Phnom Kravagn, Pursat Province. It has mountains and waterfalls. About 20 kilos from the national road (easy biking distance in the right season) there is a well funded but understaffed high school. That is where I will be teaching for the next two years. I will be living with a market vendor, her 65 year old mother, and her 12 and 13 year old sons. Tomorrow, I meet my counterpart from the school. We will have conferences for the next two days, and then my counterpart and I will go to my site. For the next couple of days, I'll get to know my host family, the school staff, and the general layout of the community. Afterwards we spend a couple days in Phnom Penh, and then back to the training villages. There are currently no volunteers in Pursat province. Me and the girl who will be living in Pursat provincial town are the first. I think it will be a fantastic site, especially since I will be in one of the few non landmined mountainous regions of Cambodia.

I like being the first. I feel like some sort of explorer. Also, I will be close to Battambang, on the Thai border. It has all of the amenities of Phnom Penh, like western food, with fewer tourists. But I won't be there for a while, we have to be at our permanent site for 90 days before we are allowed to leave the province. I will do a lot of biking. I'm kind of sad that my friends won't be close, but they are in the surrounding provinces.

As excited as I am to be going to my permanent site, I will be sad to leave the training village. This is the most gangster town in Cambodia (in a good way) People here do awesome things like wear gold chains, hike one pant leg up, throw dance parties for no particular reason, and other assorted activities that are simply stellar. I will miss it.

One of the most interesting things about this place is how incompetent I feel. We are possibly the most educated people for miles, yet we can barely feed and bathe ourselves. The other day, I definitely dropped the family's bucket into the well. It took my host brother almost half an hour to retrieve it. Also, Khmer people tend to eat rice with a spoon and use chopsticks for noodles, which seems counterintuitive to me. I am working on the fine art of eating noodle soup with chopsticks and not having it end up all over my clothes. Thankfully, I am not the most incompetent person in my group! Just a few days ago my genius friends decided that they putting two people on one bike was a good idea. Understand that Cambodians do this all the time. Most bikes have a seat attached to the back for carrying things and people. The key to this is weight distribution. The larger person should be in front. My college educated friends forgot this little detail. It went down like this: Friend A was riding a bike, Friend B (anyone who knows the story about the guy with the sarong, this is that guy) was walking. Friend A thinks riding Khmer style would be a good idea. Friend B agrees. The problem: Friend B outweighs Friend A by a little over 50 lbs. Basically, the bike nearly flipped backward. Friend A managed to keep hold of the bike and land on his feet. Friend B, not so lucky. He fell backwards into barbed wire and cut his arm all the way up to his shoulder. He hasn't showered for two days in order to keep the bandages dry. Oh yes, we are a sharp group of prospective Peace Corps Volunteers. Pray for the people who have to put up with us for the next two years.

Thanks to everyone for sending me stuff and keeping me in your prayers. You have no idea how much it means. I should be near internet for the next week, so I hope ot keep you updated as much as possible.