Another weekend

Its a rainy Saturday in the Penh. Its beautiful, inconvenient but, beautiful. This whole city rocks tin roofs, and when the rain is soft like this you hear such a pretty sound,  its soft over the old school Khmer music in Friend Cafe. The rain here usually isn't this light or nostalgic, the hard rain on these roofs can drown out your surround sound system.  I hardly believe I'm ready for rainy season, I can't wait for it to cool down the city, but I'm afraid of the inevitable flooding. I do love that the rain slows the world down, you must know the feeling.

Yesterday was the king's birthday, so I have a 5 day weekend. Since I have so much free time I should be able to get so much more done than I am. Its frustrating actually. There is something about a school environment, as a student, or as a teacher, that whenever I get done for the day I just want nothing to do with it until I have to go back. English isn't a subject I'm so stoked to be teaching. Its value to these students is unquestionable, if they can learn it, the Internet and thus a whole world of information becomes available. I  feel great when I can see that a student really gets something they didn't know before, there's a lot about the job that's rewarding. Still, there are other things I'd feel much more passionate about teaching.

I know you probably won't believe it but, I joined a gym. Its sweet, it has a steam room and sauna, ping pong tables, free WiFi, a coffee shop, showers, nice modern exercise equipment and personal trainers there to help you. I almost go just for the luxury feeling of the place. It cost less than a 24 hour fitness membership does in California and its way nicer. There is no way I could afford this gym in the USA. I still don't go as much as I should, but when I see the slightest results it motivates me a lot.

My social life is starting to feel a bit more normal, I have been trying real hard to get outside my comfort zone and to go meet new people. There was this evening boat cruise I took on the Tonlé Sap river, it had good dance music and lively conversation, so I made a few friends. Its been difficult, but I did find a Backpacker bar where its been really easy to talk to people and a surprising amount of expats my age hang out there. The hard thing for me to find in this city is people my age who don't have some major character flaw. That said, the few friends  I have found, have some of the more interesting personalities I have come across.

More later, Photos soon.

a short update

Things have been busy here for me, and its not that I'm so busy, its just that some times it takes an entire day just to get one thing done. The heat takes it out of you as well.  But hey I got a job, as an English teacher, at Beltei 4 teaching level eight. Tomorrow is my first day and needless to say, I'm nervous about getting up in front of a class for the first time. But I've never had a hard time finding things to say and as a native speaker I know much more about this language than any of my students could hope to learn by the grade I'll be teaching. Applying for the job, I was interviewed by the head of the school, a powerful man in Cambodia. He has the title of "His Excellency" and is also one of the advisers to the Council of Ministers. The types of people you meet in this city are very different from anything I'm used to. The locals don't really appear to befriend westerners too often and there are less expats in this city than there were kids I went to high school with. This still feels very exciting, and its just beginning to feel like I'm actually living in a new place. I find myself often thinking of when I lived in Santa Barbara and the comparison of starting  there and here. Recently It's feeling more regular to me, I worry about more normal things. The craziness of traffic is becoming routine, and stepping outside my front gate to the cracked streets and constant flow of people is feeling familiar. The buildings with shades of decay and what look like burns, aren't as striking or as run down looking as they were a month ago.

Remember going to camp and it's an freakin awesome time, but you were always tired and everything gets dirty and never really gets clean until you go home? I think that describes a lot about how I feel in Cambodia.

Exodus Orange

So you might be wondering why I would do this, pack my life into two bags and a box and leave one of the most comfortable places in the world. Well it was never an easy choice, if you came here you'd probably see the appeal but if I'm doing it for opportunity or experience or if I'm doing it for adventure, its too soon to say.

I have been here over a week now, I already have some stories, but this is all still very much like a vacation. I have moved into the top apartment of a building in a Khmer(Cambodian) neighborhood, I have a room upstairs to myself, but share the apartment with Melissa who I have known a long time, and Dan who is an Australian English teacher. We got a fairly nice place and things are coming together well so far. I haven't done much of the tourist stuff that people do when they get here, but I've been shown around and I have had some free time to wander. This city isn't what I expected, but it's a trip, and I like that. Phnom Penh is the noisiest place I have ever been to, during the daytime its bustling. really it feels alive, a giant creature with motorcycles for blood. Its organic, which feels interesting, everything flows, some of the best advice I got since my arrival is "just go with things". You really gotta, it's how everything works, you can't even cross the street if you don't just feel it and go with it.  The view from my balcony:

I stopped to write this in my room during the day time, and its amazing from here how vibrant the sounds of this place are, there's always sounds of metal, and cars and so many peoples shouts you cant escape it.  The sights and experiences are impressive as well. My first day here I saw a guy drive a motorcycle down the sidewalk and later we took a Tuk-tuk ride the wrong way down the street. That first day this city was very frightening, my first impression was that It was Thailand but everything had fallen apart.Cambodia is about to develop a lot, I suggest you see it while its still a bit unique. The roads need a lot of work and the mass of people you find here can make the place overwhelming, especially with jet lag. The second or third day the menacing aspect of the city wore away and it really started becoming something else. Taking a Tuk-tuk ride through Phnom Penh at night almost feels like time travel, the whole place just feels like its out of time.

I have started hanging out and going to a gym with this Irish guy named Kim, and over the weekend he Melissa and I went to Siem Reap to visit Melissa's dad, it was a long trip, six hours on a bus can feel like ages. I got sick up there and nothing from that weekend worked out the way it was planned, but sometimes everything going wrong is a way to bond with new friends.

Now I'm back in Phnom Penh and starting to get more of my life in line. I'm set up at home, I got a bed and and a bunch of basics squared away, still the real struggle has been technology. On my third day here I killed the power to our whole building by plugging my x-box360 in with the wrong power adapter. There wasn't enough power to run my hard drive and i had to get a different plug for that as well as my speakers. Anyways I got my x-box fixed and now finally got everything up and running.The Internet is a bit slower here, only like it was in the early 2000s so its not bad, but its always gonna cost me money to get online and I gotta walk to wherever i can get the Internet. it does feel a bit weird to not have information at my fingertips pretty much all the time.

I got a phone, super easy and cheap out here, phones that would be hundreds at home are like 50 60 bucks. This weekend I'm going to Sihanoukville to the beach for my birthday, then after this weekend I start with work and the fun is gonna get cut down a lot. So far I'm looking on this place positively, and I'd love to share more with you but, its honestly difficult for me to write about this place because I'm still so overwhelmed by it, there are so many things to say. So let me know if there is anything you want to know about, or any questions you got.

Peace.
-WL

                                       Pub Street in Angkor

Some of what I have learned:
There are mostly misconceptions about Cambodia
Cambodia uses American dollars as currency.
There are no coins in this country just paper Riel with the similar value.
Slapstick humor is the popular form of comedy
there are no real traffic laws
more than 4 dollars is an expensive meal here
a pack of Cigarettes will cost ya 20 cents
Everything drys in a minute or two but nothing ever really drys

motorcycles are fun in an addicting way.