3 days down, 209 to go in Cambodia

I can't explain why, but I was in a hurry to "settle down" this time around in Cambodia. My last three visits have seen me "floating" from place to place, not having any main base of operations and treating Cambodia like a pit-stop. This time, perhaps the knowledge that I would be spending a long time here propelled me to grind out a living right away.

My good friend Sary picked me up from the airport... in a car. Now to understand the amazement of this, consider that I have spend months working and living with Sary but have never been in a car with him. In fact, I can count the number of times I've been in a car at all in Cambodia. Needless to say, it was a luxurious experience. We immediately squared me away with a $15/night room at a guest house called Town View, and then exchanged the car for a motorbike... a far more ubiquitious means of transportation in Cambodia. After a rip-roaring breakfast of Gkaw-Ko (beef-back stew), we started apartment hunting.

Nothing more complicated than driving up and down roads in residential areas looking up for "To Let" signs. In this way, we saw ten apartments in two hours. We went from the tourist district to a peripheral market district called Depot Market. Naturally, the last place we looked at was the big winner. A one-bedroom on the third floor of a little row house. My landlord is the owner of a little shop at the ground level, and nearby are all the amenities I might need. Being 15 minutes from most of the development organizations is not ideal, but I'm hoping my proximity to my cooperation partner CEDAC and more of the wet markets will more than make up for it. It's no riverfront property, that's for sure, but it's authentic, quaint, and practical, not to mention dirt-cheap.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the aggravating exercise of trying to buy furnishings. Since that day, I've had much more luck and a few choice items have fallen into my lap by such gems as a French mother of four, a 9-month-any-minute pregnant mattress saleswoman, a Francophone Singaporean, and a retro butch-cut office supply shopkeeper. Sary and then Piseth (my former translator) have been helping me immensely--to the extent that I haven't needed a motorbike taxi ride till the evening of my third day. And more friends are offering their help all the time.

It dawned on me today that I actually have no non-Cambodian friends left here. Oh sure, I know a few former professors and a couple of old development aid career cats, but my only real consistent friends are Khmer. And let's hope it stays that way, for language-learning's sake!

So, all in all, coming into the third night, I am looking at a partially furnished apartment; my neighbors are old drinking buddies from 2004/2007; a few meetings are in the works for my research; and I'm still struggling with the heat. A lot to look forward to.