So forget starting slow with straight lines, such as making placemats or napkins; we're right onto my first button-down shirt! We measured, drew onto paper the pattern... and today I've got my sleeves on. Tomorrow the collar...
I'll let ya know when I've got my first full fall line of clothes.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
To Takeo
We're headed to Takeo next week to help with the Teaching Practicum for the new volunteers....should be alright & nice to meet all the new people in country!
Cleaver, our one-finned-fish
It was kind of ironic, as just last week I was asking Will if he thought Cleaver (our little mosquito-larvae-eatin'-guppy-of-a-fish) could ever get caught in the spout of our water tank that we use for doing laundry.
Well, on Sunday morning I was doing laundry as usual, filling up my washing basin, and all of a sudden the water stopped. I got up and looked in the tank, and there was plenty of water (it is the rainy season now). Then I looked at my bin, then I looked in the tank again....... and then it dawned on me that Cleaver was no where to be seen in the tank. Feelings of panic rushed to my head. I stood up, not knowing what to do.....then finally came to the realization that Cleaver, was most likely caught in the spout.
Will said to stick something up the spout. I grabbed an old tooth brush, but it couldn't reach that far back. Then poo came around the corner, and we told him what we thought had happened; he then grabbed a small stick, stuck it up there---and sure enough....first came out one fin, then came out Cleaver... scales all scraped up but still flopping around in pain.
I felt horrible; but Will joked that we'd be having fish for lunch.
He was still movin around a bit, albeit sore we decided to put him in the tank to see if he'd make it through the night. He made it through the night...and seems to still be swimmin' around today.
I'm not sure if he was just sucked into the spout, or if he was trying to find a path to freedom. Hard sayin not knowin.... but hopefully he learned his lesson.
Well, on Sunday morning I was doing laundry as usual, filling up my washing basin, and all of a sudden the water stopped. I got up and looked in the tank, and there was plenty of water (it is the rainy season now). Then I looked at my bin, then I looked in the tank again....... and then it dawned on me that Cleaver was no where to be seen in the tank. Feelings of panic rushed to my head. I stood up, not knowing what to do.....then finally came to the realization that Cleaver, was most likely caught in the spout.
Will said to stick something up the spout. I grabbed an old tooth brush, but it couldn't reach that far back. Then poo came around the corner, and we told him what we thought had happened; he then grabbed a small stick, stuck it up there---and sure enough....first came out one fin, then came out Cleaver... scales all scraped up but still flopping around in pain.
I felt horrible; but Will joked that we'd be having fish for lunch.
He was still movin around a bit, albeit sore we decided to put him in the tank to see if he'd make it through the night. He made it through the night...and seems to still be swimmin' around today.
I'm not sure if he was just sucked into the spout, or if he was trying to find a path to freedom. Hard sayin not knowin.... but hopefully he learned his lesson.
The things they put on motos
I’ve seen my fair share of things riding or strapped onto the back of motos since I’ve been in this country. The usual grocery run from the market, a family of 5 or even 6 (with an infant in someone’s arms), pigs in a cage, a whole row of live chickens hanging by their feet, bed mattresses folded in half, but never have I seen what I saw today while riding home from my English class for teachers.
Today, I saw a woman riding a moto, with a package strapped on back (nothing out of the ordinary); but riding on TOP of the package, not strapped in or in any sort of a container was her small white dog, balancing on its own, on the moving moto. I thought to myself, I’ve seen plenty of dogs in the back of pickup trucks, but this was a first…a dog on the back seat of a moving, travelling motorcycle. It seemed to be balanced alright, but it did look a bit scared for its life. Nonetheless they passed me and went on down the road into the sunset. And like many things I experience in this country….that was all there was to that.
Today, I saw a woman riding a moto, with a package strapped on back (nothing out of the ordinary); but riding on TOP of the package, not strapped in or in any sort of a container was her small white dog, balancing on its own, on the moving moto. I thought to myself, I’ve seen plenty of dogs in the back of pickup trucks, but this was a first…a dog on the back seat of a moving, travelling motorcycle. It seemed to be balanced alright, but it did look a bit scared for its life. Nonetheless they passed me and went on down the road into the sunset. And like many things I experience in this country….that was all there was to that.
