A week of Khmer feasts

I've eaten more Cambodian food this week than I averaged in Cambodia. Granted, I ate a lot of "Asian fusion" and some Western food there, but still, it's been pretty wild. I spent the week organizing for the Cambodian Culture Dinner, an event that I headed up yesterday on campus, so perhaps gorging myself was just another way to prepare for it. But the good news is, I wasn't just huddled in a corner scarfing down stir-fry... I got to hang out with people who love Cambodia, which was good for my heart.

On Sunday, I traveled to the Cambodian embassy in Washington, DC for a belated Khmer New Year party. Several of us from Lehigh were invited by Narin Jameson, who was about to visit Lehigh as the guest speaker and chef extraordinaire for last night's Cambodian dinner, but I ended up being the lone Lehigh rep in DC. Narin was my only connection and I'd never met her in person... good thing Cambodians have a reputation for being friendly. Highlights included the dance performances, the guava with chili salt, the fried bananas, the sour soup... OK, maybe all the food... and the women sitting in front of me, who adopted me for the afternoon and were eager to help me practice Khmer.

Dance performances included traditional Cham dancing, which I'd never seen.

After the performances, it was time for traditional New Year's games, and I bravely went up with my newfound companions, who promised to explain the rules and help me out. (Ha!) All the women faced the men, and the two lines took turns throwing kind of a fox-tail made of a krama scarf with a ball tied inside it. As one of the only non-Cambodians, I became (deservedly) the butt of several jokes as I kept messing up in front of all the participants. I guess I just don't have much experience at knocking two jackfruit seeds together against the knees of a line of guys, so I took longer, kept dropping the seeds, and didn't exactly inflict any pain. (I think it was punishment for them losing a round, because later the tables were turned.) And I missed the part where the giant game of catch turned into a flirtatious game of keep-away... thankfully a woman near me grabbed the ball from me at that point, knowing I was lost. The uncertainty about all the rules was a bit terrifying.

I had to chuckle, though, when the announcer made some remark in Khmer about me being an foreigner. I knew all the laughter was good-natured, and the whole thing was so reminiscent of how people joke around in Cambodia. I felt as if I were on Cambodian soil in the embassy, and in a legal sense perhaps I was. I know well the feeling of being the hapless foreigner, and I'm fine with playing that role at times. It's nice to have a built-in excuse, kind of a "get out of jail free" card. Narin also made me feel better when she told me that since she's from Phnom Penh, she didn't know these games either, which are mostly played in the provinces.

On Tuesday, I used up my last two packets of Cambodian curry paste/powder to make a chicken curry for some visitors: Pastor Bob Schuman, who's been teaching a weekly Bible class on Jesus and salvation that I'm in this semester, and my classmates, Tom and Alicia Vosters. (Yup, this class has only three of us, down from about 15 on average.) Also joining us were Bob's wife and the Vosters' two sons, ages 7 and 9. We enjoyed the curry with some decidedly non-Cambodian sides like oatmeal bread, spinach salad with pecans and goat cheese, and peanut butter brownies. Call it fusion? More like plain old laziness, since they were all repurposed from other occasions.

After dinner, the Vosters and I presented our final group project, on Cambodian beliefs - hence why the curry seemed fitting. Interestingly, while I'd never met the Vosters before our fall-semester Bible class, they're hoping to move to Cambodia in 2017 to serve with World Team, which makes me really happy. That also worked out well because for our final project, comparing Christian views of salvation with another religion's views, we agreed to study Cambodian religious views together. Chendamony Sokun, a former Logos student whose parents are devout Buddhists, told me that Theravada Buddhism is the icing on the cake to most Cambodians - animism is at the heart of their beliefs. She, Laksmie Bunnarith, Megan Roberts, Amy Uecker, and Vuthy Keo were all a huge help on this project! We also drew heavily on this article by the late Jeff Evanson, a former colleague and long-time missionary to Cambodia, whom I deeply respected. The project made for a good conversation with my parents and the Schumans, who have all visited Cambodia before.

Bob (in black) set the bar high for our presentation, so we tried our darndest!

On Wednesday I had leftover curry for lunch, and it was still delicious, but not really noteworthy.

On Thursday, I stopped by the graduate house kitchen for a bit to help three other students peel and slice mangoes on Thursday morning as they made massive quantities of spicy green mango salad and amok curry with tofu. I transporting the curry to the kitchen and helped our guest speaker, Narin Jameson, unload the gigantic pots of banana tapioca pudding and kapit phao/natang (a dipping sauce made with pork and shrimp) that Narin had made back in DC. She told me she spent days preparing everything!

