Big Orange Backpack

This is the beginning of my first day in Phnom Penh. It was a really long flight, seventeen hours, and I was so dizzy when I landed in Bangkok (from hunger, dehydration, too much Dramamine or a combination of the three) that it felt like vertigo all over again. When I landed in Phnom Penh there was nobody there to greet me, and I almost had a panic attack. I was too tired to thank G-d, and I called the number of Sambo, and he told me someone would be there to pick me up soon, and within 20 minutes Sopheap, a thin beautiful Cambodian girl came rushing up to me. She grabbed my backpack and walked with me to a tuk-tuk (a motorcycle with an open air cab on wheels attached), where I met Jessie, a girl from Seattle. I learned that I was the youngest in the program, by far. The ride from the airport was only about 15 or twenty minutes, but I got my first opportunity to see the city, and in poverty, was similar to Egypt. We arrived at the house, which is a turn off of a main-looking road (with two bar/restaurants that were hopping as we drove by), and our street is one made of dirt. We are out of the city centre, but close to the Russian Market. I met two other women that arrived yesterday, and already seemed like fast friends, Michelle and Helena. Michelle is from Sydney but lives in Melbourne, and Helena is English. We talked for about two hours, about where we’re from, what we do (Jessie and I are the only students). There is a French Canadian girl here, one from Malaysia, and it seemed like the rest were Australian. The house itself is nice, about what I expected. There are a lot of people that work here part time it seems. We have two cooks, and the kitchen had ants all over the place. However, there was a loaf of bread and lots of peanut butter around, so worse comes to worse, I won’t starve. I got to sleep immediately, and had a strange dream about living with Anastasia, and accidentally dropping her TV off of a balcony, trying to hit our awful landlord. That’s neither here nor there though.

Today we’re going to go on a tour of Phnom Penh and buy some essentials. If it’s inexpensive I want to purchase a cell phone and a SIM card so people from home can call me, and so that I can send text messages to people here. Jessie and I are rooming together, and we woke up at the same time, 5:30 (because of the jet-lag) and she’s really sick. We’re kind of unsure of what it could be, but she’s been throwing up and is generally really weak. I hope she’s alright. This is her third time in Cambodia, but the other two times she stayed in hotels with A/C, and this, she said, was the hottest she had ever been at night. Thank G-d for my experience last summer in Egypt (particularly in Cairo where I didn’t have A/C) and in Israel, after being in the desert in the summer, there’s not much that can beat it, even if I am this close to the equator. It actually feels good, the heat and humidity. I love this weather. If Greg were here I think he might actually die from it.

This is going to be an amazing summer, I can already tell. At the end of this three months though, I’m going to be really pumped to be back in the First World.




I wrote that this morning.. Today we went around a bit to markets and such, buying fruits and getting a feel of the city. I'm the only one here that has never been to Cambodia before. The other people on my program are really nice, it's going to be an amazing time!