Word of the Day: s’mau
I’ve decided to take the baby steps of realizing my third grade dream of becoming a fashion designer.
Well, maybe I won’t go as far as becoming a fashion designer, but I have always wanted to learn to sew and I thought what better time and place to learn. There is a really good seamstress practically every corner you turn in the market, and they can whip out clothes in no time.
With the help of my co-teacher, we found a sewing teacher who trains people to become seamstresses’ and tailors. He sent me a text message one day telling me he found someone who could teach me and then told me the price, which was quite a bit higher than what I had imagined paying for lessons. (However, the people learning from this teacher ARE learning from her to have this be their trade) – So I guess putting it into that perspective, the price seemed fair. Anyway, the text message from my co-teacher simply stated the price and it said “for this price, you will know all.” I had to chuckle inside, imagining the Asian/English accent of my co-teacher saying ‘you will know all’ in regards to paying one flat price. It almost sounded like some sort of fortune cookie message. Anyway. I guess you can’t really beat that,…. if I can pay a set price to “know all” I might as well take it and run.
But yes, interestingly enough, the flat price (to know all) is for no set amount of time. Each of the students study with her daily from 8am, break for lunch at 11-2, and then study until 5pm from Monday to Saturday (and Sundays if they want). And they will continue to study with her until they know all there is to know about sewing.
Anyhow, I’ve managed to get myself caught up into this, but have limited my time to 3 hours in the mornings from Monday – Friday, as I’m continuing my English class for teachers in the afternoons. And I must say, so far it has been going well.
The only catch about the whole thing is that my teacher (Kim Heang), doesn’t speak any English.
I’ve written out as many different possible sewing vocabulary words and sat down with the kids that study at our house every night to get the pronunciation of those words. But nothing really gets ya prepared for when the teacher starts throwing instructions at you and you’re supposed to know what they mean and perform right then and there on the spot. That’s when I promptly say “Somtoh, Khnyom jet Khmer tiek tiek, sohm bunghangm knyom” ( Sorry, I only know Khmer a little, please show me!?” And she does…and I think that’s pretty much how this whole learning thing is going to go.
My first day was spent with some time getting to know the pedal-powered sewing machine. The machine itself is a Jerome (sp?) brand which actually seems pretty solid. However, the pedal portion of the machine is the good old Singer brand. I was able to get used to the rhythm of the pedal, learned NOT to turn the wheel in reverse to reverse the material (it does have its own reverse lever) and practiced having the foot and the needle of the machine take material back and forth. Eventually we put some thread in there and I started practicing sewing straight lines. Which after several runs, she seemed pretty satisfied with my performance.
The last two days however, I’ve spent practicing sewing button-holes.
By hand.
I asked her if they make them on the machine (which I know is one of the features on the machine Will bought me for Christmas 2 years ago)…….. and she said “Yes” (in Khmer)… and then said, “But first you will learn how to sew them by hand.” (In my head, I was like, “Are you Kidding ME??! REALLY?”) – but then thought to myself that I like this teacher...., straight to the chase, down to the basics, and nothing like starting from the very beginning. After all, the art of sewing is something that the people of my gender have mastered for generations and generations and, if they could do it, so can I, right? ( At least that’s my attitude as of right now; let me remind you I’m only at day 3.)
Anyhow, I spent my last 6 hours of lessons practicing stitches to sew around the hole of a button-hole.
By hand.
Dang she makes it look so easy. She can do it so fast, with perfect little stitches in a matter of just a few minutes. Then, she handed over the material for me to try. Things like that are so awkward to hold at first, and you really just need to practice it to get your own rhythm and learn how to hold the fabric, needle and thread simultaneously, until it turns into its own dance. I was onto my second one and she came over and checked on me and kept saying, “jet sa’aht” (nearly right/pretty) – but then kept on saying “s’mau, s’mau” - and I had no idea what that meant…and told her I didn’t understand. Then another student, about 22 years old – who can mutter out a few words in English –…started saying, umm…um… as if she knew what the word was but couldn’t think of it and then all of a sudden her facial expression changed as if a light bulb turned on and started saying, “Equal! It means Equal!”
