Gardening and thinking

This weekend we went to the garden store. We have a small backyard that is brand new, so its just a little plot of grass. We hired a gardener, Mr. Chuong, to come once a week and maintain. On Saturday, he met us in the morning to go about 20 minutes outside of the city to what seemed like about a mile or two stretch of road with little "garden centers" on each side. We made it to the one that he must have some relationship with, and started figuring out what to get.

The situation would have been an 8 out of 10 on the awkward meter without the help of our tuk tuk driver Thol, as landscaping will really get you into the meat of bargaining. While Gavin and I tried to just get a sense of what was going on, Thol would casually come up behind us and mutter what was being said and what our counter offer should be, and occasionally start arguing on our behalf as well. Bargaining is such a constant in Cambodia, but it's still so uncomfortable for us. To just willingly accept the first price, however, is considered rude, so it's game-on every exchange.

We went back and forth and ended up buying some really beautiful plants. Three big Bougainvillea bushes, a beautiful looking and smelling Frangiapani/Plumeria tree (shout out to the ladies!), a couple of small palms, and about a dozen suspended Orchids to hang from the razor wire on top of our walls... The whole thing was pretty relaxing and fun, despite the constant haggling over price. I can also assure you that there is no sweaty like a garden store in Cambodia sweaty. Magically cramming all of the plants into another tuk tuk, we now have some lovely color around our house.

The beauty of gardening aside, the realities of Cambodia are becoming much more present as the honeymoon wears off.  It's a tough scene. I think it's only right that I diverge from the joys of living here to talk a little about the actual place that we are lucky enough to experience. Today, riding home from the Embassy with Thol, he suddenly pointed out an empty plot of land right next to our gated community, one that we pass pretty regularly, and told me that was where he used to live. He now lives nearly an hour drive outside of the city, after he, his family and his friends were forced off of the land so that they can build luxury housing (like ours). It was so surreal talking about the politics of poverty here, something that I keep thinking and reading about, and being so directly implicated in it. Not two minutes later he is dropping me off at my giant house, which no doubt sits on the ground of some other former home like his.

Every time we leave the house, we come face to face with an overriding theme of Cambodia-- abject poverty. In a country where people still earn on average $1/day, just how poor the vast majority are will make your head spin.  Phnom Penh has undergone rapid changes over the past 5-10 years, and you can see them all around. Construction is everywhere, every street has something new going up or being redone. Most of the "growth" seems directly related to wooing outside investment, and as is the case in so many developing countries, what that means for the local populations and environment is a mixed bag. There is an immediate upper class that has risen from the post-genocide decades, but everyone else seems to really be struggling.

The human and environmental impacts of these inequalities are a constant presence. Healthcare and education are leagues behind neighboring countries like Vietnam and Thailand. In one part of the city there is a canal of black putrid water that is essentially the runoff of all of the sewage and streets. We asked a conservationist that we met at a party recently where that ends up, and were met with the bleak answer that it just pours directly into a community of stilt houses that make their living farming Morning Glory; a delicious little green that is found in a lot of Khmer food. The implications of things of that nature on a widespread basis are hard for us to imagine. I had a conversation with our friend Angie the other day, and she made the good point that essentially Cambodia is trying to be present in 2012, without the benefit of the past 30-40 years leading up. The scale of devastation from Cambodia's recent history seems to have left the country trying to play catch up without a leg to stand on. 

Disclaimer: I cant, for better or worse, turn this blog into a socio-political soapbox (as much as my natural inclinations drive me to do that). As members of the Embassy, it wouldn’t be in our best interests to be too engaged in a commentary of our surroundings in Phnom Penh or the inner workings of the country as a whole. I do encourage anyone reading this to do some research on this area, because I think it is a perfect example of a developing country with everything at stake. I will just say that all of the basic ingredients for injustice are lined up quite nicely…. I have a lot to learn from Cambodia, and truthfully it is very humbling.

So, on that note... how about some pictures of flowers to lighten the mood? Hm? Ok!

Mr. Chuong and the garden lady.

 Gavin and Thol talking Plumeria

Orchids for days!

Beep beep!

Tuk tuk full of our plants.

Daisy of the Bouganvillea.

