Normalcy

So now that I’ve been in Southeast Asia about a month, certain things pretty much normal, for example, seeing a pickup truck full of fish unloading at the market or having gigantic spiders wandering around the classroom without anyone flinching or watching 5 people riding a single motorbike or having children run to the road to scream Hello!!! Hello!!! when I ride by on my bike. A lot of ‘normal’ things from home are also now extremely rare. The big one here: Internet. Let me lump in with the Internet any source of general information. I could be debating with some of the other Trainees in my village about what exactly Dengue rash looks like, for example, but we can’t really Google it or have someone look it up on their iPhone or even go to a library with books on the topic. (Speaking of Dengue, yes, they have it here. Yes, three people in our training class have already had it. Yes, there is a fairly decent chance I could get it, but it is survivable).

Anyway, that said, the internet is magical for short period of time. When you’re sitting in front of a computer all day, even TMZ, Facebook, and Gchat can’t deliver enough information to keep you occupied. In Cambodia, I get to log on to a week’s worth of news, decide what’s really important enough to warrant loading with a 5Kbps connection (as opposed to trolling TFLN or MLIA for 2 hours), and then I get to forget it and interact with real people most of the time.

As you can imagine, things like hot showers, air conditioning, Pringles, ice cream, toilet paper, and going outside past 6pm are also luxuries to be had once in a while whenever we’re in the ‘big city’ (aka Kampong Cham, a town of about 60,000 people).

It’s flabbergasting (I maintain that I am supposed to be immersing myself in a new language and have no requirement to use English correctly) how quickly little things can make your day, really, when you’re even a little bit used to a routine. Sitting in my bed under my mosquito net listening to music and doing Sudoku in my sarong has become a treat a few times a week. A couple days ago, my little 2-year-old host cousin (my mom’s sister’s grandson who lives next door) came over and sat in my lap for about 5 minutes. That was the most human contact I’d had in one day since I left home, and let me tell you, it was awesome. Speaking of awesome, this week also led to the discovery of a little thing we like to call Ahvultihne tuk dah goh tuk gah (iced Ovaltine with), also known as liquid cake. It is roughly the tropical equivalent of hot cocoa on a cold, snowy winter night and is extra good because it is drunk through a bendy straw. I am not ashamed to admit that I spend a decent amount of time planning my afternoon trips to the ‘coffee shop’ to get a glass. Come to think of it, pretty much any delicious food can make my day – tropical fruits, occasional French-fry like potatoes at dinner, fried noodles, or maybe some grilled rice and bananas wrapped in banana leaves. Hands down the most delicious thing I’ve eaten here so far is this the pumpkin and coconut milk soup (baw baw l’peu) that I’ve had twice. The second time I got to make the coconut milk for it by soaking and squeezing shredded coconut through what I’m fairly sure was a pillowcase. Yeah.