Things that Suck but that I'm Getting Used to

Written on August 31st, 2010.

- Doing Laundry: So, picture this: A plastic basin and an iron one. One is filled with soapy water and the other “clean” water. One pair of slacks, one collared shirt, one button down, four undershirts, four pairs of underwear. Time it takes to clean all: 1hr 15min – 1hr 30min. Why? Because it is all done by hand. Sometimes it takes two hours to dry, and sometimes, it takes a day and a half because it rained twice. This leads me to the reason why I hate laundry, the cause of it.

- Mud: Cambodia is a pretty dusty place. When it rains, it rains. So, when it rains, it gets really muddy. The “fenders” on my bike only work if you only pedal so fast to simply move the air around the tires. Needless to say, I get mud on my clothes very often, and if I wear flip flops, it just worsens the matter. Maybe I shoulda bought those Chaco flips. Anyhow, this leads to laundry.

- Refilling my Phone with Money: It’s amazing how fast you go from having $8 on you phone to $0.34. What can I say, I like texting. I checked my phone today: sent: 364; received: 308. That, and calling America is expensive. It may seem cheap at $0.20/minute, but those minutes rack up quickly. Somehow, a phone call to home is never just 5 minutes… I really shouldn’t be complaining about this anyway, because it’s my fault. That goes for wearing flip flops, too. Your fault, Garrett.

- Allowing Odd Creatures to Live in my Room: So, you would think, “$)&@()&$ GET THAT SPIDER OUT OF HERE!!!! Yeah, at first maybe, but now, I can only think when I see a spider web with silk wrapped flies, “Thank you, spider, for keeping those pesky flies out of my face.”

- Living Far from my Friends: Yesterday, I was pretty upset that I didn’t have friends to grab some coffee or beer with after class (because there was no class and this is “not” training) and it’s nice to reconnect with Westerners about your frustrations with the day I’ve been here a day and a half, and –I know that that isn’t a very long time to assess anything—now that I’ve made some Khmer friends with the bankers, my host mother, the coffee lady, the police, and the health center staff, I think that I’ll be alright. I actually had a conversation with the coffee lady completely in Khmer. I found out she has three children, one who’s studying in Phnom Penh, a sister that’s a nurse in California. Aside from the outreach activities she does, she makes her living selling make-up and coffee (odd combo). See, this post ended up pretty naively optimistic.

Anywhoo, that’s it. The next time I blog again, I’ll probably be an official Peace Corps Volunteer. I think I’ll actually miss training…a little? Nah.

Talk to you soon,
Garrett