Top 10 Cambodian Pick Up Lines:
10. Oun soam leak turasap.
9. You makin’ my noem ansoam bust its banana wrap.
8. I can give your dad $10,000 cash
7. My horse broke into the mango patch this morning and now it’s all sticky; could you wash it for me?
6. You have a pretty nose. I want a baby. I want my baby to have a pretty nose.
5. Is that Angkor Wat in the background, or am I just so in love with you that the rich cultures of this country create an elaborate dream-scape around us when I see you?
4. I will give you a strawberry if you will be my girlfriend.
3. A new fried banana shop just open up… in my pants.
2. You do not look good in this picture- you have way too much makeup on and your hair looks bad. But you still look better than my wife. Why won’t you be my girlfriend?
1. *Grunt*

Top 10 Things you thought you would do in Peace Corps (but aren’t):
10. Live in a grass hut
9. Get a tapeworm or other worm
8. Dance to tribal music barefoot and shirtless
7. Eat food with spices…or anything
6. Get attacked by lions
5. The person next to you
4. Hunt for dinner
3. Learn to live with bugs and rodents amicably
2. Learn a useful language
1. Make a difference

Top 10 Awesome things about PC Cambodia
10. Everyone assumes you are a doctor, no certificates needed.
9. Petting baby crocodiles
8. It’s not PC Africa
7. Children screaming and crying because they are scared of your nose
6. People are reasonably close enough to visit (unless you’re Lindsay Benacka)
5. Coffee Tic Tac Toes
4. 50 cent beer in Siem Reap
3. No need for heaters!
2. Talking to Joanne about the diarrhea you had last night
1. Mango season….and PCVs

Top 10 Ways you know you’ve been in Cambodia too long:
10. Other Cambodians say “very hot” and you think it’s not so bad
9. You are attracted to anything with sequins
8. You secretly switch out your tanning lotion for whitening cream
7. You intuitively shovel your food into a spoon to eat while you’re having pasta in Phnom Penh
6. You participate in front porch aerobics with your host family to Lady Gaga blasted from a cell phone and your host family asks you to translate lyrics like “I want your lovin’ and I want your disease”
5. Plain oatmeal has become a luxurious breakfast
4. You feel uncomfortable when you see shoulders or knees exposed on a woman
3. When a tuk tuk driver yells “Fucking stingy person” and you think “Wow, he has an impressive vocabulary
2. You score 18,752 on Snake Xenia
1. You use the phrase “The same me” in everyday conversations with native English speakers

Top 10 Things never to tell your host family:
10. I can drink a lot of beer
9. This meat is delicious. What is it?
8. What you really did last weekend in Phnom Penh
7. That this anonymous friend of mine actually gets into the water tub for bathing, using it as a pool, sometimes drinking coke while floating in the cool heavenly water, and comparing it to being “resort like”
6. How many people you’ve kissed
5. This fish head soup was really good. Thank you!
4. Our teenage live-in servant let me do the dishes
3. Thailand is amazing
2. I saw Dad with a girl on his lap at the Karoake bar last night
1. I you will get $7,000 when I leave Cambodia

Top 10 Ways to spend your living allowance:
10. Booze
9. Booze
8. Booze
7. Cheese
6. Cellcards
5. Importing a Cheeseburger Toaster Sandwich with Tots and an Ocean Water from Sonic all the way to Cambodia
4. Trips to Phnom Penh for your ‘mental health’
3. Ice cream on break (two things I love – why not have them together?)
2. Anything with sequins
1. Buy up all the bitter gourd in your village so your host family is forced to do without and feed it to that dog you want dead.

Top 10 things to do other than your laundry:
10. Sweat
9. Read celebrity gossip magazines that are 6 months old
8. Take 4 naps in one day
7. Ride your bike 20 minutes to the nearest bank where you can sit in the AC and drink cold water
6. Wach the entire 5th season of The Sopranos
5. Fabreeze your least smelly articles of clothing and wear them the next day
4. Kroma fashion show with the family
3. Star World and Animal Planet
2. Chase the chickens around your yard
1. Sweat

Given my last post and my current schedule, I’ve been thinking about the limitations of development aid (e.g. Peace Corps Volunteers like me) and promoting positive growth in more powerful forces (e.g. the government or the free market). I went looking for more information about the economic impact of government corruption, and I came across some good IMF reports, including the paper Why Worry About Corruption?, which says “…Corruption discourages investment, limits economic growth, and alters the composition of government spending, often to the detriment of future economic growth.” In other words, corruption is making developing countries poor now and keeping them poor in the future.