That evening, Sothy Eng, my professor, adviser, and boss (I'm one of his graduate assistants) invited the volunteers for the dinner to his house to welcome Narin to Bethlehem. Sothy made baw baw for us, a rice porridge with chicken, mushrooms, and shrimp, garnished with lime and cilantro. It's such a comforting food, and this rendition seemed especially delicious! Narin used to work for the Cambodian embassy in the US (back in the '70s, pre-Khmer Rouge) and later for the World Bank. Her husband Don, an American, has worked at US embassies in a number of countries, including Cambodia, where they met (also pre-Khmer Rouge). They were both fascinating conversationalists, and Narin is such a sweetheart.

On Friday, dinner was quite the undertaking, despite all the prep that had been done by Thursday. Narin was scheduled to teach two smaller cooking classes, with a large-group dinner in between, where she'd do a cooking demonstration and talk about Cambodian culture. I'd written a grant to get us the funding from three different groups on campus, and we'd been hard at work all month to work out the logistics since there were no ovens or burners for us to use in that building, only two electric hot plates. We heated up our curry in Crock Pots and used rice cookers for the rice. The problem was, the hot plates needed special pans that we didn't have, and so our plan for heating Narin's massive pots of food and having her demonstrate how to cook spring rolls and dipping sauce had to be reworked on the go. Somehow the banana and tapioca pudding got a bit burnt on the bottom before we realized the hot plate issues, but the smoky flavor actually made it even better.

Rice cookers and Crock Pots in the building's former greenhouse, now a cafe area, to free up space in the kitchen for the cooking class

Event organizers and participants at the first of two cooking classes

It got really crowded in the tiny kitchen, as unscheduled drop-ins nearly doubled the number of participants, while most of us organizers ran in and out trying to make appliances work. Not until the middle of the main demonstration did we receive a pan for the hot plate, and the microphone also had a few glitches. Despite all the technical difficulties, Narin bravely forged on, and everyone who attended had plenty of opportunities to eat and learn. After running around from 9 AM to 7 PM (including the whole main event), it was wonderful to finally stop for a minute and eat all the delicious food. Even if the event wasn't quite as smooth as I'd hoped, it was pretty cool to see my grant proposal turn into reality with the help of some awesome classmates.

So thankful for all their help!

Today, Saturday, leftovers from yesterday made a great lunch. So there we have it: I ate Khmer food six days this week, including four different dinners. And while I didn't see any Cambodians today, I talked with Sothy on the phone about my final project for his statistics class (tracking Cambodian high school alumni), which is due on Monday and nowhere near ready. After this festive week, it's good to have some "down time" to finish all my spring coursework. Still, I'm so glad Cambodian culture is still a part of my life while I'm in the US.

Come back soon: A puppy's memorial

I remember the day of the Tennessee flood

The sound of the scream and the sight of the blood

My son, he saw as the animal died

In the jaws of the dog as the river ran by

I said, come back soon

He was fluffy and wriggly and cuddly and mellow, everything a puppy should be. 9-year-old Caely, one of the neighbor kids I babysit, was head over heels. She'd been looking forward to him for six months, ever since her dog (and best friend since birth) had been put down last fall, following aggression toward neighbors. She talked about the puppy probably once a week before he was born and much more frequently after that, eagerly anticipating his arrival.

Her dad carefully researched breeds that were gentle, kid-friendly, and easy to train. He put in a request with a breeder of Labradoodles whose dog had a litter on its way. They decided to name him Art, after an ancient king of Ireland. Caely went wild with nicknames for him. Art the Artist! Arts and Crafts! Artful Dodger! (That last one was my idea, actually... she's not an Oliver Twist fan yet.)

While he technically belonged to the whole family, he was really Caely's dog. She refused to let her younger siblings take the leash when we took Art on his first walk, and was quick to scoop him into her arms when he soon lost steam. She pleaded with me to let her do her homework in the same room as Art. She made me say hi and tell him how adorable he was whenever he came into view. (It wasn't hard to muster up enthusiasm.) At the park, he played Toto to her Dorothy.

She couldn't stop posing with Art. "Look how beautiful your smile is!" I told her after the shots below. "Yeah, I haven't really smiled like that since my mom died," she replied. (Her adoptive mom passed away in fall 2014.) My heart melted. 

I kept warning her that he was going to grow into a Dog, that she'd need to work hard with her dad on training him, that he wouldn't always stay so cute and little and innocent. 

But I was wrong.

It's there on the page of the book that I read

The boy grew up and the yearling was dead

He stood at the gate with the angel on guard

And wept at the death of his little-boy heart

I say, come back soon

Come back soon

I was listening to Andrew Peterson's song, "Come back soon," on my way home from my sister's last Wednesday night. I've always found it moving, but I didn't know how apt it was that night. As I was cruising down the highway, Art was wriggling his way under their gate toward the street, where he was run over seconds later and died before Caely's eyes. He'd been at their house a mere 11 days. Caely felt awful for not stopping his escape. 

