Trailing

It's my one-week anniversary! Every day has seemed like an eternity, and yet this week has flown by when I look back on it.

Being a "trailing spouse" (or fiancé, to modify the term I learned in Egypt), I have long open days to fill while my partner is off at work. Every day I give myself a mission. So far I've been searching and applying for jobs, hunting for hiking shoes for my round-Cambodia trip next week, meeting a few other expats in town, applying for a new passport, and browsing for an apartment. Amazingly, the easiest task by far has been finding an apartment.

Last weekend Mathieu took me to see the apartment he had already booked for us, but unfortunately our reservation was messed up and we had to backtrack to the hotel. Having excitedly anticipated settling into a home, I was struck with frustration at Mathieu's colleague who'd made the mistake. That feeling quickly died when I found out that he was a sweet guy with no family, who had self-educated himself on lonely nights as a child because his mother had fled to France with her oldest children (not him) during the bloody civil war, and his father was taken outside and shot, as was the fate of many educated people then in Phnom Penh. The person who told me all this said, "Everybody here in their 40s or so has a story like that."

It's a recent history that is hard to imagine, and even harder to swallow. Even more maddening is that the war criminals are still on trial. Just the other night the former Khmer Rouge Minister of Foreign Affairs died. Ieng Sary had the privilege of living until the age of 87, when in just four years (1975-1979) he oversaw a genocide that slaughtered 1.7 million people. As the criminals die off and the justice system crawls along, the Prime Minister Hun Sen (a former member of Khmer Rouge - someone please explain that one to me) continues to obstruct justice and protect the old regime.

Sobered, I took on our change of plans with new perspective. I found a new place and we're scheduled to move in at the end of the month. 

It feels ridiculous to write about anything else after reflecting upon injustice and genocide, so I will just leave you to meditate on this irresistible pitch:

First Impressions

Landed in Cambodia! My warm welcome was a smack in the face of steamy air as I got off the plane. It was a predictable surprise after having been chilled in Paris for nearly a year, but it amazes me how the body doesn’t seem to remember the feel of temperature. It doesn’t seem right to pack suitcases in a different climate than what will come. I already feel stupid for some of the things I brought, and I cringe every time I glance at the jeans lying in my bag. It’s that kind of sticky heat.

On the other hand, all my worn-out clothes from Cairo are making a comeback! Plus some shoulder-showing and knee-boasting items, since I’ve seen local girls wearing tiny shorts, and then of course the tourists wear whatever they want. I was immediately presented with people-watching opportunities in the taxi ride from the airport to hotel, while we crawled (about 4 miles over 40 minutes) alongside hoards of little motorcycles topped with young friends and couples going out on Friday evening.

I started soaking up what I saw. Nearly all wore flip-flops, save a couple girls in heels. Few wore helmets (already more than Cairo!) and few impatiently zigzagged through traffic to get ahead of the slow traffic (ditto), though since then I have seen a handful of daredevils taking roads in the opposite direction, sometimes jumping onto sidewalks. The outnumbered cars, mostly massive SUVs with tinted windows, chug forward as the motorcycles dart around them.

Roadside buildings looked simply like shacks with green leaves bursting out around them. The trees seem to dominate the manmade structures. Our hotel is so swallowed by greenery that I can walk by it without recognizing it. The ground level open-air restaurant is a cozy jungle haven decorated with purple flowers and fountains fashioned from clay pots and thick bamboo stalks. To top it all off, the restaurant’s sautéed dishes and fruit juices are amazing.

As for the room, I’m wondering if we scored the honeymoon suite. 

I wish all showers had a pebble moat.

Mathieu and I spent a very lazy weekend here, just venturing out a bit to dine, stroll, get SIM cards, and visit our future apartment building, where we’ll move tomorrow (though for how long, we haven’t decided). Today Mathieu went to work somewhere near the crack of dawn and I headed out to find the Institut Pasteur. Rabies and Japanese encephalitis are only recommended vaccinations, but my doctor in Paris stared me down and made me promise to get them.

With her stern voice in my head, I set out walking in the direction I’d seen on the map and took the first couple turns I was sure of. Reminiscent of Cairo, I dodged motorcycles, negotiated the sidewalk with food stalls and parked vehicles, tried to ignore the sun beating down on me, and brushed off propositions for tuk-tuk rides.  Unlike Cairo, however, no one sexually harassed me – and I walked for nearly half an hour! Finally I saw some street numbers in the mid-200s, and as I was looking for #5, I popped into an electronics store to check my route.  

