Life is a series of failures dotted with mini-victories

I like sticker charts.  Maybe, I need to go back to first grade where you can earn a sticker for just showing up and trying your best.  Daily life for me in mission really is a series of failures dotted with mini-victories but they say we learn more from our failures.  The most recent way I feel like I fail again, and again is with language.  Here is an example from last week alone...

Potential visitor who is sending messages about visiting in Frenglish, aka mainly French with OK thrown in here or there.  Thank you, google translate for the French vocab I have forgotten in the last five years since I studied French, the message is understood but I realize after sending the message I have used Khmer grammatical order...  Same day, finally, catching up with one of my Venezuelan friends via phone, Spanish brain must somehow fire-up (and, conversation is Khmer/Spanish or Spanglish more than I would like to admit because I can't seem to remember simple words).  Daily interactions with my landlord, some staff, my favorite market people and Khmer is at the forefront but not always understood.  Arrive at work and Cambodian Sign Language is used at least half the times I am speaking.  Even if I am speaking with a hearing person, we strive to have all staff signing if a deaf person is around so they can feel able to enter the conversation.  More and more I also have found myself in situation where I need to interpret for deaf colleagues because we are communicating with hearing folks that have no sign language (if that isn’t motivation to improve my skills so all can actually fully participate in the conversation, I don’t know what is) but for now, I am usually left feeling it was unclear at best.  Then, sometimes I get some American Sign Language thrown into the mix, if a word doesn’t exist yet in Cambodian Sign my office mate, who is a native ASL user will provide me with the ASL so I can avoid my terrible finger spelling.  Or, sometimes, ASL signs come flying to my brain from my prior life of knowing ASL (not always accurately).  Oh, and some home signs are thrown in for communicating with our deaf who have not yet had the opportunity to learn CSL, but that leads to only basic understanding between us.  Oh, and there is this language called English which is still my primary mode of communication and must be at a professional level for work publications and at a level understandable to non-native speakers when communicating with some staff members and friends.  Uffda.

Literally, this past week, I have been having very unrestful sleep because in my dreams I am trying to interpret for someone from one of these languages into some version of sign and I don’t know the sign, the recurring part is I am getting so frustrated with myself because for some reason I am the only one who knows the two languages and can make sure both people can equally participate in the conversation but my own inabilities get in the way.

Bah!  Frustrating!  And, definitely moments where I could use a sticker for just showing up.

But, then there are those little unexpected moments of goodness that balance out the language inabilities.  For example, while riding my bike a few days ago, a truck driver stopped his truck, blocking traffic, so I could cross the street.  While, for those of you in the states this seems semi-normal, THIS IS UNHEARD OF here.  Please see normal 'traffic' below...

Note the driving on the sidewalk to get around traffic...

Or, yesterday morning, I brought a couple of our Deaf community members to a workshop and there were a few kids there whose parents were participating. So, I traveled the 2-minutes home to get this great box of crayons so they could color.

As soon, as one saw the box of crayons, he literally came running across the room.  Mini-victories. (Side note, those crayons are indeed, again, the ones I laboriously labeled for my sister on her first day of kindergarten. Each holds her name because she was afraid she would lose her crayons... she is 20 years old...)

Then, we played with my "desk chair" aka the biggest ball these munchkins had ever seen.  :)  Mini-victory.

Oh, another major success is in killing mosquitoes.  Before I had a desk or computer at work, I was  gifted with this electrocution racket.

Basically, the little buggers get fried by an electric current when you wack them like a tiny tennis ball.  I struggled with all the killing for a few weeks and couldn't handle it.  But, my fear of dengue soon kicked in, and now mosquitoes massacres occur daily.  I even commute with this thing so I can also use it at home... So, despite the language failures there are some mini-successes in other areas of my life.

And, speaking of 'normal' life... Here are a few shots of my daily life and things I see/experience:

This is the construction out my back window.  One abnormal thing to notice, they are wearing hard hats.

This is more like what construction usually looks like, no helmet, shorts, unseen flip-flops,  and here we even see a man on crutches.

And, welding.  This man is safer than most because he has on sunglasses and something to protect his face, ish.  Many folks use neither of these nor close toed shoes or gloves.  My mom instincts freak a little bit each time I see it, especially because this sort of work is often done in the store front so anyone riding/walking by could be hit with stray sparks.

Another time my mom-instincts freak is watching families moto around like this.  For all of my friend with kids that are always worrying about the car seats being fastened the correct way, how about just having your munchkin stand on the back of a moto in a great Titanic pose?  Classic family transportation.

Less dramatic, this is an example of what I do everyday.  We had a grant to help design and print informational materials for our program, so I took photos, coordinated a professional photographer, designed a lay-out, edited text, etc, etc. for these seven one page sheets about our six programs and general info about the organization.  Then, I had to lay them all out to see how they looked printed and check for typos :)  Some of my staff thought I was a little crazy and didn't understand this perfectionist need to make sure the writing style, margins, etc. all matched.

I also coordinate tours for people interested in learning about the work of DDP.  From the left, persons 1, 3, 4 are Cambodian Law students that wanted to learn more about our work (I met student 1 on the bus and invited her to come visit).  Person 2 is one of our CSL teachers.  These students spent around 90 minutes on the 'tour' which ended up less of a tour and more just asking lots of questions of some of our Deaf staff and learning about their work/lives as Deaf Cambodians.  For these hearing students, many had never met and definitely never had meaningful interactions with a Deaf person.  Thanks to one of our fabulous interpreters, barriers were removed.  It was so great to see the bridge being built and some of the stereotypes breaking down.

Until next time, good luck with your many failures!