We wake in the night in the womb of the world

We beat our fists on the door

We cannot breathe in this sea that swirls

So we groan in this great darkness

For deliverance

Deliverance, O Lord

I know a lot of kids fleeing ISIS, or dropping out to sell street snacks, or fearing a teen marriage to an old man, might envy Caely's childhood. But she's been through a lot more loss in her nine years than I have in twenty-nine. Why is it that my dog, Demi, lived to the ripe old age of almost-seventeen, while Art made it less than three months? Why did the dog who was supposed to help restore Caely's joy end up ripping open her old wounds, reinforcing the fear that everyone she loves will leave her? 

If nature’s red in tooth and in claw

Seems to me that she’s an outlaw

Because every death is a question mark

At the end of the book of a beating heart

And the answer is scrawled in the silent dark

In the dome of the sky of a billion stars 

But we cannot read these angel tongues

And we cannot stare at the burning sun

And we cannot breathe with these broken lungs

So we kick in the womb and we beg to be born

Deliverance!

Oh, deliverance, O Lord!

Caely and I don't have any answers. But we were reminded this week of the power of empathy. A visiting family friend, Mr. Mike, had heard about Art. Knowing Caely wasn't ready to talk about it, he told her, "I put something in your room for you." It was a note that said, "I'm sad about Art too," and a china figurine that looked a lot like Art. I asked Caely if his gift made her sad by reminding her of Art. No, she replied, it actually made her kind of happy.

This Good Friday, I'm realizing that Jesus can empathize with the groans of all creation, the "pains of childbirth," waiting for God to set the world free and make all things new. He wept at the death of a dear friend, and His groans of anguish on the cross guaranteed that our current suffering isn't all there is. Life between the "already" of Christ's resurrection and the "not-yet" of His return can be painful, but it's never hopeless. Death wins battles but has lost the war. 

Because Jesus fully entered our broken world, because He knew pain and sorrow and death, we can trust what He says about them. He says that He's with us through them, that His peace overcomes them, and that their days are numbered. He makes the sad things come untrue, and He's coming back soon.

Globalization and me

I try to blog monthly about what's new in my life or on my mind, but these days the answer to that is often... grad school. It's been kinda hectic. Rather than foregoing a February post altogether, I thought I'd share a recent assignment that was slightly more readable and personal than most. In this class, "Globalization and Contextualization in Education," we're discussing what globalization is and how it affects education, as well as other facets of life and society. So an early assignment had us reflecting on our story, perspective, and context as they relate to globalization.

My experience with globalization began before I was born, when my mom spent five years after college in Austria. She taught me German from the day I was born – it helped that my dad worked for a German company’s Vermont branch and that we spent a total of a year in Munich for his job by my second birthday. After that, though I stayed in North America for the next twelve years and my German lessons dropped off until high school, I still benefited from my parents’ international perspective and visits from their European friends. I also have vivid memories of the three international ESL students in my class: a Chinese girl and two refugees – a Bosnian boy and an Albanian girl; I became friends with both girls in middle school. Despite growing up in a small, homogeneous Vermont town where many residents had deep roots, I grasped early on that the world was bigger than what I could see.

A German family friend taught classical guitar to my brothers and me for years in Vermont. We loved playing with her two girls!

By college, I’d developed a passion for languages and a dream of moving overseas to a developing country – specifically Cambodia, ever since I’d heard a volunteer tell fun stories and show cute pictures. Though I’d mainly considered teaching English, since TESOL isn’t a common bachelor’s degree and I wanted to keep my options open, I studied French and German education. My language classes delved into questions of history and culture that fascinated me, particularly regarding immigration in Europe. My honors thesis focused on the experiences of second-generation Turkish-German and North African-French youth and the role of Islam in their constructed identities. Between that project, teaching English conversation at an international Christian student group, and the friendships I developed with students from Egypt, Malaysia, Japan, and beyond, I began to gain an awareness of non-Western perspectives.

After a brief stint filling in for a German teacher on sabbatical, I attained my dream of moving to Cambodia at the tender age of almost-23. In my job interview, I told the principal of Logos (a Christian international school in the capital, Phnom Penh) that I’d be in over my head as an English literature teacher, and he told me that they were desperate enough to hire me anyway. So I came, hoping I wouldn’t rue my two-year contract. Though most teachers and some students were North American, most of my middle and high school students were Asian, hailing from Cambodia, Korea, Singapore, and beyond. It was immediately clear that our so-called American school was influenced by far more than just US culture, and though it took time, I loved the challenge of finding effective communication styles, humor, and motivational techniques for the unique subculture of “Third Culture Kids” in my classes.

