Seven days, zero posts; now you'll see why

     Inertia is a powerful force. If I don't have to get up and go somewhere and do something, it is astounding how little I can do in a day. Week One of unemployment was delightful; Week Two started to feel a little unsettling. What do people do when they retire???? Oh yeah - they volunteer a lot...

Here is how I spent a typical day last week:

6:30 wake up, make coffee, sweep
6:45 fire up the laptop, check email, look at Facebook to see what everyone back home was up to while I was sleeping;  follow various links covering topics from pop psychology to Bernie's filibuster to snowstorms in Vermont to anything else you can imagine
9:00 realize I've just spent more than two hours accomplishing nothing; wonder how my life would be different without internet (cue foreshadowing music...)
9:15 shower, wash some clothes, wash some dishes, wander the house and think about taking out the trash; wonder where the trash goes after it's picked up
10:00 decide to make a list of things I should accomplish; get sidetracked by notification of incoming email
11:00 examine seedlings I've planted in pots, water them; wonder why nasturtiums take forever to germinate; fantasize about sunflowers and tomatoes and wish I had room to grow beets; wonder why there are no beets in Cambodia; think about root vegetables in general
11:30 greet Steve when he comes home from school; have lunch; discuss Steve's tennis plans for the upcoming week; think about how I should get out for more early morning bike rides
12:00 arrange myself in the hammock with a book, a cold drink, and my Khmer homework
12:45 doze off
1:10 wake up and curse the mosquito who won't leave me alone; wave the electric mosquito racket around until I hear the satisfying *snap* of a direct hit; think about how un-Buddhist I am
1:30 say good bye to Jaz as she goes off to work
1:35 feel guilty for not working; replenish cold drink
1:37 doze off again
2:30 wake up again and stare into space admiring the mango tree while sipping now-warm drink
2:40 vow to get up and "accomplish something"
2:50 wander the house looking for something I can't identify; try to remember what I used to say I would do "if I only had enough free time;" think about sewing a quilt out of kramas; think about taking up watercolors
3:00 back to the hammock with my book
4:15 respond to phone call or text message from someone who wants to know "What are you doing right now?" Make something up to sound more productive than I really am; make plans to get together sometime in the next few days.
4:25 check to see if laundry is dry
4:35 welcome Jaz home from work; offer to bring Steve a beer in his hammock; feel thankful for hammocks, and for beer, and for Steve
4:45 wander the house again, sweep a little, wonder how to convince the housekeeper to stop rearranging the furniture when she comes; chuckle to myself about how we bought an "island" for the kitchen and she decided it should be a peninsula instead. Imagine her internal dialog: "Why is this piece of furniture in the middle of the kitchen? What's wrong with these crazy people? I'll show them how it looks so much better pushed up against the wall."
5:00 think about expectations and culture and perspective while I admire the mango tree again
5:07 wonder when mango season begins

5:15 make half-hearted offer to help Steve make dinner; remember that we already have dinner plans with friends at 6:30

5:20 check email again
5:45 greet Sovann as he comes home from work or whatever else he's been doing all day; feel bad when he asks what I did today and I have to say, "nothing." Ask about his day and vow yet again to write a blog entry someday about the life of a tuktuk driver
6:00 promise myself to get busy soon; wonder what retired people do all day; read another chapter of my book; feel thankful for my coworkers who bought me a Nook e-reader and a lot of gift cards
6:15 get ready for dinner; realize as we ride out of the yard on our bikes that I haven't left the house all day and remember how much I love riding my bike around town
6:30 have dinner with someone somewhere
8:45 come home and check email/facebook
9:00 upload photos, read more nonsense online, write pointless blog entry outlining the complete lack of excitement in my life this week, think about Dylan and Alanna's wedding in May and search for airfares
10:30 brush my teeth; go to bed to read
10:39 fall asleep

     That sums up a typical day this week. There were days that we took long bike rides or I went to print photos or buy some fruit or pay the internet bill, but mostly I did nothing as described above. It was fun for a week and now I am reminded that a perfect day for me involves doing some kind of work in the morning and then feeling justified in doing nothing in the afternoon. Time to get busy.

     And now you know why I haven't written anything all week. Aren't you glad I spared you the daily details of my ridiculously uneventful life?

Balancing the budget

     To satisfy the curiosity of some people, I thought I would share a bit about the cost of living here. For those who are shocked that I would share what we usually think of as personal information, I will just point out that the first thing that EVERYONE who comes to our house here asks us is "How much rent you pay?" (This includes people who don't speak English, but I understand enough now to know when they're asking Sovann.) So I'm feeling very Khmer about spilling our financial guts.