I laughed out loud. Mostly at myself because my stitches did look really pretty bad compared to hers. So after all of that, my teacher was just trying to nicely tell me that my stitches need to be more equal. Ha.
At that point, I thought to myself it’s going to be quite the ride getting through this course. I need to get on the horse of learning some more basic instructional vocabulary if I want to make this easier. But at the same time, I’m sure it’ll be pretty interesting along the way. The teacher most definitely seems very nice and very patient… and speaks with a calm voice when giving me instructions. (Whether or not I understand the instructions is key question). Regardless, the atmosphere is great. It’s not too crowded and is on the lower level of a house with many windows and a nice cross breeze coming through it. The ladies listen to music on the radio…talk and are simply hard at work on each of their own projects…and they’re able to joke around with me, the strange ‘barang’ (foreigner) who for some reason, unknown to them, wants to learn how to sew.
I brought home my practice material with about 14 different button holes and showed it to Will yesterday, and he said “That’s what you did the entire three hours!?”. I said, yep.
Today went better and my stitches were looking “sa’aht cheeung m’sal meing” – “Prettier than yesterday” – which is good for me…….. AND at the end of class I was instructed to buy some fabric that I’ll apparently learn how to cut into the pieces for making a shirt. So MAAAAYYBEEE I passed the button-hole-sewing-by-hand-test? Maybe not.?
But either way, more importantly, I do NOW know the word for Equal.
Well, maybe I won’t go as far as becoming a fashion designer, but I have always wanted to learn to sew and I thought what better time and place to learn. There is a really good seamstress practically every corner you turn in the market, and they can whip out clothes in no time.
With the help of my co-teacher, we found a sewing teacher who trains people to become seamstresses’ and tailors. He sent me a text message one day telling me he found someone who could teach me and then told me the price, which was quite a bit higher than what I had imagined paying for lessons. (However, the people learning from this teacher ARE learning from her to have this be their trade) – So I guess putting it into that perspective, the price seemed fair. Anyway, the text message from my co-teacher simply stated the price and it said “for this price, you will know all.” I had to chuckle inside, imagining the Asian/English accent of my co-teacher saying ‘you will know all’ in regards to paying one flat price. It almost sounded like some sort of fortune cookie message. Anyway. I guess you can’t really beat that,…. if I can pay a set price to “know all” I might as well take it and run.
But yes, interestingly enough, the flat price (to know all) is for no set amount of time. Each of the students study with her daily from 8am, break for lunch at 11-2, and then study until 5pm from Monday to Saturday (and Sundays if they want). And they will continue to study with her until they know all there is to know about sewing.
Anyhow, I’ve managed to get myself caught up into this, but have limited my time to 3 hours in the mornings from Monday – Friday, as I’m continuing my English class for teachers in the afternoons. And I must say, so far it has been going well.
The only catch about the whole thing is that my teacher (Kim Heang), doesn’t speak any English.
I’ve written out as many different possible sewing vocabulary words and sat down with the kids that study at our house every night to get the pronunciation of those words. But nothing really gets ya prepared for when the teacher starts throwing instructions at you and you’re supposed to know what they mean and perform right then and there on the spot. That’s when I promptly say “Somtoh, Khnyom jet Khmer tiek tiek, sohm bunghangm knyom” ( Sorry, I only know Khmer a little, please show me!?” And she does…and I think that’s pretty much how this whole learning thing is going to go.
My first day was spent with some time getting to know the pedal-powered sewing machine. The machine itself is a Jerome (sp?) brand which actually seems pretty solid. However, the pedal portion of the machine is the good old Singer brand. I was able to get used to the rhythm of the pedal, learned NOT to turn the wheel in reverse to reverse the material (it does have its own reverse lever) and practiced having the foot and the needle of the machine take material back and forth. Eventually we put some thread in there and I started practicing sewing straight lines. Which after several runs, she seemed pretty satisfied with my performance.
