Clarity or Hey! Wanna Know What I'll Be Doing Next Year?

So, I finally had this long-awaited meeting with the technical director of PSI/Cambodia and PC/Cambodia's Director of Program and Training. We sat down and had the opportunity to discuss several things, of which I have been patiently (then impatiently [then patiently (then not so patiently, again)]) waiting to find out.

So, here they are:

When will I move to Phnom Penh: Most likely, June 25th

• How many days left physically at site: 27....27!!!! It's really strange. While I am very much anticipating my beginning the next stage of my Peace Corps service, including but not limited to: cooking for myself, having cheese, milk, and pizza readily available, and a toilet the flushes...I am also very sad to leave my village which has treated me so kindly and left me with a feeling of comfort, safety, and happiness (not to mention many friends, countless memories [most of which involved laughter (at my expense [the best kind])]). As well, it has left me with the ability to add brackets within parenthesis and vis versa.

When will I start working for PSI: Definitely, July 2nd

What I will be doing:

                                         

Training Consultant

1. Assist Communications and Marketing department in monitoring, supervision and coaching activities of Interpersonal communications (UHN (United Health Network) and CM (Community Monitor) programs*) and MVU (Mobile Video Unit) activities:

•  Regularly join staff in monitoring and supervision activities. Assist PSI staff with monitoring and supervision functions to improve their supervision and coaching skills. Help to structure UHN and CM field visits to ensure more IPC  (Interpersonal Communication) direct activities are observed and to give better feedback to UHN member organizations.
• Help to design and co-facilitate trainings to CM or to UHN members to strengthen programs
• Serve as a key point person to document compliance of IPC activities 
• Help develop system where UHN member organizations have clear quarterly areas for improvement and are supported by PSI to act on those areas.
• Strengthen phone support and direct IPC field coaching in CM program
• Attend MVU activities and help to revise show formats and effectiveness of shows as needed

Specific to Child Survival -

• Help to design integrated prevention and treatment messages on diarrhea and Safe Water tabs (including benefits of each product) that are simple and easy to demonstrate to the community
• Co-facilitate trainings on integrated prevention and treatment messages on diarrhea and Safe Water tablets to Roving team, MVU team and CMs
• Attend MVU activities and help to include integrated messaging during the event
• Help to revise formats and effectiveness of MVU shows
• Assist PSI staff (coordinators) with improving their supervision skills

  2.  Identify areas for collaboration between the PC and PSI.  Develop an implementation plan that     ensures sustainable collaboration between PC and PSI.

• Map areas of PSI's work and overlap with PC
• Train PCVs to understand PSI's approach and link the individual PCVs behavior change communication activities with PSI's work.
• Assist PSI to deliver IEC (Information, Education, and Communication) materials to PC volunteers and monitor use.

   3. Assist with photography projects as needed including expansion of photograph bank for general use and development of photographs for IEC materials when needed.

   * United Health Network (UHN) is a network of local NGOs sub-granted by PSI to implement IPC activities. CMs are volunteers directly supported by PSI to promote birth spacing and refer to the Sun Quality franchise.

Where will I be living?

• Phnom Penh still, however, I am not sure whether it will be in a one- or two-bedroom apartment or a house with multiple people. I'll be finding out all of that in the next few weeks, so I'll be sure to update you when I know. One thing, though: Phnom Penh will have a lot of temptations that I will have to resist in order to not break the bank (i.e. Western restaurants, ice cream, movies, etc.). Honestly, I think I'll be alright, but it's nice to know that soon, should I need to sneak out for a needed break, it's there. One downside, though: I live in a semi-rural village now, right? Well, there's not much to do here, so when I do get to escape to other places (i.e. Siem Reap, Battambang, Phnom Penh), it really is an escape, and then I can ground myself when I get back home to my little abode. However, in Phnom Penh, while there will be escapes like Sihanoukville and Kampot, there won't be the (occasional) quiet that I enjoy out here in the middle of nowhere. 

When will I be coming home for my 30-day R&R?

• Still waiting on that one, but I'm shooting for autumn. 

When will I be coming home for good?

• My new COS (Close of Service) date is now Sep 3rd, 2013

Yup, so that's about what I know at the moment, and I'm pretty excited for all of it.

Talk to you soon,

Garrett

A Couple of Photos from My PSI Tech Exchange

This little girl was with her family at a Mobile Video Unit presentation about birth control.

She's probably pretty happy that her parents hadn't seen this video nine years ago.

This kid just showed up to see what was going on while we were setting up.

"Oh no!!! What's going to happen next?!"

