mandevu.net

So while I have been poking around Kampong Thom, it looks like that first crop of Peace Corps volunteers went and got themselves sworn in. I guess that my invitation got lost in the mail. I just happen to hear about it through a friend. I had thought that something might be up, since the tv news reported that Peace Corps Director Ron Tschetter had meetings with both the King and the Prime Minister.

According to the U.S. embassy’s website…

In a recent ceremony attended by more than 300 Cambodian host family members, Cambodian government officials, and U.S. Embassy representatives, Peace Corps Director Ron Tschetter swore in Cambodia’s first ever group of Peace Corps Volunteers. The 29 newly minted Volunteers arrived in Cambodia on February 2, 2007 to undergo an intensive training program in the Khmer language, cross-cultural awareness, and technical skills related to their community development responsibilities…

…Immediately after the swearing-in ceremony, the Volunteers began to fan out across Cambodia to the provinces of Kampong Cham, Prey Veng, Svay Rieng, Takeo, Kampot, Battambang and Siem Reap.

I was wondering if any would turn up in Kampong Thom. Not this go-round. And, weren’t there 30 when they got here?

When Mamamandevu and I were sworn-in in Tanzania, I was one of the lucky ones was selected to address the crowd. Public speaking is traumatic enough. However much to my dismay, I was the third to speak, following two others whose 3 months of intensive Kiswahili language training had served them much better than it had served me. The day before the event, I had asked one of our instructors for help me with my few, well chosen words. She, trusting my abilties more than I did, pushed me into the the deep end with sophisticated gramatical structures and a lot of college-level vocabulary words. It was hard even for me to follow, let alone my audience. To top it all off, one of a crew of particularly jaded and cynical currently-serving volunteers broke the silence of the attentive crowd by laughing at me just as I began my speech (thanks for the derailment, Kate!). It was pretty awful.

Later, my wife and I became good friends with those very same jaded and cynical volunteers, clustered in the back of the crowd and hailing from some pretty remote villages. We wound up as neighbors, within a few hours bike ride of each other, and working together pretty closely.

As for the crew here, none of the four PCVs keeping blogs about their stay have mentioned anything about swearing in and moving out to their new spots. Though there are a couple of excited anecdotes about their first visits to their future new homes, the “site visit” which comes near the end of training. I figure that by now, they ought to be about all moved-in and are busy working on getting settled-in and deconfused.

For more official coverage, a couple of other pictures and excerpts from the speeches at the event, check out the official Peace Corps press release.

Since I was not at the ceremony, I pulled the image above from the embassy’s website.

Webbed feet, web log posted a little something recently which included a link to a page which collects together the blogs being maintained by the recent crop of Peace Corps volunteers here in Cambodia.  I have not had the time to go through any of them yet, though I expect to soon.  There are not many.

With a little groping around, I also found a mess of blogs by Peace Corps volunteers in Tanzania (or RPCVs from Tanzania).  As with the Cambodian PCVs, I have not had a chance to look at them yet.  There are quite a few.  The one random sample I peeked at (well, it was not random– he has a Ph.D.!) happens to work in our old district.  Interesting.  But what was really novel was that he posted his cell phone numbers!  That’s numbers, as in plural!

When MamaM and I worked in Tanzania, we had to walk barefoot up hill both ways at 5 in the morning to get to the bus to ride all day to get to the capital to get to the internet cafe to check our email.  The telephone landline was at the post office in the district seat– no so far, only up hill one way.  But, it was unreliable, expensive and generally too much trouble to use.  Cell phones were starting to appear, but only worked in Dar.  Now, I am sure the crusty old timers would just box my ears for fussing, and tell me all how they only got to send a telegram home once a year or whatever.  However, I remain surprised that the kids these days are so plugged in.  Heck, I might even contact the PhD.  He is has a neat little glossary for the local language down there.  Fun stuff! 

On February 2, a crop of 30 Peace Corps volunteers arrived in Phnom Penh and inaugurated the new PC program in Cambodia.  This lot will be working as English teachers at the post-secondary level in seven provinces.  I am not yet sure where.  I have been watching the development of this program for a year or so, since the announcement was made that Peace Corps was moving ahead with a program over here.  When the news initially broke, they had mentioned that they were going to be recruiting both English teachers and public health educators.  However there have been no reports of the health folks yet– maybe they are staggering the groups.  They had also mentioned that they might be expanding into other thematic areas in the future.  I can only hope that this might include agriculture, and maybe a job opening! 

I tried to track down some newspapers to check the local media coverage of this event (there was a little paragraph in the local English language daily).  But I think I started hunting too late in the day, so there were none to be found.  Since I read well below grade level, it probably would have taken me a month to get through the article anyway.