A lot has happened this past week. I ate dinner in a brothel, walked in a landmine field, and started lesson planning training.

Completely by accident, last Tuesday on our last visit to Takeo, five of us went out to dinner. No big, just looking for some rice, pork, and beer. Right across the street from our guest house was a river side establishment that was vacant and actually sat on the water. After a long day of traveling and lectures we really just wanted something close by, so we ventured in and sat down at the farthest table from the door, and closest to the water, and most importantly the breeze. Immediately there were five female servers for five guests. Promptly beer was served and we placed our orders. At this point we just assumed that it was a slow night and that the girls were bored, so one server per guest did not seem suspicious. Following taking our orders they did not leave us though. So Terry, the redhead from Wisconsin, started to ask the girls questions in his limited Khmer. We all followed suite. Unfortunately at this point in our training the only questions that we knew well were, “What is your name?”, and “What is your age?” Obviously two questions that were posed innocently enough, but inadvertently triggered strange responses from our servers that would have even made Chris Hansson blush. My server started rubbing the back of my neck. Across the table the other servers started tweaking Christian’s and Terry’s nipples and Ryan and Nick were made to flex their biceps. Very quickly we realized that the girls were trying to bait us and we couldn’t figure out what to do. Fortunately other PCTs came in and sat down to order food. Long story short the food was great, no sex was bought, and the hookers were pissed off all night because they had to serve food. Hopefully I can update with stories about the mine field. Until then Lee-hi!

Oh, and if you wan to send me mail/ care packages, here is the address. Thanks for your support!

Ben Kubaryk PCT
Peace Coprs
PO Box 2453
Phnom Penh 3, Cambodia

Traing for Training

Well, I am now in my training village, Traing, living with a host family. No running water, no electricity, and very little language that I can actually use. My house is the furthest from anybody, way behind some green rice paddies and bomb craters from some of our B-52s. I am a mere 25-30 kilometers from Vietnam and my village was bombed during the war. My host family is very accommodating, but I am living in a very rural village. This precious internet access comes after three hours of one way traveling, Amazing Race style, across the country.

Currently I am in Tramkok, the other training site visiting with friends on my day off and hopping online for a minute. The experience has been very intense, a bit of struggle, but already incredibly rewarding. Unfortunately there are no USB drives on these computers, so the pictures will have to wait. I am in one piece though, dengue free, and having a blast. Hopefully in the next two weeks I can update this again with some of my stories. I already have many. They range from squat potty use (no toilette paper), hand washing clothes with a platoon of Khmer women barking at me, and just plain developing world craziness.

I'll update in a couple of weeks. Until then, Lee-Hi!

San Francisco

Well the time has come...

My body is about to rest for the last time in the US until I return in about 27 months. I just finished the staging event in San Francisco and am about to pass out. The flight in this morning was not too bad, but the jetlag is really killer. With a good night's sleep though, I should be remedied for tomorrow.

Staging was a success and the other volunteers all seem very nice and driven. I have already made some friends and am very excited to continue on to Tokyo tomorrow. Some of the other volunteers have actually studied in Japan before, and they have promised to take us to get great food in the airport during our layover for dinner. Then on to Bangkok! Finally at around 0900 local time, we will land in Cambodia this Friday. I really need to start studying the Khmer language lessons I have saved on my computer on the flight. We apparently are going to have a language assessment first thing on Friday. At some point this upcoming weekend we will acquire our cell phones, so I should be able to make some calls this weekend. If not, early next week.

I hopefully will beable to update this next week and will provide pictures of my training village. If you want to Google map the location, it is called Takeo Province. I do not know exactly where I will be, but you will be able to get a good idea of the topography and the population density form the sattelite image.

Talk to you soon!

Preparations

Well, in a little less then two weeks I will be headed overseas to start my 27 month stint with the Peace Corps. Finally I am fully set to depart. I have the majority of my packing list and only have to invest in a couple of books, mainly TEFL teaching aid books, and then off to Asia!

So far my Khmer (pronounced Kha-mai) studying has stalled with three quarteers of the consonant side of the alphabet, but once in Cambodia I am confident that the high level of immersion will kickstart my brain into accepting a new way of communicating. I am sure hunger and thirst will add some incentive in mastering basic Khmer.

Mostly this past week I have wrapped up loose ends with the bank, credit card company, and have spent time seeing friends. Saturday I'll fly back to the Puerto Rico to spend a couple of days with my parents since by the time I return, September 25, 2011, they will be living off the rock and hopefully back in the US.

Thanks for following in my adbenture! Once I get over to Cambodia I will post as soon as I have internet access, hopefully with pictures. Wish me luck, and if you are feeling cheritable you can augment my pathetic salary by sending cash to... just kidding.