This little boy on the left was probably the happiest, most cooperative kid I worked with the whole ten days.

The caption for this was: "Women happy to live their lifestyle"

I couldn't get them to stop laughing...perfect.

This woman is just gorgeous and was so photogenic. The literal translation for photogenic in Khmer is "eat camera".

She sells chicken in the market.

We needed some shots of unhappy families, and this little girl was less than thrilled about something, but it seemed to work in our benefit.

...and this is me, incorrectly lifting these weights. I'm surprised I didn't throw my back out. Props to you Chris, whose weights these belonged to; he wants to add another weight...

Belated News on Extending

Hey All,

For those of you who don't have Facebook, I apologize for the belated news, but:

I was approved for extending with PSI in a full-time setting. I will be living in Phnom Penh and may be there as early as late June, but all of that will be defined in a week when Peace Corps program staff, PSI's technical director, and I meet to discuss further my scope of work, start date, housing and other concerns of interest. I currently don't have a great idea of what exactly my day-to-day will look like, so guessing on here would just be pointless and superfluous when I re-post post-meeting next week. Things I do know:

- I will be extending with Population Services International/Cambodia (PSI/Cambodia)

• Full-time

- I will be one of four PCVs living in Phnom Penh

• I might live alone
• I might live with another PCV as a roommate (that hasn't been approved yet

- I should hopefully begin:

• End of June
• Beginning of July

As far as coming home is concerned, I should be coming home late October through late November for obvious reasons (engrossing myself in Thanksgiving fare and weather that won't have me sweating as I walk back from the shower). What I don't know yet is if I passed the Personal Narratives (PNs) and Qualitative Evaluation Panel (QEP) portion of the Foreign Service selection process. If I do, then I'll be invited to the Oral Assessment (OA) which is slated to occur (according to the Department of State's website) between August and November. Should the only time I'm invited to that (if I get invited) be August, September, or early October, then I'll be coming home around then (no need to spend big Gs on a ticket home when I could do it for a couple of hundred). I'll let you know when I do. Until then...

Talk to you soon,

Garrett

When I Will Find Out About Extending...

So, I've been as patient as possible with finding out about extending and this PCVL position. However, there are vague dates that have been thrown out there. With that, I should know by the end of next week, so keep your eyes peeled for a blog post sometime close to then. Keep your fingers crossed that all goes well! All that patience is beginning to unwind...

Talk to you soon,

Garrett

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

Day 13 + 14 in Ho Chi Minh City -

Day 1:

Our bus from Dalat to HCMC was supposed to be 6 hours long. It ended up being 8 1/2: how long it takes to get from my site to Phnom Penh; it felt like a nice taste of home. So, we arrived into the largest city in Vietnam, our last stop, simply expecting everything to go so wrong (every other group's experiences were terrible). We got dropped off and had no idea where we were. We look at the address for our hotel: Pham Ngu Lau. Great! Our location: Pham Ngu Lao District...so did we get led astray to a general area and not a specific street? We ask a moto driver, and he simply points us in the right direction without giving us much strife for not taking his moto. "That way, to the left," he seemed to say (he was gesturing and speaking in Vietnamese). We turn left, and lo and behold we are on the correct street two blocks from our destination. We walk to our hotel down an alley way and as we walked in he said, "Oh. I'm sorry. I sold your room. You said you would arrive 2:00pm, but it is now 4:30p. I didn't know if you were just going to be late, so I booked a room at family hotel just next door. It is a bigger, nicer room (a family room). It is usually more expensive, but I want to give it to you for the same price as this one. Is that okay?" Is that okay?! What's going on? Excuse me. Excuse me! Can somebody please help explain why everything was working out so well? Hmmm, so our friends that we met in Hoi An had arrived only a couple of hours earlier and text us at that very moment that we got into the hotel that they were at the nearby Subway (Subway!) on the same street as our hotel. What?! We walk to the Subway. It's only 3 blocks away. Hello!!! Why is this working out so well. At this point, by the way, Jill and I were still not feeling well. So, we were in shock. Subway was delicious, if you were wondering. Right before we got there, Jill added, "I bet they'll be out of tuna. Watch." We turn right to walk into Subway: "Tuna special: 40% off. 50,000 VND ($2.50) for one 6" sandwich" Stop it. Stop it. Seriously. We met Rachel and Angela and hung out for the next several hours until Jill and I both retired to our room. We still weren't feeling that great when we saw the commercial for Pizza Hut. We had to. We just had to. We did. We called and ordered delivery to our room one large cheese pizza. It was glorious, enough so that we toasted slices. We called it a night.