     So, we pay $300 per month rent for our house, which is really the top half of a large duplex. Our living space is bigger than our house at home, and came with basic furnishings. We pay $5 per month each for cable and trash pick-up and $25/month for internet. Our cell phones require pre-paid minutes and cost us about $5-10 per month. Our water bill comes every 2-3 months, and our first one was $18. Electricity has been between $60-70 per month, which will increase significantly when things heat up and we need to use air conditioning.  So there are our basic living expenses.

     Transportation costs are minimal. We bought bikes for about $40 each and they are our primary means of transportation. I find I have to put air in my tires a couple of times a week, which costs me 200-300 riel each time (about 5-7 cents.) Occasionally we need a tuktuk, but if Sovann is available, he can usually help us out.

     Entertainment costs are minimal or non-existent. The internet is our major form of diversion, and I still have a vast amount of credit at Barnes & Noble (thanks to my very generous VNA co-workers) so I can load books on my Nook e-reader. There aren't really many ways to spend money on "entertainment" here. Someday we'd like to do a bit of travelling within Cambodia or in surrounding countries, which I suppose would fall into this category.

     Food and drink turn out to be our biggest expenses, though we could certainly spend less. Steve cooks at home about half of the time, and fresh food from the markets is cheap enough, but the problem is that there are so many opportunities to eat out. Eating out here can be cheap compared to doing so at home, but even $5 meals add up quickly if we go out a few times a week, especially if you add in a few drinks, despite the fact that draft beers cost 50 cents. (Sometimes we splurge on a cocktail or a glass of wine.) And while there are plenty of cheap options, there are also more expensive options, and we have been known to go out with friends and spend $20 for a night out. Keeping the house stocked with bottled water and beer for guests (and ourselves) tends to cost $10 a week or so. Overall, our food and beverage expenses for November were close to twice our rent! Ouch. (Note to selves: less eating out.) To be clear, that's for three (and sometimes four) of us, though Jaz and Sovann contribute to food costs from time to time.

     Other services we pay for include laundry (about $25/month) and our housekeeper ($30-40 depending on how often she shows up.) Both of these are clearly luxuries, but we like to think of it as "supporting the local economy." I'm also paying for Khmer lessons again at a rate of $5/week.

     We probably spend another $30 per month on what I would call "donations." We will occasionally contribute a few dollars to someone asking for a good cause, and with some regularity I've bought medication or other things for friends who need something that will put a significant dent in their budget.

     The things we didn't expect to include in the regular budget are as follows:

Clocks: A clock costs about $5, but they don't seem to last more than a couple of months before they just stop. Our second clock had to be returned after two days because it only worked when it was lying horizontally and we had this strange idea that we wanted to hang it on the wall so we could see what time it is.  They let us exchange it, since I knew enough to ask for and then keep the receipt. We'll see how long this one lasts.

Brooms: As mentioned in an earlier post, the brooms made of straw and sticks tend to fall apart in short order. Luckily, they cost about dollar, and are sold all over town by vendors on bicycles so they're easy to find when you need a new one.

Household items: I think we're about done buying things we "need" for the house. In the first few weeks, we bought some small appliances which all get used daily - a toaster oven, a blender, a rice cooker, and a computer printer. Prices were similar to what we would have had to pay at home, though I've never actually priced a rice cooker in Vermont... For the first couple of months we were also spending a fair amount on furniture and even a few paintings for the walls. Someday if/when we ever leave, the furniture will have to stay behind but the paintings will come with us. To give you an idea of costs, we had custom-built bamboo shelving units made for our room to function as a closet (which we don't have) at a cost of $80, and a wooden kitchen island built for $50. We bought rattan bedside tables for $15 each. The paintings - which we love - are large originals done by local artists and cost $40-50 each. I imagine I could have bargained, but honestly, I was glad to pay them for their talent so I just paid the asking price. Sovann is shocked and dismayed - he frequently tells me I need to bargain more, but in this case, I consider it my contribution to reviving the arts in Cambodia. (Have you noticed that I have a never-ending number of ways to justify unnecessary expenses?)

Miscellaneous: I've had to pay $14 at the dentist to get a tooth fixed, $25 for camera repair, and shelled out a whopping $7 for some ceramic planters and dirt so I could grow some flowers and vegetables on the balcony. I get photos printed pretty often so I can give them to friends here, which costs about 8-10 cents per print. I borrowed a fantastic reference book that I really wanted to own, but found it cost $90 on Amazon, so instead I took it to the photocopy shop to have the whole thing copied for $3.25.