Students in this choir hold passports from 8 countries and have lived in even more.

In my second year, I began a French program in addition to my English classes, and soon began pondering why I was teaching it. In the US, teaching foreign languages felt noble: I was expanding students’ horizons and forcing them to think beyond their own cultural perspectives. In Cambodia, my students were already multicultural and often multilingual, and for every kid who dreamed of traveling to Paris or chatting with French neighbors, there were two who joined my class just to get a break from reading Cambodian. (In their defense, with the world’s longest alphabet and no spaces between words, the Khmer script truly is a beast.) Before my arrival, except for one semester with a Mandarin teacher, students had been required to study Khmer from elementary school through tenth grade. Now that I was there, students could abandon Khmer after eighth grade and switch to French. Besides their dread of the alphabet, there was the power differential: some of my students from wealthier, more “developed” countries disdained all things Cambodian as inferior to their native culture and language. On service trips, I realized many of my non-Cambodian students had almost no Khmer conversational ability. Was I partly to blame by giving them an out and teaching them the language of a wealthy, powerful nation? I encouraged my French students to continue practicing Khmer and did my best to lead by example, studying it myself as much as possible. I looked for ways to celebrate non-Western Francophone cultures in class, even though I was much more knowledgeable about Europe. I also became peripherally involved in developing a Khmer track for non-native speakers, one that included more conversation, less literacy, and more interactive teaching methods, in hopes of empowering and motivating my expat students to communicate more in Khmer.

A beautiful goodbye letter from my dear Khmer friend Thavy

My other hesitance about teaching French pertained to its relevance to my students. Though Cambodia was a French protectorate through 1953, most French speakers were slaughtered in the genocide under Pol Pot, and after 1979 the public schools soon switched to English as their primary foreign language. French is still used in Cambodia’s medical diagnoses, prescriptions, and the labels of some imported foods, but little else. My principal agreed that though French certainly did more to foster students’ English vocabulary, its importance was fading in comparison to Chinese, not only in Cambodia but worldwide. When I announced that my sixth year would be my last, he hired a Mandarin teacher (much more competent than the first one) to replace my French classes. Of course some students were sad to lose the French option, but many enthusiastically dived into Chinese. I was glad and in some ways relieved. It did cause me to ponder, though, how languages wax and wane in conjunction with the economic and political power of their speakers. That was the year that my dad lost his job again, as Asian competitors increasingly conquered his niche of the technology industry.

When Logos’ parent organization started a training program for Cambodian teachers during my fourth year, I was eager to become involved. I’d enjoyed befriending many of them and wanted to deepen my relationships with them. I taught two weekly classes: one on English pronunciation and one on writing. The next year, I assisted a Cambodian teacher (my original Khmer tutor) in simplifying the English for some education resources in order to translate them into Khmer. In my last year, I mentored a new Cambodian teacher at Logos, observing her and helping her set goals for growth. My interest in training Cambodian teachers, along with all my questions about globalization and education, ultimately led me to Lehigh and to the M.A. program in Comparative and International Education. I’d still love to return to that teacher training program after graduating. In the meantime, I’m starting my thesis, which will focus on the Student Council program mandated for Cambodian public schools, exploring its participants’ emotional intelligence and civic identity. I also hope to wrangle through some of my concerns about why, how, and to what extent I hope for Cambodian education to globalize. While Cambodia’s schools are far from perfect, even my stubborn remnants of “white savior mentality” don’t expect foreign meddling or the copying and pasting of other nations’ successes to yield easy progress.

A major influence on my perspective of globalization is my Christian faith, since I believe God created humankind full of diverse languages and cultures in order to mirror his own beauty and creativity. Christians therefore have a moral obligation to not only tolerate but celebrate that diversity, learning from others and considering others’ needs before our own. In my opinion, that includes fighting against isomorphic trendsetters and unseen powers-that-be to revel in the beautiful quirks of the local as unique manifestations of God’s glory. I’ve always been one to root for the underdog, and I hate seeing smaller, less-powerful countries like Cambodia drown in foreign influences or be divided up by global superpowers. I want my Cambodian students to have excellent Khmer; I want them to publish books in Khmer; I want them to preserve their language and culture in the onslaught of English language and Asian Tiger influences, even as they become fluent in English and learn to compete internationally. On the other hand, I don’t believe we can revert to worldwide isolationism; today’s world is inherently connected and interactive, a fact that is likely to be ever-truer in the future. That’s why I believe it’s important for Americans, who have a louder voice than most in shaping the unseen forces of globalization (from corporations to military to media) to learn how to truly see and value smaller groups. That’s far from a comprehensive resolution to the tension, but it’s a first step, and one that’s facilitated by globalization as the world comes to our doorstep through migration and technology. It’s one reason I was passionate about helping my students become effective communicators in English – their stories need to be heard, and others around them need help to raise their voices.