Day 2:

I woke up at 7:40a with a sty under my eyelid. The pain was sharp and intermittent. Here it was. Of course. The last day. I wasn't feeling so hot, and here I was, standing in front of a mirror, staring at my blood shot eye hoping it might go away. At breakfast, I used warm water with napkins as a "hot compress" for my eye and after a couple of hours, it started to feel better. And then, my cold started to go away. And then, my abdomen started to relax. Fantastic. By the way, breakfast was scrambled eggs, half a grilled tomato, baguette, iced coffee with milk, and a sausage (or...a hot dog, I found some mustard and ketchup for it). Afterwards, we went to this park 30 min away which was laced with flowers and statues of dragons. It was pretty beautiful (minus the not-so-pretty water). We all walked around for awhile and eventually ended up on a Ferris wheel (one that moved at a normal rate and wasn't 1/4 the size it should be). After that we headed back to the hotel by taxi. Fruit juice stand? Yes. My selection: guava, passion fruit, orange. After that, Rachel and Angela left for Phnom Penh on their bus and Jill and I parted ways for the next part of the day. She went to get some trinkets for people back in her community while I walked to the War Remnants Museum. For your information, the Vietnam War is referred to as "The American War" in Vietnam, for obvious reasons.

The War Remnants Museum:

The museum had a 15,000 VND ($0.75) entry fee. The museum was inundated with tourists of all nationalities (including Vietnamese). I felt almost nervous walking around, ever so aware of my being American. It's hard not to be even more aware of this when you walk into the "Agent Orange and its Effects" room and a young Vietnamese girl, who is walking in front of me, holds the door open for me. The building was four stories tall with a "show room" outside of the main edifice featuring a mock-up of what were prisons for women (where blown-up-picture of several women clinging to the bars of the cell door were gasping for fresh air) and "tiger cages" which were 3m x 2m x 1.5m, the last one being the height, where, during the hot season, 5-7 men would be kept and during the cold season, 2-3 men. Inside the building they had several sections: children's drawings of peace, countries of the world who supported Vietnam at the time, memorials and commemorations to the Americans who opposed the war, the history of American involvement starting with the French in the early 50's, the use of and after-effect of Agent Orange (which has counterparts: white, blue, purple, etc), torture methods used, and a gallery donated by the State of Kentucky of photographs from journalists (half of them Vietnamese). The photographs were stunning and had you staring at them for a little bit longer than the initial glance after reading each one's caption (e.g. "Mr. Ho's three children, dead."). Some of the photos were those you've likely seen (i.e. soldiers crouching through rice paddies) and those you might have not (e.g. a man holding the 1/3 of the remains of a assumed V.C. soldier). I spent a good 2 hour in the War Remnants Museum.

After this, I went back to the room where Jill met me an hour later. We're currently watching 127 hours. My day started with friendship and serenity, transitioned to war and violence and seems to be ending with solitude and reflection (and amputations). Bravo to James Franco, by the way.

We head back to Phnom Penh, tomorrow. Our travel time on the bus should be six hours, however, it's Khmer New Year, where everyone GETS OUT of the city to go back to their "homeland" (provinces where their families live), so it should be either calm or CRAZY getting in. It should be six hours, but it might take nine. We'll see. Anyhow, I'll probably not post for a week or so. I've done a good amount for now. This is the end of my Khmer New Year vacation, and it was absolutely splendid. Vietnam is a beautiful, beautiful country with delicious foods and some really nice people. I hope at some point in my life I can come back and spend a little more time, now that I have a better idea of what to do, what to eat and where to go.

Talk to you soon,

Garrett

Dalat

Days 11 + 12 in Vietnam: Dalat

Let's start with the 5 hour bus ride that made one 20 min stop and another 45 min one where the reason we stopped was because of the bus driver's lack of legitimate plates and of any registration papers. He said nothing and didn't speak to the Vietnamese guy on the bus who spoke a little English so that he could inform the rest of us. The bus driver got off the bus, walked away, then disappeared. Where'd he go? No one knew. Then, some people got off the bus 20 min later and walked back. What was going on? We were so confused. Finally, the Vietnamese man was able to help us out after speaking to the police. The bus driver finally came back and off we were to go up large hills where the engine almost failed several times. The bus rocked back and forth pretty violently here and there. Oh, yeah. I felt safe. I was laughing a lot.