     The things we don't miss paying for include:

• gas, car repairs and insurance, parking tickets
• expensive cell phone plans
• household repairs
• heating oil and firewood
• plane tickets - though now it's time to start watching fares so we can plan our trip home in the spring!

     I anticipate a certain amount of sticker shock when we're home for a visit - and our budget will not support $6 micro-brews and $9 appetizers, so we can only hope that all our friends will invite us over for dinner often while we're back in Vermont in May!

I am thankful for...

     I realize that American Thanksgiving is long in the past and all our American friends and family have moved on to preparing for the next round of holidays, but I didn't want anyone to think I had completely ignored the opportunity to be thankful.

     For the past many years, we have collected our thoughts on Thanksgiving Day by putting up a poster or putting out our "holiday book" with lots of blank space and the prompt, "We are thankful for..." Dozens of serious and not-so-serious lists have been made over the years of the things we try to remember not to take for granted. We didn't follow that tradition this year - I think we took a bike ride instead - but I am thankful every day for a multitude of things, and I thought I would share some of them here:

    In no particular order, I am thankful for:

• the cheap cost of living in Cambodia
• having a brother who is living in, taking care of, and renting our house
• fresh rambutan, pomelo, and mangosteen
• my incredible kids - all of whom make me proud in their own individual ways, just as it should be
• the generosity of strangers
• having deep roots which allow me to fly the coop with confidence
• my (relative) good health
• Bernie Sanders
• oxygen
• critical thinking skills
• access to education, health care, and Scotch tape
• Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop Tarts
• my incredible partner and best friend, Steve
• Susan B. Anthony
• Steel Door Achievment (sic)
• the possibilities and potential represented by a brand new notebook
• online banking
• freedom of speech
• the internet
• Julian Assange
• Diet Coke
• a family legacy of strong, capable women
• a passport
• DHL
• being laughed at every day, and the ability to join in the laughter
• people who have boundaries
• extra-fine point roller ball pens
• cheese
• people who send me chocolate
• Gorilla Glue
• literacy
• bite-sized Frosted Mini Wheats
• being a native speaker of English, and knowing enough not to take it for granted
• cell phones
• strategic planning (the concept, if not the process)
• bifocals
• maple candy
• watercolors
• hammocks
• cherry tomatoes fresh from the garden
• rechargeable batteries
• frogs
• Skype
• dental floss
• mosquito coils
• Van Morrison, Michael Franti, and Sarah MacLachlan
• rainy season
• dry season
• green, orange, and purple
• Google
• Jon Stewart
• opportunities
• Ben & Jerry's Creme Brulee ice cream
• Facebook
• the sense of satisfaction that comes from accomplishing something in the first half of the day, and then relaxing in the second half
• a nice set of sheets
• every moment of every day

   Well, there are the first 57 things I could think of, and that's the general rule of this exercise: just spout the first things that come to mind.

     What are you thankful for?

Things I sometimes ride past on my bike

One bike, three kids.

It gets them where they need to go.

First series, independent vowels...?

     Now that I find myself with all this free time, I'm ready to resume studying Khmer. My first attempt, back in our first few weeks here, was an exercise in frustration and humiliation. I was too tired by the end of the day, too overwhelmed with all the other things I was trying to learn, and my brain was completely unreceptive to the idea of a new alphabet, let alone new words. In that time period, I integrated one new word every few days if I was lucky. I tried to learn more, but nothing would stick for more than three minutes. My Khmer teacher would come over and I would be filled with the dread of having to admit that I hadn't done any homework, that I couldn't remember anything he had taught me at the previous lesson, and that I was a complete failure as a student. Eventually, I just started using the time to interview him about Khmer culture, Buddhism, and his life. Then after a month of that charade, I admitted that I couldn't continue.


    After I stopped studying, I started to retain a few more words, particularly those I heard every day in the clinic. I could say "headache," "sore throat," "cold," "pain," and "two pills four times a day." I also learned important terms like "hammock," "drunk," "sorry," and "cilantro." I began to recognize a word here or there when listening to conversations. I read a book that included a lot of Khmer vocabulary (with English translations) and I occasionally noticed those words around me. I began to feel like I could tackle this project again, so on Monday I began my second attempt. 


