Big Orange Backpack

This is my second day in Phnom Penh, and I have to say, I'm filled with so many different emotions. Sometimes, like this morning, I'm filled with a sense of "how am I to survive this next three months?" But other times, like this afternoon when I rode on the back of a moto, Khmer style, I thought "how am I supposed to leave this place in just three months?"

This morning we had orientation at 9am at the school, which is just around the corner from the house we live in. I passed out from jet-lag last night at about 6pm, and slept a solid 12 hours until 6am. I came up to the roof, where I'm writing from now, and got onto the internet for about an hour. I was able to chat with my cousin Scott, Greg, and Jeremy for a bit. There's someone in the neighbourhood with a linksys router, and we're able to pick it up from the school. We learned about the program we're working for, CWF (Conversations with Foreigners) as well as CDRT (Cambodian Rural Development Team). Basically the money that I pay to live in the house pays the salaries of ten Cambodians who work in the house (we have two cooks, a housekeeper, security guards...) The school that we're teaching at gets $30 per Cambodian student that comes to learn English, and that money goes to CDRT, a local NGO. They use that money to do things like create fish farms and dig wells in Cambodian villages.

This afternoon after returning back I went to the hospital/clinic with my roommate Jessie who has been feeling ill since yesterday morning. Apparently it was food poisoning, but I don't think it could've been. But whatever it was, she's starting to feel better now, we really should have gone yesterday when she couldn't walk. I rode on a moto with Geordie, the Australian advisor to CDRT, who also works for CWF. Jessie rode on a moto with Sambo, the Cambodian advisor to CWF. I rode "Khmer-style" on the moto, which means I was hanging off the back of it, with Geordie in the middle and the moto driver in the front.. It was LOADS of fun, and it made me really appreciate having this amazing opportunity to be here in Phnom Penh. I understand now what my parents' passion for motorcycles came from. I keep having these moments of realisation that I'm really here, that I'm really doing this. I've dreamed about coming here for almost seven years, I craved coming here more than anywhere else in the world. I am so lucky to be able to do this amazing thing.. (and then go home :) )

I think the funniest realization that I've had has been the following:

When I was in high school and living with my mom I will admit I was a bit, lets say, "hygienically-challenged" (that is that I hated taking showers). When she would yell at me I would tell her "Mom, I'm just practicing for Cambodia". The irony is though that I've taken more showers here per day than I ever have before. I took two this morning, and I'm probably going to take another two more.. Which is where I'm headed now. At two we have some orientation to Khmer culture, and then we are going to a picnic dinner on the riverfront before going to an art gallery opening and then a party at a bar called "Elsewhere". Apparently the last Friday of every month there is a party with every Westerner in Phnom Penh (sort of like a Liege Wednesday for you Belges reading). That's the plan.. now I'm off to live it.


Here's a link for more photos: http://rutgers.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2171400&l=d3899&id=8818340