We reached Dalat. I got off the bus. I wanted my fleece. My fleece! The novelty of wearing one! A couple of volunteers who were already here met us at our hotel, which was swank, by the way: the were two shower heads and 6 sprayers (3 on the left, 3 on the right). There was urinal with a sensor, and an energy-efficient toilet. Even the sink had the option of hot water. Crazy! Best $20 spent! We met up with the rest of the crew, then went off to the market where we bought strawberries (STRAWBERRIES!), mulberries (MULBERRIES!), avocados (AVOCADOS!), and almonds and cashews (NUTS!). I got a kilo of the strawberries for $1, 1/2 of one of the mulberries for $0.50, and three avocados for $1.75. I was absolutely elated. We ended up buying some Delat wine (red and white) and mixed in strawberry and passion fruit juice (respectively). We ended the night eating Pho then going back to big group's hotel to watch Zombieland together.

The following morning (this morning), we woke up to a homemade breakfast of local fruits, cornflakes, milk, yogurt, eggs, bacon, ham, passion fruit juice, and coffee. All of this was included in the price of the room. Sierra hung out with us for the beginning of the morning (she couldn't get a ride back to HCMC the day before) and had to wait for the 11p bus tonight (she just left). Around noon, Jill and I took a taxi ride to the cable cars which overlooks the city. We get there and it says "Under maintenance for April 11th"...out of all the days! Anyhow, we saved $3 by not doing that, right? Well, it cost us $3/person for the taxi ride to the cable cars then to the Crazy House, which is a house designed by a Vietnamese architect that would have members of Home Owner's Association in absolute hysteria. It basically looks like a giant tree trunk and has stairs that go every which way. You can actually stay in one of the ten rooms, each with its own strange difference. After visiting the Crazy House, we walked back towards the hotel. Or well, we thought we were heading back towards the hotel. We found a couple of drivers and write down the name of the hotel. They have no clue. Where were we? They didn't know our hotel, and everyone near our hotel knew of it. We get back in the right direction, and its the other way. It was actually quite a ways away from our hotel, but we were so happy to make it back. We spent the rest of the night chatting until going to dinner at a semi-fancy restaurant where I had sweet and sour pork with snap peas, bell peppers, cauliflower, and tomatoes. I had to leave early as I came down with something. I don't know what it was, but it hit me hard. I went white as a ghost, so I walked back to the hotel. It was amazing how much the fresh air helped. I'm fine, now.

Now, I'm in bed watching Homeland. We thought it was a movie before looking it up. It's really good so far. Okay, off to HCMC/Saigon, tomorrow.

Talk to you soon,

Garrett

Nha Trang

Days 9 and 10 in Vietnam: Nha Trang (pronounced Nah Chahng [in Vietnamese])

We arrived in Nha Trang around 7:30a. got off the bus and got cursed at by a moto driver when we wouldn't go to "his" hotel. Good start, I think. So, we walked around and found a $5/person/night hotel...it wasn't that nice. So, we had someone take us to a hotel in my Rough Guide, Seaside Hotel. We walk in, and they ask us if we want to see a "Seaside" room. "Sure," we say. It's a giant room with a big bed, albeit dirty, a/c, and hot water. How much? $20. We really didn't want to carry our stuff around any further (we'd been doing that enough), so, again, we say, "Sure." The room, btw, has view of the coast, and it was worth it. Immediately after settling in, I get my laptop out and check my e-mail/Facebook. I had previously asked some other PCVs who were traveling in Nha Trang if they could book us a room, but didn't hear back from them. Facebook message from Katie @ 1min after I logged off of the internet before our 12 hour bus ride here: "Hey! We booked you a room for $10/night right in the center of town, and the owner's are really friendly!" Whoops. Still worth the room.

We got our swimsuits on and immediately headed for the beach, which was beautiful. After jumping into the semi-warm water and laying out for a little, we headed back and met the three volunteers who were in town (they were heading to where we had just come from in 6 hours). First place we went to: Louisiane...what's good there? Local brewed beer on tap, and it. was. heavenly. Holy crap. Both Tim and I stared into the bottom of our glasses and almost simultaneously went after the last drop of our drinks. It was fantastic getting to meet up with them and hang out (and get to have them show us around and tell us what was good to do). Once our friends left on their 6:15 bus, we went out and tasted some more good foods and ended up crashing pretty early (9:30p).

Day 2 was one of our best days on the trip. We woke up, researched spas, then got an hour-long Swedish massage for $9.50; it was heavenly. We took a short trip to a fruit shake stand and got two drinks made for $1/each:

1) Avocado, Asian pear, strawberry, aloe, milk, sugar, and ice (blended);

2) Aloe (mostly), orange, milk, and sugar over ice.