The most boring thing I've ever posted.

Orchids!

Only an orchid can brighten up razor wire.

Our lovely little Plumeria tree.

Wah.

I couldnt care less about football, but I miss football.

Having my first real "poo" day here, and I know it's only been three weeks, but something about knowing that my life is entirely what I make it right now is kind of heavy... I have lots of little irons in the fire, but as you all know I'm a fairly busy person, and not having direction has just made me a little "meh" today.

So to focus my energy from convincing myself that my ass is getting flat as a result of watching bad TV (I cried three times watching The Help today...), I have decided to make a top 10 list of the things I am currently or preemptively missing .

1. Friends and family. You know who you are, and I miss you all-day-all-night. Especially when it's 2 pm here and you're all asleep, and if you're not you're probably in too "weird" a "place" to really want to talk to.
2. Enemies. I will probably be desperate enough to miss you at some point too, but not yet.
3. College basketball. For Gavin, I think this will be the toughest. For me, college basketball means wearing my Carolina hoodie and frantically drinking whiskey on chilly nights trying not to let Gavin give me a panic attack. Love this stuff.
4. FALL: waaaahhhh!
5. The woods. No brainer.
6. Making jokes that other people understand and laugh at for the right reason. Making hand puppets to explain that you really need a drain catcher for your kitchen sink doesnt count.
7. Quinoa. I just ordered a bunch on Amazon though, so this should be short lived.
8. ....

I actually just realized thats all I have for now! So things are much brighter than I thought when I dipped into this little Rain Dance Para Uno.

We are going to a garden store to buy a bunch of plants and other goodies for the yard, so by tomorrow I should be over this teeny bump in the road. Next week is full of plans, including my new involvement in the Embassy Green Team, other volunteer work, and some possible video projects. Gavin also rounded this afternoon at a local surgical center, so I cant wait till he gets home and I can totally overwhelm him with machine gun paced questioning! He loves it when I do that. We also joined an Ultimate Frisbee team that meets on Sunday...! I hope Phnom Penh is ready for my level of athletic prowess. More on that debacle later.

Settling In

To ring in our 2 week anniversary, Gavin got sick. It started over the weekend, and by Saturday night he finally committed to being in bed with a fever and aches for two days. In the meantime, I alternated between convincing myself that it was Dengue and being annoyed that he was being so boring. (For you moms out there reading this, I didnt really think it was Dengue, and I kept a very close eye on him!) He missed a day of work, but is back in action today, and is actually on his first site visit in the country.

Despite Gavin not feeling well, we actually had a pretty decent weekend. The new normal included dinner plans with very fun new friends Friday and Saturday night, long walks through construction sites with Daisy, and a visit to the Cambodian National Museum in the middle of our daily monsoon rain storm. Overall it feels like we'll settle in nicely here, there are just so many things to do and interesting people to meet. We're so fresh to the whole Expat scene, that it sometimes feels like we're just looking around and clapping our hands at all of the colorful fibers of this new life. I'm sure at a certain point, it will get as mundane as any life, but right now it's all a fresh hot chili.

The best news since last post was our first arrival of one shipment of stuff, mainly clothes and pictures, which have proven to be priceless. It took me about a week to get things really unpacked and put away, and it's such a good feeling to have little pieces of home in each room. Feels a lot less like we're living in a hotel now, and I think it's started to sink in that we really live here. The flipside to that is that I've been kind of wrestling with the realization that we really live here, and that we're so far away from friends and family. There have been tiny moments of panic related to that line of thinking, but then I just get a grip and eat some more crazy cheap food.

Speaking of food! I think we're also getting the hang of where our routines will lie. After buying pretty low grade produce at the big supermarkets in town, I finally decided to grow a pair and try out local markets to do the shopping. Pretty much everything that we eat whole and raw we have to bleach, so freshness has become more of the issue than source. The open markets can just be a little intimidating, however. Everything is a bargaining situation, and I have found that I'm pretty pathetic when it comes to haggling with the Khmer ladies over just about anything. The ladies, they know how to do that thing.