As I reacclimate to US culture after six years of mostly living in Cambodia, I’ve been horrified at some people’s xenophobia and desperation to protect their culture from outside influences. Case in point: How could New Hampshire, where voters pride themselves on attending many campaign events and carefully weighing all candidates, overwhelmingly vote for Trump in yesterday’s caucus? His appeals to fear remind me of similar approaches from reviled French and Cambodian politicians when I experienced elections in those countries, and at the time, I hadn’t imagined that such a politician could rise in the US. While some of his supporters probably believe their group is entitled to dominance in the US, I believe many others are foolishly underestimating their collective power in relation to the power of seemingly threatening newcomers.

Then again, my own grasp of power distributions is also tenuous at best. How accurately and completely do I know current national affairs, let alone the broader global situation and historical context? That’s one thing that’s struck me in recent class readings. Globalization is such a complex, vast, and multifaceted phenomenon that my puny attempts to understand it feel about as effective as an ant trying to map out New York City. I’m hesitant to generalize about our world when my vantage point is so small and there’s so much that I’ve never contemplated, let alone witnessed firsthand. Without excusing racism or wrongdoing, maybe I need to extend a bit more grace to those who strike me as “overly American,” remembering that globalization’s forces can bewilder the best of us. I need to remember that lesson from childhood: the world is far bigger than what I can see. All I can do is keep my eyes and ears wide open, embracing every opportunity to explore new nooks and crannies. I don’t understand globalization, but I want to keep learning.

She-nanny-gans

Since school started, I've been nannying the neighbor kids just part-time, but we've still had adventures in between homework sessions. I'm learning a lot about them and gaining wisdom about how to work with kids this age; it's quite a switch from high school, yet awesome in its own way. I'm glad this is not just a job but a relationship - they've gotten to know some of my family and friends, and vice versa. See the following photos for evidence.

At one of our favorite parks

Enjoying Thanksgiving dinner with one of my former Logos students, Harah, and her roommate Ji Hye

At a local event for preteen girls on healthy body image

On a class trip to the farm (no, Jimmy's boa did not go AWOL during the trip)

At my church's Christmas concert

Guess who was an angel in her school's Christmas program?

Out for an unseasonably warm Christmas walk (they loved my aunt and uncle's dog, Pepper!)

Making Christmas cookies...

... And hot chocolate for their dad's birthday 

(all 3 kids and their dad have birthdays in the month following Christmas)

Someone was sleepy after a nap in the car (not me, I promise!)

Another successful sewing lesson with my mom, yielding 2 scrunchies: one for her, one for a friend.

This girl's birthday pool party had to be postponed due to Pennsylvania's Snowpocalypse, but at least the weather lent itself to her first-ever sledding experience! It was also my first real snow experience in six years. In her words, her 9th birthday was "epic."

Her sister liked sledding too, but preferred eating snow.

All 3 had a great time!

I'm thankful to be in these kids' lives and looking forward to continuing in 2016. I've already seen them grow a lot, and it's been a pleasure!

Ditching the rug

I recently watched the film “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.” It’s the quirky, wistful story of a high school senior guy, Greg, and his classmate, Rachel, who has leukemia. He announces early on that the movie is not going to be a romance. Even so, as their “just-friends” relationship deepens, Greg panics. Having always preferred superficial friendliness and invisibility over intimacy, Greg finds that true friendship leaves him alarmingly exposed, both to Rachel and to others. Intimacy, it turns out, requires vulnerability.

In America, it’s easier for me to be invisible than it was in Cambodia. Partly because my ethnicity doesn’t stand out here. Partly because I don’t live in a fishbowl, where my housemates double as colleagues and the kids in my classes run into me at church, cafés, and even vacation spots. Partly because I have more material comforts (heating and A/C, access to stores, a car), and so I can hide or placate my stress more easily. Many friends have observed that problems which seemingly lay docile under America’s wall-to-wall carpet started poking their heads out when my friends moved to Cambodia, the land of tile floors and very small rugs. If I’d claimed, “I’m totally fine, nothing’s wrong,” they would have laughed and said, “OK, now what’s the real story?”

But even for Cambodians, life seems a bit more public. On my route to school, I could see into many homes and stores. I could make eye contact with kids biking to school, street vendors pushing carts of meatballs, and mechanics patching tires in basins of grimy water. If I didn’t want to know the extent of a moto crash victim’s injuries, it was up to me to look away. Day care isn’t really a thing, and many families run businesses out of their homes, so I’d see babies in hammocks and toddlers wandering around when I’d stop in somewhere to buy phone credit or print out worship lyrics. In the US, when have I entered a stranger’s home?

