Welcome to Mesang

The past month has been filled with navigating the big transition I have been picturing in my mind for the past several months: moving in with my host family in Mesang and starting work. And certainly a transition it has been, with plenty of ups and downs already, usually intense instances of both in the same day. As we got in the car to deliver me to my host family almost a month ago now on the morning of September 19, I was filled with anticipation of what to expect upon arrival in Mesang. As the river of motobikes and vehicles gradually turned into a trickle, and the scenery from scattered high-rise skeletons and tight packed market stalls to rice paddies and wooden stilted homes, we entered a very different place from the one I had gotten to know over the past three weeks in Phnom Penh. Though I had never before in my life seen a rice paddy, there was something very comfortable and familiar about being in a place so green and fresh. This is the version of landscape I am accustomed to and grew up in rather than the blocky organized chaos of the city, and I think that something within me could recognize and appreciate that.

The house where I live with my host family is in many ways a traditional Cambodian-style dwelling, though a couple adjustments have been made for my benefit in the time leading up to my arrival. The house is built on stilts about 10 feet high, dividing the structure into two levels. The ground level under the house is divided into two main areas: a somewhat more closed-off area for cooking and eating, and a space for relaxing that is fully open to the air and breeze. This section also extends out from the house to include the barn for most of the animals. The upper level is mainly for sleeping, being one large room, except for my sleeping quarters which were sectioned off prior to my arrival to give me some privacy when I want. One of my favorite parts of the ground-level space is laying in a hammock to read while groups of chickens and ducks lead their peeping cohorts of hatchlings around foraging for food. In addition to the 10 or so ducks and 30ish chickens, my family owns 3 cows and two dogs to round out the farm life. A new adjustment for me never having grown up with chickens was the roosters waking me up in the morning. The roosters generally roost overnight in the barn rafters which are connected to my wall, and because the window to my room has only shutters and the walls and floors are slatted to help the house stay cool, I am able to hear them calling very clearly in the morning before I usually need to wake up.

My host home in Mesang.

From left to right: lounging in the main hangout space of my house, the view from my door in the morning, one of the many little guests I cohabitate with.

I’ve really enjoyed getting to know my family in the ways I can. They speak only Khmer, but through my steadily improving Khmer abilities, repetition, acting out words, and when necessary Google Translate’s conversation feature, we are able to communicate decently well together. My family consists of my host parents, who I call Ma and Pa, an 18 year-old sister who lives at home, two other host siblings of similar age who board in Phnom Penh for school, a grandfather who I call Ta, and a young boy cousin who lives with my grandfather. My grandfather lives directly behind my host home, and so most dinners we all eat together at my host home. I’m so appreciative of the extreme patience, generosity, and care my host family has shown me thus far, and I am admittedly frustrated a lot of the time at my limited ability to ask them questions about their lives and express what I am thinking and wanting to say. I think my language abilities are improving steadily, but most of my learning over the past month has been about household, farm, and food themes. One of the many ways they have shown their care and generosity for me recently has been caring for me while being sick. I have been knocked down with COVID almost the past week (despite an article in the Phnom Penh Post stating only 4 new cases in the whole country that same day I tested positive haha), and have been very thoroughly cared for even through my family has also been sick at the same time.

Me with my host mom, dad, and brother at a Pagoda.

I’ve certainly also had many new cultural experiences since being here so far as well. Some of the most memorable took place the first weekend during a Buddhist festival called Pchum Ben that got me a five-day weekend, a pair of trips to my parents’ ancestral pagodas, and opportunities to meet a lot of relatives. My host family is Buddhist, and so celebrates Pchum Ben by making offerings of food and money at the pagoda where the ashes of ancestors 7 generations back are located. This is typically followed by a feast for people in attendance as well, which I was happy to partake in.

An offering with my host dad's family for Pchum Ben.