The last two days however, I’ve spent practicing sewing button-holes.
By hand.
I asked her if they make them on the machine (which I know is one of the features on the machine Will bought me for Christmas 2 years ago)…….. and she said “Yes” (in Khmer)… and then said, “But first you will learn how to sew them by hand.” (In my head, I was like, “Are you Kidding ME??! REALLY?”) – but then thought to myself that I like this teacher...., straight to the chase, down to the basics, and nothing like starting from the very beginning. After all, the art of sewing is something that the people of my gender have mastered for generations and generations and, if they could do it, so can I, right? ( At least that’s my attitude as of right now; let me remind you I’m only at day 3.)
Anyhow, I spent my last 6 hours of lessons practicing stitches to sew around the hole of a button-hole.
By hand.
Dang she makes it look so easy. She can do it so fast, with perfect little stitches in a matter of just a few minutes. Then, she handed over the material for me to try. Things like that are so awkward to hold at first, and you really just need to practice it to get your own rhythm and learn how to hold the fabric, needle and thread simultaneously, until it turns into its own dance. I was onto my second one and she came over and checked on me and kept saying, “jet sa’aht” (nearly right/pretty) – but then kept on saying “s’mau, s’mau” - and I had no idea what that meant…and told her I didn’t understand. Then another student, about 22 years old – who can mutter out a few words in English –…started saying, umm…um… as if she knew what the word was but couldn’t think of it and then all of a sudden her facial expression changed as if a light bulb turned on and started saying, “Equal! It means Equal!”
I laughed out loud. Mostly at myself because my stitches did look really pretty bad compared to hers. So after all of that, my teacher was just trying to nicely tell me that my stitches need to be more equal. Ha.
At that point, I thought to myself it’s going to be quite the ride getting through this course. I need to get on the horse of learning some more basic instructional vocabulary if I want to make this easier. But at the same time, I’m sure it’ll be pretty interesting along the way. The teacher most definitely seems very nice and very patient… and speaks with a calm voice when giving me instructions. (Whether or not I understand the instructions is key question). Regardless, the atmosphere is great. It’s not too crowded and is on the lower level of a house with many windows and a nice cross breeze coming through it. The ladies listen to music on the radio…talk and are simply hard at work on each of their own projects…and they’re able to joke around with me, the strange ‘barang’ (foreigner) who for some reason, unknown to them, wants to learn how to sew.
I brought home my practice material with about 14 different button holes and showed it to Will yesterday, and he said “That’s what you did the entire three hours!?”. I said, yep.
Today went better and my stitches were looking “sa’aht cheeung m’sal meing” – “Prettier than yesterday” – which is good for me…….. AND at the end of class I was instructed to buy some fabric that I’ll apparently learn how to cut into the pieces for making a shirt. So MAAAAYYBEEE I passed the button-hole-sewing-by-hand-test? Maybe not.?
But either way, more importantly, I do NOW know the word for Equal.
One Year Mark – July 23
So our year in country anniversary was just last week. Hard to believe, but also, it’s not. Time goes by so fast and so slow in this country. A lot of it has to with how busy you are, and or how happy you are.
At this point I can honestly say we’ve got a much better outlook than maybe we did in March – when everything just seemed so frustrating. We now know what to expect (or at least have a general idea) of how things work, when people study, when it’s hot, and how to go about things, so that definitely feels good. And now, we are actually the veterans of the crew. All of K1 is gone (the first group of volunteers) and – the K3s (Kampchua, PCVs group 3) arrived in country on July 24th. I wasn’t down there for the arrival, but talking to a few volunteers who were, said that being at their initial orientation was a bit refreshing. It was nice to be there answering the very same questions we were asking a year ago and realizing how much it is that we have grown since we were in their shoes. They spent time explaining that many of the things they were asking about aren’t that big of a deal once you go through with it.
