Greetings once again from the lovely Kingdom of Cambodia. I debated about whether to even mention anything here or not, but I felt like glazing over it completely would be unfair to you who want to know what's going on with me. For the sake of keeping it exceptionally simple, I'll give you the version I told my host family in my limited Khmer.

Erin: Hello, family. Are you well and happy?

Ma: Yes, we're well and happy. Are you well and happy?

Erin: Mmmm. (Khmer smile, used for covering up difficult emotions that should not be outwardly expressed.) I went to the internet shop and called my boyfriend. We talked for two and a half hours. Now I don't have a boyfriend.

Family: !!! (general shock and disbelief)

Sopheak: It's OK, Erin. Don't worry about it. You're pretty. You'll find a new one.

Hmm, just what I wanted to hear. So yes, that is that. No more Erin & Travis. Clearly, the story is infinitely more complex, but this is not the place for that. If you want to hear more of it, I'd be happy to explain. For now, just know that I'm probably doing better than you're imagining. Thanks for the love from all of you.

Sunday was Sarah’s birthday, and a good excuse for the three of us to go out and do something fun. After ruling out the nearby dance club recommended to us by Lauren’s Khmer teacher, we settled for just going out to eat—a slightly less exciting option, or so we thought.

To set the scene, the whole afternoon had been filled with thunder and rainstorms. It’s the rainy season, and this is the hardest it’s hit so far this year. By the time the three of us left the MCC office to find our restaurant, the rain was slightly less intense, but the streets were covered with water. Feeling more than a little ridiculous in our ultra-fashionable ponchos and motorcycle helmets, we flagged down a moto driver. He assured us that he knew how to get to the restaurant and, since there were no other motos in sight, convinced us all to try and fit on his moto. Now, it’s really not a big deal to fit four or five or even six Cambodians on a moto, but since North Americans are considerably larger, this was quite an ordeal. Poor Lauren was completely smashed up against this Cambodian man (who, incidentally, didn’t seem to mind at all), Sarah was sandwiched in the middle, and I was rather awkwardly grabbing her around the chest to keep from falling off the back while hanging onto her birthday presents with my free hand and praying we wouldn’t hit any big potholes. No problem. So our driver took off.

Once we left our little road, the water situation only got worse. By the time we hit the big road, my feet were completely underwater driving down the flooded street. The moto stalled numerous times in water that was close to a foot deep in some places. We just sat there, watching traffic streaming past us and the passers-by staring at the spectacle of three white women stacked on the back of a moto, waiting for the thing to start running again.

Needless to say, I was more than a little relieved when we finally stopped at what I assumed was our final destination. Then Lauren turned around and said, “Erin, where do we go?” Great. Erin’s famous navigating skills to the rescue. But hey, it’s a great chance to practice my Khmer, right? Unfortunately, whatever I was trying to explain made no sense whatsoever to the driver, and we ended up with a whole assembly of Cambodian men crowding around me and my map in the beam of our moto’s headlights trying to figure out where we were going. After a bunch of discussion I couldn’t understand, the driver told us all to pile back on, which we did. This time, after driving for awhile, we finally recognized our surroundings. We were almost back where we started. Unbelievable. But at least we had our bearings, so we told the driver to turn around and go back down the same street we had just been driving on for the past five minutes. Amazingly enough, this time we actually did find the restaurant with its tiny sign in the dark, paid our poor driver a few hundred extra riel, and made our way, soaking wet despite our ponchos, into the restaurant.

The dinner itself was wonderful and relatively uneventful, except for a little incident where I asked (I thought) for a box to take home our leftover food and got instead a freshly-made order of that food in a takeout box. Yes, my Khmer is just good enough now to get me into trouble when I think I know what I'm talking about. Still, I suppose extra food isn’t such a bad problem to have.

Anyhow, when we finally finished our hard-earned meal and Sarah had opened her presents, we geared up to brave the elements again in our wet ponchos and helmets and shoes. By this point, we had given up on trying to be inconspicuous and asked a waiter to take a picture of us looking ridiculous in our rain get-up while everyone around us stared and giggled. (I'll try to post the picture next time I get to an internet cafe.) We walked out onto the street in search of another moto- only to realize it wasn’t even raining. I haven’t laughed so hard for a long time. Just for kicks, though, we kept our outfits on for the ride home...a fitting end to another memorable adventure.

That is, if each picture’s really worth a thousand. I figured it was about time for some photos instead of all this writing. For those of you who are back in school now that it’s September, I know you don’t need any more reading assignments, so here’s some visual entertainment for a change of pace. The pictures here are just a preview of the longer version, which you can check out if you go to http://picasaweb.google.com/elgotwals There, you can find a more varied sampling of my (and eventually Lauren’s and Sarah’s) pictures, and the captions will fill you in on some aspects of our new Cambodian lives that I haven’t mentioned here. I’ll try to make a note of it in this blog whenever I upload new photos to that album.