There are a few major markets in the area, all with their own nuances. We had checked out the Russian Market last weekend and were just a little too overwhelmed to really do much more than buy a book and a bootleg DVD. The book is good, the DVD was missing all of the necessary English subtitles and died 15 minutes before the end. Win/lose. I managed to do some real shopping at the BKK market (which is a lot more of a local no-frills shopping scene) getting loads of fruit, vegetables, and fresh eggs. Side note, thats also where I met my new best friend, the Mangosteen. It was all a blur of doing the conversion from riel (1000= roughly $0.25) to dollar, since this was the first place where they really have only given us prices in riel, but I think eventually I'll get better at it. The end result of having eggs so fresh the yolks are orange is well worth the temporary embarrassment.

As for the rest of life, Gavin is settling in a bit more at work. I think they're still trying to find the best fit for him in terms of which project he'll focus on, but so far he's really enjoying it. Eventually he'll probably try to find a clinic/hospital to volunteer or work in to some capacity as well. I, on the other hand am happily housewifing until further notice. Don't know how long that will last though... I think I'll start looking in about a month, once we get Daisy care more worked out. I am aggressively stalking dog owners in the area to find some support, but it's been a slow process so far.  I am also checking in with some work options at the Embassy, both volunteer and paid. Technically I'm not allowed to work on the local economy, so should limit my search to Embassy jobs, but apparently there are some goodwill grey areas. There is plenty of volunteer work around, just a matter of finding the right fit. We'll see! I have to say, not working isnt all that bad, and apparently I'm also going to outlive you all. Suckers!

All this time in solitude has also given me plenty of time to think about all of the craziness of the world, particularly this fair city, but thats a whole other session. In the meantime, here are a couple of pictures from the week. We're still kind of the worst at taking pictures.... At least we remembered the camera here and there! Also a couple of slick videos that I produced.

Our new favorite channel. Dont be intimidated by the size and quality of our TV.

The sounds of a daily rain storm. 

Mr. Mangosteen- me likey

Home made noodles and dumplings from a tiny little place near the National Museum. The best thing of all time.

My weak attempts at avoiding black lung. Makes me look like a local, too. Win win.

The National Museum of Cambodia courtyard. Incredible. Once I learn how to use my camera, these will be really good pictures. 

 Me and Buddha! 

 This may or may not be in focus.

Here!

We made it! I’ll try to keep up this little blog for all of you that are obsessed with my every move…. Maybe a good first entry would be a recap of the past week. Apologies if this is a little dense, but everything we do seems different, so I’m not sure what to leave out at this point. I think for this first one I’ll stay away from all of the more intense aspects of things (crushing poverty and environmental degradation) and get into that later.

Gavin got to Phnom Penh from Hawaii on the 31st, and I left 9/1 morning, arriving on Sunday the 2^nd. We were able to get right into our house, which made everything so much easier. Apparently a lot of people are stuck in hotels or other temporary situations when house timing doesn’t work out. When I got in late at night, the city was very quiet, with only a couple of mopeds driving around. Late night Phnom Penh has nothing on daytime PP….

Our house is in a neighborhood called Bassac Garden City. It’s a fairly new gated community against the river, and is very quiet compared to houses that are closer to the heart of the city. It’s a pretty mixed neighborhood, but definitely high on the income earners scale, as the houses are each walled and gated and quite big. Our house is 2 furnished bedrooms and a huge office that could serve as another bedroom, with 4 bathrooms, two living rooms, a dining room, giant kitchen, separate laundry house, and a small yard. It’s pretty surreal to live here after cramped and pricey US city standards. Everything is marble and concrete, with full basic furnishings (although we have to give a lot of stuff back to the Embassy once our things get here).

Our first couple of days have been a blur of tuk tuks, food, hunting for coffee shops, and worrying about getting Daisy finally. Getting around is fairly easy, but takes a lot of patience. Cambodians seem to be very friendly, and everyone speaks at least a word or two of English, which is fantastic because Khmer is so far the hardest language I have ever tried to learn. I’ve gotten really good at saying “Thank You” over and over while doing little bows, in order to keep things humming awkwardly along.

