…you notice how clean your feet are. I know this sounds like a weird thing to notice, but I forgot how long I had been in a clean, air-conditioned hotel room in Bangkok until I realized how clean my feet felt in the context of my apartment here in Phnom Penh. Pretty much whenever I’m out, I wear flip-flops. In Cambodia, I’ve been able to fulfill my life long dream of rarely ever wearing closed-toed shoes. Everyone wears flip-flops here all the time, so it’s not even like they’re a give away of one’s foreign background, like wearing shorts are. They’re cool, comfortable, and easy to slip on and off when exiting or entering homes and restaurants.
In fact, inside my apartment (or anyone else’s house), I instinctively slip off my flip-flops. No one wears footwear inside in Cambodia, and it makes sense based on the amount of grime that you walk through on a regular basis. I’ve gotten so used to this practice that I actually think walking through my house would be a fairly dirty and repulsive practice, and I think back and wonder how I ever wore shoes in my house at home, in my dorm room, or in any other indoor, non-public space back in the US. It’s one of those things, like eating with a fork, that seem fairly crude to me now.
(Although it can sometimes be frustrating to scoop everything with a spoon, as is the polite way to eat here, after being in Southeast Asia for long enough, I can see why savagely stabbing something with a fork can seem rude. I’ve banished the fork and find myself happily attached to the spoon now. Unfortunately, I still don’t understand the no-knife thing, as it only works when things are pre-cut into bight size pieces. Ripping apart a piece of meat with a fork and spoon, to me, completely nulls the lack of stabbing with a fork during the rest of the eating process).
But I digress. Phnom Penh is dirty. And my feet are always hanging out there. In the dry season, it’s dusty everywhere, and in the rainy season, it’s muddy everywhere. Smelly, unidentifiable liquids sit at the sunken edges of the roads, and I had never appreciated US public urination laws until I’ve been here, where it’s completely legitimate to pee anywhere.
Dirty feet, compounded with an apartment that never really feels completely clean and a shower that has less water pressure than water trickle means that I always have a nice black coating on the bottom of my feet. When I arrived back from Bangkok, though, I realized that, with the help of a legitimate shower and clean floors, my feet were sparkly, and I couldn’t even make the little, eraser-like dirt pieces when I rubbed my finger against the skin on my feet.
A second sign I knew I was back in Cambodia. It was hot again. This year, I’ve come respect the item that is the fan. Fans are probably one of the greatest inventions ever and make such a difference in keeping you cool, but they only do so much.
Thirdly, I restarted my pastime of trying to crush as many ants as possible. There are ants everywhere, from my apartment to the office at school. You know that feeling when something brushes up against you and you instinctively swat, thinking it’s a bug, even though it ends up not being. Well, that happens here all the time, except that it usually is a bug and specifically an ant. They’re a little hard to smoosh since they’re so small that you have to squeeze your fingers really tightly together to effectively get them, but I don’t give up hope. Between that and my quick clapping of mosquitoes, I’ve become very in tune to the bugs around me. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m making much long-term progress. And there’s one right now crawling out of the speaker of my computer.
Fourthly, I noticed my lower back was sore again a day after I returned. Chairs and tables that never seem to match up in the correct proportions, carrying a backpack on my back during daily motorbike rides, and a probably pretty poor mattress create a consistent soreness in my lower back. Luckily, after realizing that it went away in Thailand, I now realize that there is hope that it can be remedied with good beds and supportive chairs.
Finally, the last sign that I was back in Cambodia was that it was noticeably quiet. Actually, I realized I was back because I the silence in our apartment seemed strange, kind of like when the electricity goes out and you realize how much background noise from appliances you usually just tune out. Anyway, I came back to unexpected rain, and since everyone here is afraid of melting, rain means no one goes out. For one night, the street was quiet, as there were few motorbikes cruising around, and there was an absence of people talking or children running and screaming in the courtyard on the backside of our apartment. It was nice.