     The question when studying a new language with a whole new alphabet is whether to just learn to speak and understand, or to also learn to read. I'm way too much of a visual learner, and the Khmer alphabet is way too intriguing to look at, so now I am the equivalent of a 48-year-old first-grader, learning a few letters at a time. I figured I could handle two Khmer lessons a week, giving me time to study in between and hopefully integrate the things I was trying to learn. It's a very slow pace, especially in contrast to the Khmer people here who might work all day then go to English class for two or three hours every evening, but I'm trying to be realistic. And when Yeum, my teacher comes back this evening, I'm hoping to redeem myself somewhat in his eyes by showing him that I actually practiced and remember what we did on Monday.


     It's going to be a long road. The Khmer alphabet is one of the largest in the world, with first series and second series dependent and independent vowels. I don't even know what exactly those terms mean just yet; I just know that such things exist.


According to this website:

The Khmer alphabet is the largest alphabet in the world (Guinness Book of World Records, 1995). It consists of 33 consonants, 23 vowels and 12 independent vowels. The 23 main consonants are separated into two groups: the first series (small sound) and second series (big sound). Furthermore, each consonant has two representations, regular and subscript (like upper and lower case, except in most cases the two do not resemble one another at all). Lastly, 10 of the most used consonants have a more "formal" appearance when written in titles, in advertising, on temple walls, etc. Hence, there are 101 distinct symbols.

Each of the 23 vowels has two distinct sounds, one when it is paired with a consonant from the first series and another when it is paired with a consonant from the second series. Sometimes, a vowel takes on a third sound when the pairing is followed by a certain other consonant. Confused yet?? Too bad. There is more. There are six accents that change all rules and add even more vowel sounds. They appear over top of words and act to either shorten, lengthen or emphasize sounds. The bontop looks a lot like a straightened out apostrophe, shortens a vowel sound, at the same time altering it. The bontop pii, which looks like two straightened apostrophes, (pii=two), changes the sound of a first series consonant to a second series sound. There is another symbol to change the sound of a second series consonant to a first series, but this only applies to a limited number. The other 3 accents occur infrequently

Khmer words are written without spaces in between. This leads to confusion because many words are compounds of two others. For example, the word for rencil is "black hand". If you start reading a story about little Phanith learning how to read and write in the countryside with his favorite pencil, and you don't know this, you might wonder if he is a psychotic serial killer and furthermore, question why anyone wrote a story about him.

The Khmer language, unlike others in the area is not tonal. (compare: Thai has 5 tones, Laotian has 6 tones, Vietnamese sounds like it is spoken backwards AND it has 6 tones) This might lead a new learner to the language to the delusional idea that it is a simple language to acquire. The joke, of course, is on that learner.

Reading the above description of the division of the alphabet and the schizophrenic nature of its vowels, one can quickly calculate there is a vast array of vowel sounds. To the untrained (in this case English speaking) ear, many of these seem virtually indistinguishable. This can lead to problems.

     I think that description is better than anything I can offer you in my own words. And whatapainitisnottohavespacesbetweenthewords. 


     Now I will offer you a peek at my homework, so you can fully appreciate the fact that I've put some effort into it:

It's harder than it looks... Or my fine motor skills aren't as good as I thought they were.

Someday maybe I'll know them ALL!!!!

 

What's with the spam blog comments???

    Nothing is more fun than getting blog comments, though who knew that people spam in this format? I can't figure out what the motivation is for doing such a thing. It's not spam in the sense of someone trying to sell me something, but these strange comments that seem to flatter somehow (when you can understand them at all.)

     The blog site does a good job of filtering the spam and putting them in a separate place to be moderated before automatically publishing them. The first few made me chuckle and I promptly deleted them, though recently I've started saving them just for my own amusement. I thought I would cut and paste one here for your amusement as well:

     This one came a couple of days ago:

I be enduring be familiar with a insufficient of the articles on your website now, and I unqualifiedly like your style of blogging. I added it to my favorites net stage list and disposition be checking to assist soon. Check in view my site as well and fail me conscious what you think. Thanks.

     Gotta love those online translation sites, but I would hate to ever "fail [you] conscious." On the other hand, I'd love to know what a "favorites net stage list" is.

     So, does anyone have any insight about the purpose of these weird comments? And can anyone explain why the comments only ever get made on two very old blog entries about laundry and luggage?


     I'm sorry I deleted the first few, because they made about as much sense as the one above. Now I'm kind of hoping for more, just for laughs, but I'd truly like to understand the purpose of such odd comments. Can anyone enlighten me?