have about one third of the amount of health write-ups we need and are starting to create new forms for a potentially separate manual on physical projects and lesson plans that people have completed. Kristin and I created the form for it, so hopefully we can draw some pretty great submissions for it. This, thankfully, I can do at my own pace, so it's taken up a decent portion of the time I have back in my room. I say room, because I really do kinda live in a room haha. Anyhow, the project is coming along very well, and hopefully we can have it done by the end of April (crosses fingers).
Language: Language for me has been on a hiatus, because
1) My language tutor isn't very consistent
2) I'm lazy and won't look for another one
So, we met up a few weeks ago at the provincial spelling bee, and we're going to start up again at the beginning of March.
Since then, I've been trying to learn new words myself everyday and study that. That's actually what I've been doing since I moved to this permanent site! We only really had one lesson, and it was planning all of the lessons we never had. I'm currently reteaching myself how to read and write. It'll take a bit, but I hope to be able to read and write fairly well by the end of next month? We'll see.
Friends:
Cambodia: My friends here are amazingly supportive and give my life more meaning and purpose. Without them, I would live on a day by day struggle much more trying than it already is. I am very thankful that I have them around in my life right now, and I look forward to making life-long friendships out of it.
America: I live for Wednesdays and Sundays so that when I get online I can reconnect a little with America and my friends and loved ones back home. All of the Skype conversations and IMing really do make all the difference. As well, that care package with the giant Country Time Lemonade powder...awesome gift...awesome.
Japan: Caitlin, you are the one friend online that I can consistently chat with regardless of what time it is, because of the simple fact that you are only 2 hours ahead of me, and that is awesome. What am I going to do when you go back to the States? I'll probably read more haha. Alex, you count, too. Don't worry.
Books: I just finished John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" which my brother suggested, and wow! It was a fantastic piece of American literature that had me trying to figure out what was going to go on next. It was a bit of a mystery-solving fun without the book having anything to do with that at all. Thanks for the suggestion. It ranks right up there with "Of Mice and Men" for me. Right now, though, I've started "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabukov. Let's just say it's, well, you just read it. I won't say anything about the contents of the book for the sake of probably a good percentage of the people reading this blog.
Well, that's all I've got for now. I'm hungry, and am going to go buy some nom (rice flour/bread-like products).
Talk to you soon,
Garrett
I don't know what I'd do without you online at the same time as me, either! :) <3
ReplyDelete