When I used to teach health ed classes, there was one statistic that for every dollar of anti-smoking advertising, there was something like a thousand dollars spent on advertising by tobacco companies. In this case, aid workers might be the anti-smoking campaign and government corruption is Phillip Morris. I know I’m not supposed to get too political on this blog, but check out what the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index has to say about Cambodia:

The World Justice Project is still very new, and their report evaluating only 66 countries is missing some notorious rule of law slackers in sub-Saharan Africa in the Middle East, so Cambodia’s close-to-last or dead-last rankings might not take into account some serious offenders. It’s a pretty neat report, though – ok, maybe only if you’re a nerd like me. Cambodia’s full evaluation is on page 55, and it includes some fancy graphs and all. It also talks about why rule of law matters -

(You should be able to click that to see it better.)

As for what I should be doing as a Peace Corps Volunteer, it beats me. I know I don’t want to give people free stuff. I know Cambodians need to spearhead their own economic growth and make their own government accountable. How do I encourage my students to be critical thinkers? How do we find and groom future leaders? What resources do they need that I can give them or help them find? I don’t think it’s me building a new flagpole, but then what?

Don’t worry, when I figure out all the answers, I’ll be sure to share.

Maybe especially relevant to Cambodia, here’s the Undercover Economist’s take on sweatshops:

…In developing countries, workers endure terrible working conditions. Hours are long. Wages are pitiful. But sweatshops are the symptom, not the cause, of shocking global poverty. Workers go there voluntarily, which means – hard as it is to believe – that whatever their alternatives are, they are worse.

When the Khmer Rouge came into power in 1975, my host dad and his family were among the thousands forced to walk out of Phnom Penh into the countryside. After the Khmer Rouge regime was toppled, my host dad used to bike first 23 kilometers and then 70 kilometers to study at high school (since the school in my town was still only through grade 9). When he got a scholarship to study medicine, he spent eight years living in Phnom Penh and would ride his bike two days to come visit my host mom after they were married.

Last night after dinner, he told me about how he finally got a break. In 1993, the UNTAC helped Cambodia hold its first elections since the 1970s. My host dad, off school for the summer, oversaw the elections in our town. There were still Khmer Rouge rebel factions active in this area, and on the day of the vote, they stormed the polling station at our local wat and starting shooting, sending my host dad and others running for their lives. He smiled remembering it, though, because the money he earned that summer bought him his first moto.

Today was Sulday, and I asked my host mom about what she was doing. She let me sit with her as she presented a bowl of fruit and five shot glasses of tea to the Chinese spirit house (sort of an altar for the family’s ancestors) in our living room. We knelt holding incense between our fingers while she talked/prayed, asking for health, happiness, and success for her daughter’s exams. Afterwards, there were five more bowls of fruit and incense to put out – one always goes in the kitchen, one at the front gate, one at a smaller altar upstairs, and one on the hood of the car.

Ok, nerd alert….I am fascinated enough by religion that it was my major in college. And no, contrary to popular belief, being a religion major did not mean I was studying to be a pastor. There are some crazy religious practices around the world, but what I find coolest about religion is how similar it all is. At the temple in India, I would cup my right hand in my left to accept food that had been offered, the same as you would taking communion. When I visited gurudwaras a few times, Sikh hymns and readings reminded me of a church service. Tonight, listening to my host mom talk to her ancestors, if she’d started with “Dear Jesus,” she could have been a Baptist praying before dinner. All around the world we grow up with these different traditions but believe in very similar ideas and even have similar traditions. I think that is pretty cool.

We had a blast today going to town painting, something the students are much more eager to do than that pesky drawing stuff. I’ve mentioned before that none of them knew where to find Cambodia on the map, and I answered that question a few more times today. Then, when I was helping mix some paint, I asked a question I thought they’d all shout the answer to – “What color do red and blue make?” They looked at me for a few seconds then told me they didn’t know. One girl guessed purple. I shrugged – “I don’t know.” I handed over the cup and mixing spoon to another student then watched her face light up – “Cher, it’s really purple!”

Dear students of Cambodia, there are so very very many things to learn. Please don’t let those boring 10 or 12 hours of class a day convince you otherwise.