Get over it, Caro!

Before I forget, below is a link to a blog post, which was the result of one of our orientation activities. The teaching staff (overseas teachers/interns and Khmer TAs/house parents), were split into four groups: North, South, East and West. We spent about two hours going in one of those directions stretching out from our site. The goal of the task was to take a short walk through our immediate local community and investigate/document any social, economic, health and environmental issues (the four foundations of the Liger curriculum). My group included Peter - another teacher, Nica - an intern, Lita - a house parent and Reksmey - one of three TAs. We deemed ourselves the Polar Express, bearing north. Our trip took us first to a slum area across the main road from the Liger site, and then to the contrasting site of the local pagoda, about a quarter-mile down the road. If you want pictures of our local community, here is your chance...

http://polarexpressllc.blogspot.com/

I also want to take a minute and recount some of the things that I have had to become quickly acclimated to since arriving in Cambodia. Those of you who know me, know that I like to have a clean and organized space, and that I am quite compulsive when it comes to things being in their place. Therefore, you will probably be shocked to hear how well I am doing with some of the norms I have had to adopt...

1. You will shower more than once a day. Again, those of you who know me know that I hate to shower. I don't mind the clean feeling afterwards, but rather the time it takes to shower and then having wet hair that needs to be dried, etc. Forget that. Showers are no longer fifteen-minute ordeals. No matter how often you shower, you are going to sweat immensely and probably smell at least a little bit, so just jump in, cool off and throw your hair back. The thought of using a hair dryer or straightener here is painful.

2. You will be in bare feet for the entire time you are in-doors. This one has a few implications. One, you will spend time trying to locate your shoes at the doorway where you took them off, which may have been hours earlier. Two, you will have dirty feet. If you are sensory like me and don't like the feeling of dusty feet, you will wipe your feet on lots of little mats here and there. And you get over it. Cambodian culture (and many other Asian cultures) dictates that it is polite to remove footwear when entering someone's home or other formal dwelling. Respect over comfort.

3. There will be ants on your counters at all times -- and geckos on the walls. At times, it is possible to rid your counter top of ants, but only the counter space within arm's reach. And they come from everywhere. Geckos dart up and down the walls and across the floors in an alarming way, especially when you first enter the house and turn the lights on, but they are super cute and helpful in keeping spiders out of our bed. Geico.

4. There are no real napkins at meals and no mirrors in the bathrooms. As I mentioned before, there are tissue-paper "napkins" on the tables at most restaurants, but they only serve to become saturated and stick to your hands. Liger (genius!) has installed an automatic hand dryer in the dining area. Also, for some reason, there are no mirrors above the sinks on the Liger campus (except teacher apartments). In some restaurants I have been to there are mirrors, but it seems to be more like the exception to the rule (this is only in my limited experience).

5. There may not be TP in the bathrooms and the toilet may take three flushes instead of one. I will not elaborate, but just throwing it out there for those of you who intend on visiting.

Those are the norms that jump out at me, but I look forward to adding some that have more to do with culture and are less superficial.