Cambodians are silent about some of their deepest struggles. For example, domestic abuse is rampant, and yet women rarely admit to being victims. But while their neighbors are unlikely to confront the perpetrators, they can often hear the yells and cries through the walls. They know. It’s harder to keep secrets in that environment.

As a Christmas gift, my parents took me to an off-Broadway adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce, an allegory of people in hell who take a tour of heaven – and mostly hate it. The grass pierces through their feet because it’s fully real and they’re only ghosts in comparison. They’re forced to spend time with people they’ve spent a lifetime despising. And the weakness and selfishness are exposed in what they claim as their greatest strengths. They’d prefer to return to hell in order to keep their pride intact. In hell, nobody needs other people, and everyone can get a new house just by thinking about it, so the grey town expands ad infinitum as people quarrel and move away from those who offend or bother them. As one explains, he could tolerate it if it weren’t for the utter loneliness. The characters in heaven are baffled. How can the visitors look right at the joy, the beauty, the love of God, and still reject it in order to have things their own way? Lewis' answer: It's the choice they've made all their lives.

The grey town is much easier for me to imagine in a US context than in a Cambodian one. While being in close community wasn’t always easy, forced friends were one of my favorite things about my life in Cambodia. This week I’ve had the delight of meeting up with three of them: Megan Roberts was visiting family in Philly, and now I’m in Orlando with Amy Uecker and Annalisa Benner for Annalisa’s wedding. Our conversations have been deep and open, just like old times, and I really love it.

I was worried last year that returning to the US would leave me isolated. How many people in America are really honest about the hard things in their lives, the way my friends were in Cambodia? A surprising number, in my experience. In the past 6 months, besides deepening my relationship with my parents and renewing a few close friendships, I’ve also met a number of people who have been refreshingly honest about their brokenness, pain, and regrets. The kids I nanny seemed so innocent and happy when I first started working with them. Now I’ve witnessed their selfishness, deceit, and fear. I’ve heard and seen manifestations of grief over their adoptive mom’s death last year following a brief illness. I’ve seen these kids at their worst (I think!), and I’m glad for it. While invisibility is an option in America, it’s not the only one available. Many people around me here recognize the value of intimacy and have chosen to ditch the rug instead of sweeping junk under it.

Some of the most awkward and heartbreaking moments in “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” come when someone is vulnerable and the other person has nothing to give them. Intimacy is scary because humans are never totally trustworthy – we screw up, we run out of words, sometimes we just plain stop caring. And some people are really consistently UNtrustworthy. That’s why I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the most beautiful friendships I’ve had are those where Christ is transforming us both. Relationships with God are the only ones where our vulnerability is always met with pure love. Only with God is there a truth strong enough to shatter the lies that control us. And only with God is there a rational, confident hope that replaces despair. I found myself wishing I could enter the movie and tell the characters, “I know the One who can handle your darkest secrets!” Knowing Christ not only brings intimacy that abolishes our invisibility, but He frees us to share life-giving intimacy with others…in Cambodia, America, and beyond.

Awed by autumn

Fall was always my favorite season growing up. But the past six years in Cambodia, my only hints of autumn came during an education conference in Korea one November, and one October around my brother's wedding. Mostly, I just wistfully viewed photos of lavish leaves and cozy sweaters from afar. So autumn was a definite perk of my decision to pursue grad school in the US. I wanted to experience the complete season, from the first yellowing leaf to the last brave blade of grass fighting to poke through the snow.

Still, I wondered. After all this time away, have I built it up too much in my mind? Will I enjoy the sharp winds and bulky layers after six years convincing myself that Permasweat is the new normal? And what aspects of fall will catch me off-guard?

In brief: no, mostly yes, and several. Let me describe my forays into fall festivities.

Pumpkins
Obviously the US has a slight pumpkin obsession this time of year. I've somehow made it to mid-November without a single pumpkin spice latte (I'm a cheapskate and not a huge fan of coffee), but I've munched on various pumpkin-y dishes, including this awesome curry. I thought Americans' reliance on canned pureed pumpkin was just out of laziness, and I missed putting fresh pumpkin into soups and stir-fries like I used to in Cambodia. (Pumpkin there is cheap and oh-so-delicious!) So when a decorative pumpkin was dropped and cracked, I decided to chunk it up and add it to a chickpea masala. To my surprise, it was super-bland. Next time, I'll go for a pie pumpkin variety or stick to butternut squash.