From there, we took a decent walk to the beach where we found many people selling various types of seafood on the beach: lobster, scallops, giant prawns. Some were cooked, some were fresh. Luckily, we ran into a Vietnamese-American woman who was traveling with her husband. She helped us bargain. Our deal:

Giant lobster, giant prawn, 8 scallops = $10 ($5/person). Succulent is really the only word I can use to describe the tenderness of the meat. And what a better way to enjoy what probably would have been a $50 meal on the beach looking out over the sea. After lunch, we spent our sweet time in the water and catching rays on the beach before doing what, we thought, should have been incredibly simple: getting our tickets checked for Dalat (our next stop).

The Open Tour Bus Ticket Debacle:

We arrived at our bus company's station (a long walk) and told them we planned on leaving for Dalat the next day. "No, I'm sorry," the kind man who worked there told us, "your ticket is for Mui Ne, not Dalat."

Uhh, no. That's weird. "No, sorry, we paid for Dalat."

"Sorry, sir, but this pen strike through Nha Trang to Dalat and Dalat to Saigon means that you paid for another ticket. This: cancelled."
"HOGWASH, I SAY!!! HOGWASH!!!"...okay, I didn't really say that, but I did ask him to call the company in Hanoi, and they said that our ticket numbers were registered for Mui Ne, not Dalat.

"It will be 130,000 VND ($6.50) per ticket to change this, or you can call the travel agency that arranged your ticket, and if they are willing to pay the money, then you can change your ticket."

Well, that seemed real likely, but we tried it anyway. We got a ride back to our hotel and called up the place we stayed at. After a long chat, it seemed there was a misinterpretation about what we wanted to do. We originally planned on going to Dalat first to meet up with our friends and then head back to Nha Trang with them continuing out the rest of our trip together (most of it, anyway). Our friends changed their plans slightly, and we adapted to it, but we were positive we never said we wanted to go to Mui Ne. The bright side to this (even though its never a bright side to anything to pay more money) was that if we had the correct tickets, it would have been $10 more (remember the $6.50 ticket change?), so we went back to the bus company and said we would like to change our tickets. It was a woman this time, somebody different. Oh no! She isn't aware of our plight! We tell her what happened and that we would like to change our tickets.

"100,000 VND ($5), please."

Silent victory dance. Sometimes, sometimes, not doing things exactly the way you plan them to happen can have a positive outcome.

So, it's 6:00p. What should we do? Eat, of course. Eat everything. Rather than going to a restaurant or some small shop for a meal, we ate a bit of everything. Our dinner:

-Bahn xeo (with shrimp and squid) (this is the fourth time we've eaten it, and each time has been incredibly different. Perhaps I'll write simply about that.

-Bahn Mi (the sandwiches)

-Spring rolls (don't know the name)

-Sweet rice with sugar and peanuts (just tasted)

-"Potato wedges" (french fries, but good ones)

Total cost: $1.50

We also found our way to a few bars to relax. One of them was a really relaxing place called "Guava" with an American (?)...North American owner. The next one was called "Why Not?" (where we had the french fries, or chips as they call them everywhere else...or "french fried" on menus in Cambodia). The last place was called Red Apple (?). It had a heavy backpacker atmosphere. It was okay. We ended up back at our hotel, prepared our bags to be packed, then passed out (11:00p). Time just moves so much slower here in Asia. It's so easy to lose track of time but to have had none of it really spent at all.

Day 3 (leaving Nha Trang), we showered, packed our bags, then went down stairs to gather our passports. First, though, they had to check the room to make sure we didn't mess it up. They came back:

"Problem. Yes. Room. Problem."
"Huh?"

"Problem."
That's nice. "What problem?"

"The gra..."
wt.."Huh? The what?"

"The gra..."

Hmmm yeah "Can you write word down, please?"

"Gra"

Jill and I look at each other. Yeah, that's not a word.

"Yes. Gra. Problem."

"We do not understand."

So, she opens up Google translate, and the intended words "Bed stations".

Yeah, that didn't help at all. Still lost in translation. We thought that maybe she meant bed stain? Nope. Definitely didn't spill anything. Mind you, we were barely in the room and it was dirty when we got there. She began to put our passports back in the drawer. We almost grabbed them and left. We kept insisting that our bus was leaving in 10 minutes, so finally just as we were about to forcibly retrieve our passports, she gave them back. We got to the bus station and we were off in about 30 min (our bus didn't leave until 7:30a).

I'm in Dalat, now and have plenty to say about our bus ride of confusion and seemingly certain death.

Talk to you soon,

Garrett