The biggest wow so far has been the getting around part of things. The roads are an explosion of civilized chaos. At first it doesn’t seem like there is any real order, but the more you’re part of it it’s clear that everyone respectfully just does their own thing and all the rest work around it. Almost all of the cars are SUV’s, barfing out exhaust, and every other inch of road space is filled with motorbikes and tuk tuks. We’ve been warned constantly not to get rides on the motorbikes, so I just take tuk tuks everywhere. Gavin is a fancy man and is picked up every morning and dropped off every evening by a car from his work. The tuk tuks have been a constant source of excitement. Aside from the basic issues like a conviction that you could be killed at any moment, and the ravaging of whatever attempts at cute hair and makeup are made, there just isn’t any way to be sure when you tell the driver where you’re going that you will actually get there. Every time I have gotten in one, I end up within a couple of blocks of where I want to go, so that’s good I guess? We finally seem to have found "our guy", Thol, who picks us up and takes us out on his tuk tuk when needed. He's really nice, knows his way around, and speaks a fair amount of English. Walking is kind of a dicey adventure, but not impossible, you just have to be very aware. 

We've spent a lot of time at the US Embassy, which is kind of an oasis in the middle of the city. Our sponsors, Mike (Gavins boss) and his wife Angie, have been unbelievably helpful both before we got here and now that we’re here even more irreplaceable. It doesn’t hurt that they are also very nice and fun, and Gavin and Mike are working up a solid man-crush that should work out both socially and professionally. They brought us to the Embassy and took us through the painstaking process of “Check In”, where we received our security briefing (purse snatchings), medical briefing (diarrhea), and other basic information (you can have ball gowns made for you!).  The Embassy itself is beautiful, apparently one of the nicer ones in the world and the blue print for any new ones. 

We’ve been fighting pretty hard against jet lag. A fair number of nights we've woken up at 2:30am, not fun. We're doing much better now, adjusting to Gavins work schedule, and getting Daisy last week certainly helped with the falling back to sleep! We picked her up last Wednesday at the Thai Air Cargo, in their warehouse, with the serious assistance of one of the NAMRU2 (Gavins job) drivers, Chan Ra. They brought her out on a forklift and when she realized we were there she lost her mind yelping and banging around. As soon as we got her out she went to the bathroom and went nuts over a bottle of water. Poor little girl. I honestly cant even imagine how stressful the whole thing was, but I am pretty sure as she lays passed out on the couch next to me that we made the right choice to bring her.  Walking her around here will be an adventure, and we’ve already faced the two sociopathic dogs next door that seem to have serious territory issues. I used a broom handle to scare one off, so maybe that will just be my new crazy-white-lady look in the neighborhood.

Food so far has been fantastic and REALLY cheap. Typical cafe breakfast is an omelet, a French bread roll, Khmer coffee and a bottle of water for around $2.50. We have had mainly Khmer/Thai food for each meal. The food seems at first to be a lot like Thai or Vietnamese, and there is a lot of “cross-pollination”, but Cambodian food has its own spices and is a little sweeter and saltier than the other two, with a little bit less chili automatically included (although they give plenty on the side). We also found a Dairy Queen, so I am cataloguing that for desperate moments.

I have a feeling this is getting a little bit long, so I’ll wrap it up with some pictures of the house and Daisy, of course. We keep forgetting to bring our camera out with us, so picture taking has been kind of lame. A lot of these were taken on my loaner Nokia (the worst), and are very low res. Working on that. I'll fill in more details about work, etc soon. Hope everyone that reads this is doing well. We really do miss family and friends, a little more instantly than I had imagined... Big hugs from this crazy city!

Dr. Ford representing the new home town.

Clowning.

Sunset over the river.

DAISY!!

Gavin and Daisy next to the river.

Tuk tukking around.

Our new best friend Thol, getting home after Daisys first tuk tuk ride! (terrible quality picture, obviously not my fault)

Daisy cruising!

From our balcony, looking towards the river.

Dining room.

Downstairs "formal" living room.

One of the guest rooms.

Balcony overlooking the hood.

Kitchen.

Laundry "cottage", aka, the hottest place in Cambodia.

Monsieur and Madame's room.

Front hallway

Upstairs TV room, where Leah-no-job spends some time watching Asian music videos.

Back yard (we just hired a gardener to help fix this up!)