So yea, here we are…one down, one to go. Hard to believe. It’s a good feeling.
At this point I can honestly say we’ve got a much better outlook than maybe we did in March – when everything just seemed so frustrating. We now know what to expect (or at least have a general idea) of how things work, when people study, when it’s hot, and how to go about things, so that definitely feels good. And now, we are actually the veterans of the crew. All of K1 is gone (the first group of volunteers) and – the K3s (Kampchua, PCVs group 3) arrived in country on July 24th. I wasn’t down there for the arrival, but talking to a few volunteers who were, said that being at their initial orientation was a bit refreshing. It was nice to be there answering the very same questions we were asking a year ago and realizing how much it is that we have grown since we were in their shoes. They spent time explaining that many of the things they were asking about aren’t that big of a deal once you go through with it.
So yea, here we are…one down, one to go. Hard to believe. It’s a good feeling.
Tree Planting at the High School
Will had planted the seed in his co-teachers head about getting a tree planting project done at some point. They had been talking about a tree planting for quite a while. After they discussed a tree planting project, his counterpart contacted the community forestry office and scheduled a meeting. At the meeting they were offered one hundred hard wood trees ranging in size from half a meter tall to almost two meters. The deputy school director took them in his truck to pick up the trees the following day. Four days later the school director organized 50 students to help plant the trees under the supervision of an agriculture teacher. They had all of the trees planted and watered in less than two hours. The school director was very excited and has requested that they plant one hundred more trees in October, which the community forestry office has agreed to supply. The project was a great success.
Catching UP
I finished up helping out at the JPA school which turned out pretty well. While I’m glad to be done, I will miss the little munchkins; regardless of their teachers ability to control how quiet they were during class time. They still were pretty darn cute. I took a week off (mostly to catch up on all the laundry I hadn’t had time to do) – and also just to transition into the long vacation mode of summer and figure out how I’m going to approach the upcoming months. I’m back in gear with the teachers as we’ve started our English for Teachers course again, this time meeting 5 days a week. Then I’ve also started taking sewing lessons (see entry: Word of the Day: s’mau). Then last week I sort of got into a landscaping mode. Besides learning that no one seems to sell flower seeds anywhere, I was able to drop more money into purchasing plants and potted flowers from the local plant nursery in town than I had intended to. Oops. Oh well our patio area does look really nice now all decorated w/ flowers). But I guess I will wait before I go on my next plant and flower spending spree.
As for Will, besides his tree-planting project, he has been spending a fair amount of time practicing the fundamentals of basketball with the high-school team. We’re in the midst of planning an itinerary for our upcoming vacation to Malaysia which we’re taking in September. It’s sort of a late anniversary vacation, right before school starts AND also during the Pchum Ben holiday in Cambodia (which usually consists of all of the Pagodas blasting really loud ceremonial music starting at 4am in the morning) – and I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that we live 50m away from a Pagoda. So we purposely planned on being out of the country at that time. Other than that not too much new to report. We’re definitely in the rainy season, and well I’ve already written about how much we like the rain here. Temperatures are so much more tolerable.
I guess that’s all for now until the next interesting thing comes our way to write about. We hope everyone’s well back home…..
over and out.
As for Will, besides his tree-planting project, he has been spending a fair amount of time practicing the fundamentals of basketball with the high-school team. We’re in the midst of planning an itinerary for our upcoming vacation to Malaysia which we’re taking in September. It’s sort of a late anniversary vacation, right before school starts AND also during the Pchum Ben holiday in Cambodia (which usually consists of all of the Pagodas blasting really loud ceremonial music starting at 4am in the morning) – and I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that we live 50m away from a Pagoda. So we purposely planned on being out of the country at that time. Other than that not too much new to report. We’re definitely in the rainy season, and well I’ve already written about how much we like the rain here. Temperatures are so much more tolerable.
I guess that’s all for now until the next interesting thing comes our way to write about. We hope everyone’s well back home…..
over and out.
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