I also carved a jack-o-lantern with the kids I babysit. Eight-year-old Michaela drew a cat design that I then carved. It brought back memories of dorm life, when in a fit of absent-mindedness, I whittled away at the top of the pumpkin I was carving, smoothing it to the point that the lid fell right through. I still get teased about that. This time there was no danger of that, and the carving itself went as well as could be expected given my artistic ability limited time, but apparently the pumpkin thought a fur coat would complete the look. Here it is 9 days later, on Halloween night. 

Outdoorsy Stuff

I know these aren't specific to autumn, but I've especially enjoyed camping, hiking, and jogging this fall. Namely, it's possible to do them without sweating. In Cambodia, by contrast, there were few moments throughout the year that I could walk half a mile without feeling a bit sticky.

I was hesitant about planning a camping trip in late September, but it was wonderful - just chilly enough for me to appreciate the campfire. Three friends and I recreated a camping trip that our families used to do together each fall when I was in high school. This was actually my first time camping without my family, and my first time back at Spruce Lake in about 13 years.

I'm still learning how to dress for fall jogging, but my lesson from yesterday: for 40's temperatures, I need gloves (oops!) and long sleeves but no sweatshirt. I jogged for miles with my friend Capri, well after sunrise, and sweated so little that I didn't even feel embarrassed joining her family for breakfast afterward. Inconceivable! 

Holidays

This year is my first time in forever to be with family for a birthday since most of us were born in the fall. We've carried on birthday traditions like turtle cake and Mississippi Mud cake. I'm used to being the one who misses all the family gatherings, and now I'm usually a hostess and always in the thick of the action. I'm savoring this role while it lasts!

Everyone came in for my mom's birthday/Labor Day and we did family photos in honor of my parents' 30th. 

I also got to be present for the local election, in which (shame on me) I abstained as usual. I want to be a good citizen, but I don't even remember what half those job titles mean, let alone who's running for them. I'd like to feel at least a bit informed before helping steer the future of my community. On the other hand, I've had p l e n t y of input on the presidential election, although it's still nearly a year away. :/ I suppose it still beats the Cambodian elections, which had me packing a go-bag due to escalating tensions.

Something that made me feel like an foreigner: somehow I knew that Canada's Armistice Day was November 11, but I had no idea when Veterans* Day was.** Why would I not be able to remember that?

*I thought there was an apostrophe here somewhere, but the Internet said no.

**Hint: It's the same as Armistice Day.

Daylight Saving

Of course it was fun to "fall back" and sleep in an hour. And I do appreciate that it's light out when I wake up. But it turns out that despite its heroic name, Daylight Saving has a darker side. (Save daylight? It just stole it from my afternoon!) As this trailer so eloquently puts it, "They said it would help the farmers. They didn't know it would destroy everything else." That's one area in which I definitely prefer Cambodia to Pennsylvania - being so close to the equator, it has at least 11 hours of daylight even in winter. 

Leaves

As the only kid living with my parents this year, I finally learned how to use a leaf blower. (Back in the day, I think I was always on rake duty.) Here's our yard one week later. Yeah, we live in the woods.

Fallen leaves are a lot of work, it's true, but still beautiful. See how they're glistening in the rain?

When I moved from Vermont to Pennsylvania at age 12, I turned up my nose at the new display of fall foliage. This year, I've been nothing short of dazzled. I'm afraid I'll cause a leaf-peeper crash, the way I get distracted on my drive to Lehigh. Don't worry, I was on foot in my neighborhood for all these photos.

I didn't remember how the light could illuminate leaves while leaving the trunk as black as midnight.

Or that one leaf could have so many colors in it.

I forgot that a whole tree could be crimson all at once. Or that some trees could keep all their leaves when others were already totally bare.

I'm also finding the beauty in bare branches - something I'll have months to keep practicing. But for now, I'm contemplating the wonder in a creation that boasts this blazing glory only in places where a cold, grey winter is imminent. Cambodia has splashy tropical flowers all year, but its deciduous trees never look remotely this amazing. Meanwhile, places like Pennsylvania and Vermont, whose landscapes are usually more subdued, pull out all the stops this time of year. Can people store up beauty in their hearts to sustain them through the winter, like a squirrel with his cheeks full of acorns? For as long as I get to enjoy fall, I want to memorize enough of it to last me for years. I'm "hurrahing in harvest" and loving every minute.

There's one word that sums up how I feel about being back this fall...