Apart from what you can see in the pictures, life here has been treating me pretty well. As some of the adrenaline from the first few weeks dips back to its normal levels, there have been times when I’m dragging a little. Still, most days are filled with more than enough excitement to keep me from getting too tired or lonely or down. Highlights from the past week include visiting a Buddhist temple, buying slabs of raw meat at the market with Ma (and not seeing another white person the entire time), having a water fight in the rain with Jenny and Seakly in front of our house, doing aerobics with crowds of Cambodians at the Olympic Stadium, and providing quality entertainment for everyone when Ma and another man tried to teach me traditional Khmer dancing. Every day’s been pretty amazing, really, if I step back and think about it. Sometimes I get overwhelmed just thinking about all the new things we’ve been doing. There’s quite a lot to process, and I’ve been trying to find a balance between doing and being. I hope the next ten months will be enough to give me my fill of both.

**Note**
I realize the 10 pictures I promised are not, in fact, here yet. I love technology sometimes. Next time I get to an internet cafe, I'll try it again.

It’s only the start of our third week in Cambodia, and already I’m falling behind on my goal of getting something up on the blog about every week. The intention was to get a bunch of photos uploaded to a website last weekend so you could all take a look at those. I have about 50 of the good ones on a flash drive ready to go, with captions and everything, but since I’ve been intentionally filling my formerly-free time with more exciting activities, I haven’t gotten around to uploading them all yet.

Since some of you have asked what a typical day is like, here’s an outline of my normal weekday schedule.
6am: Wake up
7am: Breakfast at home with Jenny
8-9:30am: Khmer lesson with Lauren and Sarah at the MCC office
12pm: Lunch at the office, or out in a market or restaurant on our own
2-3pm: Individual Khmer lesson at the Khmer Language Center
5:30pm: Take a motodoup home
7pm: Supper with the family
10pm: Sleep

Naturally, the most interesting parts of every day are the things that happen in between these daily activities. There’s often some novel event added to our schedule—a meeting on finances, for example, or a visit to the post office, or a lunch with all of our host parents, or an outing to get Cambodian teaching skirts made at the market. And when there’s not, we (Sarah and Lauren and I) are starting to take the initiative to leave the English- and expat-dominated world of the MCC office and venture out into the city on our own.

Today, for example, we decided to check out Psaa Tmey (the Central Market) between our morning and afternoon language lessons. This was the first time we made a trip like this without our host families or one of the more experienced MCCers, and as much as I appreciated having other people to show me around the first week or two, it felt wonderful to just go out on our own and have to figure things out—in Khmer—for ourselves.

So we grabbed our helmets, flagged down two motorcycles, bargained for reasonable prices, and ended up at the market with no unforeseen difficulties. After congratulating ourselves (even simple achievements like that still feel like major successes,) the three of us split up and spent the next few hours wandering around to hundreds of stalls, buying a few necessary and not-so-necessary items, and just taking in all the sights and sounds and smells.

Since the majority of the sellers call after you to buy their goods—“Madame, please buy!”—I got lots of practice using one of my new phrases in Khmer: “Today I’m just looking around.” Most of the sellers were quite taken off guard hearing that come out of the mouth of a white person, and one woman immediately pulled out a little stool for me to sit on and talk. I think maybe her original intent was to set me up with the Cambodian guy my age who worked next to her—there was a lot of talk about husbands and weddings and America and Cambodia, of which I understood bits and pieces—but I think I successfully communicated that I wasn’t interested, or acted confused enough that they gave up.

In any case, the conversation attracted a steady stream of other curious Cambodians who came to stare at the white person speaking Khmer. Poorly, mind you. But it was quite a spectacle nonetheless. I ended up sitting and talking to them for about 40 minutes, thoroughly enjoying the chance to use my broken Khmer, and tasting the foods my new friends insisted I try—a new yellowish fruit (eaten, of course, with its accompanying packet of salt, chili peppers, and MSG) and a bowlful of transparent bright-green worm-like things that was actually a sugary, coconutty rice dessert, all courtesy of their food-vendor friends. So I met back up with Lauren and Sarah for lunch with three new phone numbers and an invitation to come back tomorrow, and every other day I’m free. Nice. Moral of the story is, the initial effort it took to push myself out of my comfort zone, leave the familiar and relaxing atmosphere of the office, and talk to some new people was well worth it. I’m not expecting my efforts to always be so rewarded, but this was just the motivation I needed to do it more often.

Well, that was a long story, and only covered a couple hours from the last two weeks. Anyway, it’s a little glimpse into one of the fun parts of everyday life. More to come later. Keep in touch—Cambodians aren’t the only ones who can make my day by talking to me. Miss you all!