A proper post and some tea lol

So, I must admit that I have been bs-ing my post since I’ve been in Cambodia. I’ve been so busy, and the timezone differences have been causing some difficulties, as well as my inconsistent access to Wi-Fi. So here is a proper post. So I live in a house with two older women, one is a widow who has two kids and the other is her sister who hates men (she’s never been married or had kids which is high-key a power move here). They’re very nice to me and I like them and will be pretty sad to leave next month. Her kids as well as the two grandkids which I vibe with (I understand the kids better and can have better conversations with them since they speak so simply, I love it). Um, I have also been teaching 7th graders once a week which has been stressful, particularly since I hate teaching with my peers. It makes me stress, and I become all shy, which isn’t helpful as a teacher. So whenever the technical trainers come by I feel like they only see me at my worst, and it bothers me. And in my language class I gotta say even though my accent isn’t good I can have pretty good basic conversations in Khmer. A lot of the staff is impressed by my ability to converse (I’m only tooting my own horn because I don’t like to, to the other PCT lol). Speaking Khmer is challenging, but it’s like a mental jigsaw to piece together conversations and I love it tbh. In addition, Khmer word order is very weird (ie to say I have 2 bunches of bananas, you’d say "I have bananas 2 bunch") moreover the languages doesn’t have any tenses, conjugations, nor plurals. And it’s quite literal like toothpaste is, "medicine to brush teeth," it’s quite a satisfying language for people like me with smooth brains lol.

Then the interpersonal drama is getting exhausting. So I have like 3 good friends. I with at least one of them at all time. It’s nice because I always have someone around, and it doesn’t ware on my social battery because they feel like really good friends after like 5 weeks of being with them. But of my circle, there’s this white girl who is so cool. She’s so funny, and we are always giggling and gossiping. She loves just talking crap as well as just being a genuinely honest. She doesn’t hold back and I love it. But she keeps getting sick and going to the capital for care every couple of weeks. She’s only been at site maybe 3 weeks total, and not consistently. Then my other friend is cool, she’s Indian, aka the only other POC who’s experiencing colorism and exoticism. But I must admit I know nothing about Indian (as well as other) cultures like I thought I did. I only really understand American, Korean, Caribbean, and Mexican culture. It’s kinda embarrassing ngl, I won’t become miss world at this rate, lol. But she has a friend that doesn’t like ANYONE so if they hang out I gotta choose to be only with them. It’s a little annoying because my other two friends aren’t included, and it makes me feel bad. So I haven’t been hanging out with her as much, which sucks. Finally, the person I spend the most time with is, is unfortunately a dude. And in Cambodia, intersex friendships are not allowed. Men and women aren’t even supposed to look each other in the eyes, and God forbid smile at one another. So our friendship has been under scrutiny of the community. We were watching TV together, and my host mom came behind us and put a chair behind us and watched us. It was uncomfy to say the least. We hang out together, but I like his energy and don’t really talk much. I worry that he won’t wanna be friends with me if this continues, but it’s fine lol. It’s nice for now. We both watch anime (CSM and Bleach for us right now), talk about controversial political/social opinions, and la vie Cambodge (this is a trademark term used by my cohort to describe the outta pocket and otherworldly stuff that happens here, we also use "Welcome to Cambodia, the Kingdom of Wonder" which is the countries like quote or whatever, but we use it sarcastically lol). He’s also Christian, but like my brand of Christianity, not that crazy republican hate speech stuff which makes me happy because I can debate about religion with him as well without feeling bad/stupid (don’t you feel like nower days in the US religiosity is equated with ignorance?).

After them though is a minefield. Like, I don’t hate anyone, but a lot of them annoy me if I’m around them too long. Like, I don’t mind doing karaoke or chatting big groups, but if it goes on too long my social battery dies, and I zone out and get irritated by everything. If you want more tea I can share…like say maybe a scheduled zoom called Sunday morning, my time…but overall I’ve been avoiding the drama. A lot of people imo are being dramatic/unaccepting of Khmer culture. Like these two girls are accusing some of the language teachers of being homophobic, but in reality they were told to share their knowledge of Cambodia and help students be able to fully intergrate into a community without issues. Hence, why we were told to take our piercings, be clean-shaven, not wear shorts/tank tops, not to wear too bright of colors, for the boys to cut their hair, and for the women to wear skirts. Yeah, wearing skirts and biking isn’t ideal, but we are foreigners trying to fit into a homogenous culture we must sacrifice some of our individualism to fit in. Like heteronormativity, sexism, racism, and overall conformity is big here, and it’s hard to adjust to. Heck, I’m experiencing a lot of cultural issues here, and it’s been only 6 weeks! But like, we came here to teach students. Not to challenge the systemic issues that exist here because we aren’t saviors! Maybe we can educate students about these issues, but at the end of the day we knew that we were going to have to deal with this before we got here and still decided to come. Overall, the dress code has been an issue and a lot of people are refusing to take out piercings/ cover tattoos to the point where they had to threaten to send people home if they didn’t. It’s just frustrating though because Khmer people are non-confrontational and to even mention something to us must take a lot out of them. And they’re only saying these things to help us, not to intentionally hurt us. It just annoys me to see everyone being some hyper- individualistic when the staff is only asking for harmony in order to integrate with the community better at our permanent site.

The biggest pain of all though is this person who’s been low-key bullying me. At first, she would put herself down and compliment me. Trying to get me to say something to boost her self-esteem. But I wouldn’t do it because I hate when people try to elicit compliments and affirmation from people, it’s one of my biggest pet-peeves. Like stopppppp, if you want a compliment just ask, but don’t be acting like a literal CHILD. So now she’s move on to phase two and is insulting me over things I don’t really care about, and I don’t even care to get mad about it. Moreover, she’s been flirting with all the guys. Like, it’s so blatantly obvious that it’s obnoxious. She seeks attention from men to no end. One guy even said, that he’s pretty oblivious when people flirt with him and with this girl even he can’t ignore it. And she does it particularly when any of the women are talking to the boys. It just feels very high school, and I didn’t live to 23 to be dealing with this nonsense. I honestly have so much to say about her, but I’ll stop here (text me if you want more deets lol). Okay, here’s some of the tea going on in my life, but overall my experience here is like a 7.5/10. Khmer people are so nice and warm, weather is nice and consistent, the food is good, and the timezone doesn’t require any math lol. Any who ask me more specific questions or let’s just call. I want to share my experience with y’all 💁🏾‍♀️