Most of the local people I’ve interacted with so far – and in these first 3 days, it’s mostly been people working in restaurants and hotels – react to everything I say with a vigorous nod, a glazed look in their eyes, and an ear-to-ear grin. It’s the look that all language students give their teacher they don’t want to be discovered for not having understood a single word.

It's next to impossible to tell if the person has understood me, or if I need to repeat myself and throw in some large hand gestures, which I’m happy to do. Having been an English teacher, I over-pronounce and speak with my hands as a given. Already a couple of drivers have given us that vague grin, then sped off in one direction before asking for a repeat of the destination, just to realize what we really said and have to turn back around.

I’m also trying to get used to the accent here, where the end of every word is cut off and many English sounds are discarded and replaced with others. I’m glad I had already set my mind to learning some Khmer, because getting by only on English is not going to work. If I could pull out at least some basics, these exchanges would be much less painful. I’ve tried saying thank you, but without the right accent or choppiness, I am completely unintelligible.

So in the electronics shop, I got lucky enough to find a salesman who could understand my problem and figure out where to go. After a solid 10 minutes of googling, searching on the map and even telling me what price to pay to get there, once my problem was solved and I started to thank him and his colleagues, he was struck with a sudden spell of amnesia. It was like I didn't exist anymore. Maybe this is paranoia, or me trying to study and overanalyze people within the first few days (so bear with me), but any conversational excess like “How are you,” “You’re welcome,” “Goodbye,” or even a little joke have been hard to come by. So as he ignored me and took to Facebook, I said thank you again and at least hoped that he heard me.

I made it to the Institut Pasteur and the tuk-tuk driver, who hadn’t spoken a word of English, showed me that he at least knew “NO” when I paid him less than what he had been hoping for. He grimaced and looked like he was about to cry, but I left the money in his hand and tapped my temple, hoping that it was a universal symbol for "I know [the right price]." Probably not.

Inside the Institut, I was greeted with various mixes of French and English (in the same sentence) as the Cambodian women working there tried to figure out what I wanted and get me in the appropriate waiting rooms. It was actually really organized under the disorganized surface, and every once in a while when a number was called I would show my ticket to a neighboring patient to ask if it was my turn yet. People voluntarily helped me and the receptionist even came back to check how all the patients were doing. Everyone was quiet except for the occasional screaming baby (only natural) and seemed, fittingly, patient. When a woman brought out her little boy with a swollen, closed eye who was crying from the injection, everyone in the waiting room gathered around, clucking their tongues and speaking to him in soothing voices.

When a German guy came in, we talked about his experience working at an orphanage for the past 10 months, where nearly half of the kids had AIDS. He had some bizarre stories, like how the kids liked to cut the stinger off of scorpions and let them crawl on their arms like pets. He said he never got stung, nor attacked by snakes or worms, but just the mention of them made me feel a bit nauseous.

My shot was quick and sterile, and I was told to come back for the next one in one week. On the way home, I stopped at a huge market to have a look around. I’ve been told to haggle prices down to at least half of the original offer, but I was too hot and nauseated by the smell emanating from the dried fish stalls to expend the energy. Luckily vendors here are not pushy, so I had no trouble just browsing. As I moved throughout the enormous complex from fake jewels to clothes to accessories, I found myself right next to the food section and had to call it quits.

The meat and fish stalls struck up a fond memory of a market that Noelle and I stumbled upon in an alleyway in Alexandria, a union of vegetables and fruits and live (and dead) chickens and goat heads and blood and guts and donkey manure and bowls of watery cheese (there’s my gag reflex…). While this Cambodian market (the Central Market) had a cleaner floor, its smell was at least as strong. Maybe when I’ve acclimated to this heat, I’ll go back to look for tarantulas on a stick.

And now here I am, back in the cool breeze of the hotel garden. Tonight I’m meeting some other Couch Surfers who have newly arrived in town, some of whom are settling down in Phnom Penh. Hopefully a few weathered expats will decide to come too, so I can fire my questions at them before I travel around the country with Lindsey next week. Linds, I hope China is warming you up for Cambodia!