I was also fortunate enough to have an opportunity to help transplant rice my second weekend here as well. I say that I was fortunate because this is something I have long been curious about, and having the chance to participate firsthand was not something I necessarily expected. I hope I was helpful in this process as well, but it is difficult to tell. I watched how my host parents pulled the rice and tossed the shoots into the empty areas of paddy and did my best to copy their actions, but I don’t have a great way of gauging how correctly I was in fact doing the work and I don’t think that my host parents would tell me if I was doing it wrong. Either way, it was an enjoyable way to spend the weekend and I have really enjoyed getting to learn piece by piece about such an important and dominant element of the Cambodian diet and way of life.

Transplanting rice with my host parents (and a neighbor boy for a minute).

Also over the past several weeks I have started working in my position at Organization to Develop Our Villages (ODOV). My work so far has been a little combination of bits and pieces of different tasks while trying to get a handle on the routine of a workday. This is also my first time ever working a regular job, and it admittedly can be challenging to stay engaged for such a long stretch of time during the day. I like the work that I am doing, but after the haphazard class schedule I got used to in college over the past four years, a full day at work certainly feels different. I bike about 1.5 miles to work, which starts around 7:30am, then we have an hour and a half lunch/rest break, and finally go back home at 5pm. With dinner at 5:15ish, dark setting in around 6, and bedtime about 8, this doesn’t leave a lot of time for much else during the workday, so weekends have been nice times for me to explore and do things like biking and reading. Another thing I have done a lot for work is travel for field visits. Much of ODOV’s work is conducted in the field either at house meetings, visiting projects, or other similar work sites, and I have made tagging along for this a priority for myself to learn as much as I can about this part of Cambodia and ODOV’s work.

Food has of course been another highlight much as it was during my stint in Phnom Penh, keeping some of the same flavors while adding a number of new ones as well. One of my favorite parts of the day is breakfast, where I usually eat pork, eggs, rice, and soup right across the street from my house. My house is located in a pretty rural setting, but there happens to be a little place where mostly people stop on their way to work in Mesang town or on their way to school in the Pagoda two properties down. For lunch I generally get a ride with someone on motorbike to go to a little restaurant in Mesang town about a kilometer from my office. Here we always eat a big plate of rice and each day there are several different Khmer dishes to choose from and we usually get a little of most of them to add to our rice. Dinner in the evening is with my family, and my host mom is an excellent cook. Again rice, usually some type of soup, and some type of fried meat. I’ve also eaten a lot of more the famous Cambodian prahok I heard so much about since coming to the country side and grown from accepting it, to ordering it myself in a restaurant. Prahok is a fermented fish paste that is added to dishes for flavor and characterizes a lot of Cambodian cuisine, but is less common in the city than the countryside from my experience.

From left to right and top to bottom: grilled bananas, grilled fish, fried noodles and green tea, fried rice paddy shrimp, coconuts on a sale cart, a dinner my host mom cooked

While I am started to settle into routines that feel comfortable and reliable, there are still a lot of things that challenge me every day. With so much new material to absorb, ways of life to adjust to, and the language barrier putting some type of distance between me and everyone else, there is a lot of adjusting to do and I am still working on making that transition. Especially the first week here felt very new and overwhelming, but slowly and surely each week adds to my understanding of my context and allows me to feel more and more comfortable.

It was really nice to have the opportunity to take a weekend to visit Phnom Penh and see the other YALTers and MCC staff at a party for two MCC staff who are leaving MCC Cambodia. I caught a taxi (have you ever fit 13 people into a Toyota Sienna van??) from Mesang on a Friday morning and stayed in the city until Sunday afternoon when I came back via taxi again. In Phnom Penh we caught up with each other, baked cookies in a frying pan, and played the most intense mini-golf course I have ever seen. Though I am beginning to feel more and more comfortable in Mesang, it was great to reconnect with the team again for a few days in the city.

The YALT team after taking on mini golf.

Before I wrap up this post, I fear that I have not adequately portrayed the beauty of the Cambodian countryside, so I’ll end with some photos that will also certainly not do the landscape justice but maybe give a little more context. I like taking walks on the roads paths around where I live, and often run into people fishing or working in the fields that have allowed me to photograph them as well, so I am very thankful for that as well.