Birthdays, Spider Bites, and Traffic Jams

The past two weeks have been absolutely crazy. We have had celebrations, illness and small accidents. Everyday has been filled with surprise, some better than others.

Last weekend we celebrated my 24^th birthday. We had a group of friends over for a little party, followed by karaoke and dancing. Karaoke in the USA is so different from Cambodia. We were expecting the usual local bar filled with mediocre singers and a lot of drunk people. What we got was a private room where we could sing to some American songs accompanied by weird music videos. It was definitely an interesting experience J. After karaoke, a few of us went to a local club for some dancing. We remembered our keys this time, so no attempts were made to climb over the gate to our apartment’s entrance.

Unfortunately, after such a great night out I became sick with a head and chest cold that was an unwelcomed present from one of my students. As if a cold wasn’t enough, I also got a nasty spider bite that I had an allergic reaction to. I tried to be tough a make it through the week before I went to a clinic, but I couldn’t wait because after 5 days the itching had to stop! I wasn’t sure what the huge, swollen, itchy spot was, but I knew it was not getting better with the over-the-counter medications I was using. Literally, the spot grew to the size of a baseball on my stomach…gross! Keith and I made our way to a highly recognized international clinic to seek medical advice. At least now we know where to go if we become seriously ill.

As a birthday present to myself, I bought a used bicycle so that I could get around town faster. Walking in the heat is exhausting and paying for rides to nearby destinations is not only impractical, but expensive over time. Keith also got a bike and today we got helmets to protect our valuable brains. If any of you have ever traveled to a third world country, you probably understand when I say that life here is extremely unorganized. The streets don’t have many stop signs or lights and when they do most people don’t think that they mean anything. That being said, walking, riding bikes, and driving vehicles becomes very difficult. Everyday our senses are in overdrive making sure that we don’t get run over by another person. At times it is very scary, but being in this situation has made us both thankful for our traffic laws and vigilant police officers.

This weekend we have been recovering from an exhausting week. We both needed a lazy weekend after the madness. Tomorrow we are back to the grind and will be up to our necks in lesson plans and grading. Hopefully this week will go smoother than the last and we will both stay healthy.

Short, sweet, and SpicY

This week was short and sweet with a little spice at the end. We had a five-day weekend due to the national holiday Pchom Ben, which is Cambodia’s equivalent to Memorial Day. Since we have been spending more than we were making we didn’t go anywhere, but we did enjoy spending some time with our fellow teachers. On Monday, we finally got a few more classes to teach and are feeling much better about the whole situation. Keith now is up to about 15 hours per week and I am at about 22 just with English. Next week Keith will get more hours in English and I will begin teaching my Environmental Science class. The only downside to more classes is that they are all over town. I will be traveling to 4 different campuses, at least 3 per day and Keith is at 3 for now. For the most part we are very excited to have a full schedule because there was only so much Wipe-Out, NCIS, and Master Chef that we could handle everyday.

This weekend we attended a new teachers meeting on Saturday morning. We met some new people and learned about how things work around here. We were told that most semesters begin the same way—with utter chaos. We also learned that six teachers did not show up for the semester, which caused an even bigger headache for the administration. There are over 600 English classes every day, so there are a lot of people to organize. After the meeting we relaxed for a little before Keith left for Bokator. He is really enjoying training and is getting better each week. We decided to celebrate our new teaching gig with a dinner out at a place called Villa Khmer. The restaurant has very swanky décor, but is not super expensive so we could celebrate without feeling too guilty for spending too much. After dinner we met up with some friends at a local bar for some live music and drinks. We listened to a famous band called the Cambodian Space Project. The band is made up of people from around the world with a female Khmer singer. They were good, but we didn’t understand a thing! After a hop to another bar we rode home to find that we were LOCKED OUT of our apartment! It made us feel safe knowing that they lock our apartment entrance at night…but a bit frustrated because it was late and we wanted to go to bed. After Keith attempted to climb over the fence a few times we gave up and paid $10 to stay at a guesthouse down the street. Normally, the guesthouse requires that you show your passport and pay in advance, but since our passports were locked in our apartment and we only had a few dollars we had to explain our situation to the front desk attendant. After a few minutes they told us that we could pay in the morning and handed us a key. Today we cleaned our apartment, went to the market to pick up a few things, looked around for some cushions for our wooden couch, and relaxed. Keith went to bokator again, but it rained so they weren’t able to get a full practice in. Tonight we had spaghetti with meat sauce because we received a wonderful care package from Lisa (Keith’s mom) filled with all sorts of gluten free goodies and 3 bags of Dunkin Donuts coffee. When we opened it I jumped around the kitchen and squealed like a little girl! Hooray!

This week we will get a taste of how the rest of the semester will be as we run around town like busy little bees. On Thursday Keith and I will be heading to a restaurant that we have wanted to go to since we arrived to celebrate my birthday! We also decided to have a little party at our apartment on Saturday next weekend with some of our newfound friends. We will be pretty busy, so we may not write a post for a week or so. We hope you all are well and are thinking of you!

Xxoo,

Chantelle and Keith