From high school to grad school

When I first started teaching at Logos, I had 7th graders in my homeroom, and I grew quite fond of them as my youngest class (I taught English 7-9, 11, and 12). The next year, they were still my youngest grade as I taught grade 8 and up, and again the next year as I taught grade 9 and up. They were my homeroom again in grades 10 and 11, and while students in that class came and went, I taught some of the Class of 2015 as many as seven times counting French classes - more than anyone else. So it seems only fitting that I "graduated" from Logos with them, and that I'm now starting college alongside many of them. But while they're starting their associate's or bachelor's, I've begun a master's at Lehigh University. I took a summer class there, and this fall I have 3 classes and a part-time assistantship.

I didn't know much about Lehigh when I first looked into it - only that it had a reputation for a good engineering program, a large Greek life population, and a high price tag. But it's not far from my brother, his wife, and their twins, so I checked it out just in case. I found that its master's programs in education were far cheaper than its other programs (and the other schools I applied to), it had a program in Comparative and International Education (CIE), and one of the CIE professors had a vaguely Cambodian-sounding name: Sothy Eng. When I clicked on his biography, I realized he'd done his bachelor's degree in my neighborhood in Phnom Penh. Coincidence? I thought not. When I contacted him last fall, he told me that he was bringing students there on a research trip in January, and we ended up meeting for coffee. The more I heard about his work and the Lehigh CIE program, the more I knew that Lehigh was for me.

Two of the perks of Lehigh's location: Evan and Carson!

As it turns out, Lehigh hired Sothy specifically to help oversee its research partnership with a nonprofit called Caring for Cambodia, started by a Lehigh alumnus' wife, which supports schools in Siem Reap, Cambodia. So not only has everyone in my program heard of Cambodia, but there are Cambodia bulletin boards in our hallway, my Latvian professor has published journal articles on Cambodia, and several of my classmates are visiting Cambodia in November. Even my assistantship under Sothy (who's now my adviser) is Cambodia-related: so far I'm supporting a team that raises awareness and funds for CFC, helping find resources for a new ESL class in Siem Reap, and writing a grant for a Cambodian Culture Day at Lehigh. It's all a bit surreal given that I'm 11 time zones away from this tiny country that many Americans my age seem to think is in Africa.

The first meeting of the Lehigh-CFC Executive Board

I'm about halfway through the fall semester. One class is on the theories of comparative and international education. CIE is a very loose field, borrowing elements from sociology, economics, anthropology, and more, so the theories used are equally diverse. Our professor told us that her main goal for us is to be able to succinctly define comparative + international education. So far, here's my definition: a field that examines various ways of solving the same educational problems in different countries, local communities, or international regions (ex. European Union), examining how global, national, and local forces interact. While I'm far from the only teacher in the program, many students and scholars don't have an education background and are interested in education policy, study abroad coordination, nonprofit work, etc. Examples of issues that might attract CIE scholars include...

• "How are various national governments responding to Finland's success on the PISA test?" 
• "To what extent are the World Bank's priorities reflected in the policies of countries whose education systems it helps fund?"
• "How does increasing primary school enrollment in poor regions affect the economic prospects of those students and their communities?" 

My building is on the "Mountaintop Campus," farther up this hill.
I feel pretty removed from life on main campus.

Another class examines issues and issues in education development. Development is actually a very controversial word - what does it mean? who needs it? who should be involved? what does the process look like? - and my professor and classmates are quick to point out hypocrisy and arrogance in the seemingly benevolent actions of Western nations and individuals. Many of them have experienced it firsthand, since my professor is Latvian and my classmates hail from China, Afghanistan, Algeria, Vietnam, and Norway. (There's only 1 other American in my class of 8.) It's been great for my critical thinking skills. I loved Walking with the Poor, the book I chose to review for an assignment last week. (Shout-out to my dear friend Meagan Stolk, who recommended it to me!) Written by Bryant Myers, who worked with World Vision for 30 years before becoming a professor at Fuller Seminary, it uses a biblical worldview to evaluate many of the development theories we've been learning in class, and offers lots of practical advice for Christian development workers. Given that Lehigh is secular, I appreciated my professor allowing me to choose a Christian book to complement our class readings. I found it immensely helpful and inspiring.

My last class is on research methods. It's not quite as intellectually stimulating, but I'm glad that I have an easier class, and I think it will be very relevant to my future work - especially as I begin my thesis. It's got me scheming and dreaming about how to research topics related to Asian Hope, the NGO that runs Logos, and the free Asian Hope "catch-up schools" that supplement students' public school education. It's also got me groaning about the challenges of researching across cultures, languages, and continents, but I'm not giving up the dream just yet. Sothy thinks that a summer research internship at Caring for Cambodia could also tie into my thesis. That would be the perfect convergence of worlds - if I could use my new Lehigh skills to evaluate outcomes for my friend Chenda's kids. So while I'm a long way from Cambo at the moment, I love still feeling involved.

Enjoying lunch last spring with Chenda and some of her students at our church