You know you're in Cambodia when... part 2

- A student saying "Look at the snake" stops class for a good five minutes and provides sentence material for the rest of the day.

- You name the spiders that live in your bathroom. And cheer when they catch a mosquito.

- You instinctively put all your verbs in the present tense to be understood.

- You name all the geckos Sammy.

- You think that being sick for a week and a half is "not so bad." Since we're talking about dengue fever.

- You have learned that not all chili sauces are created equal. And cried because of it.

- You notice that the black and white puppy you saw earlier this week is now a black and gray puppy.

- You participate in the rain race, against your better judgment.
Rain Race - compound noun, defined as the futile effort to out-run the ominous black clouds. This involves driving faster and more recklessly than normal, constantly debating whether to stop to put your trash-bag raincoat on, being fully blinded by the dust and windstorm that precedes the rain, and finally giving in to the inevitable soaking. Just hope that you have an extra change of clothes wherever it is that you are going.

Long Overdue

Ok, ok. So it's been about five years since the last time I posted. But really now that it's less than two months until I leave, time has almost become irrelevant. But I do want to tell you about my recent vacation to the province of Mondolkiri. In May there is a week long holiday for the King's birthday, so quite a large group of us decided to risk the long van ride out to the middle of nowhere. Thankfully it hadn't been raining much so the road was only terrifying to us but not actually physically impossible, as proved by our driver. We stayed at a very "natural" guesthouse, meaning it wasn't in the town but out a little ways, with all the creatures. I had thought my bug tolerance was pretty high, but I discovered otherwise. I really think it's a size threshold. Anything over a certain size freaks me out. Got a lot of that in the evenings, especially while taking a shower in the bathroom that was really a garden. Then would have to quickly go and huddle under my bug net in a minor state of denial. But during the day it was wonderful to explore the area visiting numerous waterfalls and seeing beautiful rolling, green hills! The highlight was riding elephants. Despite being very uncomfortable it was an extremely unique experience to sit so high up and watch this massive animal slowly lumber through the woods. Occasionally when she wanted a snack for the road she would tear up a near-by sapling to munch along the way. During our lunch break we also got to see the handlers give the elephants "a bath" in the stream. The elephants apparently enjoyed it and were quite willing to lie on their sides to allow easier scrubbing. Upon questioning we learned that our elephant was 60 years old, which is quite a feat considering that the Khmer Rogue tried to kill them all off in the 70's. Glad these survived.