The things you get used to

I need a nap. Seriously. The air in Cambodia doesn’t like me very much. I never had allergies in the states, but for some reason rainy season in Cambodia does a number on my respiratory system. I am sneezey, which makes me grumpy and sleepy. I would go on with the seven dwarves references but that would be tiresome for all concerned. We had a workshop for student teachers at the NGO over the weekend. Some of the high school students teach the first grade students. It’s a really cool program. So I got to make power point presentations. I don’t know why power point makes me so happy. But it does. I always feel so productive when I make a presentation. Perhaps it is a false sense of productivity. Simply writing out the information would barely take up one sheet of paper. But put it in a power point show with a snappy template and I feel like I have accomplished something. Either way it makes me happy. And the snacks were fantastic. Couldn’t really ask for more.

Now planning for girls camps is the major task. I’m currently look up scholarship opportunities to present to them. But it should be really fun when we get it all taken care of. My girls are extremely excited. I really hope they get something out of all this. I also hope their parents let them stay away from home for a night! Someday I want to get the resume workshop up and going. The summer is going by fast. I don’t actually remember the month of June even happening.

We’ve been in country for a year now. It’s strange because in a lot of ways I feel like I just got here. But I’ve become so at home here that it kind of seems like I’ve been here forever.
Things I’m used to:
• Rodents scurrying about my room in the middle of the night
• Bathing 3-5 times a day with a bucket
• Sharing the back of a truck with 20 people and various animals while careening down the national road
• Finding animal anus in my soup
• Walking in ankle deep mud
• Sweating 24/7
• Chickens attempting to steal my dinner
• The loudest, most annoying music on the planet being blared across the street
• Being told yes when the answer is obviously no
• Being told no when the answer is obviously yes
• Littering
• Being yelled at
• Spontaneous declarations of love
• Being asked if I know how to eat rice
• The rather fluid interpretation of time management
• Eating bugs. They are yummy. No joke

Things I may never get used
• Being called French
• Staring
• Spontaneous cuddling
• When people yell “High lo, barrang” (hello French/white person) and then laugh like it the funniest thing they’ve ever experienced
• People thinking I only eat bread
• People who cannot speak English refusing to accept that I cannot understand their mispronunciation of English words. (Ex. ummen, rit, punning = ointment, “Raid”, banana)
• The confusion of fish paste with cheese
• The confusion of “hip hop” dancing with dry heaves
• The sad, 80s aerobic – like dancers on tv.
• The sheer amount of glitter
• Not being able to watch youtube because of copyright laws

My ongoing relationship with mud

Rainy season has arrived. Sometimes more properly referred to as monsoon season. Torrential rains cover the land with 3-12 inches of mud. This makes travel and laundry monumental tasks. Khmer people have this amazing ability to walk on the surface mud. It’s like how Jesus walked on water, only it’s mud. I don’t know how they do it. I’m slipping and sliding and my shoes always get covered with mud. But they delicately pick their way through the mudholes that they call roads. When I go to the market with my host grandmother, she always makes me stop several times to clean my shoes. And the market is even worse than the road. Wooden stalls floating in the mud. My feet get dirty yet again, which embarrasses grandma to no end. But I can now walk without slipping. Much. I think that is an accomplishment. I really wish there were words to describe all the mud.

The cool thing about rainy season is that it is considerably less hot during a monsoon. I bathed in a thunderstorm the other day. It was pretty cool.

I now have some access to internet, which is exciting. The computers are limited and people have to do real work on them so I can’t sit around writing this blog all day, but I hope to be in more frequent contact with people. Woot.

This new world of internet today showed me that people are unknowingly buying repossessed meth houses without knowing it. This has caused them terrible health problems and is very expensive to fix. How terrible is that? Various states have laws concerning disclosure of a house’s history, and some also require cleanup, but the expense is prohibitive. Very sad story.

I was cheered by the arrival of an envelope, thanks Nanny Jan! Hope you are feeling better.
And then I nearly cried when I saw pictures of the food. And then I ate my tobasco jelly beans. And my emotional roller coster was up again.

Love and miss everyone!